The other day, I received a letter in the mail from Google. I wasn’t sure if it was related to my Google Apps account, all the unflattering things I say about them, or the fact that I’ve been circulating an image of “street art” that is critical of their surveillance over our online activities.
It turned out that it was none of those things. Once I opened it, I learned that people in my neighborhood of Long Island City have been searching Google for me, and they were just trying to sell me on AdWords.
Your current customers likely search for your business by name (e.g., “Juan Monroy”) and, as a result, your Google listing shows up in their search results.
Prospective customers however tend to search by topic and city (e.g., Flowers “Long Island City”), in which case it’s likely your business won’t show up…
I wonder what business they are referencing. Because I certainly don’t sell flowers! T-shirts, maybe, but not flowers.
In the last two weeks, Long Island City has hosted at least two events attesting to the changes in the neighborhood.
The first was the April 5th opening at the Jeffrey Leder Gallery for Whitewashed, a show featuring the artists of the 5Pointz Aerosol Arts Center. In the middle of the night late last year, the owner of the property famously painted over the graffiti with white paint. The graffiti that adorned the building for years made 5Pointz a regular stop for visitors to Long Island City, but the owner feared that preservationists might make it impossible to tear down the building and block a pending residential development on the property.
The opening for Whitewashed was much more festive event than most other openings at Leder’s gallery. Visitors so packed the two-story brownstone building that about twenty people had to leave before I could squeeze into the gallery space. A good number of the artists were also selling some prints of their work, and the gallery staff were busy processing sale after sale of those works, affordably priced between $20 and $50. Adding to the dynamic energy of the evening were about a half-dozen of the featured artists making drawings on-the-spot. By the time I left, the room had an noticeable smell of paint, all coming from those ubiquitous paint pens.
On Friday night, the Center for Holographic Arts threw a farewell party in the bottom two floors of the Clock Tower Building at Queens Plaza. The space had been remarkably transformed from their previous show last month, which had to close early to make way for this farewell party and exhibition. Both the ground floor and the basement were packed with holographic and stereoscopic works, ranging from small postcard-sized still photographs to fifty-foot–long wall projections. The amount of work needed to stage this show was even more remarkable when you consider that this exhibition was for one night only. The “Holocenter,” as most of us have come to call it, has to vacate this space by the end of this month because, according to the Center’s staff, the space was sold to developers.
The two shows represent the changes in Long Island City that everyone with a stake in the neighborhood has anticipated for years. The abandoned industrial buildings had once allowed upstart artists to establish studios and gallery spaces. When I first moved to New York in 2001, I had heard of Long Island City emerging as an arts center. Although part of that was due to the Museum of Modern Art moving its primary gallery space to Queens in 2002[1], it was the artists who occupied the buildings that gave the neighborhood its excitement.
Today, the situation is different. The financial crisis of 2008 is a fading memory for real estate developers and well-heeled buyers. There are apartment buildings everywhere, and those apartments are fetching stratospherically crazy prices. At one time, I was able to name the high-rise apartment buildings on Center Boulevard: City Lights, the East Coast, and the Avalon. But now, I can’t do that anymore. There’s too many of them. After three decades of false starts as the “next big place,” the value of the land for residential development is forcing a fundamental change to the neighborhood. Over the course of a generation, Long Island City has evolved from industrial district to post-industrial desert to residential neighborhood.
At least it was nice to say good-bye.
If I recall correctly, MoMA QNS was to remain as a secondary gallery space after the midtown Manhattan location reopened. Today, it houses a research center. ↩
Before they vacate, they are staging one last party on April 11. There will be food, music, adult beverages, and, of course, holographic art. Tickets are available for a donation, via Eventbrite.
A notable highlight of this space is the subterranean lounge, located in an old bank vault, although the last time I was there it kind of smelled like pee.
Jeffrey Leder Gallery is excited to present Whitewash, an exhibit featuring 12 artists that worked on or photographed the 5Pointz walls for many years. They have created artworks that explore their reactions to having their and others’ art painted over – Whitewashed.
The gallery is located on 45th Road, in Long Island City, just steps from the 5Pointz site. The opening is on April 5, from 6:00 – 9:00 PM. Because it’s not a school night, I recommend making your own after-party at the Shannon Pot, a bar that relocated down the street to make room for this same development at the 5Pointz site.
As a kid, my vision of the future seemed marvelous. We would have space colonies, interconnected computers on our wrists, instantaneous global travel, and cities without any trash. Of all these, in 2014, we’re closest to only achieving that last one.
Back in college, I lived in the rear apartment of a duplex, which outside of New York refers to a single building structure with two separate apartments. The tenant in the front was responsible for paying the garbage-collection bill, and we were supposed to split the cost between the two units. However, after a few months of living there, he stopped paying the bill and our garbage cans sat full as the hauling company stopped collecting our trash. Although my roommate and I appreciated saving the cost of having our garbage picked up, we realized that we couldn’t very well let our trash cans still full on the curb. A different neighbor down the street was nice enough to let us stuff some of our trash into his cans, but this was not an ideal solution.
We managed to toss a fair amount of garbage in unlocked dumpsters at night, but we also cut down on the amount of trash we produced. That’s where I learned to recycle as much as possible: cans, bottles, paper, boxes, and even scrap metal all were hauled to a local recycling center. Since then, I’ve been unable to toss a sheet of paper or an aluminum can into a trash receptacle. It feels as wrong as eating without first washing my hands.
When I first moved to New York, one of the greatest benefits of living here was the free curbside trash and recycling program. Having the city pickup my trash and recyclables and sparing me trouble of a weekly, illegal dump seemed like an absolute luxury. But since my recycling habits were deeply ingrained, I still recycled a fair amount of my refuse. But instead of driving it to a recycling center, I just put into a clear bag and left it on the curb on the designated collection day. Easy peasy.
Since last April, New Yorkers have been required to recycle all rigid plastics, and that has completely changed our balance of recycleables vs. trash. Our trash container is much bigger than our recycling containers. But since we stopped tossing plastics in the trash, our recycling container fills up in a day or two. Because the sanitation department picks up garbage three times a week but recycling only once a week, we have to empty our recycling container several times throughout the week and leave the clear bags in a holding area downstairs. Meanwhile, our garbage bags sits nearly empty for a week or until it begins to stink.
Another remarkable facet of the new recycling regime is how little we throw away from a typical takeout meal. A typical take-out meal will be packed in an assortment of plastic containers, buttressed by random pieces of cardboard, and accompanied by plastic utensils and paper napkins. All of that will go into a paper bag and then toted in a plastic bag. Aside from the napkins and the plastic bag, it’s all recyclable.
Perhaps, I’ve come around earlier to recycling everything than others, having been conditioned to obsessively do so since the late–1990s, but I would hope that the sanitation department adapts to the greater volume of recyclables and swaps a trash collection day to collect recycling.
And for the food scraps, which is not recyclable and always forced me to make frequent trash dumps around town during my college days, I can drop that off with the lovely woman from our local compositing program.
One of the drawbacks of being on the western edge of Long Island City is that for nearly half the year, we don’t have weekend access to our main subway line. This year, we were scheduled to go twenty-two weeks without weekend service on the 7 line between Queensborough Plaza and Times Square.
But we’re expecting a snow storm Sunday night, and the scheduled repair work is cancelled.
The following Weekend Planned Service Change is CANCELLED.
No 7 service between Times Sq–42 St and Queensboro Plaza. Originally scheduled for: 2 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon, Mar 1 – 3
The cancellation now leaves us with twenty-one weekends of no 7 train service, provided they don’t tack on another weekend to make it up.
Graffiti on Number Seven Subway. Andy Nguyen, 1980. Washington Square Park and Washington Square Area Image Collection, 1850-1990. New York University Archives.
Twenty-one weekends sounds like a long time, and many local merchants bemoan that these repairs keep Manhattanites out of Long Island City. I don’t know if they ever thought about the locals who are trapped and might be compelled to eat a meal, have a drink or watch a comedy show or dance performance in our own neighborhood. Why not create some 7-themed special like $7 cocktail, appetizer, or cover specials? We’re all in this together, right?
As for me, the weekend work doesn’t bother me all that much. I rarely pine to ride the rails out of LIC. But if I did, thankfully, my club’s Spring Training Series starts next week, which means I’ll be spending most of my Saturdays on a bike again.
Heaven forbid I have to spend a weekend in Long Island City.
The night was capped by a performance by Ken Butler, a renowned music instrument builder, who played about a dozen handmade instruments he built over the years. All of the instruments are built from found objects, as you’ll see below, and converted to musical instruments through the strategic placement of a contact microphone. He would also use a sound processor to loop percussive sounds as a back beat.
He started with playing a golf club.
He plays a guitar-like device with two strings and tennis racket.
He then played a shovel with strings.
Butler plays another guitar-like instrument that resembled a machine gun. Note the comb that resembles an ammunition clip.
An umbrella makes for a variety sounds when it is closed and opened.
Although it has a string, he also played a sword as a percussion instrument.
Speaking of sharp objects, here Ken Butler played a smaller knife.
He also utilized the bristles and the handle of a toothbrush against his teeth to create various sounds.
Running out of props, he resorted to the zipper on his pants…
By the end, he used his body and finished with playing his head as a drum.
It’s both incredible and empowering to see how many possible musical instruments Butler made with the everyday objects.
The owners of a popular Long Island City cafe will be opening a waterfront concession in Hunters Point South Park in JanuaryMarch. The new establishment will be called ‘LIC Landing by Coffeed’ and will be operated by the same eco-friendly team that owns Coffeed at 37-18 Northern Blvd.
It’s hard to have a favorite coffee place because I’m a home brewer, and my relationship with coffee places tends to consist of only shopping for beans or sipping the occasional espresso drink. As the owner of our local coffee king, Sweetleaf, said to me: the real coffee nuts (I’m paraphrasing) just brew at home. In other words, I don’t go to coffee shops lest I risk serious hyper caffeination.
Coffeed is one of those places I fantasize about going to, but as it is currently on Northern Boulevard, a very heavily trafficked thoroughfare in Queens, going there requires a fairly “exhilarating” bike ride. And there’s not even a bike rack. Consequently, I don’t get there too often. Coffeed not only serves coffee, but they roast it in Queens. And it’s good, certainly worth the $18 a bag they charge this coffee dork. Ask for a brewed cup, and it’s terrific. Want something less bitter? They’ll do a Hario pour-over, like just like any premium coffee shop does. But the unique thing about this place is that they have my two favorite brewing methods: the vacuum press for hot coffee, and the Japanese-style ice brewer for cold brew. I dream of having these contraptions but the thought of spending almost $100 or over $200, respectively, for something that is almost entirely glass makes me nervous.
And with good reason. I broke my Bodum stovetop vacuum pot two years ago.
Did I mention they’ll serve sandwiches, smoothies, and beers? Bring on the fancy beans and brews.
Amazon said Sunday delivery will begin on Nov. 17 in Los Angeles and New York and expand next year to Dallas, New Orleans, Houston and Phoenix, among others. Amazon will bring packages from its warehouses to Postal Service locations on Saturday evening or Sunday morning. The agency will then deliver them to doorsteps.
Sunday delivery of Amazon purchases is great news for the postal service and Amazon customers. It is probably less good for the non-existent brick-and-mortar shops in our corner of Long Island City.
The USPS may not have the global network or the perceived speed of UPS or FedEx, but it has something that’s very important for most New Yorkers: access to your apartment building. UPS, for example, can’t access your apartment building. When they attempt a delivery and you’re not home because you work a regular job, you’re greeted with one of those dreaded InfoNotice slips on your door.
The dreaded InfoNotice that says you’ll have to wait yet another day for your goodies.
After UPS makes three attempts and they can’t deliver your package, you’re trekking to the calming shores of Maspeth, Queens to get your goods. As you can see in the Lois Stavsky’s photo below, Maspeth sits at the end of the Bushwick Inlet and is, for those not in the know, about as a close to the middle-of-nowhere as you can get in New York City.
After missing countless Amazon orders that were shipped via UPS, I resorted to using the Amazon Locker at the local 7-11 store in Long Island City. It’s a reliable way to get your packages because it’s 7-11 and there’s always someone home, but it’s a good 1.3 miles away from home along a heavily trafficked stretch of Long Island City, making it pretty terrible bike ride.
Since Amazon has been relying more on USPS for deliveries, Amazon packages are reliably waiting inside the apartment building. No more trips to 7-11. No more trips to Maspeth. The same is true for any other shipper that uses USPS for deliveries, such as my precious Tonx coffee.
The best part of Amazon using USPS to deliver to your home seven days a week is that it’s available for everyone, not just Prime members like myself and it starts this coming Sunday in New York.
The above link to Amazon is an affiliate link. If you signup for a Prime Video trial, I will earn a commission fee.
As far as blighting our urban landscape in Long Island City, Election Day brings a bunch of trash to our neighborhood. No, it’s not the trash left behind by Sunday’s New York City Marathon. In fact, our streets are impeccably clean once the runners vacate our streets. Our curbs are covered in garbage on Election Day because everyone forgets that there is no trash pickup on Election Day.
Our garbage is collected on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings. On Tuesdays, the Sanitation department also picks up large items, such as furniture and appliances, and all of our paper, glass, metal, and plastic recyclables. Most everyone sets out the garbage the evening before so in most everyone’s mind, garbage day is Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. When there’s a garbage collection holiday on a Tuesday, such as Election Day or the occasional Veteran’s Day, the bags of garbage and recyclables pile up with other large items. The bags of trash and large items sit there for two whole days until Thursday morning, and the clear recycling bags remain on our street until the following week.
Part of it is likely due to habit, but it’s also due to the indifference Americans have towards Election Day. It always on falls on a Tuesday, which doesn’t strike anybody was a particular festive day of the week. Election day is also two days after reverting to standard time so most people might still be disoriented. Also, the races in this election were all but decided, making voting less urgent than in a close election. In short, Election Day is boring. It is, at best, an inconvenience and a reminder of how much we hate our elected officials and that we’ll end up in jury duty soon. It is not a day for us to celebrate.
We could learn a lot from the sanitation workers and their negotiated holiday schedule. If we treated Election Day as a true holiday, something on par with even President’s Day, when we can score a good deal on a mattress, then we’d prioritize voting. And we’d even remember to keep our damn garbage off the curb.
