This is a photographic tribute to my native neighborhood in New York:  Long Island City, Queens.  It was inspired by Amazon’s announcement last month of its plan to open a new headquarters there, coupled with a realization that I have recent photographs of the proposed building site area.   Moreover, the now historic connection of lawyer Michael Cohen’s Long Island City business to presidential politics gave me an added impetus to write about an already interesting place. 

 

          With the kind indulgence of my sister on car trips from Long Island to Manhattan, we were able to drive through our old neighborhoods of Sunnyside, Woodside and Long Island City, and then continue by the short taxi ride over the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan where I got to see a few of my favorite offbeat sights.  That is how I got the photos below.

 

          I was born in Astoria, and my family lived first in Woodside and then in Sunnyside, which are the neighborhoods adjacent to what is now called Long Island City, the section of Queens bordered by Brooklyn and the East River. In my youth, the area designated as Long Island City included those three adjacent neighborhoods.   Long Island City was part of my formal home address, and was listed as my birthplace on documents, that is, until recently, when I had it changed officially to New York City.  

 

          When I was growing up in the 1940s and 50s, Long Island City was mainly a commercial and light industrial area with factories, warehouses and especially the offices and garages for cab companies, including the one story building where lawyer Michael Cohen had his Yellow Cab taxi medallion business.  While this business has since folded, Cohen did very well for a while and was able to move up in the world, eventually joining up with Queens’ famous con man, Donald Trump.  Meanwhile, the taxi cabs were abandoned at a gas station on Northern Boulevard, described nicely in this little local report: http://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/transit/2018/10/12/sources--cabs-formerly-owned-by-michael-cohen-and--taxi-king--sit-abandoned-in-queens

 

          In what I think is a remarkable event in modern times, Queens has become home to the largest and most diverse population of immigrants anywhere in the world.  Currently, about one half its 2 million plus population is foreign-born, coming from all over the globe.  Amazon sees the benefit; Trump is ungrateful.

 

          The Court Square Diner, seen in pictures below, is still an ordinary diner.  However, in the near future, it might very well become popular and upscale, that is, when Amazon moves into the neighborhood.  My older relative, Ira Glener, who lives nearby and whom we met at the diner, and the new very young Congresswoman from the area, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who reflects the local progressive politics, both object to the Amazon deal.  One important issue is a couple of billion dollars in concessions the mayor and governor gave to Amazon, which could have gone to other pressing needs, like improving the 100 year old subway system (see historic 1917 photo below) which is very heavily used, and functioning poorly these days.

 

Stephen Fisher

2018