This is just a reminder that the Transportation Alternatives Queens Committee (TAQC)  will be holding its monthly meeting this evening at 6:30 PM at the Greater Astoria Historical Society, 35-20 Broadway, on the 4th floor of the Thomas M. Quinn & Sons Memorials and Funeral Home. Easy to get to from both the Steinway Street stop on the R, V lines and the Broadway stop on the N, W lines.

If you’re interested in bicycling around our great borough, and representin’ central Queens, this is the committe for you.

Thanks to comrade blogger, Forest Hills 72, for inquiring about the TA Queens Committee’s mission. Read the comments page to learn more about the inner workings and goals of the TAQC, and read my Forest Hills-Park Slope round-trip biking route.

There will be a packed agenda and lots to discuss, and lots of ways to get involved.  I also look forward to getting everyone’s opinion on a variety of topics. 

Transportation Alternatives Queens Committee advocates on behalf of cyclists, pedestrians, and mass transit users, in Queens.  They meet the 2nd Monday each month (unless otherwise noted) at the Greater Astoria Historical Society from 6:30p-8p.  All are welcome to join.

So Queens libraries are in for a $7 million budget cut, and that’s kind of disgraceful considering the Queens library system is already sorta embarrassing. Just think of how it’ll be when it has even less money. Y’know, when I moved to Forest Hills, the library on 71st was terrible, but then it closed for a major renovation. When it reopened–yep, still terrible. Seems to me like the kids’ offerings aren’t bad, but libraries aren’t just for kids. Can’t we piggyback on the NYPL like the Bronx and Staten Island do?

Anyway, like at least one other local blogger, I was asked to post a link to an online petition to stop the bleeding, and because I think libraries are a vital community resource, I’ve already done so, right there, earlier in this sentence.

Merry Christmas! To celebrate, here’s some Jew stuff for you.

Most of you are probably familiar with the saga of the Trylon Theater, the Rego Park landmark that was denied acknowledgment of such by the Landmarks Preservation Commission before being turned into a Bukharian community center. The Bukharian group wasted no time altering the marquee, putting up a hideous, hideous sign entirely in Cyrillic.

Well, a tipster points out that after a coordinated campaign of complaints to Melinda Katz, the marquee now includes the words “COMMUNITY CENTER,” en anglais. Also, precariously perched atop the marquee are the words “OHR NATAN,” which aren’t really English, but hey, they’re closer than the rest.

There’s probably some Christmas lesson to be learned here, about Jews and America and immigration and assimilation and bigotry and stubbornness and the Minuteman Project and the effects of community activism and probably not Jesus, but maybe we can work him in somehow. But whatever; draw your own conclusions. Ho ho ho!

The city’s annual school report cards are out, and though The New York Times’ spin is how surprisingly tough the grades were, here in Queens, things went a little more smoothly. PS 101 (in the Gardens) and PS 196 (on the parkway) got A’s, just like you expected. But which one is better? The graders are nice enough to settle the great elementary-school debate: Grand Central Parkway’s A is based on a score of 78.88, while School in the Gardens slides by with a 76.91. Eat that, Gardens!

The widely loathed Russell Sage Junior High got a C, whereas the not so widely loathed Forest Hills High made out with a B. Here’s one surprise: If you can, send your surly adolescent to Halsey Junior High, up by NOVO 64, instead of Sage. It scored a solid B.

Other area schools and how they scored after the jump.

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Left-wing sources inform me that the controversial Petraeus-hataz at MoveOn.org have organized a series of rallies tonight to encourage Congress to override Bush’s veto of the childrens’ health-care bill, a proposal so far left that creepy party-line Republican Orrin Hatch co-wrote it. One of them, believe it or not, is in Forest Hills in the “small Park below 71st and Continental,” which I guess means MacDonald Park. It’s at 6 p.m., so if you want to be an activist but don’t feel like venturing particularly far from home, here’s your opportunity. Come ready to scream lots and lots. Check out the event page to register.

It’s “Rego Hills,” according to Republican mailer I found in the vestibule of my building. The oversized postcard comes from the Forest Park PAC on Dartmouth Street and encourages recipients to vote for a slate of candidates in this coming Tuesday’s Republican primary. It also kindly requests that you “please take this card into the voting booth with you,” which I thought was illegal, but it’s the Republicans, so who’s counting?

Anyway, the mailer is intended for GOP voters, the front and back both declare, in “Middle Village, Glendale, Forest Hills, Rego Hills, Rego Park, Kew Gardens.” What is Rego Hills? The fuzzy-bordered area around 67th Avenue and Queens Boulevard? The netherworld surrounding NOVO 64? The long stretch of Yellowstone where everything on the supposed Rego Park side is named Forest Hills something-or-other? All I know for sure is that googling it nets a big six results, every single one of which has something to do with Republicans. Oh, I know! It’s some Californiaesque conspiracy to split the vote and finally win something!

According to the always-informative Visionary over at the Queens Boulevard Restoration Group, for the past few weeks

city agencies have blitzed the Continental Av street vendors with summonses for everything from unsanitary conditions of the fruit stand, including holding produce in an unrefrigerated truck, to the halal guy dumping his grease down catch basins near Queens Blvd; to expired permits, to over-limit sidewalk occupation.

Vis believes this to be a great example of civic responsibility by concerned citizens in action. But being pro-street vendor, I’ve got a very different take. This sudden, intensive series of summonses strikes me as a calculated campaign of harassment from up high. Melinda Katz and the local bigs are on record as being anti-vendor, and using the long arm of the bureaucracy is an old political trick that would be an efficient technique to financially pressure delicious, sweet pralines to get the hell off Continental.

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I’ve returned from Oklahoma just in time to discover that my home borough has New York City’s largest inferiority complex, though I could have told you that. Apparently the hot new term is “third borough syndrome,” as coined by the Queens Tribune, and surely this is the first time the Trib has ever come up with a phrase that garnered coverage in The New York Times. You know what my favorite thing about third borough syndrome is? The implicit disrespect to the Bronx and Staten Island, which have apparently dropped off the list — if they were ever on it in the first place — of boroughs even worth a moment of consideration. Doesn’t this sorta prove that Queens is now big time? The NYT deigns to mention it in the same breath as Manhattan — ritzy! – and Brooklyn — super hip! The buzzword for Queens is real, as “third borough syndrome” originator Tom Finkelpearl (great name) puts it.

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In a borough where rules are constantly changing to allow for high-density development, part of Forest Hills might be getting rezoned — but, unusually enough, to restrict development, not to encourage it. That area is South Forest Hills, the freestanding-house-dominated neighborhood surrounding the quaint, suburbish Metropolitan Avenue shopping strip — not to be confused with Forest Hills South, the adorable co-op development a few blocks from where I live and nowhere near the neighborhood in question. Says FH Community and Civic Association prez Barbara Stuchinski:

The zoning is to correct that [the current] zoning allows for community facilities, such as the monstrosities on Austin Street, of private homes being turned into large medical clinics.

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A couple weeks ago, when I got my panties all in a bunch about congestion pricing, it did occur to me that maybe there was a solution for the working-class stiffs from neighborhoods with limited public-transit options who would potentially be forced to pay $40 a week to get into the city. Despite the inconvenience, at least they could drive to Long Island City or Brooklyn Heights, park and take the subway from there.

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