News

AHH Fall, its onset brings both excitement and sadness over summer’s end as I sit here typing away on Labor Day.

Ohh yes, those highlights. The opening of the Hunters Point Library on September 24 is the most significant and transformational event. In the meantime we have tennis occurring right now at the U.S. Open in Queens – and for those parents who may want their child to be the next Verena or Rogael there’s plenty of time to squeeze in a few lessons with The Tennis Whisperer of Long Island City. Football too as I peruse the college scores from the opening weekend and anticipate the start of the NFL this weekend, we also have a local team, Long Island City High School, that has a chance to be at the top of heap. For a week anyway, as they take on the Mighty Number Crunchers of Stuyvesant HS at noon Saturday on their home turf. Oktoberfest, which a large portion of actually occurs in September – no specific relevance to LIC, but I’m sure all the local breweries will provide one. And while summer (vacation) has departed, a new food cart has arrived on Vernon Boulevard: King of Falafel (and Shawarma)!!! This 2010 Vendy Award winner will be on the western side of the street between 48th Avenue and 49th Rd (aka 40 feet from Vernon Grille) every Monday-Friday evening. As-Salaam Alaikum.

Look, I get it man, your publishers breathing down your neck for a lede and there isn’t a darn thing happening. You can’t make stuff up – you’re working for a news organization, not in politics – how else do you get blood from a stone? The best response is to look at your surroundings, dig deep, and recognize something that may be out of the ordinary and of interest to you. There’s a good chance it’s of interest to others as well. Warning: this might require some spade work! The second best response is to value your readers time and publish nothing. The third choice, and it’s not in the ‘Best’ category, is to push out product. With that, I present this month’s edition of “Is This News LIC?’

The Szechuan restaurant we mentioned last week will be named ‘Hupo’ and will open at the end of the summer according to The Court Square Blog. Located at 10-07 50th Avenue it is replacing Kavala Estatorio and for more details on what it will feature click the link to TCSB below. The only thing I will (can) add, based on my years of studying Mandarin at Har-ford, is that Hupo means amber. Or possibly lake, I don’t remember, it was a long time ago and there were many Scorpion Bowls consumed between classes upstairs at the Hong Kong Restaurant in Cambridge. But I digress, for extra credit please name the restaurant that preceded Kavala?