Step right up
Where dreams come true
The Sandwich King on Vernon Boulevard has finally opened, Continue reading
THE SANDWICH KING IN LONG ISLAND CITY HAS FINALLY OPENED
A thousand reasons to love Long Island City. Tips: Editor@LICtalk.com
Author Archives: editor
TRANSMITTER BREWING LEAVING LONG ISLAND CITY FOR NAVY YARD
Beer going, flowers still here
Ship ahoy, Transmitter Brewing is setting sail for the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Begun in 2014 in a location under the Pulaski Bridge, the successful brewery requires a Continue reading
MAYER MALBIN IS LEAVING LIC, 4000 MORE APARTMENTS COMING?
Roll away, the dew
Used to be I could drive up to
Barstow for the night
Find some crossroad trucker
To demonstrate his might
But these days it seems
Nowhere is far enough away
So I’m leaving Las Vegas today
Barstow for the night
Find some crossroad trucker
To demonstrate his might
But these days it seems
Nowhere is far enough away
So I’m leaving Las Vegas today
MAYER Malbin, “New York’s Premier Supplier of Pipes, Valves & Fittings,” is leaving their home in Long Island City after nearly a century. The company just purchased a 41,000 sq ft building and land in Woodside for their office and distribution center, a deal brokered by Brian Jaffe at Jaffe Realty LLC. The price they paid was $22.75 million, which to neophytes including myself might seem a meaningless number, until contrasted with what the seller paid for the building only last year: $9 million.
Yikes, that’s a walloping premium, what could the 4th generation descendants of poor Mayer who currently run the business be thinking (or smoking)? Continue reading
BRENT O’LEARY ON AMAZON HQ2
Brent O’Leary
Back in August Brent O’Leary, a long time community advocate and President of the Hunters Point Civic Association, announced he was running for City Council in 2021. Thus I was somewhat surprised not to hear or read anything from him on Amazon HQ2. As it turns out the announcement occurred just as he was in the midst of the annual food drive he oversees for Thanksgiving. Then between end of year activities and publishing schedules here we are in early January with nary a word.
Nevertheless Brent has an opinion on Amazon coming to Long Island City, and though we don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye on this subject, he is a man who’s thoughts I value highly, so here is his statement: Continue reading
NEW YEAR THOUGHTS ON LONG ISLAND CITY
2019?
Well my intention was to call this post ‘Year End Thoughts’ but I lent my Gulfstream 650 to Justin & Jessica last minute and spent an extra day in Mustique detoxing without wifi instead of on the rostrum in Times Square with Ryan and Jenny. Here’s some stream of consciousness on putting 2018 in the record books: Continue reading
CHRISTMAS IN LONG ISLAND CITY
Christmas in Long Island City
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
HOW CAN THERE BE A HELIPAD WITHOUT A REC CENTER?
Amazon Is Coming to Town
“Cut-off fortresses are no fun for anyone”
THE highlights of this weeks HQ2 news, which continues to dominate the headlines in LIC, contrasts the manner in which another mammoth corporation came to the decision to greatly expand its work force in NYC. In case you missed it, Google announced they are doubling their jobs here to 14,000 and adding more buildings in the West Village/Chelsea area to do so. That news led to a lot of ink and jawboning about the lack of subsidies needed for Google to arrive at that decision, and more bashing of the Amazon deal and Bill de Cuomo.
Justified or not, I came to my own revelation this weekend in perusing the names of the 45 members of the Amazon Community Advisory Committee Continue reading
THE VERNON JACKSON CHOKE POINT
Another choke point coming to Hunters Point in addition to this one
NO one knows Long Island City better than LICtalk. NO ONE! Unlike politicians, journalistic interlopers, and other carpet-baggers, we eat, breathe, and actually live on the streets of this town. Therefore we’ll share a local issue that has heretofore been missed. While every talking head discusses the worry about overcrowding on the 7-train (legit but obvious), there’s a much smaller yet more immediate bottleneck that will require a solution: access into and out of Continue reading
2018 XMAS WISH LIST TO SANTA VAN BRAMER
Behold, 5Pointz and its 1000+ residences rising in the east
On behalf of all the people who have assembled here
I would merely like to mention if I may
That our unanimous attitude
Is one of lasting gratitude
For what our friend has done for us today
And therefore I would simply like to say Thank you very much!
Thank you very much!
That’s the nicest thing that anyone’s ever done for me
I may sound Double-Dutch
But my delight is such
I feel as if a losing war’s been won for me
I would merely like to mention if I may
That our unanimous attitude
Is one of lasting gratitude
For what our friend has done for us today
And therefore I would simply like to say Thank you very much!
Thank you very much!
That’s the nicest thing that anyone’s ever done for me
I may sound Double-Dutch
But my delight is such
I feel as if a losing war’s been won for me
GIVEN that we’re almost done with 2018 and the S&P 500 is nearly flat this year1, I’m going to keep my Christmas wish list modest, unlike in years past. In fact there’s only one item: renovate the pair of tattered basketball courts in Murray Park.
Repave, reline, replace current backboards with fiberglass ones that jut out another 1-2 feet from the fence to create a baseline that’s not abutting it That’s all, very simple and shoudn’t be expensive.
Currently they are in such a state of disrepair they Continue reading
- +/-2% on any given day [↩]
HQ2 YEA/NAY, KATZ TO JVB TO O’LEARY, CHANGE A KUMON’, 80%?
57 and 33 story towers coming here
The only thing that is constant is change – Heraclitus circa 500 BC
POLLS can be funny, so I try not to read too much into them. Let’s take one released this week showing 60% of Queens residents favor Amazon coming here. Maybe. More likely 60% are neutral or “Don’t Know” where they stand on HQ2 in LIC. If the deal really is even-handed that’s where the majority should sit under the bell-curve of a standard distribution. But that doesn’t make headlines.
Well thought out analysis can also be buried in favor of sensationalism. The most eloquent opinion piece I have read in the morass that has been written about HQ2 in the last month, was scripted by Seth Bornstein who heads the Queens Economic Development Corp. which despite its industrialist-like moniker is largely dedicated to helping out people from modest backgrounds. Having read his monthly letters for years, I can tell you that Seth knows Queens. He also knows the history of New York City, which in a nutshell is that it’s always changing, and usually at a faster pace than the rest of the world. Continue reading