November 27

• In which I introduce the neighborhood and the neighborhood introduces itself

• In which I slurp goat soup and am transfixed by a Nepali song competition

• In which I play Guess the Nationality of a grocery store and count the varieties of feta

• In which I admire Sunnyside’s residential buildings, where the sunny side of the street light ups up before my eyes

• In which I consider Sunnyside Yard, a potential colossal development project that would expand housing, transit and green space in western Queens

• In which I admire the history, aesthetics and landscaping of Sunnyside Gardens and Phipps Garden Apartments

November 30

• In which I go north despite my stated aim of going south, and consume cachapas in the cold

• In which I explore a concentration of houses of worship

• In which I sample, or at least observe, some arts and culture

• In which I describe the ever-growing history of filmmaking in western Queens

• Music for Sunnyside

******

What’s a flâneuse to do?

All neighborhoods deserve multiple visits. Sometimes I want a second (or third or fourth) look at a site I’ve already seen, but often the places that interest me are so geographically dispersed that I just can’t reach them all in a single visit.

Sunnyside demanded multiple visits to cover its 2,340 acre-span. I visited twice in one week. I was smitten with Sunnyside.

Day 1: November 27

Sunnyside is my ideal unremarkable place. It’s not written up in most New York City guides or history books; even Kenneth Jackson’s seminal tome The Encyclopedia of New York City (at almost 1,300 multi-columned pages, truly encyclopedic) didn’t have an entry for the little community in western Queens until its second edition.1

Sunnyside was a part of the city of Long Island City before and even after the neighborhoods were consolidated into the borough of Queens. After the construction of the Queensboro2 Bridge in 1909, it became a bona fide suburban community, with much of the local housing developed in the ‘20s and ‘30s.

Today it’s a quiet place with retail and manufacturing businesses, some fast food joints, a spectacular range of locally-owned restaurants representing pretty much any cuisine you can think of, and almost four square miles of quiet, red-brick buildings - Queens vernacular.

Dominated by no single ethnic or racial group, Sunnysiders are accustomed to living among many languages and cultures. My anecdotal impression was that my fellow pedestrians reflected the official demographics of the community: a third Hispanic, a third white, a quarter Asian and the rest Black and other/mixed race. And those descriptors don’t begin to capture the diversity within them.

Sunnyside is roughly bordered by 39^th Street and Long Island City to the west, the Long Island Expressway and Brooklyn Queens Expressway to the south, Calvary Cemetery and 52^nd Street (Woodside) to the east and Sunnyside Yards to the north.

Arrival: Announced with Art

I took the #7 subway to 46^th Street-Bliss. This station is the third of three on the #7 line that feature an art project installed in 1999 called Q is for Queens. (The others are the preceding two stations if you’re heading east: 33rd Street-Rawson and 40th Street-Lowery.) Artist Yumi Heo has created a series of stained-glass panels that pay tribute to the architectural, cultural and natural resources of the borough. Each panel represents a group of letters of the alphabet. 46th-Bliss Street gets Q-Z. Since Heo’s reach was borough-wide and her display space was limited to three stations, most of the panels represent places in other parts of Queens. Here’s an example from 46th Street:

And here’s the MTA’s guide to the images at all three stations. I found them charming. Pro tip: exit the train to see them best. The windows of the #7 train are barely clean enough to allow daylight in.

A giant Art Deco-style archway at 46^th Street greets visitors at the base of the station, proudly introducing itself by name: SUNNYSIDE. A community group erected the arch in 1983 to revitalize the commercial corridor, refurbishing it in 2009. The archway has become an iconic symbol of the neighborhood. A local brewery called Alewife even features an ale called Sunnyside Blonde, whose label depicts the archway.

The archway has always had fans and detractors – even now. Me, I like a town with pride of place. (I am also a fan of the brewery.)

The small plaza at the arch hosts markets and small festivals. It’s also home to an annual concert honoring jazz legend and multi-instrumentalist Bix Beiderbecke, a native Iowan who spent his final days in Sunnyside. Beiderbecke died in 1931 at the age of 28, but the concerts began 80 years later, in 2001. Better late than never for fans who want their fix of Bix.

Happy Gathering

Lunch was the first order of the day because, well, that’s how I roll. (“Happy belly, happy baby,” my father used to say - in Yiddish.)

But how to choose? In just a few blocks I saw Korean, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Romanian, Mexican, Filipino and Greek restaurants, and a pair of Irish pubs.

I continued along 47^th Avenue until I noticed a small door across the street with a poster of food photos. I crossed over to see that the images were of Himalayan food, but the place looked dark. I pushed on the door - hard - and it opened. Inside I found the interior of Gakyi Zompe (“Happy Gathering”) at 47-11 47^th Avenue, a lively, warm Himalayan restaurant, with tables topped by floral tablecloths, paintings of Tibetan (or Nepali?) people and yaks in traditional dress, and a few groups of men sitting around steaming bowls of soup.

A woman with limited English seated me and handed me a menu. The menu wasted no ink on descriptions, but the options were clear enough:

Chicken soup

Goat soup

Vegetable soup

Vegetable chowmein

Chicken chowmein

Beef chowmein

Pork chowmein

Beef momo

Chicken momo

Vegetable momo

Depending on your source, the menu is Tibetan, Nepalese or Bhutanese. Given the large numbers of Tibetan refugees in Nepal and Nepalese in Bhutan - and the close quarters of their new adopted home here in New York - the distinctions among the cuisines may be irrelevant.3

I ordered the chicken momo (dumplings) and goat soup. I asked the waitress to tell me how to say “goat soup” in Nepali. She told me – it included many syllables and some lovely whispery consonants – explaining that the first word meant “goat” and the second word, “soup.” As if we needed further evidence that we are more alike than different!

The momo were delicious – ground chicken with onion and herbs, perfectly-rolled dough. The goat soup was not exactly what I’d expected. Which was what? Something a little heftier than the thin, though flavorful, broth I got, I guess. But I will not tell a Himalayan chef how to prepare goat soup.

The highlight of the meal for me was The Voice of Nepal show playing on the TV mounted in the corner. I was mesmerized. The show is based on the international sensation show The Voice. Competitors perform pop songs before, or actually, behind, a panel of judges who are themselves either pop stars, former pop stars or Simon Cowell facsimiles – the tough-love industry insider whose approval is all the more gratifying when he showers praise on trembling competitors. (I think every country’s version of the Voice has a Cowell-like judge.) Success on the show emerges when the judges like the sound enough to turn their chairs around to face the musicians. The show has launched many a career.

Unfortunately for a music program, I couldn’t hear well – the volume was low (it was a restaurant, after all), the TV was about ten feet from my table, and other customers were doing what they should have been doing in a restaurant, i.e., clanging their spoons against their bowls, slurping and chatting. So I don’t actually know if the dialog was in English or Nepali or some combination.

But I could hear the amplified music. The sound was Nepali pop music. Not Indian film music and not western bubble gum, but unmistakably South Asian pop. I loved it. Even when the songs featured traditional instrumentation, the vibe was totally pop, as were the very 21^st century wardrobes worn by the hip contestants and judges.

I was intrigued to learn that the winner of Season 4 (2022) of The Voice of Nepal was actually an American! Karan Rai, an immigrant to the U.S. from Nepal, was born in a refugee camp in eastern Nepal that housed Bhutanese people of Nepali descent who had fled Bhutan in the 1980s. His family had gone to Bhutan for work opportunities. A series of repressive actions by the Bhutanese government taken against its sizable population of ethnic Nepalis – some have called it ethnic cleansing – caused many to flee or they were expelled back to Nepal. However, Nepal did not accept them either, leaving more than 100,000 people essentially stateless. They are known as the Lhotshampa, and they comprised about one-sixth of Nepal’s population.

Karan’s family was able to enter the U.S. as refugees, under a program that accepted 60,000 of the Nepali-Bhutanese-Nepali-stateless families. They were resettled in Louisville, Kentucky. (There is anecdotal evidence that others now live in Queens.)

When Karen learned (from Facebook!) that any Nepali speaker was eligible to compete on The Voice, he threw his hat in the ring. I was proud of my country for adopting Karan and his fellow Lhotshampa and proud of the Voice of Nepal for including him. And proud of Karan for winning! I guess! (I don’t really have an opinion on this, not having heard the competition.)

I was so entranced by the show, and by Karan’s story, which I read on my phone during the commercials, that I barely noticed one of the customers waving enthusiastically at me. A big old friendly wave, but other than smiles and gestures, we didn’t talk. I guess he assumed I was just another American screen addict.

I couldn’t stretch my goat soup out any longer, so I paid up and pulled out – before learning who’d won the competition.

Queens Red Brick

I wove up and down residential streets, noting the early 20^th century attached red brick houses, with their lovely geometric flourishes at the cornices. I don’t know who the architects of these workaday rowhouses was, but I was, and always am, moved by their decision to include a bit of imaginative embellishment in what are otherwise utilitarian structures. Everyone deserves a bit of beauty.

The buildings I’ve photographed here are two or three stories high. Most of the local residential structures are not more than six stories high. As I explained a previous post, six stories was the limit of the buildings’ ability to bring water to the top floor without the need for an expensive water tower. Builders also assumed that tenants would not walk up to a higher floor.

I was also thinking about how quiet and comfortable and convenient a neighborhood Sunnyside was, with its less-than-20-minute commute to Times Square.

Meta Feta

My food FOMO leads me to peer into practically every restaurant and market. I’m not proud of this compulsion, but occasionally I’m grateful for it.

When I passed the Parrot Coffee Market Place on Queens Boulevard, I assumed from a cursory glance that it was a generic American market…until I noticed a wall of Balkan red pepper spread. I did an about-face, entered, and wandered through the small aisles of products from throughout the Balkans and Turkey.

I spent the next half-hour trying to identify the store’s nationality, repeatedly thinking I’d figured it out from the merchandise and the conversations I overheard between the market’s staff and its customers. Aha! I thought. That’s a Turkish newspaper – of course! Then I’d spy Cyrillic product lettering and realize it must be Serbian or Macedonian! And then I’d see a map suggesting it was Albanian…!

I paused in the store’s bulk products aisle, which was evocative of so many Mediterranean markets. If I closed my eyes, I could distinguish the elements of the heady aroma of olives, coffee and za’atar. (Have I missed any?)

Balkan ajvar, a red pepper spread, is similar to the Romanian vegetable spread known as zacuscǎ, made with roasted peppers, eggplant and onions. Parrot, of course, carries both. And they are eye-catchingly red, a signal to passersby that they should do an about-face, enter and wander.

I made a pilgrimage to the feta cheese display case, marveling at the selection, the largest I’ve ever seen in the U.S. Some say feta is the oldest cheese in the world. From my perspective, there’s a reason for this. It’s food from the gods.

Parrot’s selection included:

Bulgarian (cow, goat, sheep), Greek (goat, sheep), Romanian (sheep), Macedonian (sheep), Albanian (sheep), French (goat, sheep), and more whose origins I didn’t note.

But wait! It turns out that many of these products may be in violation of E.U. law! In 2005, the European Union’s highest court ruled that feta is officially a Greek product – and not just Greek, but it must specifically come from one of seven regions in Greece. Just as tequila must come from the Jaliscan highlands of Mexico and champagne must come from, well, Champagne, feta is only feta if it’s produced in these areas.

The U.S., however does not recognize Greece’s ownership of the term. We Yanks consider “feta” a generic term. (Shhhh! Don’t tell the neighbors in nearby Astoria.)

The saleswoman at Parrot patiently offered me samples of several types of feta before I settled on the French sheep (what can I say, when it comes to food, there’s little the French don’t do better, whatever they call it).

When I paid for my cheese, I asked the woman what nationality the store considered itself. She just smiled and said “All Balkan.” Good enough for me. Parrot Coffee Market Place is located at 45-15 Queens Boulevard for All Your Balkan Plus Turkish needs.

But here’s a puzzle. Two blocks from Parrott Coffee Market Place is Parrott Coffee Market Place 2! I was as delighted as I was befuddled. PCMP2 is larger than its sister market to the west, with as many kinds of feta but also a full selection of meat and produce. I asked the clerk why they didn’t combine them. She suggested, sotto voce, that she’d heard the owners were planning to close one.

I learned later that the shop has several other locations in Queens and accepts online orders at parrotcoffee.com.

Sunny-side

It was getting cold and dark, but I was determined to see Sunnyside Gardens, an iconic planned community built 100 years ago. As I made my way there, architectural and commercial details lured me across the street more than once. The spectacular art deco doorway of Golden Gate Apartments, at 41-00 43^rd Avenue, made me gasp. So too did a fascinating one-story Walgreens in a deco building sporting an un-lettered coat of arms - built for a Fraternal Order of the Somethings, I suppose. (The pharmacy employees gave me blank looks when I asked if they knew its origin.)

It was chilly! I could have used a coat of arms. Wait, isn’t that what we call a hug?

I turned north on 43^rd Street just as the late afternoon light hit the east side, casting a heart-stopping glow on the block. Now I understood the neighborhood’s name! (Just kidding – the name comes from the French Hugenot family that bought the land in 1713 and named it Sunnyside Hill.) I crossed the street so I could photograph the sunny-side images, catching my breath at the impossibly electric hues. The newly bare trees and already red buildings positively shimmered.

Little Ado About A Big Something

43^rd Street ends at the Sunnyside Yard, which as of this writing is the site of a political debate about, of course, development. The proposed project comes out of a master plan developed by the City’s Economic Development Corporation and Amtrak in 2014. It includes a transportation hub that would accommodate all the region’s commuter rail lines plus Amtrak; green space; and 12,000 units of housing, including half for low-income tenants and half for middle-income. The plan evolved in response to public input and was revised and reissued in 2020.

Many locals are delighted – some have called it a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Others are distrustful, protesting that the social benefits (housing, parks, transit) are not sufficiently prescriptive and could expedite the gentrification already underway in the area, and that the #7 train won’t be able to absorb the new residents.

I’m on Team Art of Compromise: push the damn thing forward. 4

Sunnyside Yard: Interlocking Developments

Sunnyside Yard is home to the busiest railroad interchange in the U.S., a transportation landmark so important you’ve probably never heard of it. The Harold Interlocking, or “Harold,” as transit engineers call it, is the junction where the Long Island Railroad and Amtrak converge, and where signals prevent crashes and derailments every day. Seven hundred eighty-three trains pass through its controls each day.

The interchange is now controlled from Penn Station in Manhattan, so I couldn’t see any action, but that’s the point: its work is intended to be undetectable. It is a marvel.

The interlocking was built in 1908, but its first significant renovation didn’t take place until 1990, which I thought was a surprising interregnum considering the technological developments of the intervening years. More reconstruction began in 2009 as part of the LIRR’s recent billion-dollar addition of a stop at Grand Central. (Those renovations now need further work, to the frustration of railroad constituents, taxpayers and local pols.)

I wondered about the Harold’s unusual name. Turns out it was named for a nearby street called Harold Avenue, which was at some point renamed 39^th Avenue. (No one seems to know who Harold was, however.) This name change represents a true loss of color, IMHO. It would be one thing if the renaming served to bring the street into conformance with a rational system of numbered streets in Queens. The borough’s repetitively and seemingly randomly numbered streets, roads, drives and avenues drive New Yorkers from other boroughs mad. (I’ll explain the crazy street numbering as I make my way through other Queens neighborhoods.)

But it wasn’t just Harold whose origin I questioned. I found it jarring to see “interlocking” used as a noun. Could it be? I checked a few railroad glossaries (yes, such exists, e.g., here and here). Shockingly interlockingless. Thank goodness for Wikipedia, which offers a history of the term. In 1856 a British engineer (pun intended) received the first patent for “interlocking switches and signals.” No one could argue that’s a mouthful. So they just noun-ified it.

Call it what you want. It saves lives.

Gardens/Apartments

Abutting the rail yards are the iconic residential developments known as Sunnyside Gardens and Phipps Garden Apartments, built between 1924 and 1928. They are often described as the nations’ first planned “garden community,” although other developments around the country - including the socialist Jewish housing complexes in the Bronx, built in the same decade - vie with them for that distinction.

When it opened, Sunnyside Gardens included 1,202 rowhouses and apartments across 55 acres within 17 city blocks, designed for middle-income renters and homeowners. They were inspired by the 19th-century English Garden City movement, which sought to integrate housing and landscape architecture to maximize urban and non-urban benefits. Deed restrictions guaranteed the properties’ long-term shared green spaces. In fact, their private backyards and the adjoining park are virtually the only parks in Sunnyside, and they belong exclusively to the residents of the developments.5 Like the surrounding housing, the buildings here are low-density homes, most six or fewer stories.

Social historian and New Yorker architecture critic Lewis Mumford was an original and probably the complex’s most renowned resident; nearby Skillman Avenue has been co-named Lewis Mumford Way in his honor. Musicians Rudy Valée, Judy Holliday and Perry Como are also alumni, along with actor James Caan.

As Close as it gets to “Park” in these Parts

In addition to the “courts” of green space and the backyards belonging to individual units, Sunnyside Gardens Park includes a spacious playground that was full of children and their caregivers on the cold sunny afternoon I visited. (The door was open, which I interpreted as an invitation, but officially it’s for Gardeners only.) The area felt like a secret garden, or a small town – as the planners intended. I couldn’t believe it was just blocks from the subway. It charmed me completely. I envied the sense of community as well as the individual and communal green spaces.

The covenants restricting backyards expired in 1964, permitting the sale of some of the common space to homeowners desiring more outdoor space. Since then, neighbors have debated, sometimes vehemently and even in court, how to balance homeowners’ rights and the preservation of the area’s unique character.

Unlike some housing developments, Sunnyside Gardens and Phipps never had covenants barring people of color. It was always a mixed-income development and sought to include low- and middle-income residents. That it has housed few Black residents is a reflection of the neighborhood’s demographics then and now - a dynamic that goes far beyond its borders. (Today its residents are about 28% Latino, 28% Asian, 41% White and 3% Black, like the rest of Sunnyside.)

Moving East is Moving Left?

During the Depression, Sunnyside Gardens homeowners and tenants - many left-leaning and inclined to collective action - waged a rent and mortgage strike; many had lost their jobs and couldn’t make their monthly payments. Their efforts were ultimately in vain, resulting in large-scale evictions and departures. But families, including many artists and writers, continued to arrive, mostly from Manhattan; at one point the influx of young families there earned the complex the moniker “the maternity ward of Greenwich Village.”

The early residents clearly and, may I say, unfairly, had it in for my own neighborhood, the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Their theme song, a spoof on a 1929 song and film Sunny Side Up, goes thus:

Come to Sunnyside now, now

Finest spot in the town

Some folks live on Riverside Drive

Their rents would keep armies alive

There are mansions on West End

But if you’d get the best end

Throw your cares away

Really there’s a way

Come to Sunnyside now.6

Adjacent Phipps Garden Apartments (472 units, constructed in 1931) also locates residential buildings around thoughtfully-planned courtyards. Phipps and Sunnyside Gardens shared a Cornell-trained landscape architect named Marjorie Sewell Cautley. Together they form the Sunnyside Gardens Historic District, placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 and landmarked by the City in 2007.

*****

By now it had grown quite late and quite cold, and I knew it was time to head home. I strolled along Skillman Avenue, resisting the temptations of a Colombian bakery and a Turkish market before boarding the train where I’d begun my day. I knew I’d be back.

Day 2: November 30

But I didn’t anticipate how soon I’d return! A few days later I had a “why not today?” moment and hopped on the train to see the areas south of Queens Boulevard. Here, real estate prices are reportedly lower despite what appeared to me to be comparably desirable residential streets.

This time I was struck by the amount of new development on the Boulevard: several sleek glass-and-steel high-rise apartment buildings are under construction, suggesting higher-end rentals or condos. Gentrification discussions are lively and fraught as young people and families priced out of Astoria and Long Island City, to say nothing of Manhattan, creep eastward.

Despite my plans to head south, I started my visit a block north of the boulevard so I could check out a new Venezuelan place called Joropo (45-12 43^rd Avenue). Venezuelan immigrants have flooded New York City since the spring of 2022, with tens of thousands arriving here without the benefit of earlier waves of immigrants from their country. Most have settled a bit east of Sunnyside, among the city’s communities of other Latin Americans (Ecuadoreans, Colombians, Peruvians, Guatemalans, Mexicans and more). But Sunnyside is adjacent and the boundaries are, as always, fuzzy.

Cachapa and Ketchup

The tiny restaurant – on the same block as the Walgreens with the coat of arms - seats about 15 diners. It was decorated sparsely but with obvious care, with Venezuelan musical instruments and crafts mounted on one wall.

I asked the server (maybe she was the owner?) to explain the difference between arepas and cachapas, two kinds of corn cakes (think of a thick tortilla) popular in Venezuela and featured on the menu. She explained that arepas use white corn meal and tend to be thinner, while cachapas are made from sweet corn meal.

Cachapas were new to me, so I tried one, with homemade cheese and chicken. Joropo served it with a garlic mayo (salsa de ajo, which I learned later is a standard condiment in Venezuelan dining) and, at my request, a hot sauce. The mayo was a delicious supplement, but the hot sauce was not much more than ketchup with a tepid touch.

I enjoyed the meal, but the real problem was that the salsa wasn’t the only thing lacking heat: the place had none at all. The waitress, who disappeared behind the counter for most of my meal, was wearing an ankle-length fur coat against the day’s below-freezing temperatures. (From her outerwear, I surmised that she had not recently crossed the Darién Gap.) A space heater hanging from the wall was completely ineffectual, if it was even on.

The only way to close the front door - to keep the cold out - was to click it shut, which activated the lock. That meant that anytime a customer arrived they had to knock repeatedly and wait for the woman to unlock the door. But she was hiding out in her fur coat in the kitchen with the warm ovens, so the rest of us – a few young women who seemed to know her, and I – had to call out to her or open the door ourselves. I dined in my fleece vest and down jacket.

I will return in the warmer weather to enjoy Joropo’s attractive outdoor dining shed – with my own salsa picante. Joropo is at 45-12 43rd Avenue.7

Church…

After lunch I headed south, as planned. At the corner of Greenpoint Avenue – a major commercial corridor in the neighborhood – I was struck by the number of houses of worship. First I passed the Assembly Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, notable for its Egyptian Revival-style tabernacle built in 1931 as the Bliss Theater. I thought it looked elegant but a little campy (like a theater!). The style was popular at the time (though not, I think, for churches).

And yes, this is the same Bliss as the guy for whom the 46^th Street subway station is named – Neziah Bliss, the founder of Long Island City and also the primary developer of Greenpoint.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses church’s name is spelled out clearly on the edge of the marquee, while a small serviceable addition appears on the wall to the right, almost as an afterthought: “jw.org.” I mention the URL only because according to the church, that website is available in 300 languages. According to Ross Perlin, author of Language City,8 it’s actually available in more than a thousand languages, making it the most multi-lingual website on the internet.9

Around the corner from the church/theater, on 48th Avenue, are two more houses of worship, one across the street from the other, and a third that was recently sold and repurposed. The first is Saint Nicholas Romanian Orthodox Church, a beautiful structure built in the 1980s and ‘90s in the traditional Eastern Orthodox style, and further decorated and completed just last year, according to church records. I was only able to see its ornate gold and stained glass and Byzantine-style paintings on the street-facing façade. Online images from the interior – the church was locked when I visited, so I’m taking their word for it – are even more opulent.

Who are the members of the church’s congregation? Queens has New York City’s largest Romanian population (though not by much - Brooklyn is a close second). New York is actually the Romanianist city in the country. Ridgewood and Glendale (Queens) may have more Romanians (and Romanian churches) than Sunnyside, but Sunnyside’s is up there. Romanian restaurants, bakeries and professional services are located on Queens Boulevard and other nearby commercial stretches. And, of course, Parrott Coffee carries foods from the old country.

Until 2018, Saint Nicholas sat next to another church - the New York Korean Church of the Nazarene. (It’s an apartment building now.) And across the street is Sunnyside/Woodside Masjid (mosque), which I understand caters mostly to a Bengali-speaking (but Arabic-worshipping) congregation.

Sacred ground, Sunnyside.

…and Chow, South American style

This area of Queens is full of Latin American food: Colombian, Peruvian, Mexican, Ecuadorean, Guatemalan.

But not Paraguayan. Across the street from the constellation of churches, two dogs and two dog-walkers were standing at the door of a Paraguayan restaurant called I Love Paraguay (43-16 Greenpoint Avenue). The only one other Paraguayan restaurant in New York City (also in Queens) is an off-shoot of this one. As a stranger to the cuisine, I was curious. I saw from the menu that Paraguayan cooking is similar to Argentine food, with an abundance of empanadas and grilled meats. I’ll be back. 10

Continuing the South American theme, Bolivian Llama Party on the next block has a cult following. It got its start in the underground food hall at the Columbus Center subway station in Manhattan and also had a Rockaway Beach location. Both are now closed.

BLP describes its signature salteñas as “a cross between an empanada and a soup dumpling.” It didn’t appear to be open, but then it didn’t seem closed either: the lights were out, but music was blaring loudly from outdoor speakers (the excellent Peruvian salsa musicians Josimir y su Yambú). I waited at the take-out counter, but no employee showed up. This was actually very good fortune, because I probably wouldn’t have been able to resist a salteña and I was already stuffed like a cross between an empanada and a soup dumpling.

BLP may be the only Bolivian restaurant in New York. I had the salteñas in the Manhattan location and can vouch for them. But many years ago I travelled in Bolivia and can confirm that it is not one of the world’s great cuisines, salteñas notwithstanding. Please try them and tell me what you think! BLP is located at 44-14 48th Avenue.

Storytelling Settings

I ducked into the library next door. Adults of all ages - this was during school hours, after all - were reading, and two men were engaged in a silent game of high-concentration, hourglass-timed chess.

Several bays of books in Spanish, Korean and Chinese, as well as one marked “International Languages” - I noted, with curiosity, Turkish, Finnish and Romanian - lined one wall of the small space. Like all libraries in the system, the check-out system is digital, so it’s impossible to determine when some of these volumes were last taken to someone’s home (I tried!), and the library system does not publish the languages of checked-out books, only titles. So we can only imagine.

Down a block or two on Greenpoint Avenue is the Thalia Spanish Theater, for years the only Spanish-language theater in the city and “a cultural gem,” if it doesn’t say so itself (on its website).11

Since 1997, the theater has showcased drama, dance and music from Spain and Latin America. I’d heard about it for years and was surprised to see how modest the façade was – and how, well, let’s just say it could use a little holiday love. The theater was closed when I arrived, but was advertising its Christmas show, running for the next few weeks and featuring Colombian-American pop music.

Queens Screens

Sunnyside, adjacent Long Island City and Astoria have another important industry in the news today. On November 15 of this year, the city broke ground on the $275 million development of East End Studios’ Sunnyside movie production campus. East End, which will be located adjacent to Calvary Cemetery, joins Silvercup Studios on the Long Island City-Sunnyside border (with additional sites in LIC), Kaufman Astoria Studios and the in-progress Wildflower Studios further north, making western Queens a destination for film production.

This is not a new phenomenon. The area has been a moviemaking mecca for a century: Astoria Studios opened in 1920 as the New York location of Paramount Pictures, and has remained open almost continuously since then in some capacity. In recent years, Netflix, Apple TV, HBO and even Jim Henson’s Sesame Street have all produced series there.

Wandering Through and Beyond

I spent the rest of the afternoon strolling among Sunnyside’s residential streets, full of Unmistakable Queens Red Brick. This part of the neighborhood, which abuts Long Island City, also has lots of industrial blocks, and I peered into the windows of manufacturing facilities when I could.

From the bridge that connects Sunnyside and “downtown” Long Island City, the latter looks like its own little Big City, with its gleaming high-rise residences and office buildings. From a distance, LIC’s skyscrapers are indistinguishable from those in the backdrop of midtown Manhattan. How much longer till Sunnyside gets its own?

I’ll Be Back!

I grew extremely fond of Sunnyside during my walks. I know that gentrification has arrived, and that LIC’s glass-and-steel vibe is metastasizing eastward. Perhaps the railyards project will bring some surprises – some green space, some mixed housing. I’ll be watching.

Music for both days

• Karan Rai on The Voice of Nepal, Season 4 – a slick, overproduced gem. I love every minute. Watch him engage with the judges. (He is well past the chair-swiveling phase here.)

• Bix Beiderbecke, Rhythm King (1928), with brilliant early Mickey Mouse animation.

• Joropo (also the name of the restaurant) is the 300-year-old national music and dance of Venezuela. Originating in the plains (el llano, so the music is referred to as música llanera), it has regional variants, but here’s a sweet piece that represents the genre as a whole, performed by one of its iconic interpreters, Ángel Custodio Loyola (1926-85). The music is popular in Colombia as well. Also heck out this short bit of joropo dance.

I can’t get enough of this stuff. Joropo is dope-o.

• Josimir y su Yambú, La Protagonista (Peruvian, not Bolivian)

• Here’s an adorable internet meme I wish I’d made: The Sunnyside Song

• You didn’t think I’d leave you without this, did you?

Notes

• In which I suppose I looked lost or out of place

• In which I introduce Indo-Caribbean South Richmond Hill

• In which my friends and I eat scrumptious food at a daytime night club

• In which we shop along Liberty Avenue, exploring food and other items

• In which I survey Little Punjab

• In which I visit the Richmond Hill branch of the Queens Public Library

• In which I almost miss the parklet called Jacob Riis Triangle

• In which I zig and zag through Victorian Richmond Hill

• Music for today

*******

“Are you lost?” inquired a kind gentleman as I admired the homes along two-block-long 102^nd Avenue in South Richmond Hill. I assured him I was not. “Oh,” he replied, “I thought you might be lost because I saw you walking on Liberty Avenue earlier.”

And an hour later: “Are you guys lost…or just visiting from out of town?” This from a young woman walking with her friends, directed at my companions and me. We assured her we weren’t lost, and explained that we were visiting from elsewhere in New York. She seemed puzzled by the idea that we would wander around for no other reason than to get to know part of our own city.

Was she from here? we asked. Yes, she said, but originally from Guyana. Was there anything she thought a visitor should see while in the area? She hesitated. “The food,” she finally affirmed, and recommended her favorite roti shop. We explained that we’d just dined at Singh’s Roti Shop & Bar and couldn’t possibly fit more goodies in. But I made a note of her recommendation for a future visit.

It’s not uncommon for me to stand out in the neighborhoods I visit, but it’s rare for someone to approach me (for good or ill). Not only didn’t I mind; I appreciated the acknowledgment that I was not likely from the area, and the generous, if bemused, offer of assistance.

This neighborhood-of-neighborhoods is a thrilling one, as much for the complexity of each part as for what appears to be their peaceful co-existence. I will describe them as I experienced them: South Richmond Hill, Little Punjab, Richmond Hill. Any one of these could be a full day’s visit (or more). Come for Phagwah! Or one of the many Sikh festivals along 101st Avenue! Or for a stroll in Forest Park and some meandering through Richmond Hill’s famous historic homes.

Island Life: An Orientation

A New Yorker could be forgiven for some disorientation on arriving in Richmond Hill, especially south of Atlantic Avenue, where the community is heavily populated by Indo-Caribbeans from Guyana and Trinidad. She might wonder how she got to the islands1 without actually taking off from or landing at nearby JFK Airport.

I started my walk at the intersection of Liberty Avenue and the Van Wyck Expressway underpass. This is South Richmond Hill. Liberty Avenue, its two-mile-long main commercial thoroughfare, is lined with restaurants and food stores featuring Indian food and products from Guyana and Trinidad, professional offices with Indian-named attorneys, doctors, even spiritual healers. Newspapers with Guyanese-American readership feature relevant New York-based stories as well as news from back home. Guyanese and Trinidadians can get any ingredient or dish from home, or visit any traditional Hindu house of prayer, known as mandirs, or churches or mosques.

Richmond Hill abuts Jamaica to the east, Kew Gardens to the north, South Ozone Park to the south, and Ozone Park and Woodhaven to the west. The Van Wyck Expressway, which forms the eastern boundary of Richmond Hill also serves as a de facto racial divide, with Black residents to the east in Jamaica and Indo-Caribbeans to the west in South Richmond Hill and South Ozone Park. (It’s a fuzzy border, to be sure, as these things usually are, and because of intermarriage, so are the human boundaries.) It’s unclear to what extent this is the result of active redlining and other forms of discrimination, how much is the insularity of immigrant enclaves or some other factor.

I’m going to distinguish here between Richmond Hill in the northern part of the region and South Richmond Hill to the south, though many maps and analyses simply refer to them jointly as Richmond Hill. But they are clearly two distinct neighborhoods – perhaps three, if you consider Little Punjab, separated from Liberty Avenue by only two blocks, a distinct microneighborhood.

Who Lives Here?

The Indo-Caribbeans of Richmond Hill are descendants of the indentured laborers brought by the colonial British to the West Indies from India to fill labor shortages after the British abolished slavery in 1838. Indian laborers worked on the expansive sugar cane plantations under arduous conditions just millimeters more tolerable than slavery; in fact it was sometimes called neo-slavery. The system continued for nearly 80 years until, in 1917, the British ended the brutal practice, in part responding to the pressure from Indian nationalist protest and in part from the competing demands of the First World War. Today, 40-45% of Guyanese have Indian roots, while the figure in Trinidad is around 35-40%.

Guyanese people begin coming to New York 100 years ago, but the most propulsive wave of immigration came in the economically turbulent 1970s and 80s, when fully 8% of the nation’s population emigrated.2 Today, with an estimated 140,000 people, Guyanese comprise the fifth-largest immigrant group in New York City and the second-largest in Queens (!), while Trinidadians are a smaller but still significant population.

South Richmond Hill, the community’s cultural, residential and commercial capital, has grown rapidly, replacing previous generations of residents of Italian, Irish and German descent. Other Guyanese communities thrive in Brooklyn and the Bronx, but there’s nothing like Richmond Hill’s Little Guyana, which bleeds into neighboring South Ozone Park and Jamaica.

By many metrics, Guyanese immigrants are doing well. In addition to their lively entrepreneurship along and near Liberty Avenue, they have a relatively high rate of homeownership. Multi-generation families often purchase homes in Queens, Brooklyn and Long Island at rates that exceed those of even other Caribbean immigrants (whose homeownership rates are already high). Guyanese-Americans find employment throughout the economy, including civil service positions, healthcare and other stable (often unionized) workforces. For others, the dislocation from poverty in Guyana to the financial challenges of New York means that poverty and the social indicators that accompany it - chronic illness, low educational attainment and low health insurance coverage rates among them - are an ongoing struggle.

Distinct diasporas: Several blocks north of Liberty Avenue is 101^st Avenue, also known as Punjab Avenue or Little Punjab for its large Punjabi Sikh community. 101^st Avenue has its own grocery stores, restaurants, professional offices and temples, all with a Punjabi accent. Politically, Little Punjab and Little Guyana are connected, if only through their disconnection: several legislators represent the area, with none taking firm responsibility for them, according to some. Locals are seeking to use the state’s redistricting process to remedy that.

The descendants of Indian laborers from Guyana and Trinidad mix relatively little with those who come directly from India.3 Similarly, Guyanese and Trinidadian immigrants of African origin tend to reside in other Black West Indian communities, rather than with their Indo-Caribbean neighbors from back home. This is not to say there is no mixing – I heard numerous examples to the contrary, but it’s a general pattern.

Where’s the Hill in Richmond Hill?

You won’t see it, but a glacial moraine explains the designation. The Richmond part of the name was a real estate decision, borrowed from the suburban London community of the same name where the family of the neighborhood’s principal developer, Albon Platt Man, had lived.

The area was originally the home of the Rockaway tribe of the Lenape. English settlers arrived in 1660, establishing some modest farms. In 1868, Man, a Manhattan lawyer, purchased more than 400 acres here, creating a garden community - a suburb of Manhattan for affluent New Yorkers seeking a semi-rural, and very English, environment. Most of the homes in the historic district to the north, where they would have lived, were constructed between 1890 and 1915. The arrival of the subway - one line in 1915, and two years later, another - fast-tracked development for working-class New Yorkers.

Street Life: Prayer Flags and Steel Gates

Walking through the residential streets, I was humbled to see the error of my conviction that stainless steel fences, gates and doorways were the strict provenance of Chinese immigrants. Turns out Guyanese-Americans are also partial to them. In addition to the steel gates and doors, many Guyanese decorate their modest front yards with colorful Hindu prayer flags on poles, six or seven stuck into a flowerpot or directly into the ground. The many-hued flags, some showing the wear of New York City weather, are an arresting sight.

It is the Food, Stupid

The highlight of the area for visitors really is the food. Everyone wants to show it off. Indo-Caribbean food is popular with everyone in the West Indies, not just those of Indian descent. While the cuisine shares spices and other preparations with its Indian roots, it is distinctly its own, borrowing from the African, Spanish and Creole traditions found in Trinidad and Guyana and using ingredients from those countries’ tropical locations.

We chose one of the most popular places, not because we’d heard it was the best (everyone has a favorite, as our inquiring friend made clear when she stopped us on the street), but because it had plenty of lunchtime seating on this rainy day.

Probably the best-known of Liberty Avenue’s Guyanese specialty shops is Sybil’s, where people come from near and far to try the old favorites and then some. I inhaled the aroma of the items at Sybil’s steam table. But indoor seating is limited, and the rain drew us to a place with a roof. So we moved on. But do check out their Instagram page, which features food and fans. Better yet, try their roti.

Singh’s Roti Shop and Bar (131-118 Liberty Avenue) is a beloved Trinidadian restaurant by day and club by night, complete with disco lights and DJ - and plenty of seating. During the day the music is quieter but constant. Indo-Caribbeans charmingly call their tunes chutney music. It’s a combination of traditional Indian music, especially Bhojpuri folk music, and West Indian calypso and soca music, with some Bollywood thrown in for good measure.

We queued up to place our order, encouraged by the crowd of eager eaters. The young man in front of us told us his sister had sent him here. She was on her way to visit him from North Carolina, and she insisted that when he met her at the airport he should carry a healthy supply of roti and doubles from Singh’s, which she had tried on her previous visit to New York and believed was the closest thing to the food of their native Guyana. He ordered a dozen. He could see from my raised eyebrows that I was impressed by their appetites. He smiled.

We weren’t sure if we’d wind up with what we thought we’d ordered because the loud music, the display case separating us from the employee dishing out the food, and our respective accents had all contributed to some uncertainty about whether he’d understood our order. But we were delighted with what we got, which was, in fact, what we’d intended. The chickpea flour roti filled with pumpkin and chana (chickpeas in a seasoned sauce) was my favorite. I tried to identify the ingredients in the rich flavors. All I know is that the distinctive depth and heat of the West Indian scotch bonnet pepper and the creamy umami of the pumpkin puree were knock-outs.

As we ate, we glanced through copies of Guyana Diaspora Digest and other newspapers strewn about the dining room. The stories reflected news from Guyana rather than issues immediately relevant to the community in New York – with the exception of extensive advertising promoting a certain local real estate interest.

After lunch, we wandered along now-dry Liberty Avenue, poking into stores to see produce, clothing, and other items and perusing the menus of Singh’s competitors. Chinese influence is evident in some of Guyana’s most popular foods: “chowmein” (noodles) and “fry rice,” reflecting Chinese immigration to the islands. In one market, we noted that many of the products were imported from India, not Guyana or Trinidad.

Some familiar produce had different names. For instance, what we (at least through translation from the Chinese) call bitter fruit, the Guyanese call karela, pronounced, a Guyanese friend tells me, “KY-rila”; the Guyanese name for taro is “eddoes.” Some items I simply didn’t recognize.

I bought some Guyanese pepper sauce and also some cassareep (which Guyanese pronounce “caz-REEP”), a thick molasses-like sauce made from cassava root and spices which is a staple of Indo-Caribbean cuisine. I’d seen it in a video demonstrating how to make pepper pot, a rich beef stew that cooks for three or four hours (or one hour, in a pressure cooker, as some modern folks do it). Pepper pot uses cow foot, which I’ve never (to my knowledge) eaten, but I suppose that if I’m not a vegetarian I ought to face up to the fact that hamburger animals have feet that should not be wasted.4

We tried a variety of pastries at Little Guyana Bake Shop (116-04 Liberty Avenue), which was much more than a bakery. I’d looked forward to trying a pine-tart (a triangular pastry filled with pineapple jam); we also tried a currant roll and some coconut cookies at the suggestion of a small crowd of customers who were all eager for us to sample their favorites. Let’s just say I preferred the roti at Singh’s.

Not-food too!

Next to the bakery, Anjee’s sells saris and shalwar kameez as well as pooja (prayer) items. Across the street? Anjee’s Cheaper & Better store. But feel free to go to the More Expensive and Worse shop – Anjee gives you a choice.

We saw many businesses selling the everyday amenities that all communities need: hardware stores, hair salons, 99-cent shops, dental practices. We also saw more shops selling prayer items and traditional Indian clothing.

Most Indo-Caribbeans in Guyana and Trinidad today are Hindu, with Muslim and Christian minorities. (Some reports suggest that among immigrants, Christians comprise a plurality.) Shri Lakshmi Narayan Mandir, one of the largest Hindu temples in the area, has been a house of worship and community center for 30 years. Other temples dot the area, and in the spring, local residents throw a huge party in the streets for the holiday of Phagwah, the Hindu festival of color. (Phagwah is the name used in the Indian diaspora; Indians call it Holi.)

During Phagwah, locals smear each other with paint powder and dye to commemorate the evil queen Holika’s foiled attempt to slay the crown prince Prahlada, who remained devoted to Lord Vishnu rather than pledge allegiance to the demon king Hiranyakashipu (Holika’s husband). Phagwah is also a festival of spring: of rebirth, of fertility.

The boisterous, explosively colorful celebration of Phagwah is a funfest of love, both in Guyana and Richmond Hill (the best place in the U.S. to experience it Guyanese-style), as are Holi-days in India.

The Rajkumari Center at 122-09 Liberty Avenue is dedicated to promoting Indo-Caribbean culture. Hosting holiday celebrations, music, theater and poetry, the center honors traditions that have been handed down from India to Guyana to the U.S. and which have evolved along the way.5 If you can’t make it to Phagwah, consider a performance here.

And check out Guyanese-American poet Rajiv Mohabir, whose spare but unsparing verse addresses the cruel taboos in Guyanese culture against queer love. Mohair spent some of his childhood in Richmond Hill.

Little Punjab

At this point my friends had to leave. I marched northward.

In 2020, the City proclaimed 101st Avenue “Punjab Avenue,” bestowing a formal secondary street name on the avenue between 111th and 123rd Streets. 101st Avenue is just two blocks north of Liberty Avenue. Its businesses include Punjab Unisex Hair Salon, Maharani Bridal Shop and Punjabi Daba Restaurant. In addition to retail, 101st Avenue has a lot of warehouses, reflecting the area’s proximity to JFK Airport. Several Sikh temples – one in particular, an impressive new gold-domed structure on 118^th Street called the Sikh Cultural Society and Gurudwara (temple) – are scattered throughout the area.

Punjabi Sikhs have been settling in Richmond Hill since the 1980s, with the heaviest growth in the ‘90s. As is the case with most New York City neighborhoods, they replaced previous generations of immigrants, here mostly Italians. There are probably about 18,000-20,0006 Punjabis in New York now, of whom the greatest concentration lives in Richmond Hill. In addition to Punjab Avenue, two other streets with secondary street names reflect their significant presence: 97th Street between Lefferts Boulevard and 117th Street, since 2020 co-named Gurdwara Street, and 118th Street between 101st and 95th Avenues, co-named in 2023 for the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak (it’s called Guru Nanak Way).

Three honorific street signs! Securing such recognition requires considerable political mobilization. Given that both the Punjabi and Indo-Caribbean immigrant community settled in the area around the same time, and that the Punjabi population is a fraction of the size of the Indo-Caribbeans, it’s quite surprising that the area’s “Little Guyana” secondary street name wasn’t unveiled until 2021. As one Guyanese-American local commented at the unveiling of the sign, “I’m extremely proud but…sad to say that we don't have the kind of political representation the community should have gotten after these years.”

A local Punjabi reacted this way when the 2020 street names recognizing his community were unveiled: “It was a proud moment, because having your own Punjab Avenue and naming the street to your background, your culture in America—it’s better than you can ask for.”

I was curious about the concentration of immigrants from a single Indian state here. Was the explanation that they shared a religion? A language? A culture? The answer is yes. Gujarati immigrants have created community in New Jersey, Tamil speakers in the Bay Area, Sikhs in Northern California - and here in Richmond Hill.

Sikhs in particular are drawn to one another for religious practice - and perhaps for the strength of community. Sikhs have been the target of terrible racial prejudice and violence. Their visible difference (men wear turbans and do not cut their hair, including facial hair) makes them recognizable, although ignorant Americans after 9/11 only knew that they were different, murdering a Sikh man in Arizona because they believed he was Muslim.7

In Richmond Hill, houses of worship from different faiths share the blocks (this is Queens, after all): St. Benedict Joseph Labre Catholic Church (from 1919), one called a “Full Gospel Non-Denominational Ministry” offering Deeper Life (which may be its name?), promising “What Christians Should Know,” and the Bangladesh Buddhist Vihara (temple) of New York, whose entryway proclaims “May all beings be happy.” Only about 1% of Bangladeshis practice Buddhism, so this is a very specific community (as I say, something for everyone).

En Route to the Mansions

Hopped up on holy houses, I pushed on, in pursuit of Richmond Hill’s famous Queen Anne homes, said to rival those in Prospect Park South and Ditmas Park.

My walk took me along Jamaica Avenue, under the tracks of the J train, between the 104th Street and 121st Street stops. This is the main commercial area serving Richmond Hill (as opposed to Liberty Avenue in South Richmond Hill). The shops were of the mom and pop variety, with a handful of fast food chains.

Maybe it’s counterintuitive, with the ordinariness of the shops lining the street here, but I found the area cozy and neighborly. With the afternoon light pouring through the slats of the tracks above, I was smitten.

Richmond Hill was hard hit by COVID, having the highest rate of infections in Queens, along with its neighbor South Ozone Park. And yet it didn’t surprise me to learn that during the dark early days of the pandemic, neighbors came out every evening around here to celebrate the essential workers who kept us going, many who lived right here. One reporter recounts Richmond Hill neighbors’ recollections:

Every night at 7:00, when it was time to make noise to show appreciation for the city’s essential workers, neighbors came out on their porches and stoops to ring bells and bang pans. Some draped red, white, and blue lights along their porch rails, some had candles in their windows. Santoro says that when her parents, who had been sick with Covid, came out on their porch for the first time, “there was a virtual mini-riot.”

The Story of Richmond Hill

Onward, to a new part of Richmond Hill.8

But first, a pause: I needed to charge my phone. I headed to my usual charging station – the local library. I carry a portable battery with me at all times, but sometimes it’s more enjoyable to re-charge myself as well as my phone with a short break. To my list of reasons to love libraries, let me add that they provide a welcoming place to rest (they even offer rooms designed for rest, which meet other needs as well).

The Richmond Hill library (officially, the Queens Public Library at Richmond Hill), at 118^th and Hillside Avenue, dates from 1905, one of a half-dozen in Queens built by Andrew Carnegie. It’s a yellow-brick, single-story structure, with a notable WPA mural called The Story of Richmond Hill (1936-37), by Philip Evergood - a melodramatic panorama depicting the tension between rural and city life.

Evergood (1901-73) achieved some celebrity in his lifetime. He struggled financially until the 1930s, when recognition by collector Joseph Hirshhorn gave him the break he’d sought. His work is now exhibited in some of the finest museums in the US, including, locally, MoMA, the Met, the Whitney and the Brooklyn Museum, in addition to some two dozen other museums around the country and in London. This appears to be the only civic building artwork Evergood created in New York.

The library was reasonably busy on a weekday afternoon, but the librarian was proud to show me the mural. I think she was delighted that someone was interested; other patrons seemed indifferent.

The children’s room (added in 1929) was busy, with a well-attended after-school program. I noticed fewer foreign-language books than in other branches - not surprising given that English is the language of most immigrants here.

Across the street from the library is a Colonial Revival building called The Republican Club. Yes, those Republicans. It was the local club’s headquarters from 1908 until the 1980s, where party leaders such as Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan addressed the local caucus. The building was landmarked in 2002 as much for its colorful history as its architecture. Today, after a period of disrepair, it’s an ornate rental space for parties, called – wait for it – Oligarch.

Victoriana

The library-Republican Club intersection (more of an oval, actually) marks the start of a conspicuously more affluent part of Richmond Hill. This area includes some apartment buildings, but most of the homes are Victorian-era single-family houses, some with spacious yards for an urban setting. In 2019, the area was placed on the National Registry of Historic Places as the Richmond Hill Historic District, comprising eleven blocks shaped like a wedge. The District includes 200 homes.

As I made my way north and west, I gawked at the stunning houses that really do rival some of those in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park South district. Prominent Historical Society plaques suggest that local homeowners know just how important their homes are. Albon Man and the other early developers particularly liked English styles, and I saw lots of Neo-Tudors and Queen Annes, with their playful yet elegant turrets and gables and porches. One house had been renovated with graceful, curved floor-to-ceiling windows facing the street, and I felt vaguely criminal peeking into the living room through the inviting plate glass.

Riis and Roosevelt

The nearby intersection of Babbage Street, 116^th Street and 85^th Avenue represents a distinct break from the mansions. There, in a tiny triangle overgrown by shrubs and weeds, is a small Parks Department sign identifying the space as “Jacob Riis Triangle.” Jacob Riis, the muckraking Danish-American photographer and writer, whose book on the “other half” of impoverished immigrant children triggered significant social reforms in early 20^th century New York, was a Richmond Hill resident for many years. (His house no longer stands.) Teddy Roosevelt, while Police Commissioner of New York City, was taken with Riis’s insights; he consulted Riis on some reform measures, and they became friends. Roosevelt attended the wedding of Riis’s daughter in 1900 at the nearby - and handsome - Church of the Resurrection.

I was distressed to see how little cared for the Riis tribute park looked, but I acknowledge that spring may bring life and more leaves.

Richmond Hill is home to a number of schools, including the imposing Richmond Hill High School (affectionately known as The Hill; notable alumni include Cyndi Lauper, Rodney Dangerfield, and Fred Trump), and P.S 560, whose dual entrances on 86^th Avenue are clearly marked, presumably from decades ago, BOYS and GIRLS, amid their more modern jungle-themed decorated doors.

The Victorian district terminates at the end of Forest Park, a significant NYC park that I will explore on another visit.

To New York

I decided to take the Long Island Railroad home, eschewing three long subway rides in favor of the express (reverse) commuter train. The decision gave me a chance to walk along 116^th Street, where I admired the beautiful houses. Richmond Hill slowly gave way to the adjacent community of Kew Gardens. It seemed to grow more affluent with every block.

The LIRR station indicates which track to expect trains to “New York” – as if it weren’t itself part of our big old city. More on Kew Gardens in a future visit.

If I felt like I’d landed abroad when I started my day in South Richmond Hill, reaching Kew Gardens – less than two miles away - seemed to represent the other side of the world. Pretty good mileage for the price of a short train ride and a few thousand steps. Hello, neighbors!

Music for today

• Chutney music! (You knew this was coming)

• Punjabi music: New York’s own Red Baraat describes its music as “hard driving Punjabi rhythms with elements of hip-hop, jazz and raw punk energy.” They’ve been around since 2010. Their 2017 Tiny Desk Concert on NPR is one of the most-watched performances in the program’s history. Here it is. See them live if you have a chance. Their energy is infectious and their musicianship is superb.

• This fascinating 1944 interview with Philip Evergood on New York Public Radio (WNYC) allows the artist to describe his work and his commitment to social art. At the time of the interview, Evergood was raising money through the sale of reproductions of his paintings for Russian war relief (he described it as funding for Russian children as their country fought fascism). The interviewer, Frank Kleinholz, was a notable artist himself.

• Here’s a song that Teddy Roosevelt used in his presidential campaign, performed here by folk singer Oscar Brand: Roosevelt the Cry.

Notes

• In which I am not fooled!

• In which I wander down Roosevelt Avenue, perhaps the most culturally diverse thoroughfare in the United States

• In which I do a little market-spelling and visit the local library branch, where I pity the poor Spanish book-seeker

• In which I view a stirring mural commemorating Woodside’s 9/11 victims

• In which I eat chile peppers and cheese at one of the area’s dozens of Himalayan restaurants

• In which I visit Tower Square Shopping Center, where a pizzeria acknowledges a former incarnation, and acknowledge a cemetery

• In which I explore Woodside’s residential side streets

• In which I shop, eat and don’t get a haircut in Little Manila

• In which I recall a taste of Woodside’s industrial zone

• In which my walk home gifts me some sacred music

• Coda: In which I return to Woodside to see a “museum” for a curiously-named neighborhood

• Music

*******

Center of the City?

In the middle of a traffic median at 58^th Street and Queens Boulevard in Woodside, embedded in the street-level concrete, lies a carved image of a compass, which claims to mark the geographic center of New York City. A bronze plaque accompanying the marker says “Certified Mad Reality,” a hint that this may be someone’s idea of funny. No one seems to know who placed the marker there, but city planners have confirmed it’s inaccurate. They believe the true center of the city is a few miles away in Bushwick, Brooklyn. But you gotta love a neighborhood with a sense of humor, or at least of mad reality.

In addition to its yuk-yuks, Woodside is remarkable for its cultural, linguistic and culinary diversity - one of the most richly varied in the city. It’s a mixed-use neighborhood as well, with industry, street-level retail, institutional and residential development throughout. Woodside, notably, is the first home for many first-time Americans.

So, on a partly sunny summer day with warm temperatures hovering at the edge of intolerable, I met a friend for an expedition in this middle- and working-class immigrant community just 20 minutes from Grand Central.

Woodside is shaped a little like an isosceles triangle, if you can picture the top point being squished flat. That northern border is Astoria Boulevard, while to the east, 69^th Street defines the neighborhood for most of the way; to the west, 51^st Street. The southern border is the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, until it intersects with Queens Boulevard, which the neighborhood follows to 69th/70th Street.

Snake Woods to Urban Woods(ide)

Woodside may seem like an unlikely name for an urban neighborhood. Of course it wasn’t always today’s mix of city stuff. John Andrew Kelly, a mid-19^th century businessman who built a mansion in the (at-the-time unnamed) area, carried on a correspondence with his son, the publisher of the Brooklyn Times. His son later published a compilation of the letters under the name “Letters from Woodside,” inspired by the trees visible everywhere from his desk. The name stuck.1

Early settlers conferred the name Snake Woods on the area for its snake-infested swamps. I’m happy to report that the swamps are gone now (they were drained in the mid-19th century), though police did find a five-foot-long corn snake in a Woodside warehouse in 2016.

Like many New York City neighborhoods, Woodside developed as local transportation systems emerged. The opening of the Northern Boulevard trolley connecting the Manhattan ferry to Flushing (1896), the Queensborough Bridge (1909), the Long Island Railroad tunnel under the East River (1910) and the 61st Street station on the #7 train (1917) - all resulted in new housing and the amenities a community needs to thrive. Between 1910 and 1930, Woodside’s population quadrupled.

Global and Mobile: Roosevelt Avenue

The #7 train has been called the International Express because of the immigrant communities it passes through in Queens. As you ride east from Manhattan, you pass from Greece to Ireland to the Philippines to Mexico to India to Nepal to Colombia to Ecuador to Korea to China, each of those an abbreviation for the dozens of nations, languages, cultural institutions and immigration statuses represented in each community.

I exited the train at 52^nd Street, the western edge of Woodside, where it abuts Sunnyside. My walk took me east toward the center of the neighborhood (if not the center of the city), where I would meet my friend.

Celtic Community: Woodside, once and still home to many Irish immigrants and their descendants,2 is dotted by Irish pubs. Among them: the Wild Goose (“est. 2019,” confirming the area’s current Irish presence), the Beerkeeper and Sean Óg’s.3 Perhaps the best known is Donovan’s Pub, established more than a half-century ago, which many people believe cooks up the best burger in Woodside.4

On a subsequent visit, I stopped in at Donovan’s to try the burger myself and to learn about the live music advertised on the sign outside.

The bartender/owner, a retired Irish-American New York City cop (who purchased the place from its original owner, a retired Irish-American NYC firefighter), explained that the music was contemporary acoustic - don’t worry, he said, it’s not traditional Irish music. But – I interjected urgently – Irish music is precisely what I’m looking for! Oh, he conceded, shaking his head. He loves it too. He said he’d played in an Irish band for 15 years. But this is what the people want.

Well, the burger was terrific.

Woodside is the birthplace of St. Pat’s for All, a St. Patrick’s Day parade formed in 2000 with the express aim of including the LGBTQ marchers excluded by the main parade on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. It’s proudly inspired similar marches in every borough (and the main parade has welcomed all marchers since 2016).

There’s even a branch of the Emerald Isle Immigration Center in Woodside. Remember them from Woodlawn? The Irish are xylophilian!5

Latino and Asian Woodside: The same blocks are home to a job placement agency for Latin American immigrants, a Colombian bakery, Peruvian and Filipino restaurants, and medical offices with signs in English, Spanish, and Chinese - collectively far greater than the Irish of Woodside.

Woodside’s population is about 43% Asian and 34% Hispanic, while some 20% of the area is white. These descriptors are pretty meaningless, though, since “Asian” here means Chinese (27%), Bangladeshi (18%), Filipino (16%), and others in smaller numbers; Hispanic residents come from every country in Latin America, with the greatest portion from Mexico (28%) and Ecuador (22%); “whites” include immigrants, second- and third-generation NYC ethnics, newcomers from elsewhere in the city or really anywhere. Nearly half the neighborhood’s residents are foreign-born, which makes sense as you observe local street life.

Dreams and struggles a-plenty here. Let’s explore.

Shopping: As easy as A-B-C (G-H-J)

On Roosevelt Avenue between 57^th and 58^th Streets is a Chinese supermarket called G Mart.6 G for guffaw, I thought, because now there are Asian markets nearby known as G Marts, H Marts and J Marts! What’s next? The small park adjacent to the market is known as Steinmann Triangle, which is named after a World War I soldier in Company F. Just sayin’.

H Mart, by the way, with its Korean-accented global inventory, calls itself the largest Asian supermarket in the country. And with good reason. Almost 100 locations operate throughout the United States, with at least seven in Queens alone. The chain began in 1982 as a small market - in Woodside. That location closed in 2021 and re-opened two months after my initial visit.

H Mart has placed this humble sign in the reopened Woodside market:

Vertical Volumes

A few blocks west, the Woodside branch of the Queens library occupies a small footprint: three stories full of books, videos and periodicals as well as a host of computers, most occupied by web-surfers of all ages when I visited.

The second floor houses the library’s international collection for adults, one of the largest I’ve seen (befitting this polyglot population). Books in Spanish, Bangla, Korean, Chinese and Japanese filled shelves and walls.

None seemed to be organized by genre. I couldn’t read the Asian language books, but I could see that, like so many other branches with modest foreign language collections, the Spanish collection placed novels next to travel books next to political theory volumes. Woe to the foreign language book-seeker!7

The third floor is dedicated to children’s books and activities, in English and in all those languages. Even though the children will quickly become bilingual, these books allow parents to read to their kids in the language in which they’re literate.

Honoring September’s Soldiers

My next stop was a few blocks away, at 61^st Street, where the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) connects with the #7 train. On the east side of the underpass here is a mural which honors the 34 people who perished on 9/11 who lived or worked in Woodside. Among them, if I read their occupational abbreviations correctly, were 18 firefighters and three law enforcement professionals. The mural depicts the Twin Towers, among other skyscrapers, against a swirling American flag, with the words “Their lives touched our hearts – their sacrifice changed us forever!!!” Twenty-two years later, the image makes me choke up.

Jumpy Job Search

Although it wasn’t visible at the hour I walked by, 69^th Street is an important site in Woodside today. Here, between Roosevelt Avenue and Broadway, Latin American migrant workers, virtually all men and most undocumented, come in search of day labor in the construction and landscaping trades. Lining up in the early hours, the jornaleros (day laborers) descend upon contractors who show up in search of a handful of workers, calling out the rate at which they’re willing to sell their labor – a number that decreases with competition. This intersection has been a jornalero site for more than 15 years, and the stunning number of recent arrivals – from Ecuador, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and more – has intensified the competition.8

Hot Chiles

I met my friend at Zhego, a Bhutanese restaurant that is one of a slew of Himalayan restaurants in the Woodside-Jackson Heights area between about 61^st and 76^th Streets. Between 2010 and 2020, the population of Nepali immigrants in New York increased fivefold, with the greatest concentration in Woodside and next-door Jackson Heights. Tibetans and Bhutanese have also arrived, some via Nepal.

Zhego (38-4 61^st Street) is cozy – it might seat 15 indoors and another half-dozen outdoors. We ate a plate of the Bhutanese national dish, ema datsi, which means - and is - simply charred chile peppers with cheese. My palate didn’t register the whole as greater than the sum of the parts, but I did enjoy the flavor of the char. We also had momo (dumplings) with cabbage, which came with a delicious spicy dipping sauce.9 We deliberately didn’t sample more of the menu in order to save room for other Woodside delectables.

Trolley Pies

After our snack, we walked west, in search of the Tower Square Shopping Center, a nondescript collection of chain stores on Northern Boulevard but with a historic twist. The main building, which now hosts Rail Yard Pizza, pays tribute to its origins as a 19^th-century trolley terminal (called a trolley barn) from the era when the trolley traveled up and down Northern Boulevard. The pizzeria’s owner has restored the station’s clock tower and retained the “Waiting Room” sign emblazoned over the front (pizza oven-shaped) window. A more modern message is posted on a placard on the inside of the window, which you can read below. The area was clean, so I guess the City, or the wiseguys, got the message.

I didn’t try the pizza, but I snapped a few pictures in gratitude for the owners’ good humor and preservationist impulses.

Parks for the Living and the Formerly Living

Returning east, we passed Doughboy Park, built on the only hill I saw in the neighborhood. The park was created in 1893, originally as part of P.S. 11, but the Board of Education ultimately concluded that the modest hill was too steep for the children to climb. (Wait till you see it! It’s not very steep. The kids must have loved it.)

The NYC Parks Department took it over from the school in 1957 and now describes it as a sitting area for adults. The name comes from American infantrymen who gathered here before deploying to Europe during World War I, who were known as “doughboys.” The park was overhauled recently, the local City Councilmember calling it “a sacred space [which] is now much more dignified.”

The park also includes a tribute to those Woodside victims of the 9/11 massacre, with a plaque that replicates the language of the mural under the 61^st Street bridge.

Nearby is Calvary Cemetery, built in 1848, the first cemetery built outside Manhattan by the trustees of the St. Patrick’s Cathedral. This is the vastest, greenest space in this otherwise green-starved part of Queens. You can’t exactly build a playground here, so don’t try to call it a park.

On a cooler day, I will visit the cemetery, where Governor Al Smith and Mayor Robert Wagner are among the three million souls living for all eternity among its 365 acres.

Browsing the Housing

Residential buildings in Woodside (as in so much of Queens) are often red brick apartment buildings of six to ten stories. We also saw duplexes, and some attached or even barely detached single-family homes. Some have driveways. Many have professional offices on their ground floors: dentists, pediatricians, gynecologists, acupuncturists, attorneys, accountants. Signs in English, Spanish, Chinese and Korean announce their services. (Medical and professional offices comprise the largest percentage of storefront businesses in the neighborhood, according to the City’s Department of Small Business Services.) It’s a nice mix of dense and less-dense housing.

The streets were quiet during our early afternoon walk, busier near the schools at dismissal time (and at the ice cream trucks strategically stationed nearby). We walked east along 43^rd Avenue, winding our way left and right, and peering over the fence at the LIRR tracks.

Woodside, Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and Corona (contiguous neighborhoods, from west to east) are ground zero for Latin American arrivals. Invisible to passersby are the homes they often share with strangers, entire families living in each of a house’s bedrooms. Basement apartments are common, and single men sometimes share the cost by having a daytime and nighttime shift for a single bed in a dormitory-style room of bunk beds. (This practice is not limited to Latin Americans.)

Most of these arrangements are illegal. They seldom have safe egress, proper lighting or kitchen appliances. You can be trapped in a fire or a flood in a basement, as happened when Hurricane Ida destroyed numerous basement apartments in Queens in 2021, taking the lives of a dozen inhabitants. In recognition of our city’s well-documented housing crisis, the City has been working toward legislation that would legalize basement apartments for landlords who bring them into compliance with housing code.10

Little Manila

More than 54,000 of New York City’s 100,000 Filipinos live in Queens, with the greatest concentration in Woodside. Filipinos began to arrive in the late 1960s and 1970s, after the implementation of federal immigration policy changes that privileged people with professional skills and their families. (Filipino nurses in particular came in large numbers.) Others fled the archipelago nation’s fraught political situation. Today, there are so many Filipinos seeking permanent residence in the U.S. that the wait for a family-driven green card petition is among the longest of any nationality.

Filipino businesses catering to the community proliferate in Woodside. Restaurants, professional offices, markets, hair salons - they are ubiquitous. Last year, the City named the corner of 70^th and Roosevelt “Little Manila Avenue” in recognition of the community.11

We were determined to reach the market we’d read about in every Woodside directory: Phil-Am Food Mart, a Filipino-American grocery. (Filipino-Americans sometimes call themselves Phil-Ams or Fil-Ams, but the term can also refer to bicultural institutions or items.)

From its mighty on-line descriptions, we expected the market to occupy the whole block, a veritable southeast Asian Whole Foods (or H Mart). Imagine our surprise when we found what looked like a bodega on the corner of 70^th and Roosevelt.

We were impressed by how the owners had managed to pack their inventory into a relatively small space even though it might well have filled a warehouse. I imagine the floor-to-ceiling shelves included every ingredient you’d need to prepare any meal from the cuisine of the Philippines (or the U.S., whatever that means). Prepared food, fresh and frozen lumpia (Filipino spring rolls), canned tropical fruit, microwaveable steamed buns (siopao), frozen fish and bulk bags of rice, Indonesian coffee, new arrivals not yet un-boxed and those piled high on the shelves - you name it. Somehow they even managed to keep the small aisles clear.

You can’t order for delivery here, but you can place your order in advance for prompt pick-up. Check out Phil-Am’s website for details.

The shop, of course, made us hungry, so we ducked into Renee’s Kitchenette and Grill (under the elevated #7 train at 69-14 Roosevelt Avenue, half a block away). Renee’s, which opened in 1992, proclaims itself “The Restaurant That Paved the Way for Little Manila.”

The dining room was uncrowded at mid-afternoon. We shared a whole whitefish, sweet and perfectly grilled, served with herbs and a sweet chile dipping sauce. In short order only the lonely bones remained. Renee’s has a wholesale business in addition to its restaurant. Phil-Am Market carries some of its products.

Fast Food, Filipino Flavor: With all the superb home-cooked Filipino food in Woodside, why would anyone go to the country’s most famous fast-food joint, Jollibees? The answer is some combination of sentimentality, cost and convenience, I suppose. Jolibees is now very international, with 1,200 locations around the world. The first NYC location opened (of course) in Woodside, in 2009. Filipinos went crazy for it. Now there are five, soon to be six locations in New York, including one in Times Square that opened in 2022.

I tried it! Jollibees serves up a Filipino analog of a KFC menu: fried chicken (“Chickenjoy”), mashed potatoes, gravy. Their other starches (well, there’s nothing else) enjoy a global reputation: adobo rice, palabok (noodles) and “Jolly Spaghetti.” And don’t forget the Yumburger! Or the peach mango or ube pies! The spaghetti seems to hold a special place in the hearts - or tummies - of Filipino children. Virtually every child today had a dish of spaghetti with some kind of red sauce, described by many as a little sweet (the woman who packed up my bag cautioned me that I might not like it because for that reason).

I’m happy and maybe a little embarrassed to report that the fried chicken is fantastic. Crispy, even crunchy on the outside, moist and flavorful within - you can’t ask for better. There’s a reason Jolibees sells a million pieces of Chickenjoy a day.

To the list of reasons people eat at Jollibees, I must add: it’s good.

But consider reserving it for Times Square, and save your Woodside Filipino dining experience for the excellent restaurants on Roosevelt Avenue.

Other businesses besides food populate Little Manila: shipping services, wire transfers, mobile phones (I guess they highlight overseas calls), social services.

St. Sebastian’s, a large Catholic church at 58th Street and Roosevelt Avenue with an outsized devotion to its immigrant congregation, holds mass in Tagalog once a month12 and then again during the nine days leading up to Christmas, when Filipinos mark Simbang Gabi with devotional services held at dawn. Mass is held weekly in Spanish.13

I want to give a shout-out to one business in particular: Richard Mendoza’s Filthy Rich Barbershop. Mendoza is a first-generation Filipino-American who’s made a name for himself styling for a clientele far larger than his compatriots in the neighborhood. His clients include high-profile hip-hop artists, including Drake and Flo Rida. Rumor has it that his glam clients fly into nearby Laguardia, head for Mendoza’s, and return home shorn and styled.

The shop is small, but it packs a punch. It has custom wallpaper, a neon sign that displays its motto - “Walk in Filthy, Come out Rich” - and photos and gifts from satisfied customers. Richard wasn’t there when I visited, but another barber was pleased to hear I planned to write about the place.

The price list suggested you would come out a little less rich, by the way.

Here’s a sweet article about FRB and Mendoza.

Coffee Buzz

Before leaving for the day, my friend and I stopped at the Bee Cafe for a cold drink. The small place included every hipster amenity you could think of: Italian coffee drinks, non-dairy milk and overpriced sparkling water, muffins and other pastry, tables with electrical outlets that permitted - promoted - lingering. The staff and clientele were ethnically diverse. More than gentrification, the cafe was a reminder that some environments have become universal, especially for young people.

I decided to walk home, a hike of about two hours. Google Maps directed me to a gritty, deserted street along the LIRR tracks, useful for Woodside industrial-vibe photography (not to mention industry) and views of the Manhattan skyline, but its isolation made me uneasy.

I cut over to 37^th Avenue, where I felt safer. There I passed the Geeta Temple Ashram, a Hindu temple normally recognizable only by its inconspicuous signage on an otherwise industrial-looking block, but today notable for the animated songs of worship wafting through the windows. I was so glad I’d changed routes! It occurred to me that Google should add “maximize music” to its route-planning specs.

The temple, whose guru passed away in 2019, has Yelp reviews! Good ones, too.

Making Stuff

This portion of 37th Avenue, and nearby Northern Boulevard, were reminders of a part of Woodside we didn’t explore today, but I did see before and after this visit.

I mentioned that Woodside’s multi-use zoning allows for, and hosts, industrial and manufacturing activity. Some time ago, I visited a business in the area that belongs to a friend’s family. The company prepares parts for all sorts of industries, from telecomm to aerospace. I loved watching the employees - artists, they seemed to me - do their work, operating fantastic-looking machinery. The work is detailed, technical and highly specific.

The finished pieces, which look like fine jewelry to me, are essential components of satellites and defense systems.

Woodside is home to metalwork factories, plastics and rubber manufacturing. lighting warehouses, and industrial food. Walking or biking (there is good bicycling infrastructure here) on the streets in the area offers little insight into what’s going on behind closed doors, but the signage make you curious.

Home

My route took me all the way through Astoria, a wonderful neighborhood for another visit, and then across the East River by ferry.

Once home, I felt as though I’d just returned from somewhere distant, comforted that I’d just been to visit my neighbors.

Coda: WHAM!

August 18, 2025

I’ve returned to Woodside several times for fun and Filipino food (and yes, once for that burger). But until yesterday, I didn’t know the community was home to New York City’s only 24/7/365 museum, the Woodside Heights Art Museum, or WHAM!

Wait a minute, you say! There is no Woodside Heights! There’s hardly even a hill here!

That H-for-Heights creates a breathy emphasis as you bellow the name of the collection, which you are commanded to do by the explanation point. WHAM!

I learned about WHAM! from the Instagram account of a young woman who has set out to visit every museum in New York City (her name is Jane August and you should absolutely check her out). But let’s just say that if you aren’t determined to replicate Jane’s comprehensive survey, you might skip WHAM! and just read my review here.

WHAM!’s website is an integral part of the “museum.” That’s where the founders describe their motivation for creating the space: community-building and respect for Woodside’s history. (Personally, I think that adding “Heights” is not respectful, but they didn’t consult me.) Each year on Memorial Day, WHAM! holds an opening for a new exhibit, with free seltzer and popcorn. (I do love that.) When I visited, I learned why the space never closes, and why there’s never an admission fee.

The first part of the exhibit, called Swiped, is a series of Metrocards mounted on posterboard and displayed in the windows of the host building. You look at them from the sidewalk, peering through the security gates on the windows. True, there are dozens of limited-edition Metrocards, paying tribute to local sports teams and train travel to the airport, and commemorating the Subway Series between the Mets and the Yankees.14

But, um, museum? That, I believe, is a question for the philosophers. Or the zoning authorities.

Next to the Metrocard window is a more intriguing display (even for a baseball fan). Here the curator, if I may call him that, has exhibited row upon row of found - or, depending on your perspective, lost - identification cards. The curator’s goal is to reunite the cards with their owners. He has listed the names of the poor schmoes who’ve lost their cards (hopefully they haven’t lost their identity), along with the cards themselves. His “artist’s statement,” about his lifelong penchant for finding things, is an integral part of the exhibit - long but actually quite wonderful.

The potentially really fun part of WHAM!’s space is the vacant lot next door. Right now it’s slim pickins: some plants, some Tibetan prayer flags, and a faux Department of Education tourism sign about police violence. To see anything in the lot, you have to peer through the closed gate. (Hence, no admission fee.) My photographs, consequently, are framed by fuzzy images of the slats.

Meanwhile, a graffiti painting on the building behind WHAM!’s vacant lot-cum-exhibit space adds color and a Picasso-esque human face with a large eyeball. And on the wall of the adjacent building (which is a Bhutanese billiards parlor), “WHAM!” is painted in bright red letters inside a zig-zaggy hip-hoppy blue and yellow graphic. It’s impressive! Kind of!

WHAM! is located on a small side street. There’s no signage anywhere; you’re unlikely to find it without someone directing you to it. Your faithful tour guide will reveal that WHAM! is located at 41-48 54^th Street.

The sign on the gate to the “exhibit lot” says, in English and Japanese, “Wander & Giggle.”

Ever the obedient explorer, I left WHAM! giggling, off for more Woodside wandering.

Music for Today

In the 1970s, Filipinos began to refer to a genre of local music as Original Philippines Music, or OPM. The term has morphed into one that represents all non-foreign music and includes indie rock, hip-hop, ballads, and folk-pop. Inevitably, I suppose, its most recent incarnation is known as P-Pop. Here’s a megahit from Sara Geronimo called Tala, which became an anthem for the Philippines’ LGBTQ community. I love the nod to traditional costume and dance. Geronimo became the first Filipina artist with more than 100 million YouTube views (now more than double that).

Ireland, too, has a rock and pop scene with national pride and even global reach. But as I told the bartender at Donovan’s, I like the traditional stuff, which you can hear at some of Woodside’s pubs (but not Donovan’s). Here’s a sweet one from Dublin’s The High Kings, a name I assume is soaked in wordplay, whiskey and weed. It’s called called Whiskey in the Jar.

Notes