If you go at 11 AM on a gorgeous, sunny Saturday morning, you’ll have the place all to yourselves!

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As a result of the outcry from late-night QC readers, the news stand is saved!

Just kidding.

As the rest of the world seems to know, local newsstands are being replaced. Here’s this week’s progress.

One day, you’re the lead-off story, next day you’re yesterday’s news.

Last week we were coming home late in the evening and saw the newstand guys cleaning everything up, and we thought they were just going on vacation or something. Guess not.

The curious thing about it is that the newstand was left open and abandoned like so for at least 3 days.

The guys who ran the newstand always seemed to have a great rapport with their regulars every morning. They always seemed to have steady business during commuting hours, even with a supermarket, candy store and subway-based newstand within spitting distance. One of the more comforting phenomena of NYC is the ability of a newstand and a candy-and-newspaper store to co-exist and thrive right next to each other.

To the Queens Boulevard and 71st Road Newstand Guys: I wish you all the best! May you always have many customers, sell lots of candy, and sell winning lottery tickets wherever you are!

As first reported on the forums a couple days ago and confirmed by yours truly on one of my many walks, the former location of Rockaway Bedding on AQUA’s North Side of Queens Boulevard will now be a pharmacy. CVS? Rite Aid? Duane Reade? Sorry–it’s going to be a “pharmacy and surgical supply [store].” Yes, one of those.

Let’s review the tenants of that storefront in the past few years, shall we?

1. West Coast Video: not really cool, antiquated, but at least mildly OK
2. Rockaway Bedding: useless, not OK at all
3. Yet another pharmacy and surgical supply store: completely unacceptable

In case you’re unfamiliar with these places–and if you are, I hope you pay us a visit in Forest Hills sometime–they’re not the kind of pharmacy that has candy and magazines and a blood-pressure machine in the back. They charge five times the going rate for medication and display canes in the window. They will sell you a sitz bath. There are something like three of them within a one-block radius of the old Rockaway Bedding.

A related forum report–same thread–claims the Rite Aid across the street, which I use all the time and is at least a neighborhood hub of sorts where people can run into each other buying Hershey’s Miniatures and Cape Cod potato chips, will be closing to become “a First Med place,” which appears to be a McDoctor’s. I’m reserving judgment on this one until I see or hear solid evidence that it’s true. Oh, who am I kidding? I’m not reserving judgment. This would be the worst thing to happen ever.

“Skip the chain shops lining this popular strip for homegrown stores.”

Austin Street makes it into Time Out New York’s “Best Streets to Shop” feature (Issue 654, April 10 - 16, 2008)! Eight little gems - including our personal favorite, Stoa - get their props in this collection.

“Argh, come visit me at Games Workshop!”

Yes, they mention The Body Shop - a chain, they admit - but despite the dominance of chains on Austin St., they need not rely on them for this article. Look at which stores they had to select for the other shopping strips they feature: CB2, Filene’s Basement, Lush Soaps, Loehman’s! They even give a shout-out to Laytner’s on the UWS. But the Laytner’s on Austin Street? Sorry, didn’t make the cut.

Hey, everyone, I’m back from my national lampoon of a European vacation, and imagine my surprise to see — well, very little new when I got back. However, I do have to mention one thing that caught my eye: a strange new store (or “shop,” as the British say) coming soon to the heart of Austin Street, in the location of one of the former leather-goods stores: It’s Your Internet, a place where you — yes, you! — can experience this very Internet in non-digital form. “Finally,” the sign cryptically boasts, “brick and mortar contains the Internet!” Uh, right!

In the window is a long, long list of all the things you’ll be able to do at It’s Your Internet. You can start a blog, just like this one! You can make friends on MySpace! But my favorite, hands down, is “learn AOL.” I can’t think of a better use of your Internet time. In 1996.

Look, the truth is I have no idea what this place is or what you can do there, besides learn AOL, of course. The website currently gives up precious few clues, even though I was under the impression it was my Internet. We’ll find out.

London and Barcelona were fabulous, by the by. I highly recommend both destinations. And thanks so much, Mickie, for contributing in my absence. Feel free to post all you’d like in the future.

Just got the word from an e-mail tipster that Ethan Allen on the QB is finished. Go raid it while there are still deals to be had. Six weeks from now, it’s gone. I did not know about this even though I live across the street. Go figure–it’s cold out.

I have mixed feelings about this. For one thing, it was a reasonably classy, high-endy business. However, it seemed like nobody ever shopped there–though supposedly they lasted 15 years. The big question: What could possibly replace it? All Ethan Allens, including this one, look like Ethan Allens. If nothing’s lined up already, we’re looking at a major renovation or a teardown job. Could be a great location for a big slivery thumb-in-the-air apartment building. Pinnacle II?

Austin Street shoppers are no doubt familiar with the two mini-malls on the north end of the street, a couple of blocks west of Continental (and thus located in the little-cited sub-neighborhood of Westcon). Both these mini-malls are quite unattractive, but one–the one that doesn’t have Garcia’s in it, the one that was going to be torn down for Heskel Elias’ “five-star luxury hotel”–looks substantially worse than the other. When I first saw it, it reminded me of a shopping arcade you might see in Bombay or something. It’s improved a bit since then, with the peeling brown pillars resurfaced and the promotional signage standardized, but I dunno, it still looks pretty bad.

I headed past there today and noticed that something cool is set to open in the mini-mall: “Ripe,” a juice bar with a full salad bar, panini, that sort of thing. Nice addition to the neighborhood, right? And it occurs to me that most of the stuff in the mini-mall is pretty interesting. Think about it: There’s an acclaimed Thai restaurant, a respected sushi place, the area’s only Greek restaurant, a comic-book store, a much-maligned-but-it’s-still-a-crepe-place crepe place, a skate shop, and now a juice bar. If you discount the Thai and the sushi, those are all things that don’t really exist outside of this particular unattractive shopping venue.

And I got to thinking: Why is that? Could it have something to do with the probability that in this horrible-looking monstrosity where businesses have to struggle to be noticed, rent is substantially lower? It can’t be a coincidence. There was an interesting thread on the forums a couple of weeks ago, when one of our more-enterprising members e-mailed hip Manhattan sex-toys-wigs-and-shampoo retailer Ricky’s and asked if they’d consider opening a store in FoHi. Ricky himself actually responded, saying they’d love to, but not at those prices. I don’t think it’s any secret that high rents are killing our chances of landing many of the businesses we want. Problem is, the neighborhood lacks a lot of retail space in less-prominent, lower-trafficked areas. The awful mini-mall, with its hideosity and business-unfriendly nooks and crannies, is a nice cheat. Let’s hear it for bad architecture, I guess.

According to an interesting-if-dubiously-sourced post on the forums, all the retail on the ground floor of NOVO 64 has been sold (leased?), an impressive feat considering the development’s not-quite-central location. The biggest news, of course, is that Starbucks, Starbucks, Starbucks may be moving in, which would be the–let’s see–four, five, carry the two–sixth Forest Hills location? I think it’d be the sixth Forest Hills location. Take that, everywhere else! The other prospective tenants are a “couple of medical offices” and a bakery. Whether that bakery will be hip or Russian is TBD.

If true, I find this fascinating considering that the Windsor, with its much better location, has been up for something like two years and still has most of its retail spaces vacant. The tanning salon that also has a location like three blocks away is there, and purportedly Cheeburger Cheeburger will open soon, though I’m starting to wonder when exactly that’s going to happen. Why did NOVO 64 do so much better? Probably rent that’s about a million times lower. Yeah, that sounds like it.

I considered the possibility that the post is from an undercover NOVO employee looking to stir up positive buzz, but somehow I feel like “killbyinches” wouldn’t be that agent’s screen name of choice.

As reported on the forums–but noticed and subsequently ignored by me on Christmas Eve as I fought through the Austin Street crowds–one of the leather-goods stores that used to dominate Austin is closing. It’s just one in a long string of recent closings that’s plagued the area.

Nobody around here seems to like the leather places, and I can’t say I patronize them myself. But I did always think it was cool that Austin had something it was known for. When my father-in-law came to visit, he spent a good hour looking into all the shops, cooing over the selection and eventually coming away with a nice jacket. They’re an attraction. You want leather, you come to Forest Hills.

But like a lot of things, our status of Leather Capital of Queens seems to be changing, the purveyors pushed out while more mall-type stuff moves in. You may think that’s good, but I dunno, I’d kind of like a few of these guys to stick around.