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SNOWFLAKES ON CENTER BOULEVARD

November 26, 2012 by editor 3 Comments

Riverfoliagebkgrd — Another autumn holdout(click on pic)

Well the news is still slow when it comes to LIC, we have a total of three articles today and the third is a stretch, but maybe that is because the holidays are seemingly in full swing. Center Boulevard has some new and tasteful holiday lights on its lampposts, and with them comes the cold and omnipresent winds off the river, as winter is finally evincing its presence. Thus, I too will spare you any lengthy dissertations so you can spend more time with your loved ones, new or old. Just one word of advice: bundle-up!

After Sandy, Some NYC Parks Stay Shut – TV interview about Shady Park, aka Andrew’s Grove, or is it the other way around?

A Battle of LIC’s New Luxury Condos – hmm, not really sure it’s apples to apples

School Rezoning’s Border Wars – it always comes back to the school issue. Want to know exactly what powers and influences a CEDC(Community Education Council) actually has and does not have? Then this is your article.

NY TIMES GIVES M. WELLS DINETTE TWO STARS

November 21, 2012 by editor 7 Comments

Two stars and a NYT “Critics Pick” for the latest rendition of M. Wells. In tandem with night filming on Vernon Boulevard and the return of the Christmas tree sellers on 47th Road and 5th Street, LIC is back in the swing of things just in time for Thanksgiving and the onset of winter. Yet as we have noted since Sandy, while the overwhelming majority have it in their rear view mirror, there is still a small group for whom it is front and center. So give thanks for what you have, and have avoided, and keep those neighbors less fortunate in mind, both this weekend and going forward.

NYT Restaurant Review: M. Wells Dinette at MoMA PS1 – would have been 3 stars had they served horse meat

LIC Businesses Struggling From Sandy Look for Help

LIC Waterfront Real Estate May Be Impacted By Superstorm Sandy – or there may be zero effect according to the content of the article = a non-story story

Big Bicycle Donation to LIC’s Recycle-A-Bicycle(RAB)

ROADTRIP: GREENPOINT

November 19, 2012 by editor 8 Comments

GnptBrownstones3 — Brownstones not towers

GnptLICcontrast3 — So close, but such a contrast

PeterPan2 — Homer Simpson would be very happy in Greenpoint

Queens is renowned for its diversity, but sometimes we get so caught up in our everyday life that we do not get much of a chance to experience the neighborhoods nearby. With that in mind, we at LICtalk have initiated a new category, RoadTrip, to explore these exotic locales, write about them, and sum it all up in a pictorial triptych(remember, you can click on pics to enlarge). Hopefully, it will entice you, our readers, to break out of your comfort zone and forgo your regular Saturday night outing to Olive Garden in Times Square. Or, if you prefer, you can view this series as ‘They do it for me, so I don’t have to leave my couch.’

For our first road trip destination, we have chosen the neighborhood most accessible to many residents in LIC: Greenpoint. In doing so, we have immediately broken the three most important tenets of our RoadTrip series: 1) One does not need a car to visit Greenpoint, nor even a bike 2) Greenpoint is in Brooklyn, not Queens and 3) Is it really a roadtrip if it’s the next town over? Fear not, because if you are a regular reader of this site, you know that LICtalk frequently exhibits a complete lack of decorum, as well as a passion for breaking all the rules, even if they are our own. Most importantly, despite its proximity to LIC, once you step off the Pulaski Bridge and make your way west to Manhattan Avenue, it is like you have entered a different world far, far away! There is one word that sums up the major difference between Long Island City and Greenpoint: quaint. Whether it be the main retail drag of Manhattan Avenue, whose stores range from old world to so retro they are now an anachronism, or the residential housing stock, which is 45th Avenue in LIC times ten in terms of beautiful side by side brownstones. Then there are the inhabitants: hipsters economically pushed out of Williamsburg, Polish emigrants, and the increasingly well-off who are buying up all those beautiful brownstones from the previous two. What else differs vs. LIC? Well they have more, and more diverse restaurants, and that alone is worth making a trip. As for living there though, a large part of the small town feel comes at the price of inconvenience, particularly when it comes to commuting to Manhattan, which I get the strange feeling a lot of the inhabitants are not doing on a regular basis. Fortunately, you live right next door, so throw caution to the wind like I did, and grab the golden donut …or pierogi.

NEWS HERE, GET YOUR NEWS HERE, HOT OFF THE PRESS!

November 15, 2012 by editor 2 Comments

GtryGarden4 — Click on pic to smell the flowers

LIC renter’s guide, new schools, Modern Spaces latest expansion into (gasp!) Manhattan, local boy wins Cy Young award, these are the latest headlines about Long Island City. Sure, unlike my last update there is not a lot of meat in these stories, but this is the rare occasion where I am happy that quantity trumps quality when it comes to the news. In fact, I am even going to spare you my usual critique and rhapsody and get right to the headlines in all their raw glory, enjoy!

Hundreds Of New School Seats Planned For Epicenter Of Overcrowding – Is this the way they plan on handling the crunch in LIC?: “local schools have been functioning well over capacity for many years” and “the extra seats will ease crowding for students who have been using portable classrooms” and “Last year, we were cited by the Fire Department for teaching in the hallways”

A Renter’s Guide To The Rapidly Gentrifying LIC – if you live here already there is nothing new in this

One Woman Show Tonite – and one time only, in LIC anyway

Tech Insurgents 2012 – profile on LIC-based Shapeways co-founder

Modern Spaces Expands Into Manhattan – wow Manhattan, the new frontier!

What Ever Happened To …Jersey City’s Transformative Chef? – he opened Alobar in LIC! “Long Island City,” Kapitan said, “is where Jersey City was ten years ago.” Hmm, I think our trajectory aspires higher.

Cy Young Goes To R.A. Dickey, The Most Literary Man In Baseball – and an LIC resident …for now

LIC BAR STILL CLOSED, BUT CORNER BISTRO BREAKS THE SPELL

November 13, 2012 by editor 1 Comment

ParagonPaintBldg — Everything on both sides of the green building are offline

A week after moving to Long Island City, an acquaintance who had been living here a year took me for a nitecap at the LIC Bar. It was the early fall and a perfect evening to be in their backyard, under the open sky, drinking a $5 pint of Radeberger, and smoking an AVO. All apprehensions about moving from Manhattan vanished that night. Alas, so did the opportunities to actually go out at night, but the hope remained and thinking of the possibility to get to the LIC Bar and replicate that night got me through numerous other late nights sans alcohol. Now comes word that the bar was in a pocket of Long Island City that still has not received power. Furthermore, the flooding the bar incurred might keep it closed even longer as it was in a low lying area off Anable(is it Anabel? beats me)Basin. Thus, hope will have to be put on hold. In the meantime, I have come across the first LIC story with nary a mention of the storm, as someone has put out an interview and review of the Corner Bistro LIC. There is not a lot of meat in it for those of us who have been there multiple times in Manhattan and LIC, but we’ll gladly welcome the return to normal.

LIC’s Corner Bistro Goes Beyond The Burger – but your still in LIC when you’ve finished

Promoting Queens and Developing It – all about the newly formed Coalition for Queens, based in LIC

Historic Waterfront Crabhouse Closes After Flooding – another victim of Sandy, sounds like its future is in doubt too