Results tagged “longislandcity”

The city's recurring "restaurant weeks" are all about getting your money's worth by visiting an establishment that would ordinarily be beyond your reach; there's no sense paying $25 for a prix-fixe at a place that ordinarily charges about that about much or less, which is why the Water's Edge is an ideal choice for Queens Restaurant Week. Situated literally on the edge of the East River in Long Island City, next to Deitch Studios, the three decade-old restaurant could easily be misidentified as a private catering hall—which it is. But it is also an Asian-inflected seafood restaurant with three star ambition, and it re-opened a few weeks ago after an extensive face-lift.

Hmm, is this a threat or a promise? The local Community Board in Long Island City is trying to block a liquor license sought by Gus Drakopoulos, who operates the Sin City strip club in the Bronx. Drakopoulos wants to open another topless club near the Queensboro Bridge, and he's willing to go nude nuclear if the SLA denies his license. According to state law, dancers in a strip club serving booze can only reveal their breasts. But sober gentlemen above the age of 18 are entitled to the Full Monty, and that's what Drakopoulus is vowing to give them.

Former Vice President Al Gore joined Mayor Bloomberg in Long Island City today for a photo op to promote an environmental initiative to paint rooftops white. In response to a question, Gore almost but not quite endorsed Bloomberg's campaign, telling reporters he endorsed Hizzoner's "leadership." Gore, who's never been as uptight as the media portrayed him, added, "I am a recovering politician. I'm on about step nine, so I try to stay out of the partisan races." Here's more detail on today's green roof event, which took place in the same neighborhood as Con Ed's green roof.

The conditions inside Ming Li Sung's Long Island City apartment were so squalid that police thought the stench was surely emanating from a decomposing corpse. But when an FDNY haz-mat team kicked in the door, they were shocked to find the apartment occupied by Sung, 69, who yelled at them to get out. Instead, police took him to Elmhurst Hospital for psychiatric evaluation. His neighbors at the Ravenswood Houses say they've begged the Housing Authority for years to take action on Sing, whose apartment was so wretched that dead flies would pile up on the hallway floor. One resident, Robin McNeil, tells the Daily News, "All Housing would do was come and sweep them up," and her husband thinks the sickening stench contributed to her miscarriage in May! Yesterday, police said the apartment resembled a landfill, with rotting garbage piled floor to ceiling. When they entered the place, an "army of cockroaches" poured out into the second-floor hallway, and McNeil's husband tells the News, "The police were throwing up." Unfortunately for Sung, the mess was discovered too late to be entered in this summer's Filthiest Apartment Contest; unfortunately for the rest of us, it's lunchtime.

A fire broke out at a warehouse, located at 27th Street and 50th Avenue, just before 6 a.m. and has grown into a three-alarm blaze. The smoke has been so heavy that all westbound Long Island Expressway lanes were shut down temporarily—they have since reopened but there are still delays near the Queens Midtown Tunnel. According to MyFoxNY, "NY Traffic Authority Ines Rosales recommends drivers in the area take the 59th Street Bridge or get off on Queens Boulevard and take the Queens Borough Bridge." And firefighters are still working to get the fire under control.

           

Four months after the stairway collapse at 5 Pointz, artists in the Jackson Avenue Studios are in the final stages of vacating. Owners closed the building in July after they were told by the Department of Buildings that a new certificate of occupancy would have to be issued. In a letter to his tenants, Jerry Wolkoff said, "by reason of the requirements of the New York City building code it is both physically and financially impossible for us to obtain a new certificate of occupancy for these buildings."

In a sad twist of fate in Long Island City yesterday, a man who was on his way to make a food delivery to police officers was struck and killed by a man who had just made an illicit purchase from cops and was driving wildly while trying to avoid their chase. 27-year old Pablo Pasaras was riding his bike on 35th Avenue en route to deliver food from the restaurant Antojitos Cibaeno to nearby housing officers when he was plowed into by the black Range Rover driven by Martin Ocasio. The 33-year-old Ocasio had just bought drugs from undercover officers and was racing away from an unmarked squad car giving chase when he slammed into Pasaras and a nearby parked car around 6:30 p.m. Ocasio has been arrested nine times previously, including several for drug charges. Pasaras, a father of three, was pronounced dead at Elmhurst Hospital. A family member called him "a very nice guy" and "a very good father."

Lounge 47, a restaurant and bar with a capacious back yard on Vernon Blvd in Long Island City, has had a tough time making peace with some neighbors who say the noise and smoke from the patio is unbearable. Next door neighbor Beth Garrett and her husband have installed large signs on their property begging Lounge 47 patrons to pipe down, and a growing group of locals want the State Liquor Authority to revoke the liquor license, which was recently renewed. (The Garretts have also been accused of spraying their hose over the fence onto diners.) The current owner is now trying to sell the place, but the potential buyer wants to make sure he'll be able to transfer the liquor license.

       

With monsoon season seemingly on the wane, it's high time we welcomed P.S. 1's annual summertime Young Architects Program, wherein the Long Island City museum invites a design team to transform their giant courtyard into... whatever. This year's project, by the firm MOS, is drolly dubbed Afterparty, a sly nod to P.S. 1's popular afternoon "Warm-Up" music series.

The BQE is back up and running after a massive accident left 59 people injured and closed off eastbound lanes for a good portion of the morning following rush hour. A school bus, a casino bus and a tractor trailed were involved with what the Daily News calls a chain reaction accident just before the Kosciuszko Bridge connecting Brooklyn and Queens near the McGuinness Blvd. exit and not far from the Midtown Tunnel. A large majority of the victims were treated at the scene for bumps and bruises. Six people were taken to local hospitals. Newsday says that two went to the Wyckhoff and Woodhull Hospitals in Brooklyn and the other four "were taken to an unknown medical facility by a Hatzolah ambulance, which is operated by Jewish volunteers." Newsmap also shows what appears to be a second accident on nearby westbound lanes, where an overturned chicken truck shut down the highway while waiting for sanitation to clean up.

Water Taxi Beach is dropping more details about its expansion to the South Street Seaport and Governors Island. Down at the Seaport, set to open in early June, the boozy sandbox and seafood shack will emphasize a family-friendly feel with miniature golf, skeeball and ping pong; come nightfall, the DJs take over for the grown ups. The Governors Island location, opening July 4th weekend, will host beach volleyball, basketball, two restaurants, and live concerts every weekend presented by The Highline Ballroom. Meanwhile, visitors to the flagship Long Island City beach, which boasts 44,000 square feet of sand, will be lured with free Water Taxi Beach shuttles from East 35th Street in Manhattan every Friday and Saturday night. But the best news is that for the first time New York Water Taxi will operate ferries to actual beaches where swimming is allowed. On weekends, service from Pier 11 at Wall Street will whisk ocean-lovers to their choice of two locations: the Rockaways' Jacob Riis Park, and the more remote Sandy Hook on the Jersey shore, which Florent Morellet highly recommends.

       

Of course it's not literally the mother, for several obvious reasons—for one thing, there's the well-established predecessor Bohemian Hall, to the north in Astoria. But at least in terms of size, Studio Square in Long Island City is now king of New York, boasting a colossal 18,000 square feet beer garden that officially opens today at 4 p.m. The full beer and food menu is below.

Stay classy, Scarsdale: In the same week that the Mad Mom roadside abandonment story made headlines, another Scarsdale mom is in the news for stealing an estimated $12 million in gold from the Queens jewelry manufacturer where she worked as a vault manager. And according to her own confession, she did it one piece at a time over the course of six years! 50-year-old Teresa Tambunting's gold-hoarding hobby went unnoticed until January, when auditors at Jacmel Jewelry's Long Island City headquarters reported losses over the normal 3% rate.

The jewelry designer who was injured when an external stairway collapsed at the artists' warehouse Five Pointz is in critical condition at Bellevue Hospital. According to the Daily News, Nicole Gagne, 37, is in the trauma unit at the hospital after falling three stories and being buried by concrete steps and metal debris. A friend said, "She's used those stairs for years. We didn't expect she was rolling the dice with her life."

Yesterday afternoon around 5:15 p.m., a woman was walking down an external stairway at the artists' warehouse workspace Five Pointz when the stairway collapsed, trapping her under the rubble.

A Queens judge has thrown out a suit against the MTA and two of its employees filed by a woman who was raped on the platform of the G train's 21st Street stop and accused onlooking transit workers of not doing enough to help her. Subway conductor Harmodio Cruz and station agent John Koort both called the command center to alert authorities of the assault in progress, but Cruz allowed his train to leave the station and Koort did not call cops directly. The judge said that the effectiveness of those extra efforts was "pure speculation." He added, "This is not the type of egregious situation that offends common sense and decency ... where they watched and did nothing." By the time cops arrived, the rapist had escaped and has not since been caught. The lawyer for the victim, an artist and an NYU student at the time of the attack, said that she was crying and devastated at the news. He told reporters, "How inept do their [transit workers] actions need to be before the courts will let a New Yorker file a case like this?"

Water Taxi Beach in Long Island City has been a popular hang-out in recent summers, with visitors flocking to the sand pit on weekends for beer, barbecue, and volleyball (but no swimming). Because of that success, the company is planning to expand with at least two more "beaches" this summer. One location, just announced today, is destined for the north side of Governors Island. Like last year, Water Taxi will operate ferry service to the island from downtown Brooklyn and lower Manhattan, and the beach will feature live music, basketball courts, a cafe, volleyball, and, like LIC, no swimming. And at least one other waterfront beach spot is rumored to be in the works for an undisclosed Manhattan location. But while many people swear by Water Taxi Beach, the absence of surf can make it feel less like a beach and more like a hot, crowded ashtray. Isn't sand something you sort of tolerate in order to get to the ocean, like tedious chitchat on a date?

       

Long Island City will at last get its own atavistic cocktail lounge when Dutch Kills opens sometime in the next few weeks. Proprietors Richard Boccato and Sasha Petraske (both of Milk & Honey fame) promise an 1890's style saloon serving classic cocktails ($8-$10) using hand-cut ice, along with a selection of spirits, liqueurs, cordials, wine, and beer on tap (as well as by the bottle). There will also be live jazz and ragtime on select nights, and a small pub menu provided by Sage General Store, a local organic kitchen. Boccato's description of the place also comes with a little history refresher:

The name of the bar is the same as the ancestral name of the neighborhood where it is located (Dutch Kills), which was one of several small enclaves that unified in 1870 to become Long Island City. The word "kills" means "creek" in Dutch, whose settlers arrived in the area in 1643. Originally named "Canapaukah" (loosely translated as "bear's watering hole") by the Canarsee indians who were the first occupants of the land in and around what is now Long Island City, the "creek" in question is the Newtown Creek, which runs behind the bar dividing Long Island City from Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Dutch Kills was an important road hub during the Revolutionary War, and the site of a British Army garrison from 1776 to 1783.

The Rockrose Development Corporation, which owns EastCoast, a luxury residential complex on the waterfront in Long Island City, prides itself on cultivating a social life for their tenants, with dance classes, movie nights, a swank gym-and-pool complex, barbecue grills and party rooms. Last November, Sofia Estevez, a senior vice president of marketing for Rockrose, crowed to the Times that "it’s like the Lido Deck on the Love Boat!"

Four teenagers in Queens have been arrested in a series of brutal muggings, one of which was caught in graphic detail on a surveillance video. They are accused of robbing six men in a string of violent incidents over the last two weeks. One of the victims told NY1, "I felt like I was going to die. You panic. You think, how could this be happening to me? You see it in the movies and you really don't think its going to happen to you."

In a sign of the times, real estate developer Rockrose is offering potential buyers of its EastCoast condo in Long Island City a money-back guarantee. The NY Times reports that Rockrose is promising ("at least to the next batch of buyers who step up to sign contracts...to buy back apartments in five years at 110 percent of the sales price." Rockrose executive Kevin Singleton explained, "I believe in the product, I believe in the marketplace, I believe that value will increase and I am willing to put my money where my opinions are." However, the buyer is responsible for closing costs and other fees and there's "no bond or other security" that guarantees the guarantee--buyers will have to trust Rockrose to make good. And another sign of the times: Some developers offers buyers battered by the credit crisis rent-to-buy options, with some rent money going towards the purchase price. One building owner said, "I’m happy to have renters and monthly income in lieu of a sale.”

A lawsuit against the MTA is about to go to trial surrounding the rape of a woman on a G train platform in Queens three years ago. And the victim, now 25, told the Daily News this weekend that she forgives her attacker ("I know he was sick in the head"), but not the token booth clerk at the 21st Street station, "I can't forgive those five seconds when I stared into his eyes, screaming for help, imploring him with my tears and all I got back was a cold stare."

Yesterday afternoon, a building was evacuated (twice!) due to fumes that sickened over a 100 people. Emergency responders were called to the scene three times and NY1 says the building, which "houses several city agencies including some MTA employees," is next to a train yard. Where, the FDNY explained, "They are getting rid of contaminated soil, and the digging has churned up some odors and the people in the building experienced a little respiratory difficulty with the odors." A witness said the effects weren't pretty: "our eyes were watering, we were choking. Some people got faint, some people vomited, some people almost passed out."

WNBC reports that 66-year-old Nick Nowillo died after a confrontation with an attacker on Crescent Avenue in Long Island City. The 43-year-old attacker, who was arrested but not identified, allegedly hit Nowillo several times, including punching him so hard that he died at Astoria General Hospital later. Nowillo, who had been escorting a woman home because she felt the suspect "was...acting strangely" in the street, was a beloved figure in the neighborhood, nicknamed the "Mayor of Long Island City."

A pigeon painted purple picked up on a playground may not pull through what appears to be a pitiless prank. The four month-old bird remains flightless in Animal Care and Control after being rescued Thursday in Long Island City. Animal lover Joe Mora picked up the pigeon and tried feeding it while asking the group that had gathered around the strangely-colored bird if anyone knew how to clean paint from its beak and feathers. The dye job appears to be intentional, but no one yet knows for certain how the paint got there.

The state Department of Labor closed a garment factory yesterday, citing sweatshop conditions. Jin Shun manufactured clothing for The Gap, Macy's, Banana Republic, The Limited, Victoria's Secret and more in a factory, and officials say mostly Chinese immigrants were working "66-hour, six-day weeks" for $250/week, cheating them out of $5.3 million. Jin Shun allegedly coached workers to lie about their working conditions at the Long Island City factory and made them use two time cards so it was unclear how long they worked each week. Labor Commissioner M. Patricia Smith described how one worker, while working 60-70 hours/weeks, "was paid 22 cents per garment or 40 cents for more complicated pieces." While the retailers said they had zero tolerance for the conditions, Smith said, "We think with aggressive enforcement they should have known."

A developer will break ground Thursday on what will be the city’s only rooftop ice rink (the Chelsea Piers Sky Rink is on the second floor, not the roof, and it’s been a while since skaters frolicked on the old Madison Square Garden roof rink.)

If "butter" flavored popcorn and Sour Patch Kids aren’t your ideal movie snack food, then you'll probably find the New York City Food Film Festival much more palatable. Starting Saturday at Water Taxi Beach in Long Island City, Queens, the festival will pair 18 movies with relevant munchies under the night sky. George Motz, who started the festival last year with chef Harry Hawk, says he wanted to create “a cinematic scratch 'n sniff where you can not only watch a food film but eat the food being shown in that film.” Which explains why Sweeney Todd isn't being screened.

Another sad story of pet electrocution comes out of Queens; ABC reports that Cecelia Sing's Siberian husky named Sebastian died on his Sunday night walk in Long Island City. A lamppost is believed to have shocked him with stray voltage (not an unfamiliar story).

"As soon as he got to the lamppost, he jumped and he dropped," she said. "And he starting shaking wildly, and I'm like, 'Go on. Get up, Sebastian, get up,' And he wouldn't move. And he just shook. And then, all of the sudden, he stopped shaking and he was dead. My dog was dead."

Last night as Gossip Girl returned to the airwaves, it brought some real LIC artists with it. In the fictional Bedford Avenue Gallery, as Blair plots to ruin Jenny Humphrey, she pauses in front of some pieces -- one of which belongs to LIC artist Rene Smith, who told us about how her art landed on Rufus Humphrey's walls.

I heard that Gossip Girl rented art work for their "gallery" and I actually just stopped by Silvercup Studios, which is right across the street from my studio. The security guard was nice enough to let me in and I was able to show my portfolio to art department coordinator.

Continue reading "LIC Artist Gets Work on Gossip Girl"