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Twitter follower of the week: Astoria Coffee
Soon to be an independent shop serving specialty coffee, premium loose-leaf tea, and hand-picked NYC baked goods in Astoria, Queens. Follow @Astoria Coffee.
Want to be featured here? Follow us on Twitter @QueensNYCity. We’ll select one follower each week and it could be you!
From the Twitterverse – Thai food faves
Last week we asked, “where do you like to eat Thai food?” and we got a boatload of answers! Here are some of our readers’ favorites:
CookedEarth: Ayadaaaaaaaa all day every day
GoldmanS: SriPraPhai!
From the Twitterverse – LIC vs. Long Island City
Gantry Plaza State Park in Long Island City (or is it LIC?), Queens
Well, this business last week about changing the name of Long Island City to LIC was a great conversation starter! Here’s what some of our twitter followers had to say about it:
AstoriaHaiku: “Long Island City” on blogs, #LIC on Twitter
From the Twitterverse – the best known places in Queens
The Pepsi Cola sign in LIC – one of the best known places in Queens
Yesterday we asked the question, “what are the best known places in Queens?” and we got quite the outpouring of answers! The airports got some love, as did Citi Field and The US Tennis Center. Then there’s the Golden Mall and Xi’an Famous Foods (located in the Golden Mall), and we can’t forget the Lemon Ice King of Corona. There are many more. So check out some of the places our readers consider to be best known places in Queens, via twitter.
glorifiedtomato: Rockaway Beach, 5Pointz, The Boulevard of Death.
Social media and its impact on Hurricane Sandy recovery
Image source: Buzzfeed
Over on Buzzfeed there’s an interesting article on how social media is aiding Hurricane Sandy recovery. Various networks have popped up on Tumblr (Sandy Sucks), Facebook (Red Hook/Rockaway Recovery), twitter (OccupySandy), and there’s even a network for cell phone texts (Occupy SMS), all focused on hurricane relief. These networks have been created by individuals and groups who truly want to make a difference and help their fellow neighbors during this difficult time.
Donating and volunteering post-Sandy and more in the QNYC Evening Edition for Friday November 2, 2012
Donating and volunteering in a post-Sandy world
We’ve put together a list of volunteer opportunities and donation centers in Queens. Lots of people are stepping up and there are plenty of opportunities to get involved. It warms our hearts. We hope you can find something to help out with, and thank you for your assistance to our fellow New Yorkers during this challenging time.
Ah, this weekend’s NYC Marathon – keep it on schedule, yea or nay? Our readers overwhelmingly say…
NO. We asked, and here are some comments from twitter.
@queensnycity the marathon + the city can stand to postpone a week, its a disaster in NYC still, there is more important work to be done.
— Alex Cannon (@tehevilcannon) November 2, 2012
@queensnycity I want it to. But with so many of us unable still to access food, water, housing or even just information, we should delay
— Raymond Hsia (@RayHsia) November 2, 2012
@queensnycity NO WAY! I’m shocked they went forward with it. Huge drain on supplies and people.
— Mackenzi Farquer (@SITEnews) November 2, 2012
@queensnycity no, postpone the #marathon
— Loyd with one L (@LoydWOneL) November 2, 2012
@sitenews @queensnycity In complete agreement. And they asked for volunteers – totally inappropriate.
— Heather Michele (@BlueDivaWino) November 2, 2012
Broad Channel also suffered damage during Hurricane Sandy
Broad Channel, a small community smack dab in the middle of Jamaica Bay, also suffered a lot of damage during Hurricane Sandy, mostly in the form of flooding. See what happened through photos and accounts during and after the storm. Our best wishes are with the folks there cleaning up from all that water. Be sure to check out the surreal sight of a boat in the middle of the Cross Bay Parkway.
More images from the Rockaways, some looking post-apocalyptic
Curbed sent talented photographer Nathan Kensinger down to the Rockaways after the storm and he took a series of photos. Definitely worth checking out.
There’s been talk of erecting a sea wall to combat storm surge
Slate has a article that discusses ways for NYC to avoid storm surge during the next big hurricane (we hope there won’t be a next time). Comparisons are made to the Netherlands, who oversee a special relationship between the land and sea. Here’s their solution to the threat of hard core flooding:
The Dutch have responded to this problem with an impressively elegant solution: Make the coast shorter. In the wake of a 1916 flood, they erected the Zuiderzee Works to turn a former inlet of the North Sea into a nice tame lake. Today, the Afsluitdijk—a causeway 32 kilometers long, 90 meters wide, and 7.25 meters high—separates the North Sea from two freshwater lakes known as the IJsselmeer and the Markermeer, in the process protecting a huge swath of Holland, including Amsterdam itself, from storm surges.
An even more relevant precedent is the massive Delta Works series of dams and flood control devices in the southwestern Netherlands. These works protect, among other things, the enormous port of Rotterdam, meaning that they can’t completely sever the mainland from the sea the way Afsluitdijk did.
The article goes on to say that implementing systems like this is expensive (not a surprise) and it still wouldn’t protect areas like the Rockaways, who were some of the hardest hit communities in the metro area. Still, it’s an interesting thing to think of and perhaps one day a less expensive, more effective derivative will be developed. Here’s to progress.
Question of the day – do you interact with QueensNYC on twitter?
Image source: Twitter
We came across this “exhaustive study” about twitter users worldwide, so we started to wonder… do you interact with QueensNYC on twitter? We’d love to know if you favorite or retweet us, too. And tell your friends about us! We love sharing news of Queens with everyone. As always, let us know in the comments or (and this is particularly appropriate today) via twitter at @queensnycity!
Village Voice recognizes Astoria food maven on twitter, Suzanne Yacka
Image source: Sue Yacka via City Spoonful
As those on twitter know, the signal to noise ratio can be pretty astounding at times (thank goodness for the list feature). So the fact that any particular twitter stream would catch the eye of the Village Voice is pretty impressive – enter Suzanne Yacka, aka @tastoriaqueens, one of the most compelling voices on twitter regarding Queens food – mostly, but not limited to, Astoria and LIC.
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