HAPPY 2ND BIRTHDAY LICTALK!

This Sunday, March 9, LICtalk turns two years old1.  Though we’ve come to view ourselves as literary virtuosos, others might think that we’re still wearing diapers.  The one thing that can’t be debated, is the massive amount of change that has occurred in this town over those two years.

Nothing embodies that fact better than the headlines about LIC this week that we link to below.  To start with, a new culinary star has been anointed by The New York Times, and it’s right here in Long Island City.  Mu Ramen was given the number one slot in their top-10 list of Ramen restaurants.  Though the grey lady’s existence dwarfs that of LICtalk’s, we were the first to break the story of Mu Ramen’s arrival in our headline “Ramen Fever Comes to LIC.”

The next story is about the groundbreaking of a new building in Court Square.  While the waterfront grabs most of the attention in terms of recent development, practically a whole other city is springing up adjacent to it.  It’s even more dramatic due to the fact that no one gives Court Square much thought in terms of residential.  If they did it was probably focused on the 5Pointz controversy, which also was headline grabbing and a big change that has occurred since our birth.  And unlike most of what has been built in both locations, the new building in this article is anything but cookie cutter.

While we’re on the subject of Court Square, another very recent addition to LIC is a new blog focusing specifically on that locale.  Wesley Cheng’s LICcourtsquare has meticulously delivered the play-by-play of each buildings progress, as well as numerous other scoops.  And as any two year old knows, two is better than one.

Next up is a story on the quirky new-built rowhouse’s new owner striking back at architectural critics.  Independent of what one thinks of it, the fact that there was a knockdown of an old rowhouse is something that wasn’t happening two years ago in this neighborhood.  Next comes two articles about tenants moving into the Falchi Building.  I can’t stop using the word “forlorn” whenever I think of where it’s located.  But maybe that term no longer applies in the same way that it did two years ago?

Summing it all up comes an account of a speech by the new Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, in which she proclaimed LIC to be “a thriving, wonderful and passionate area …the gateway to Queens” and that “The interesting thing is people come up to me all the time and say we know you’re going to be the one to make Queens the next Brooklyn, but we stand on our own and we have a lot to do here,” she said.

Hmm, that’s definitely not a sentiment that was felt about LIC or Queens two years ago.  So no matter what you may think of LICtalk on it’s second birthday, let’s split the difference and get to the party below.

Ramen’s Big Splash – the NYT’s Top-10 ramen list puts LIC’s Mu Ramen at the top

Mu Ramen on Temporary Hold – and right after the above, they close for a few months to set up a permanent location

22-22 Jackson Expects Summer ’15 Completion – a great looking building coming to the block just south of 5Pointz

Queens Warehouse to be Converted Into Residential – in the heart of Hunters Point on 48th Avenue

Passive House Architect Takes on Critics – colorful new rowhouse on 11th Street strikes back

Local Art Installations Coming to Revamped Falchi Building – pushing it hard in a previously forlorn area

Juice Press to Move Production and Distribution to Falchi Building – see above

Katz Lauds Booming LIC – ride the wave

Gantry Park Volunteer Group May Expand to Include Hunters Point Park – get Goldman on the phone, I smell a merger

1. which is like a decade in “LIC years” [↩]