About Queens

If you like tennis, and are a US Open devotee, you'll enjoy this big article on the McEnroe brothers. Queens natives, they helped to redefine and popularize the game back in the day -- particularly John McEnroe, with his crazy on the court antics and outrageous personality ("YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS!" is now sports lore). Most of all, they helped to put Queens on the map, making it the de facto capital of tennis in America. 

And the face of Queens is changing too. If you commute through Long Island City everyday, as yours truly does, you're going through a construction site. High-rise buildings are going up en masse. People are moving in at a rapid clip and a once somewhat sleazy, industrial neighborhood is now the latest "discovery" for gentrifiers. For a long time LIC was "up and coming" but it never "up and came" until now. It's rather amazing that this neighborhood right across the river from Manhattan was such an urban desert of construction and people, you'd think lots of people would want to live there. The reasons for this delay in interest are various: there isn't great public transportation, crime was high, it was located near the Queensbridge Housing Projects (racism surely played a role), it doesn't have great park space, it didn't have great shopping districts, it didn't have great public schools, and it just seemed bleak. And, yes, it was sleazy: you could literally see strip clubs from the Queensborough Plaza subway station. But now that's all changed now. LIC is the latest hot neighborhood -- and, of course, it's getting very expensive.  

Of all the boroughs in NYC, Queens is the most diverse, both ethnically and geographically. It's full of dense, built up neighborhoods and suburbs. This is reflected not just by the buildings and houses but also by the food. Recently, food guru Anthony Bourdain toured the borough for his CNN show Parts Unknown. It's a great episode and very revealing of what a culinary marvel the Garden Borough is.

Like all of NYC, Queens has a proud history but it's also changing all the time -- making history every day.