Queens: The borough that deserves more respect
If you look at each borough as a real-estate brand, it’s easy to point to Manhattan as the center of the universe where the prices are justifiable and Brooklyn as a townhouse mecca combining cooler-than-thou bravado with an easygoing mystique.
What, then, is Queens? Borough President Helen Marshall says Queens is unique because a high percentage of residents own homes.
“Almost everyone here has this little patch of land,” says Marshall, sitting in her conference room at Borough Hall off Queens Blvd. in Kew Gardens. “On that patch of land is their life’s investment, and they’ll do anything to preserve it. That’s why we have such friendly people, pretty front lawns and strong block associations.”
Still, Queens plays second fiddle to Brooklyn when it comes to the “hot” borough. Without ever seeing it, most New York newcomers scoff at the prospect of living in Woodside with its industrial lofts and attached homes, or Sunnyside with its Art Deco brick apartment houses and tree-lined garden streets.
They have no idea that Forest Hills has the finest costume-jewelry stores in the world, or that Bayside has Bell Blvd., where nightlife gets rowdy enough that a honky-tonk with a mechanical bull draws hundreds of country-music fans. They don’t know that Astoria has a more popular outdoor cafe scene than SoHo, or that life exists beyond Long Island City.
That’s their loss, because Queens presents some of the best real-estate value in the five boroughs, with $1,000 one-bedroom rentals and single-family semiattached homes for $350,000.
Even for Queens residents, the borough can play second fiddle.
“People who live in Queens don’t associate with the borough first,” says Mitchell L. Moss, professor of urban policy and planning at New York University (See our profile of Moss in this section.) “Ask them where they’re from, and they say neighborhood or country of birth.”
That makes sense, given that Queens County is the most diverse in America when it comes to number of people from foreign countries. Last year, the student body at Elmhurst’s Newtown High School spoke more than 44 languages. On a tiny street off Hillside Ave. in Jamaica, natives of Trinidad and Tobago rent every room in every attached house. Each Saturday is an island block party as residents hang laundry and sit on front steps listening to calypso.
“We have so much culture with museums, libraries, universities, historic houses, food and parks,” says Marshall. “That’s why we grow.”
Queens always gets the short end of the stick.
What really gets me is Flushing Meadow Park. That’s a beautiful park, with a zoo, the Unisphere, US Open, Art Museum… It hosts people from all different walks of life, you can see people participating in sports like cricket, rugby, curling, and huge family picnics.
And yet you go there and the grounds are unkempt – there are no facilities, no garbage cans… If this park was in Manhattan and Brooklyn it would be HUGE!
I know the big parks (Central, Riverside & Prospect) have huge volunteer and donation bases.. but isn’t it time for the people in Queens to pull it together and do something?
Perhaps somebody should write an expose blog post about this?
Ok. Off my soapbox.