Memorial Day weekend is a funny one for the typical local summer getaway scene. The weather this time of year ranges from cool, rainy, and windy to delightful, so beaching it can be a high-risk/high-reward proposition. Thus for those not taking the sea plane to their oceanfront manse in East Hampton, we offer you an alternative in our third biennial1 Road Trip series. This one is special because it completes the trio of LIC’s adjoining towns, given our previous expeditions to Greenpoint and Astoria.
Sunnyside is like a barrier island, the borders are constantly shifting. At any given point in one’s trip, it would not be uncommon to ask one’s self ‘Am I in Sunnyside, LIC, Astoria, or Woodside right now?’ So for my first foray I chose the western approach. Driving up 47th Avenue one abruptly leaves the warehouses and manufacturing of LIC and enters a clearly middle-class residential neighborhood of six-story apartment buildings and single and two-family homes. It epitomizes what one would refer to as affordable housing, under the 20th century definition anyway. It’s little gritty, a lot neighborly, and a typical Queens melange of ethnicity upon first site of the Cypriana Cafe, standing as a beacon to the rest of what’s to come: Punda Tibetan, Arsi’s Patisserie (French/Middle Eastern), ‘I Love Paraguay’ restaurant, Chihuahua Mexican, followed by Turkish, Peruvian, Columbian etc. simple food outposts along Greenpoint Avenue and the nearby blocks. It’s bustling, but not packed, as in say Flushing or Jackson Heights.
Yet there are two sides of Sunnyside, the southern one as described above, and that which lies north of Queens Boulevard. Here things are a bit more refined, and the main commercial street, Skillman Avenue, has as many Irish pubs as ethnic restaurants. By the time one pokes north of Skillman into Sunnyside Gardens, quaint is the adjective that best describes the well-maintained small single-family homes that line the quiet streets.
So there’s a bit of everything in Sunnyside, except ostentation and long commutes. For that you’ll have to head east …a lot further east.
//There is no local news worthy of distracting you from your Memorial Day plans, if you are in town, don’t forget ManhattanHenge is this weekend. Details and description here. Otherwise ‘Bon Voyage!’
- which means it’s our fifth year of publication [↩]
joe says
May 29, 2016 at 6:53 pmsorry were not refined enough for you here on the south side of QB in the “affordable housing” district which is actually not that affordable. We were here long before the pop up skyscrapers of where you came from. Theres more here than what you can see from your zip car window. Then again I guess I wouldnt expect anything more from someone driving thru with no knowledge of the actual nighborhood. No substance to this article, did you actually talk to anyone??