Thursday, October 21, 2010

Queens as the new Brooklyn?

AM-NY has published a piece entitled, "Is Queens Going Brooklyn?" I was asked to contribute my answers to a list of questions. But they didn't use them. Instead, they relied on Jack Eichenbaum and Brian Rafferty which tells you just how serious a piece this was. Anyway, here are Jack's responses, followed by QC's, in red.

From AM-NY:

The big question: Will Queens gentrify and become a borough of micro-nabes of coolness like Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, DUMBO, Red Hook, etc.?

Jack: Not likely for gentrification. These areas were once for the urban (upper middle class) gentry. Queens was built in more “suburban style” for the lower middle and middle class. (LIC is exceptional since it’s an industrial conversion like Dumbo and Red Hook.) “Coolness” is something else. It’s already here. It’s increasingly cool to live in an area that has convenient transportation, biking ... [and] not a price rip-off for most essentials.

QC:
Not a chance. What we have in Queens is forced gentrification, and that never works in the long run.

How would you describe Queens’ DNA?

Jack: [It’s] an inheritance of small rural and suburban 19th-century nodes that grew denser and more connected in the 20th century.

QC:
Watered down from what it once was.

What keeps the borough from becoming over-gentrified?

Jack: Immigrant competition and simpler quality of original structures.


QC: The fact that it is the dumping ground of City Hall.

Where are the most likely areas of gentrification and why?

Jack: Jackson Heights and Sunnyside Gardens are historic districts. Enclaves like Forest Hills Gardens, Kew Gardens, Malba ... and Bayside Gables were built for the upper middle class or wealthy and haven't changed too much in the last century or so. Classic gentrification ... is not as likely as more spillover of native-born Americans.

QC:
They're trying to force-gentrify Jamaica and Rockaway. Good luck with that.

What neighborhoods are prime for development? (and I don't mean just new condos going in, but areas that are ripe for new boutiques, restaurants, etc. that change the mom & pop fabric)?

Jack: [It’s] already happened in Astoria and Forest Hills, and it could happen more in Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and Flushing.

QC:
Ha, ha, ha, you're more likely to get 99 cent stores, nail salons and dive restaurants here than boutiques and classy restaurants. And that's alongside the garbage that passes for "luxury condos" here.

Here are two additional questions that were not included in the piece:

Where would you go to experience a real Queens moment? Or, alternatively, which area do you feel represents the essence of the borough?

QC: Go to the St. Saviour's site in Maspeth and see the spot that once hosted a beautiful landscape with landmark-worthy architecture and a small forest, all of which was torn down and replaced with a garbage dump. That's the essence of Queens.

Brooklyn has its own "curators"--a new layer of people changing things there, i.e. Eric Denby of Brooklyn Flea/Brownstoner, young proprietors of micro-breweries, wineries and artisanal food stores/restaurants. Any such people in Queens, and who are they?

QC: You'd have to ask those interested in that kind of thing. I buy most of my food at Stop and Shop and cook at home.

37 comments:

Anonymous said...

Before anyone pats you on the back for "telling it like it is," let me be the first to say Queens Crap is cruising towards the "Anthony Weiner Award." The #1 source of things to bitch about, without bothering to find a solution. This interview was no different.

Queens Crapper said...

First of all, I have offered multiple solutions for every problem that has been covered on this blog. In fact, if you notice, some of the local pols have adopted some of these positions after they have been featured here.

Second of all, it's not my job to find solutions to them. We elect and pay people to do that.

Where in this interview did you want me to expound on my solutions to the borough's problems? The reporter didn't seem to think there were any problems.

You're part of the reason the borough is the way it is.

Anonymous said...

So anonymous, you came here to bitch about the bitching?

LOL what does that make you?

Missing Foundation said...

Good work Crap!

This blog and the freedom to access - and discuss - makes all those old sources of information in the party controlled media (as the weekly press) resembling increasingly a leaky sieve.

Anonymous said...

"So anonymous, you came here to bitch about the bitching?

LOL what does that make you?"

A knucklehead.

Anonymous said...

Queens crapper is a whining cry baby, always has been.

..."Where in this interview did you want me to expound on my solutions to the borough's problems? The reporter didn't seem to think there were any problems."...

Screw the reporter, if your going to bitch about everything, provide a solution thats realistic! Dont just blame everything on Immigrants, Liberal Politicians and Real Estate Developers.
Without solutions your just another blow hard idiot like all the hipsters who has fun running his mouth all the time.

You should try looking in the mirror you ignorant ass.

All Hail to the new B.H.! said...

The boldness in people voicing the party line really drives home how dictatorships stay in power - not through guns and muscle as much as your neighbor ready to slit your thoat in exchange for a few pieces of silver.

Remember that the next time you hear someone reading from a script.

Todd said...

I, for one, have no problem with landmarked stuff getting torn down. Too often, landmarking laws are used to turn neighborhoods into glorified, stultifying gated communities. Granted, what's being built is ugly, but taste is always relative. The last thing we need is the architectural police.

Queens Crapper said...

Wow, looks like all the party bosses got up early this morning.

Solution to overdevelopment: Real zoning laws that are enforced, abolish the BSA that makes swiss cheese out of the zoning code, make the community board's vote count, and have CB reps elected by the people, not the tweeders. Strengthen the role of BP. And yes, curb illegal immigration.

Ok, now it's your turn, smartass.

Unanimous said...

As far as I'm concerned, this "Queens Craps" blog and I'm a guest. Thanks for hosting and sharing!

In my opinion, I'd prefer Queens to remain uncool, just not neglected and abused. So we'll fight those fights as they come. But let the hipsters stay were they are - please. A few us (me especially) have our list of what makes Queens great, but heck if I'm sharing.

Anonymous said...

In my opinion, I'd prefer Queens to remain uncool, just not neglected and abused.

------- THIS --------

A few us (me especially) have our list of what makes Queens great, but heck if I'm sharing.

------- AND THAT ------



I have my (few) places that serve real food, and places that make me happy to live here. But fuck that, im not saying them in public!

Joe O said...

It seems like AMNY came up with a thesis then did the reporting to support it. Most people in Queens probably like being the lesser known borough, at least when it comes to keeping trust fund kids and hipsters out. This crap makes you think otherwise and is making LIC, Sunnyside and Astoria's landlords richer.

JO said...

wow, it sucks to live in queens 2010. shit.

Anonymous said...

I;ve lived in Forest Hills for the past 10 years, before that in Kew Gardens. I have seen beautiful blocks destroyed by hideous McMansions and those cheap 3 story ugly brick "townshouses". Whatever you say about "hipsters" they have a sense of style and they do not tear down old but beautiful tudors, destroy lawns to replace with concrete and build ugly fence., They also don't speed on the roads with hug gas guzzling flashy cars. They are also generally polite and friendly.

I will take them anytime than some of the characters that live in in my neighborhood.

georgetheatheist said...

What, pray tell, did Riff-Raff barf up?

Anonymous said...

Crappy, can you do something about that smug, smarmy, bald d-bag wearing the bell-bottom jeans in the photo? Please make him stay in Brooklyn and not move to Queens. Meanhwile - great answers!

Anonymous said...

Oh please, stop with the "Queens is the new Brooklyn, is the new Manhattan, gentrify Queens" nonsense.
Crappy, once again, thank you for this forum, which has helped me realize that I wasn't alone in my disdain and concern over the direction this borough and this city is taking. Please keep up the wonderful work, keep telling it like it is, and we will all keep fighting the good fight!

Anonymous said...

"So anonymous, you came here to bitch about the bitching?

LOL what does that make you?"


A knucklehead.

hahah.. More like the Mother of all Bitches.

Anonymous said...

astoria is the best! i love the booming sound of helicopters all goddamn day and night. hey crappy, can we start a petition on your site to curb these flyovers? let them fly over the east river to la guardia. i know its important not to inconvience these pricks, but...

Belle Lugosi said...

I have no sympathy for all of you "Queens West" (or is it "Manhattan East") people. Astoria is one of the hottest areas of this fine city. You chose to live in a very hip, very urban area right across a river from the one of the most famed cities in the world. What did you expect, pastures filled with gently grazing sheep? Move east to gentrified and re gentrified and re re gentrified northeast Queens, where ugly overdevelopment is as common as helicopter flights.

Belle Lugosi said...

Whoops!! I meant to say ...."the most well-known borough of one of the most famed cities in the world".

Anonymous said...

i didnt choose to live here you dumb shit- i was born here. you are obviously an out of towner/neo-liberal/brain damaged moron. people like you are the problem, not me. please go home. we dont need anymore of your kind in the outer boroughs

Anonymous said...

B*tch b*tch b*tch and complain without offering real alternatives and solutions. You can tell this site is written by a woman.

Queens Crapper said...

I guess you haven't been paying attention.

Anonymous said...

"Before anyone pats you on the back for "telling it like it is," let me be the first to say Queens Crap is cruising towards the "Anthony Weiner Award." The #1 source of things to bitch about, without bothering to find a solution. This interview was no different."

LOVE this!

The Crapper I see posted comebacks to you in different "Anonymous" posts! Sooooo predictable!

Heh Crapper - any chance of you growing up soon?

Queens Crapper said...

I posted solutions and waited for yours so we could compare notes. This is the best you could do?

I guess you have no solutions. To match your balls.

And the people who comment here as "anonymous" are not me. My computer is signed into this account 24/7.

Queens Crapper said...

Also, how many times have I posted something and it has gotten fixed almost immediately? I guess those in power can come up with solutions. They just need to be prodded into doing so. By websites such as this one. :)

Anonymous said...

I gave up reading through both AM NY & Metro precisely BECAUSE of real estate lobbyist propaganda like this. This is nonsense journalism at it's most assinine. This goes over well with clueless out of town trust fund yuppies, straight out of Harvard Business school just dying to get their first cardboard condo here and itching to sell their souls to Citibank but that's about it. It doesn't fool any of the native and long term residents that live in Queens and all the rest of forgotten NY.

Case in point, although I admire any new small business these days, the bakery that was named in the article, I still am waiting to see one single person actually buying anything in it. Quite pretentious in its total out-of-placeness in a section of Astoria that is a heartbeat away from Murder Ground Zero (yes, Astoria has lot's of crime, but Bloomberg will never admit to that one)(but Vallone is becoming increasingly vocal about it, just about THE ONLY thing he is doing that the locals commend).

Be very wary of what you read today in any widely published paper in New York, except for maybe the Village Voice which still has its balls and has not been taken over by some foreign dictator like Murdoch. Most of it is spin and is written on an eighth grade level, is not fact checked at all and in this particular case is obviously the agenda of some unethical real estate company as Prudential Douglas Elliman or Halstead in disguise.

Overdevelopment and gentrification are qualities that Queens simply cannot afford to bare any more. The damage is done and will affect the quality of life for generations since there is no money to correct the many problems it has caused, especially flooding, noise and lack of private back yards now.

And as far as the helicopters, there IS a solution and that is to fly over the river AS THEY DID BEFORE BLOOMBERG CAME INTO OFFICE. There was NEVER a helicopter problem over Astoria before him precisely because it would have been squashed as the quality of life problem it truly is. Not to mention how unsafe it is. But then again, if Vallone and Carolyn Baloney actually DID anything for the offices that they were elected to, this problem would have never grown so out of control as it truly is now.

Babs said...

Jack did an outstanding job.

I WISH Queens had hipsters - I assume that there are a few scattered here and there. The hipsters are following in the footsteps of the by-gone era of artists that re-built Soho, Greenwich Village, Brooklyn Heights and Hoboken and who MADE those areas what they are today.

MAYBE if we are lucky enough, College Point could become more Brooklyn - in time anyway. Whitestone, Bayside, etc. have too much NEW money - they tend to build what was in fashion at the time they left the old country.

And there are plenty of people who have LOOOONG wished Bell Blvd. wasn't so "Jersey Shore". So the desire is THERE.

The HIPSTERS are really Queens' ONLY hope.

gov. arnold schwarzenegger said...

I vant to be a hipster. Vere kann I buy der bongos? I haf der bleck clothes. Be kool deddy-o. Hahr-hahr.

Anonymous said...

Hipsters come and then the yuppies. Then people like you and me can't afford to live there anymore.

No, we definitely don't need hipsters.

Anonymous said...

I know I said I prefer the "hipsters" over some of the cheezy "new money" in Forest Hills/Kew Gardens but in fact they will be behind the displacement of working and middle class folk from the prime areas of the outer boroughs. After all, the hipsters are soon followed by luxury condo developers who build million dollar condos that only obscenely rich yuppies who "work" in "finance" can afford.

This hipster/developer/yuppie alliance have successfully displaced the poor and down and out from the minority neighborhoods-sending them packing to places such as the South, Puerto Rico, Pennsylvania or worse-Yonkers and Mount Vernon.

The same fate awaits the working class and middle class Whites (and immigrants).

If nothing is done, the best parts of the city will be occupied by public housing projects residents, (those folks are not going anywhere!), cheezy new money from the godforsaken second and third world countries, and rich yuppies who want to live as close to Wall Street as possible (there are pension funds still to plunder!)

Z

Anonymous said...

The problem isn't the "artsy/hippie" hipsters, the true hipsters. They ususlly move into an area as is and generally improve or at least add to, the character of the neighborhood. The problem is when the landlords catch whiff of how popular their neighborhood has become, and start jacking up the rents. Then the media starts putting out these cutsey stories about how the neighborhood is quickly becoming the "new Manhattan", or the "new Park Slope or Williamsburg." Then the "yuppie hipsters" start moving in, and the artsy/hippie hipsters get pushed out because of the high rents. Then the developers start buying up every empty piece of grass and every warehouse and one family house that goes on the market. The "luxury condos" go up, along with the six-story buildings squeezed into the narrowest lots possible. After a few trendy bakeries, cafes, restaurants open, a few yuppies move in, but alot of them really don't last long when they can't get their friends to visit from Brooklyn and Manhattan. The half-empty luxury condos then get rented out to any trash that can drum up a few bucks. By then, what was once a working-class neighborhood has already lost its character and identity, and is on its steady decline into standard Queens Crap.

Anonymous said...

Sorry Queens does not need or want to be like Brooklyn, thank you.

Anonymous said...

and is on its steady decline into standard Queens Crap.
.....

Man,you don't get out too much. Most hipsters dont live in expensive Queens crap. The expensive Queens crap generally has 5 mex families sharing the rent.

Anonymous said...

Man,you don't get out too much. Most hipsters dont live in expensive Queens crap. The expensive Queens crap generally has 5 mex families sharing the rent.
-----------------------------------
Um, yeah, I was kind of alluding to that with my, "any trash that can drum up a few bucks" comment. But I guess you missed that when you were out.

Anonymous said...

This hipster/developer/yuppie alliance have successfully displaced the poor and down and out from the minority neighborhoods-sending them packing to places such as the South, Puerto Rico, Pennsylvania or worse-Yonkers and Mount Vernon.

The same fate awaits the working class and middle class Whites (and immigrants).


Ha! Thats cute that people say hipster yuppie etc alliance. Does that have any meaning, or is it just mass speculating and generalizing? Astoria has been a yuppie haven for ten years now with upper class kids coming from Long island and States north of here.

The newbies who frequent the Bohemian beer garden are frat kid transplants who would happily move into the Pistilli condo buildings and the amount of people involved in arts here is small as always except for the sad over expanding wanna be stars at Astoria Kaufman studios.