WELL now it seems that we have come full circle in less than a week. First I was tipped off by a reader last Wednesday that the local School Superintendent Dr. Philip Composto was let go, and that locals feeling the firing was unjustified were organizing to support him. The support worked as intended and the Superintendent has been given new consideration.
[Read more…] about Pols & Schools, Schools & Pols Disrupt Long Island CityLong Island City Rents & Other Real Estate Stuff

LAST week I received an email from a reader who shared that the rent on her 3-br was recently increased from $6,900 to $7,900 a month. ‘Interesting data point’ I thought whilst simultaneously calculating in my head its equating to a 14.5% boost and wondering ‘I’ve seen the recent “Highest NYC Rents Ever” headlines of the past month, but what other local semi-anecdotal data points are available out there?’
[Read more…] about Long Island City Rents & Other Real Estate StuffMargaritas in May or Pina Colada’s in January LIC?

… So I wrote to the paper
Took out a personal ad
And though I’m nobody’s poet
I thought it wasn’t half bad
The children at the local public schools in Long Island City will not be getting off for Cinco De Mayo tomorrow. They did get off for Eid al-Fitr on Monday, and will also get off for Juneteenth, which has been newly added to the holiday calendar this year. Except in 2022 it will actually be on June 20 as the 19th falls on a Sunday. In so doing, the extra day off pushes the NYC public school calendar into another week making Monday, June 27th the last day of school.
[Read more…] about Margaritas in May or Pina Colada’s in January LIC?Queens Store #1 In NYC Bagel Survey

On occasion I will take the liberty to write about a topic not exactly LIC-centric, and in this case it only has a tenuous link to Queens overall. Yet this topic entails a quantitative analysis that would give a leg up to any second year investment banking associate looking to make Managing Director before age 30, and also a subject that is near and dear to many in NYC: bagels.
[Read more…] about Queens Store #1 In NYC Bagel SurveyMore Beer, Lusskin Leaving, Hero a Zero?

AFTER 8.5 years, Liz Lusskin is stepping down as head of the Long Island City Partnership. Her departure comes at the end of a period where LIC evolved from its emergence as an up-and-coming neighborhood to fully established on the national scene. A lot of this may have to do with Amazon HQ2, which she had a major role behind the scenes in attracting. Yet even without it’s coming, LIC is no longer a backwater from a commercial standpoint.1
[Read more…] about More Beer, Lusskin Leaving, Hero a Zero?- and she played a role in that too, but was one of quite a few, not to mention market forces [↩]