by

Image source: MenuPages

Exciting news for Queens: our borough is now included on MenuPages, the website that publishes restaurant menus online and provides a place for restaurant goers to review their experiences. MenuPages only served Manhattan for a while, and eventually launched in Brooklyn; now it covers every single neighborhood of Queens, finally capturing the diverse yumminess in these parts.

by

In many parts of NYC, children forgo trick-or-treating altogether or only visit stores, restaurants, and other businesses for candy handouts, because their residential areas just aren’t conducive to knocking on doors, and no one knows which doors are OK to knock on anyway. The more famous Halloween shenanigans in the city are for basically for adults.

But Queens is home to several safe, family-friendly neighborhoods where the tradition of going house to house is thriving. Here’s our guide to the best hoods for trick-or-treating in the borough.

by
1

Whether you’re looking for your dream home or just want to go on a scenic stroll, here is our guide to what we think are the five most beautiful streets in the entire borough. They have five different looks and vibes, but all feature lush greenery, appealing architecture, and historic charm – and most of them have been granted landmark status, so they’re bound to stay pretty for decades to come.

1. Bow Street, Forest Hills (GMAP)

Wandering around Forest Hills Gardens gives you that “it’s hard to believe I’m in NYC right now” feeling. The curved, privately owned streets, palatial homes, and features like the private tennis club seem odd, considering how close they are to Queens Boulevard and the subway.

by
98

Image source: 1940s New York

Have you ever heard of Nassau Heights in Queens? Today, it’s known as Middle Village. Did you know that Woodside was once called Woodside-Winfield? Welcome to 1940s New York, when the Queensbridge Houses were a new development, and Astoria was a predominately Italian and German neighborhood (the Greek population didn’t peak until the 1970s).

by
17


Okay, obviously these New York Times culture pieces about Brooklyn are getting to be a bit much. (Actually they were getting to be a bit much like five years ago.) But at least if you’re going to run a story mostly about rooftop farms and virtual doormen on the cover of the Sunday Real Estate section, it helps to have actual real estate news in it, which yesterday’s Greenpoint profile certainly did: Buried in all the gentrification mumbo-jumbo was an update on the biggest real estate development project in the history of the Brooklyn waterfront. Greenpoint Landing, a 20-acre parcel adjacent to Newtown Creek, could break ground as soon as next summer, according to a representative from developer Park Tower Group. Why’s this big news? The complex will ultimately include 4,000 units of housing (20 percent of which will be affordable) across 10 luxury residential towers. Designed by Gary Handel, the architect of Trump SoHo, the towers will climb 30 and 40 stories high. The massive project will surely get a boost from the new ferry service to Manhattan and the forthcoming Transmitter Park if not from the toxic oil plume that lies underneath this once industrial area.
Who You Calling Gritty? [NY Times]
City’s Broken Promises [NY Daily News]
MTA Will Finally Uproot for Greenpoint Park [Brownstoner]
Photo by Chicapoquita

by
10


In its Block by Block column this weekend, The Times zeroes in on one of the most bustling stretches in Brooklyn that 15 years ago barely had a pulse.

Smith runs parallel to the busier and better-established Court Street, but with its low-slung tenement buildings, frequent street lamps and mix of musty and glistening storefronts, it’s the backbone of Carroll Gardens. The side streets — lined with Italianate brownstones, elaborate gardens and majestic old trees — are its limbs. As you head north from Second Place to Degraw (the boundary with Cobble Hill), Smith feels like a small-town street that leads lazily to the city, not very far away. In fact, you can see the towers of Downtown Brooklyn rising up at the far end.

As for Carroll Gardens, the money-shot quote comes from Corcoran broker Nicole Galluccio: “It’s that warmth of the neighborhood. There’s a different sense of community. It’s a lovely little melting pot. And you don’t have to pay Brooklyn Heights prices. We even have people who choose it over Brooklyn Heights.” Maybe not Brooklyn Heights prices, but no one’s giving anything else away. As noted at the end of the article, this brownstone recently hit the market for $2.65 million.
Smith Street: Turn Left at the Roses [NY Times]
Photo by Brooklyn Cyclist

by
9


Back in 2010, Bushwick and its neighbor-over-the-Queens-border Ridgewood were close enough in the popular imagination to spark some creative neighborhood naming wordplay: The term “Bushwood” even slipped into local parlance, an expression of the close ties between the two hipster havens. (Where was Hakeem Jeffries when we needed him?) Now that Bushwick can no longer be considered an emerging neighborhood or art scene, though, Ridgewood may be looking to spread its wings. That’s the gist of this post on the art blog Hyperallergic. Witness the text of a recent invitation from the Queens Museum of Art to the inaugural Ridgewood Art Crawl: “You know that part of town you thought was Bushwick…well, actually, it’s Ridgewood. Help us set the record straight by celebrating Queens’ newest art community with a little bit of history, a lot art, and the perfect amount of drink.”

by
35


We were having a friendly debate yesterday with a broker who was claiming the border of Clinton Hill and Bed Stuy to be Bedford Avenue. No chance, we said: It’s Classon. As we noted back in 2005, both Kenneth Jackson’s “The Neighborhoods of Brooklyn” and Ellen Freudeneim’s “Brooklyn!” identify Classon as the border too. So waddya think?


by
4


Following the recent sale of 212 Columbia Heights for $11 million (the second such eight-digit sale on the six-block stretch), The Daily News has declared the street the city’s “off-the-radar” Millionaires Row. (We guess that by “off-the-radar” they simply mean “not in Manhattan.”) In addition to being located in the neighborhood with the borough’s priciest brownstones in general, this block has the distinction of offering direct views of Lower Manhattan–or at least the houses on the west side of the street offer such views out their backsides. “Brooklyn was always considered a poor step child to Manhattan, but now it is really coming into its own,” said the guy who owned Number 212 until selling it for $8.9 million in 2005. That observation’s only, what, six or seven years too late?
It’s Brooklyn’s $10 million Street [NY Daily News]