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Old Posted Apr 1, 2012, 8:39 PM
nygirl1 nygirl1 is offline
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The best of Queens part 2: Long Island City, Hunters Point and Queensbridge Houses

Heading south to the next areas on our list


Long Island City is a western industrial-commercial-residential neighborhood in Queens along the East River. The area was at one time its own city—in 1870 it merged Astoria with Sunnyside, Dutch Kills, Hunters Point and Ravenswood. The city was home to many factories and most notably, bakeries. A lot of these structures, renovated now, serve different purposes. For instance; Silver Cup Bakery has turned into a large film studio known for Home Box Office productions. The former Sunshine Bakery now houses La Guardia College. In 1898 Long Island City gave up its independence and was annexed into Greater NYC. Today the neighborhood features the 5 Pointz, a complex housing local artist studios legally spray painted by Graffiti artists from across the globe. L.I.C. also features the Socrates sculpture park, Isamu Noguchi Foundation & Museum and the 658’ Citicorp Tower in the neighborhood’s commercial core. Long Island City was also home to Water Taxi Beach which is now a construction site as much of the neighborhood waterfront has become prime real-estate and 20,30,40 story apartment towers are swiftly changing the profile of the new skyline. Long Island City is still home to a large number of industries and home to many operating factories. These factories manufacture everything from Brooks Brothers ties to fortune cookies. Jet Blue Airways has its headquarters in L.I.C. and numerous educational institutions like Briarcliff College, Devry and La Guardia call the area home. The neighborhood boasts the largest amount of art institutions in the borough and studio space in the whole city. It also has a large concentration of art galleries. For almost all purposes this is Downtown Queens—the next frontier and the fourth “Downtown” within the City of New York.































The Queensbridge houses, located within the neighborhood of Long Island City are the largest public housing development in North America. Opened in the late 1930’s it originally served as a community for New York’s lower-middle class residents. In the 1950’s coinciding with white flight much of its middle class opted to transfer to better facilities elsewhere changing the racial balance of the neighborhood which had become majority African American. The area, in the 1970’s and 1980’s become synonymous with the illegal drug trade. The area continues to deal with problems pertaining to this issue though it is no longer the major hot spot it used to be. The area also served as a hotbed in the hip hop scene, during the hard-core east coast era groups like Mobb Deep, Capone and Noreaga and artists like MC Shan, Nas, Marly-Marl and Big Noyd put “QB” a.k.a. “The Bridge” on the map.















Hunters Point:

On the south side of Long Island City is the neighborhood of Hunters Point. A peninsular area bound by Newton Creek and the East River. Throughout the 1800’s Hunters Point became heavily industrialized. In 1870 it merged with several other neighborhoods in it’s vicinity to incorporate Long Island City. Like the other neighborhoods that it merged with the community split from the core of Long Island City when Queens became part of New York City. It remained for some time largely industrialized until deindustrialization in the 1970’s. The neighborhood is a U.S. Historic district currently undergoing massive gentrification. This budding “Little Bohemia” is home to a significant number of Czech’s and as Long Island City is seeing it’s day in the sun, with new condominiums, schools and other amenities the neighborhood is bound to grow.
















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Last edited by nygirl1; Apr 1, 2012 at 10:15 PM.
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