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LIC-HAMPTONS CONNECTION

August 2, 2012 by editor 1 Comment

SparksDeli3 — This is about halfway from Manhattan to Montauk, right?

Want a taste of the old Long Island City? Check out the place above. Take my word, you will not be running into any of your Goldman co-workers there when you ditch work early on Friday and need something greasy to cure your hangover from a very late Thursday night at Lavo. It is mostly truckdrivers, city workers, and heavy-lifting types from the nearby warehouses eating lunch at 10:30am. In other words, nobody here is on a diet. Just don’t think you are going to stop by and load up for a late night meal on your way back from the Hamptons after a weekend at Ron Perelman’s estate clubbing with his house guest Kanye. Because they are closed by 4pm and all day Sundays.

Today’s LIC news is pretty mundane and makes me miss the ire over that strip club at the bottom of the Queensboro bridge. I am also sorry to say that real estate takes the top slot once again. So you decide: Do I stay here at my desk and read LICtalk whilst pretending to analyze a potential acquisition for an IB client in Tacoma, or stand in line awaiting three scrambled with bacon and cheese?

Looking For A Real Estate Deal? Try Manhattan – like I’ve been telling you, Manhattan now at a deserved discount

Sorry London, New York Should Have Hosted The 2012 Olympics – except if you live in LIC

Queens Subway Lines at and Near Top In Annual NYPIRG Report – gee, does LIC need any more ammo?

Schumer Wants A Nerd Bus To Connect Tech Hubs In Brooklyn and Queens – oh please, what a waste of government(our) money(not to mention newsprint). Doesn’t he know that tekkies can transport themselves???

Tourist Street Maps Coming to LIC and Other Nabes – will it show the way to all our beer gardens?

The Queens Players Hilarious Production Of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

New Comedy Venue Joins Budding LIC Laugh Scene

As Beer Garden Welcomes The Juice-Box Set, Some Barflies Jeer – Oh c’mon, beer gardens are a world apart from standard bars and have always welcomed kids. The whiners are obviously BG rookies!

OLYMPICS 2012, WHAT IF…

July 30, 2012 by editor 3 Comments

For this is all a dream we dreamed one afternoon, long ago

So there I was, lying on my couch awaiting synchronized swimming, when it hit me ‘I could have still been living at my parents house in Tenafly if NYC had won the Olympic bid for this summer!’ Instead, I am a Master of the Universe and living in LIC …in a converted one bedroom with two roommates and a labradoodle. Who knew that (in)decision would be so precipitous for me? Oh yes, and for most of you as well. As a reminder, Hunters Point was supposed to be where the Olympic Village was to be located, per the bid submitted by NYC to the Olympic committee. Specifically, according to a New York Times article written in 2004:

“The Olympic Village is part of a brilliant master plan for the games devised by Mr. Garvin in 2002. Entitled the Olympic X Plan, the scheme uses the city’s transportation system to link new and existing sports venues arranged in giant intersecting axes draped across all five boroughs and the New Jersey Meadowlands. The Olympic Village sits at the center of the crossing, facing the Manhattan skyline. The view could make even the losers feel like champions.“

Looking back on it now, I for one am glad that we did not end up hosting the 2012 Olympics, though probably not quite as glad as Related Cos. Though it would have been nice taking one subway line straight to Jet games and Bon Jovi concerts.

Talking about one subway line, picking up on my story from a week ago, Crain’s reporter and LIC resident Amanda Fung wrote an article about how a new Silicon Alley is forming along the F-train line. Most of it focuses on the areas in Brooklyn, but despite disparaging words from a commercial real estate broker, all indications point to LIC as the future. So here is a little advice for said commercial broker from my post of July 19th, and you can feel free to use it in your pitch to prospective tenants:

“Once the first corporation makes the jump, others become more willing, and the perception of the area goes from being manufacturing and warehouse-centric to “happening” and cutting-edge, with the added bonus of a discount for those who act fast.”

OK, ok, enough of my Trump-like real estate bluster so early in the week. I will leave you with an LIC inspired two-word mantra to repeat as you watch archery and fencing over the next two weeks: “Hail Britannia!”

NYC 2012: The Legacy Of Losing The Olympics To London – gee, not a word about my wrenching transformation in this article

Let The Design Sprint Begin – 2004 NYT article

Call The F The Silicon Subway – Gravesend Bklyn? not gonna happen.

Hearty And Happy At Alobar In LIC – excellent review of Alobar, this guy gushes even more than I do about LIC; I hope this guy doesn’t take my job from me!

Monthly Pop-Up Queens County Market Brings Food Artisans To LIC – like a mini-Smorgasburg coming to Laughing Devil Comedy Club

LIC Sculpture Center To Get Outdoor Exhibit Space In Makeover

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!

July 27, 2012 by editor 5 Comments

If we needed any other proof that Long Island City is becoming the center of the universe, the enormous amount of film being shot in our neighborhood is ample confirmation of our usurping the top slot from Manhattan. Ok, ok, it’s mostly TV shows on remote cable channels, but I did see Stanford Blatch on Center Boulevard this week. What this mostly means is that there are fewer places to park on the street, which doesn’t bother me much because I keep my Bentley in a temperature controlled garage, and of course it spends the weekends down the road in Southampton anyway.

Talking about the weekend, let’s get right into all that LIC has to offer for those still in town. If you are a regular reader of this site, you know about my obsession with beer gardens. Well, there might be a reason for it: in addition to being Hollywood East, LIC is at the nexus of NYC beer gardens! Just look at where the locations of them are in the first article, and they don’t even mention that we just got another one smack dab in the middle of LIC(JB Smokehouse)! Fortunately, you know the first place to go when you want the most up-to-date info on Long Island City: LICtalk

As if being beer garden central isn’t enough, not to mention all the other regular, but extraordinary, things going on about town this weekend(PS1’s Warm-Up comes to mind), we have a very special one-off. In fact, it might be one of the very few events for which I would be willing to forgo an afternoon at a beer garden. Ladies and Gentlemen, this weekend and this weekend only, there is a pig roast in town. Our town! Now that my friends, is celluloid worthy!

(All this week’s news links are at the bottom, and there is a lot of news!)

Queens culinary destination LIC Market will celebrate its second birthday on Saturday, July 28^th and Sunday, July 29^th with its 2^nd Anniversary Pig Roast and Clambake. The weekend event will feature food, drinks and fun celebrating the restaurant’s second year in Long Island City. I hope that you will consider news of LIC Market’s 2^nd Anniversary Pig Roast and Clambake for calendar listings, features and more.

For $25 per person, guests can partake in either roastedsuckling pig, rice and black beans, corn, tamales, pico de gallo, romaine, queso fresco and tortillas or cherrystone clams, steamer clams, PEI mussels, prawns, steamed potatoes with salsa verde, corn and chorizo. Hungry for something a little different? LIC Market will also feature steamed 1Ž2 pound lobster with lemon, parsley and drawn butter or a rack of BBQ beef short ribs with housemade chipotle BBQ sauce for $22 per person during its anniversary weekend.

Thirsty? You’ll drink up with (6 each) $25 beer buckets and $4 mimosas and sangrias ($20 per pitcher).

Since 2010 residents of Long Island City, Queens have enjoyed the fresh flavors that Chef/Owner Alex Schindler has brought to the area through simple yet flavorful menus and an in-house market featuring house-made food items and specialty ingredients sourced just for his patrons. LIC Market (Long Island City Market) is the result of Schindler’s quest to bring the food, service and community atmosphere lacking in big-city dining to the neighborhood that he loves. LIC Market is located at at 21-52 44^th Drive (West of 23^rd Street) in Long Island City, Queens, one of New York City’s growing culinary hotspots.

LIC Market’s 2^nd Anniversary Pig Roast and Clambake

LIC Market

21-52 44^th Drive

(West of 23^rd Street)

Long Island City, Queens

Saturday, July 28, 2012

11:00 am – 10:00 pm

Sunday, July 29, 2012

11:00 am – 6:00 pm

$25 per person

Roasted Sucking Pig and Sides

Cherrystone Clams, Steamer Clams, PEI Mussels, Prawns and sides

$22 per person

Steamed Lobster

BBQ Beef Short Ribs

$25 Beer Buckets

$4 Glass/$20 Pitcher

Mimosa

Sangria

Top Beer Gardens In New York City – this is better than winning the lottery

MoMA PS1 Warm-Up Mixes – additional music in case you need a little after-party ’til the buzz wears off

New Boutique Steakhouse In LIC Boasts $3,800 Bottle Of Wine –any discount for cases?

Best Rock Climbing Within Reach Of NYC – #1 is in LIC, of course

Metropolitan Opera Returns To LIC Waterfront – sorry to prick your bubble, but not Gantry Park

In Queens, An Artistic Alteration – big story on the Queens Plaza makeover(reminder, use my search tip to get full story)

LIC Residents Want New Waterfront High School To Have Eco Curriculum – this should read “Resident“, as in singular. How about we start with Reading, Writing, and ‘rithmetic???

MTA Tunnels Under LIC Completed – ok tangential, am I the only resident who thinks this is really cool?

Jimmy V Getting Married This Weekend – guess where? It ain’t Canada

LIC Based Songza Music Service Streams For Business Success – hey guys could you play“Smoke On The Water”, it’s LIC’s unoffical theme song!

King Of Queens’ Has His Eye On New Turf – darn, we almost got thru a whole post without any real estate news. A profile on Modern Spaces owner Eric Benaim

Bicyclist Killer Could Get 15 Years – sadly, not all news is good news in LIC

$20,000 Jade Cup Stolen From LIC Antiques Dealer

COMING SOON: VIETNAMESE

July 25, 2012 by editor 5 Comments

Cyclo, a new Vietnamese restaurant brought to you by the owners of Tuk Tuk, is scheduled to open next Friday!

Altogether now “banh mi, banh MI, BANH MI!”

HEY PALO ALTO, BETTER WATCH YOUR BACK

July 24, 2012 by editor 7 Comments

TrainsTaxisStorage — Au revoir industries of old? Click on this pic for detail.

Fresh off the news that Publicis, the huge international advertising agency, is coming to LIC, we get the possibility that the city is looking to turn our little town into the next technology center. The proposal, labeled the “Anable Basin Tech Incubator”, cites many of the facts that we already know about the neighborhood, as advantages of locating something like this here. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to add a little of the State’s money to grease the wheels, but personally I think it is going to happen anyway. As I have been highlighting in my posts the last few months, many small tech companies have already made the decision to locate here. Though we are far from achieving critical mass, the momentum is there and so are so many of the things small tech companies are looking for including being a mass transit hub, lots of nearby housing stock, an educated work force, and lots of relatively inexpensive office space. By 2014 I predict Goldman Sachs will be opening up a satellite office in LIC. Which leaves me with one final question about the tech explosion in Long Island City: Will it be more like Palo Alto or Bangalore?

Maybe we will share some of our good fortune with our neighbors across the creek in Greenpoint. The New York Times had a big update on Sunday about all the building and gentrification going on in that neighborhood. Basically they are charting a similar path to Long Island City’s. What I couldn’t help but wonder is “Gee, the front page picture on the article looks remarkably like the one I posted on July 19th!” I may have to give Arthur Sulzberger a call. If Greenpoint is still in the throes of gentrification, Williamsburg has officially completed that stage and commenced full on disneyfication or maybe “meatpackingfication” is more like it, with the opening of the Wythe Hotel. The yuppies of yesterday are the neo-hipsters of today, plus ca change…

But wait, sometimes things do go back to the way they were. There are rumors of the Macy’s fireworks coming back to the East River! Check out the last story and come to your own conclusion as to the probability. Who knows, maybe the fireworks can be timed to signify the grand opening of the LIC incubation?

Proposed Tech Incubator In LIC – what happened to starting up in your garage?

Long Island City’s Tech Takeover – will it be feted with fireworks?

Who You Calling Gritty? – will I still be able to get kielbasa and pierogis?

All Roads Lead To Wythe Avenue – Wythe Avenue, Gansevoort Street, Collins Avenue…

Follow That Tourist – mentions some Queens tourist spots and concludes with an offer to stay at the Z Hotel in LIC for $1,000 a week plus breakfast

Newtown Creek: Past, Present, Future Workshop

New Ferry To LIC, Brooklyn Exceeds 1M Passenger Mark – can you imagine what the numbers would be if the LIC embarkation point wasn’t so remotely located?

LIC Ice Cream Shop Relies On Community – more on Malu

Macy’s May Bring Fourth Of July Fireworks Extravaganza Back To The East River – where they belong!