gantry plaza state park

Lighting The Way In LIC In 2023

December 29, 2022 by editor Leave a Comment

IT’S that time of year when we take the measure of the preceding 365, and 3650. And a recently installed traffic sign encapsulated the weariness of LIC in the 2020’s in the wizened eyes of The Editor. Exhibited all the way to the right in the photo above, its placement indicates that this one block stretch of 5th Street in Hunters Point is no longer 2-way. Back in the day, when everything was fresh, that actually would have been newsworthy in Long Island City. Lesser publications may have even devoted a whole article to it. Today it is just a street sign.

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ManhattanHenge & Memorial Day Weekend 2021 In LIC

May 28, 2021 by editor Leave a Comment

Stonehenge! ‘Tis a magic place
Where the moon doth rise with a dragon’s face
Stonehenge! Where the virgins lie
And the prayers of devils fill the midnight sky

Don’t expect any dragons, virgins, or photographers for ManhattanHenge in Gantry Park this weekend, as the weather has no intention of cooperating. The final nail in the coffin is that the bridge in Gantry where the lensman normally congregate to capture the double-wide crosstown 42nd Street in full plumage, is closed for renovation. While they’ll get another shot when ManhattanHenge 2021 Pt. II swings back around July 13, if they come to LIC to click their shutters they may have to settle for 34th Street.

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Gantry Plaza State Park In LIC Turns 23

May 20, 2021 by editor 1 Comment

WITH bikini season coming up, I’ve just started a new weight reduction program: The Food Truck Diet. Given that it was created by doctors and nutritionists at Harford, it’s a surefire way to drop 15 lbs in a month. It’s also a perfect occasion to mill about Gantry Plaza State Park while foraging.

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Girls Basketball In Long Island City Spring 2021

April 26, 2021 by editor 4 Comments

Girls Basketball Long Island City — 48th Avenue in Long Island City

THE NYS Parks Department has reserved the eastern basketball court on 48th Avenue (by Vernon Boulevard) for ‘Girls Time’ every Wednesday and Friday from 4pm to 5:15pm beginning April 23 through June 25, 2021.

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Languorous Long Island City Summer Ends With A Bang

September 5, 2020 by editor 2 Comments

WOW, what an end to the ~~week~~ summer. Two big pieces of news for Long Island City occurred within the last 24 hours, after a six-month local news cycle usurped by city, national and worldwide headlines. First, a young man was shot and killed one block from Center Boulevard in Hunters Point early yesterday evening. While this news is startling and seemingly an abrupt punctuation mark on a crazy summer both near and far, I’m not quickly tempted to extrapolate the nightly shenanigans in the park to it. One look at the picture1 of the young man lying on Borden Avenue being aided by a police officer and knowing now that he’s in his last minutes of his life is much graver than what we’ve been dealing with.2 I still believe the parks will calm down after the summer is over and that this is a one-off incident much like the occasional shootings that intrude on the Upper East Side or Tribeca. I hope.

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linked to below in NYPost story [↩]
and probably a very good but sad advertisement for gun control when combined w/ the supposed mercurial nature of the incident, especially given how close to home it is [↩]