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Since the weather has warmed up, I’ve found myself walking through and around Queens Plaza quite a bit of late. The construction boom under way in this section of Long Island City is staggering, and you’d be hard pressed to turn your head in any direction and not see cranes and concrete trucks at work. The biggest change to the horizon is actually over in Manhattan, with 432 Park Avenue now visible from everywhere in western Queens and possibly the entire eastern seaboard.

The City people always have to show off, don’t they? 1,396 feet, really? An apartment building 150 feet taller than the Empire State? Woof.

More after the jump.

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At the West Chemical site on the southwest side of Queens Plaza, the hard hats are busy remediating the hell out of the brownfield left behind by the former tenants. My pal Nate Kensinger, who writes and shoots the “Camera Obscura” feature for Curbed, did a fantastic bit of urban exploring with the LTV crew at West Chemical before it was demolished – check it out here. Q’stoner reported on what Tishman Speyer will be building over this toxic mess back in February.

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Down the block, Rockrose is hard at work on their Eagle Electric Warehouse project, which will eventually see a 54 story building rise out of the industrial building pictured above. Q’Stoner was on the case with this one as well, and this post from March of this year shows a rendering of the project as seen from an off ramp of the Queensboro Bridge.

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The Marriott at 29-07 Queens Plaza North is moving along as well; it’s meant to be a 31 story hotel with some 160 rooms below and 135 residences above — or so the Court Square Blog tells me. The financiers of the project have asked all of us who live here in Queens to remain mum if any of their guests ask about the reliability of the 7 train, of course. Shh.

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Over in Court Square, that giant rising along the Thomson Avenue Viaduct over the Sunnyside Yard and the off ramp of the Queensboro Bridge (where Rockrose showed off their Eagle Electric tower) is the 22-story 44-41 Purves Street.

Y’know, if this keeps up, we might not be able to so easily spot that 1990-vintage 54-story Citigroup building anymore.

Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman lives in Astoria and blogs at Newtown Pentacle.


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