"Astorian" April

Now that I'm working from Astoria, I've made a decision that I should re-embrace the original theme of this blog. I know I say this frequently, but knowing how fickle I can be in terms of blog subject matter, I'm really only going to try to restrict my posting about Astoria to a single month. Seems doable. I'm calling is Astorian April. Yep.

Actually, to already dilute my resolve a little, I'm not just going to talk about Astoria, but I am going to try to stick to Queens. For some reason, it always annoys me when New York based publications (New York Mag, Time Out NY, the Times) only ever report on Brooklyn and Manhattan restaurants and events. On the one hand, it's cool, because our restaurants and events aren't overrun by New York's hippest, but on the other hand, I feel like this borough's awesomeness and diversity gets overlooked. But the thing is, I do it myself. I hardly ever venture out of Astoria into other neighborhoods of Queens. Whenever I do, lately mostly for Make-a-Wish interviews, I always happen on cool looking places that I make a mental note to check out later. Only I never do check them out. Instead, I read New York Magazine and Time Out New York or talk to friends in Brooklyn and Manhattan about what to do on the weekend and inevitably find myself on the N train crossing a river. But no longer! Well, for April anyway.

To kick off the now clearly mislabeled Astorian April. I'm featuring some shots of Astoria in spring. During the hour I used to spend commuting, I've now taken to going for runs in the morning in Astoria Park. It's nice because the weather has been so nice, and it forces me to make sure I get out of the house at least once before lunchtime. On Sunday, instead of running, I brought a camera (and a photographer) with me to capture a couple of shots of spring in Astoria Park.

These particular tulips are growing in front of a war memorial at the edge of the park. There is a sign saying it's intended to be a quiet and meditative area, but on the other side of it is the public pool (yes, Astoria Park, has an Olympic sized pool!) where hundreds of kids go every summer. So I guess it's only a meditative zone outside of July and August.

Every single day it has been sunny and lovely except the day I decide to take pictures. This looks more like autumn than spring, but you'll just have to overlook the dreariness.

See--spring!

Further evidence of spring.

Does anyone know what these are? The flowers remind me of poppies but the foliage is different.

So as you can see, it's quite lovely-like in Astoria. Luckily, my readership isn't so high that I have to worry about too many people coming here.

Rockin' bobbin'

Long ago, in a high school English class (I fully promise to quit with the high school memories after this one), we read the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story Bernice Bobs Her Hair and watched the Shelly Duvall short film to complete the educational experience. The main thing I remember getting out of it was that most Jazz Age women were apparently bitches, and that Shelly Duvall's Bernice really did look better in a bob no matter how much she was ostracized for it. I'm happy to live in a time (and particularly in this city) where short of shaving my head and dying my scalp orange, my choice of haircut would never warrant a second look.

Get this woman a bob! Or the very least a more flattering dye job and less harsh bangs.

At any rate, the point of this is that last night I got my hair cut shorter than it's been since I was a kid (and had the awkward "But what if I'm mistaken for a boy!!" cut). I'm trying a new experiment where I cut costs by trying to go six months between haircuts, so I left off the usual directive I give at the salon to not cut it so short that I can't pull it back when I go running. I mean really, how often do I actually go running? The only downside with waiting 6 months for a cut, is how bad your hair looks. It's a little shorter than I'd like right now, but I'm hopeful this will get me through until March without getting too bushy and/or gross. Curly hair is pretty forgiving though, so I see no reason why this shouldn't work.

Day 1 of...180. That's also the gestation period of a baboon.

Lest you think this blog is growing into a self-involved forum for me to talk endlessly about my hair growth, I want to assure you that the primary purpose of this post is actually to laud a fine local business right here in Astoria: Gigi Salon. It's an Aveda salon that costs slightly more than I would usually pay for a haircut (hence the 6-month hair plan), but it's definitely worth it. I started going to them a couple of years ago based solely on the fact that they were five doors down from my apartment at the time. That I've continued to be a loyal customer even after I moved an additional 6 blocks away clearly says something about their skill and customer service. I'm really bad with names and get haircuts so seldom that I never actually remember who cuts my hair, so I always get a new person. But everyone there seems pretty competent because I always come out with a pretty decent cut. Well done, Gigi Salon, you get an Astorian Dream salute! It's a new thing, so it doesn't really mean anything yet, but treasure this accolade nevertheless.

Further gluttony

I'm still coming down from the aforementioned gluttony of last weekend, but no Astorian blogger (albeit a fair weather one) could overlook mentioning that it is presently Queens Restaurant Week. In fact, "Queens Restaurant Week" is kind of a misnomer because the event runs all of this week and all of next week--excluding the weekend in between. You can check out all the participating restaurants here. You will note, those of you who live in Queens and actually clicked on the link, that there are quite a number of them right here in Astoria.

Last week I had made a solemn vow to eat nothing but vegetables for seven days and seven nights in homage to those farm share veggies I let rot while gallivanting around New York's eateries with my parents. Rest in peace, gentle heirloom tomatoes. At any rate, I gave that up when a friend invited me to an art event that happened to be at a Croatian restaurant on the Queen's Restaurant Week list. The event was pretty crowded though, so we decided to down our free cocktail and duck out to eat somewhere where we didn't have to shout at each other. Unfortunately, all the other Restaurant Week restaurants were far from where we were. We were quickly deterred from walking farther for the joys of paying $35 for a three course tasting menu and ended up at a non-Restaurant-Week-restaurant actually right around my apartment called Sugar Freak.

I've been meaning to try this place since it opened up a few months back. It advertises traditional Cajun and Southern food from Louisiana, and I generally find it's hard to go wrong there. I tried the Prohibition lemonade (vodka + hibiscus tea + elderflower + (I assume) lemonade) and the fried chicken which was very tasty. My friend had a muffuletta or rather half a muffuletta that still looked like it could squash many lesser sandwiches. She was less impressed with hers citing a previous muffuletta made for her by hand by a friend from Louisana made with bread she had personally shipped in for the project. It's hard to compete with that, Sugar Freak. We both enjoyed the decor of the place, which looked very much like the below picture:

An actual promotional photo of Sugar Freak!

So basically what you've learned from the preceding post is that I will gladly forgo eating vegetables in favor of fried things even if it is not in the interest of saving money through Queen's Restaurant Week. However, I recommend all of you living in Queens County to support your local restaurants in the next couple of weeks. I would join you, but I'll be at home dicing sunchokes. Or, what the hell, I will join you!

Location, location, location

I began this blog over 7 months ago. A total of 231 days. The approximate gestation period of a hippopotamus. In that time, I've mentioned basically every day-trip (or weekend trip or longer vacation) I've taken, photographically documented much baking and currying, and developed a somewhat irrational and one-sided enmity for James Franco. In between these adventures, I have very half-halfheartedly tried to give my blog some local relevance by throwing in references to my beloved neighborhood, Astoria. It is either that or come up with a new blog name.

To that end, today I sifted through a little local news and found this article that piqued my interest. And yes, I realize the article is from September. At this point in time (and really until such time as I grow paranoid enough to get my own police scanner), I can promise only Astoria information, not up-to-the-minute headlines. But back to the article! My interest was piqued in part because I used to live about a block from those (formerly) high cost condos. It was my first real apartment (I choose not to count the 2 month sublet in a basement with no kitchen) in New York. When I lived there, back in 2008, they were just building those condos. I would observe the construction happening on what is a truly mammoth building and wonder why anyone, who had the money to invest in some chic condo, would want to live out there. I would trudge 15 minutes (I feel 20 is really journalistic hyperbole) through the snow and ice, past a White Castle and McDonalds as the scant dining options, and think "This just doesn't feel like fancy condo territory."

For those of you who didn't feel like reading the article (and, frankly, there's not much reason to), it explains that the cutting of the QM22 bus to Manhattan has had devasting consqueneces to this building project hoping to sell million dollar condos in no man's land. My first thought on reading this was: there was a bus to Manhattan there that only recently got cut? And secondly: how the hell didn't I know about this when I was trudging through the snow back in 2008?

As a side note for clarification: Don't get me wrong; I truly loved my first apartment in Astoria. I painted the living room walls a lovely, homey teal; I had what has turned out to be the largest bedroom I've yet occupied in New York; and I met a roommate who has become one of my closest friends in the city. That said, aside from the proximity to tiny burgers, the location is just terrible.

I also have one more piece of Astoria news! Check out the new website for this great (Astoria-residing) graphic designer. Keep him in mind for all your freelance design needs.

Paddling the shining big-sea-water

Last week I went on one of the Long Island City Community Boat House's free sunset kayaking trips on the East River. (Contrary to the concern of friends and loved ones, the water of the East River is not nearly as toxic or smelly as you might think). Long Island City is an Astoria-adjacent neighborhood. Like many New York neighborhoods, it's hard to tell quite where Long Island City ends and Astoria begins. I've had apartments that received mail both with "Long Island City" and "Astoria" in the city line of the address almost indiscriminately. At any rate, Long Island City has Astoria beat in at least one arena (well two if you count the number of community boathouses loaning out free kayaks): the proliferation of incredibly expensive, very tall, condo buildings. Apparently, when there's a nice view of Manhattan at sunset, it's perfectly reasonable to charge $2,500 a month for a studio in Queens. To their credit, these condos also all provide fancy gyms in the building. I would probably be a much healthier person if this amenity was at all an enticement.

The sunset paddle was lovely, but unfortunately I couldn't bring my camera because I was concerned for its safety in the choppy water (it was a particularly windy day, and there are normal ocean currents to contend with). I had fully intended to go back to the Long Island City piers, which the big condo buildings have lovingly outfitted with really nice lounging benches, in order to take better "sunset over Manhattan" pictures from the nice dry dock. But then the best laid plans always go awry, and I haven't quite made it back over there. (In my defense, despite being neighborhood neighbors, because of my position in Astoria, it would still take me a good 45 minutes to walk there.) For a substitute, here's a sunset picture of Manhattan across from Long Island City taken by some unknown internet person. It even looks like it was taken from the river, so I'm going to say the photographer was a kayaker:

You certainly don't get that sort of view from a high-priced ocean view condo in Manhattan.

Our kayaking trip took us from Long Island City down to Greenpoint, Brooklyn. A feat that would have taken me at least 45 minutes and two bus transfers if attempted on land. We got ice cream at a local ice cream shop in Greenpoint (another fine New York neighborhood worthy of its own blog, if not for the fact that it's radioactive). After the ease of the trip, particularly the return trip when we were basically just letting the current carry us home, it was really clear to me just how much easier traversing the river by kayak is over public transportation. Now if only it were possible to paddle to work on those unfortunate days when there are problems with the N train, I'd be set. I'd also soon have Michael Phelps' shoulder muscles.

When life takes your furniture, re-do your entire living room

I've lived in my current apartment, an Astorian oasis really, for a good nine months now. It's a great location, if a little loud at times, and easily my favorite of the three apartments I've had in Astoria (and four apartments I've had since moving to the city--there was a dark four months when I moved to Brooklyn). The greatest feature of the apartment is a large (and huge by New York standards) living room. The entire space was white and there wasn't any art on the walls, so when I first moved in, I briefly considered painting. The hugeness of the room quickly made me file that in the "to be done much later" category.

When one of my roommates moved out in March, she informed me that a girl who used to live in that apartment actually owned most of the furniture. The girl had been living in India for a year with her boyfriend and would come back and claim the furniture at some point in the future. At this point in time, the room was furnished mostly with decrepit book cases that fell apart when you tried to move them, an entertainment unit the previous roommate had pulled off the street (which looked rather like an entertainment unit that used to live on the street), a frighteningly uncomfortable futon that neither folded down or completely folded back up, a dirty yellow rug (although really that might have been my fault--I can seldom get fully ahead of the cat hair), and a decent coffee table with a weird groove in the wood that crumbs and dirt were always falling into, making keeping it clean nearly impossible. Basically, it was the kind of furniture I personally would bid good riddance were I ever to go to India for any length of time. But to each her own.

When the day finally came when she reclaimed her possessions, my current roommates and I realized we would actually have to replace them with something. We had a clean slate to work with, and it was time to make the apartment our own. This blog post is a chronicle of our budget furnishing process.

Here's the before picture. Apologies for the blurriness and the mess (this photo was taken while I was in the process of moving in). Also, for those readers who have been complaining about a lack of Dinah pictures being blogged lately--you will find she is in pretty much any photo I take while in my apartment. She's a star, that one.

The first thing to go was the back-breaking futon, which left Dinah slightly nonplussed.
She was also none too pleased with the loss of the yellow rug, which she had not yet completely finished covering with her hair. (I realized in my attempt to be artsy, I blurred Dinah a little. But I think I successfully captured her ennui.)

Luckily, by googling "cheap couches" I found this place: http://www.homereserve.com/ which will fed-ex your couch (to be assembled in about 2 hours) in a matter of days. The couch is pretty comfortable, and once Dinah destroys the upholstery, it's very easy to replace. Dinah was relieved.

The rest of the furnishings we acquired at Ikea (the budget furnisher's mother ship). Did you know you can get a coffee table for only $9.99? Of course, it weighs about 2 pounds, and we suspect it is made of balsa wood...but so far it has had no trouble holding up the Ikea lamp we put on it, so I guess it serves its purpose. Right after all the furniture had been taken, we got the bright idea to paint the room while it was empty. Of course, by the time we actually got around to painting, we'd already filled it with furniture again. Oh well, at least we did it. We chose the color "greenbriar beige" which is a lot more fun than it sounds. It adds a lot of warmth to the room without overpowering it. Here's the finished product or "after" picture:

As you can see, I still need to get a little art on the walls. I actually bought a Klimt poster (specifically this one: http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Forest-of-Beech-Trees-c-1903-Posters_i3623132_.htm), but have yet to find a frame I consider cheap enough. At some point I might have to admit defeat and get a custom frame job. Until then, consider the above the "finished" product. I'm pleased with it.

The night I almost died

Last night I had a rather harried evening. I was planning to meet a (newly Astorian) friend for dinner at 7 and came home from work to relax and hang out with Dinah for an hour or so before heading out. Unfortunately, I'd left behind a pivotal ingredient to these plans on the desk at my office--namely the keys to my apartment. Luckily, my roommate was just getting off work and was able to let me in after about a half an hour. Not wanting to inconvenience my roommate when I went out later as well as realizing I probably needed a spare set of keys anyway, I set out to make a copy at the dollar store a block away.

This turned into a greater saga than it might initially appear because, as it turns out, keys made at the dollar store are not necessarily the highest functioning keys. Getting four keys (there are a lot of doors and locks to get into my apartment) that all worked ended up entailing three seperate trips back and forth between the dollar store and my apartment. It was on the second of these trips that a potentially life-threatening (or at the very least: potentially concussion-producing) event occured. For you see, next to the dollar store is a fish market with an artisically ambitious display involving fish, an assortment of shells, and what I can only describe as a large mermaid tail (either that or a headless fish). See picture below.
As a note: I can't take credit for this picture. I found it by google image searching "fish market astoria" and sifting through the results. All I can say about this picture is that it came with the label "a good fish market." Astorian Dream can neither confirm or deny this claim. The "mermaid tail" in question is directly between the two palm trees.

Anyway, as I was approaching the dollar store (which you can see in the picture is actually a 99 cent store), the entire mermaid tail fell off the building landing in a cacophonic crash of concrete base and rabbit wire approximately 6 feet in front of me. Oddly enough, this was percipiated by nothing. It rained a lot that day, and the weather has been undeniably humid, but there was no inciting force (a landing pigeon, perhaps, or enthusiastically discarded herring) to cause the crash. Luckily, both for me and the liability team at the fish market, I sustained no greater injury than a little cement dust to the eyes. Still, had I not been in a rush to get my keys, I might have been a little more shaken by the incident.

I regret that I didn't get a picture of the fallen wreckage. I was even accompanied by a talented photographer in possession of an iphone (albeit not the newest model). Were my blogging and journalistic instincts keener than my awe of my own mortality and the urgency of my quest for keys, I would have tried to get a good photo to post here. To their credit, the people at the fish market were very quick to clean everything up. They had put the pieces of mermaid tail in a dumpter and were already throwing (unfortunately fish-reaking) water onto the sidewalk when I returned for my final trip to the dollar store. I did take an "after" picture this morning of the changed decor, which you can see below:

Frankly, I think it's an improvement.

Now, just as a note, for those readers worried about my well being--Astoria is without a doubt a very safe neighborhood. I've lived here for the bulk of the two years I've lived in New York and never felt anything other than secure here. Aside from the odd mermaid tail falling here or there (which could really happen anywhere), I don't think my life has ever been in danger. Feeling safe and secure in your neighborhood despite paying low rents is all part of the Astorian dream.

Hot town, summer in the outer boroughs!

This weekend, I finally made good on my promise to take some pictures of Astoria. I braved the extreme heat and humidity to go tramping out to Astoria Park to get some classic Astorian summer pictures. Mind you, I don't say that I actually took said pictures. The photographs you are about to see can be credited to none other than one of this blog's esteemed readers, Chichi Crankypants. That said, I did brave the heat and humidity to accompany his keener eye for composition. Also, I supplied the camera. I do all this for you, my dear readers; I do all this for you.

Thus without further ado, here is the beginnings of a gallery-worthy photo collage entitled "Summer in Astoria." I'm now officially a photo-blogger!

This is so Astoria. We love our grocery stores here. As you can see, we also enjoy using the plastic bags provided by the store. Luckily, I recently started making a concerted effort to use reusable tote bags to do my shopping. Thus, if I were in this photo, the collective carbon footprint would be ever so slightly lowered.

The heavily Greek population of Astoria makes both for wonderful food and also plenty of random statues of Greek philosophers.

Those Astorians lucky enough to have yards, grow beautiful flowers in them. Those Astorians who can't afford apartments with yards and live on busy avenues, spend our days killing houseplants by over-watering them.


Many know of Manhattan's majestic Flatiron building, but few are aware of Astoria's slightly smaller, though no less noble, doppelganger.

Astoria Park may not have the pedigree of a celebrity landscape architect like Central or Prospect Parks, but what it lacks in prominence, it makes up with: fewer overly fit joggers, less crowds in general, and remarkable proximity to a number of bridges.

See what I mean about the bridges? This particular beaut' was, I'm told, a filming location for the 1973 film classic, Serpico. Standing in this drainage ditch, I walk in the hallowed footsteps of Al Pacino.

Yet another fine bridge! The East River never looked so lovely!

This is the most litter-free sidewalk I've ever seen in Astoria.

One way to beat the heat. The kids that were playing here are off running around with obsenely large water guns. We would have gotten more pictures, but it starts to feel wrong taking pictures of children you don't know.

Some of the delicious bounty of summer! Although, a 24-hour drug store is out of the question, there are not one, but two, 24-hour fruit and vegetable markets on my block.

This concludes the Astoria photo tour. It was actually a lot of fun being a tourist in my own neighborhood. And thanks again to chichi for being my official photo-blog photographer!