The Queens Central manifesto

Posted by Steve on Saturday, April 21st, 2007

Our humble area gets a lot of crap. If you’re over 60, your friends think you’re super cool for living in Forest Hills — so classy! Your septuagenarian pals know that Kew Gardens is home to some of the best skilled nursing facilities east of Woodhaven Boulevard.

But what about the rest of us? I’ve lived in Forest Hills going on three years now. In that time, I’ve seen a lot fewer people being pushed in wheelchairs and a lot more babies being pushed in strollers. Younger people are realizing that hey, this is a great place to live. It’s nice, safe, accessible, affordable, everything you need is close at hand. And it’s not just my neighborhood — Rego Park, Kew Gardens, even distant Briarwood are slowly morphing, too, as more people realize they can move there and get more for less. Central Queens’ character is changing. Its cachet has to change, too. That’s what we’re going to try to do around here.

You often hear defenders of Forest Hills’ hipness mention that the Ramones came from here. True, but the Ramones left for the Lower East Side. Let’s bring them back — the ones who aren’t dead, at least.

Here at Queens Central, you’ll find this, the blog, where we’ll try to highlight new and exciting things about the neighborhood. But it won’t be cheerleading — you’ll find plenty of complaining about what we’d like to change, too. For now, I use the royal we, but if you’re interested, I’d love to get you on board and blogging, too, especially if you live outside of Forest Hills. Be warned: For now, this site is going to be very FoHi-centric. Don’t like it? You can change it. As long as you’re a competent writer with the right attitude about what you’d like to see happen in Central Queens, you’re welcome to contribute.

You’ll also find Queens Central Forums, which I’d like to see become the vibrant, youthful, active message board this area really lacks. Want a greenmarket in town? Trying to lure some great chefs to open restaurants here? Sick of all the banks? This is the place to rile up the masses. It’s also the place to just talk and meet some of the people who live around you. I talk a lot about “changing character,” but even if you’ve lived here all your life, I’d invite you to come up and see the forums sometime. I’d rather not see a lot of threads about how great things used to be, but I don’t believe in censorship and I’ll always let you have your say, unless what you’re saying is seriously disruptive and/or illegal.

I could go on, but if you’ll excuse me, it’s 75 degrees out and a great day to walk down Austin Street and get some ice cream. Hope you like the site.

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