As you likely know, Superstorm Sandy devastated a lot of homes and businesses throughout the American east coast. While we were lucky to not have experienced any specific damage, others in Long Island City are not so lucky. The Waterfront Crab House sustained a lot of flooding, but they were not the only businesses that suffered because of the floodwaters that came ashore. The evolving gastropub Alewife has been through a lot of changes since it opened in 2011, but it was dealt a pretty tough blow after Sandy. They managed to reopen on Election Day Tuesday, and are raising money so that they can rebound after basically rebuilding from scratch.
Their new executive chef, Gregorio Pedroza, has posted a very personal video asking everyone to support Alewife, either through patronizing it or making a donation.
Please consider donating, spending some money there, or both. Even when they were unable to open, they were taking donations for victims in the Rockaways.
Last night, I took a tour of the neighborhood with a few friends to get out of our apartments. As much as we’re thankful that we were relatively unaffected by the storm, we are getting a little stir crazy from sitting at home.
We discovered that the Waterfront Crab House, one of the oldest restaurants in Long Island City’s and one of my favorite neighborhood institutions, was closed. As its name implies, the restaurant sits near the East River and, as one would expect, it was flooded by Monday night’s storm surge and tidal flooding.
I walked by there this afternoon to see how the restaurant had fared. It’s bad!
One of the cooks took me through the dining room, which was completely dark because the restaurant does not have power, to show me the kitchen. Even in near-complete darkness, I could see that the furniture was soaked. The wood floor not only felt wet but also warped, presumably from the water damage. When we reached the kitchen, I saw all of the appliances and shelves all across the floor, as if someone tossed and ransacked the room. The flood waters had reached high enough to float everything in the kitchen and redeposit on the floor as the water retreated. We could see that the water level had reached about three-feet above the floor.
It’s truly sad to see the local crab house in such a state. But I’m encouraged by two facts. First, they rebuilt after a serious 2009 fire. Second, there were about a dozen men and women working on the restaurant, draining the water from the basement and removing the seat cushions from the dining room chairs to air dry them. They look determined to rebuild. And I really hope they do, again.
A year to the week after last year’s Halloween storm, we have ourselves a very serious weather event hitting the region. And this one appears to be much bigger than Hurricane Irene, which was our first real hurricane threat and a storm that stranded my mother here for several days. We managed the last two storms pretty well by sitting tight at home and even patronizing our local businesses. We were also very fortunate to not have any flooding, not losing power, and keeping our plumbing functioning normally. I hope that we have the same luck again.
By some measures, the storm has already been very disruptive, much more so than the previous two storms. All of my work sites are closed on Monday and on Tuesday, including New York University, Fordham University, Lincoln Center, CUNY, Queens College and Pratt Institute.
More local businesses around Long Island City are open now than were during Hurricane Irene. Based on a short walk around the neighborhood, I saw Cranky’s serving the rare Monday brunch, the local Korean-owned E & I Grocery was open, and we couldn’t resist the reasonably priced Sushi and Sashimi lunch special at BANY. We also noticed that
the Chinese take-out place was open, even if they had taped their windows shut.
However, the Vernon Wine and Liquor and the Cuban Madera had similarly boarded their windows, and the local laundry had been closed since Sunday evening, just before the subways stopped running.
So far, we’ve had only one storm-related mishap. The wind blew off the hatch leading to the roof of our apartment building. I was able to find the hatch cover just a few feet away. A neighbor and I removed the few remaining items on the roof and secured the hatch cover with some rope.
As the storm progresses, I’ll keep posting any updates for as long as it is possible… and worthwhile.
Two of us did a take out order at dinner: a pork chop sandwich (extra spicy) and a shrimp vermicelli salad. Both dishes were excellent. There was a fair amount of spice, and believe me I love spicy foods, but it was nowhere near what one could get from a more “authentic” Vietnamese place.
If you like Tuk Tuk, which is comparatively bland compared to other Thai places in Jackson Heights or Los Angeles but still serve excellent food, then you’ll like this place. Otherwise, heed the advice of others and head to Elmhurst.
Last night around 11:00 PM, we noticed a strong but intermittent smell of burnt plastic. We couldn’t notice the smell when we went to the open window, thinking that the smell was coming from outside the apartment, so we determined that it was coming from inside the apartment.
It turned out that the smell was coming from the electrical circuit breaker box in the kitchen. As we observed the box, we also heard a buzzing noise emanating from the box. Using a silicon oven mitt, to protect myself from electrocuting or burning my hand, I opened the box and began flipping switches. The buzzing had stopped once I flipped the switches off and on, but I wondered whether there was any inordinate heat coming from the box. There was: my infrared food thermometer read the temperature on the left group of switches as high as 200°.
We called the landlord, who in turn called an electrician, and had us turn off the power box in the apartment and the basement. We spent the night in the dark, with no lights, no air conditioning, or any fans. We did have a good stockpile of flashlights and batteries preparing for Hurricane Irene last August. As far as staying comfortable, the open windows and occasional cross breeze kept us cool last night. (It actually wasn’t all that bad so I’ll stop complaining.)
This morning, an electrician came and in a matter of moments replaced the defective circuit breaker. You can see in the photo that the breaker had developed some warping around the imprinted “900”.
It was fortunate that we were both home and vigilant about identifying the scent of burnt plastic.
If you smell a burning smell from your electrical circuit breaker box, you should…
immediately turn off the breaker box (ours is in the kitchen)
immediately turn off the main power supply (ours is in the basement)
call an electrician to fix the problem
If it’s a hot summer night and have to wait until morning, suck it up:
Last night was a benefit party for our favorite park in Queens: Socrates Sculpture Park. This year marks the park’s twenty-fifth anniversary and this fundraiser was a great way to kick off its summer season. The party featured a pig roast, which we didn’t attend because of the $200 price for those tickets, but we did arrive just in time for a stunning sunset, which is a common sight along the East River waterfront.
We have taken a fairly passionate liking to this park over the last couple of years. Not only is the park relatively close, it is hosts some great public programs: a weekly farmers market, outdoor screening series, and a few other events, such as last week’s summer solstice festival. It also helps that we can easily bicycle to this park, as it’s a mere two-mile ride, along Vernon Boulevard, from Hunters Point.
The party, dubbed “the Parkside of the Moon” was a party featuring DJs AndrewAndrew, a performance by Jacolby Satterwhite, cocktails mixed with Tito’s Handmade Vodka, and beer from a new Queens brewery, Singlecut Beersmiths.
Needing a bike ride and groceries, I rode from Long Island City to the Trader Joe’s in Rego Park. This is not a new ride for me, but my previous trips have been mostly via Metropolitan Avenue. Taking Metropolitan is no less than a nerve-wracking experience: cars zoom past you at 40 mph (less than a foot away from you), people opening their car doors without looking, and double-parked cars to circumnavigate. And there’s potholes!
Today, I took a route traveling on streets less busy than Metropolitan, such as Eliot Avenue and Juniper Valley Road. The route was a little less than seven miles, and it took me about 35 minutes at a pretty easy pace on my track bike.
Here’s the route:
Direction
Location
Distance
South
Vernon Blvd toward Borden Ave
Left
Borden Ave
0.9 mi
Right
Starr Ave
0.2 mi
Right
Van Dam St
174 ft
Right
35th St
433 ft
Left
Review Ave
0.7 mi
Right
56th Rd
0.8 mi
Continue on
Rust St
0.5 mi
Continue on
59th Dr
0.2 mi
Right
60th St
348 ft
Left
60th Ave
0.2 mi
Right
Fresh Pond Rd
0.2 mi
Left
Eliot Ave
0.6 mi
Right
69th St
0.4 mi
Left
Juniper Valley Rd
0.8 mi
Right
80th St
0.2 mi
Left
Metropolitan Ave
0.7 mi
Arrive
90-30 Metropolitan Ave, Rego Park
If you do this ride, you’ll find that it’s not very picturesque. Most of it follows the industrial district that hugs the Newtown Creek. Once you’re past Grand Ave, you go through the neighborhoods and cemeteries of Middle Village. There are a lot of trees providing a nice shade.
The only part of the ride that is a little tough is the short stretch on Eliot Avenue that crosses through the Lutheran Cemetery, where the road is very narrow. Beyond that, the streets are wide enough to allow cars to speed past you without coming too close. The final stretch is on Metropolitan Avenue though St. John’s Cemetery. Unlike most of Metropolitan Avenue, the street here is pretty wide allowing some room for cars to pass you.
Once you arrive, there is a bike rack outside on the store along Trotting Course Lane. Lock up, and shop away!
A local restaurant here in Long Island City went “cash-only” about a month ago. When they first implemented the strategy, one of their bartenders told me that it was a “new business decision.” I jokingly replied, “of course, it’s easier to hide cash.” Initially, they put up a sign indicating their anti-plastic policy, but over the course of the last few weeks, any notice of the policy has disappeared: it was not mentioned on their cocktail menu and there is no sign over the register. The lack of any sign made me think they abandoned the policy and returned to accepting credit cards.
The other evening, a couple of friends and I stopped by for a few drinks and to sit in an air-conditioned room. We ordered six $10 cocktails, and when the check came, we saw the “cash only” edict on the bill. None of us had brought much cash, thinking that they took plastic. They don’t. However, the restaurant’s management had conveniently installed an ATM in the back, charging a $1.75 transaction fee (in addition to whatever your bank might charge you). This seemed too opportunistic, and even a little sleazy.
If that wasn’t bad enough, they added sales tax to the $10 cocktail price. I’ve never seen any place add sales tax on a cocktails-only order. If a bar itemizes sales tax, the base price is a number that, when tax is added, reaches a nice even price. For example, our cocktails should have a base price of $9.18. Add 8.875% NY state and city sales tax, and you will get $9.99. And I’ll let them call it $10.
The biggest issue was that I had to get up, get cash from their ATM, and cobble together our payment. Not only was it bad enough that our six $10 cocktails actually cost $67.08, before tip, it just seemed mean. Bon Appetit’s Foodist also dislikes cash-only policies for restaurants, writing “It’s one thing for a sandwich shop or food truck to accept cash only, but when a place is charging $15 or more for entrees and offering wine by the bottle, not taking credit cards seems downright inhospitable.” Because of the added cost and inconvenience, I kind of stiffed the servers on the tip. I left only about a 10% tip, reasoning that the additional and completely unexpected costs made up the other 10%. Before they come after me, however, they might consider directing their ire towards the management and its “inhospitable” policies.
I won’t be back, and that’s a shame because the food and service were both quite good.
Years ago, I came across a giant rock north of 44th Drive in Long Island City. I was alone on my bike, and I didn’t take a picture of it. I promptly forgot where it was, and when I tried to tell people about it, I couldn’t provide a specific location.
10,000 years ago we had slow-paced glaciers in Long Island City. And it turns out that some of those glaciers started melting and depositing these giant boulders throughout their path called “erratics”.
LIC Spot locates the rock (or “erratic” to be more precise) on the corner of 43rd Ave and 12th St, in Long Island City.
I didn’t think much of the “LIC Rock” until I saw someone in the neighborhood wearing a t-shirt bearing the rock’s likeness and perhaps even identifying it as the “LIC Rock”. Maybe I should make that my new t-shirt project.
(Tip of the hat to Sarah for sending me the link.)
