sunset

7 best places to visit in Queens

one opinion

25 essential foods in NYC

25 essential foods in NYC

from the NYT

#3, #9, #10 #16 #21 #24,

are all easily accessible from the #7 train

Where the NYT thinks you should eat

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/01/travel/queens-new-york-city-international-food-scene.html

All images have been deleted to save space

By Seth Kugel

·       July 1, 2019

·        

o    

o    

o    

o    

o    

o   14

The $3.50 kebab was supposed to be a stopgap measure, a placeholder for a lunch that would have to wait until after an appointment in Manhattan.

Neither the foil-wrapped sandwich nor the dumpy corner shop was much to look at. But the first bite — moist ground lamb laced with onion and a jolt of spice, wrapped in pillowy naan and doused with a Pakistani cucumber-yogurt sauce — stopped me short. It was the best thing I had eaten in a month. (And, pizza slices aside, the cheapest.) I sat down to savor it, then walked across a pedestrian-clogged plaza, past a Tibetan dumpling truck and a samosa-filled shop window before entering the subway. Three stops later I was in Midtown, easily making my appointment.

Video

Preparing tacos at the Crus-Z Family Corp. Mexican restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens.Credit

I was using an easy trick for finding delicious cheap meals in New York City: Eat in Queens. Though the city’s biggest borough may be home to Kennedy and La Guardia airports, most travelers fly in and head for the glamour of Manhattan and the bright, shiny objects of hipster Brooklyn. Alas, their wallets are the lighter for it.

ADVERTISEMENT

The kebab shop, by the way, is called Kabab King, but there’s no pressing need to jot that down. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of others of its kind, unceremoniously serving unadulterated national cuisine to working-class compatriots.

[This story is part of our package about Queens, New York City’s most diverse borough. It also includes 36 Hours in Rockaway Beach, and a review of the new TWA Hotel, by our architecture critic, Michael Kimmelman.]

Whether you’re coming from another state, or country, or (in the case of Brooklyn) world, you have two options: Choose your own adventure by hopping off the 7 train at a random stop and following your nose, or do exhaustive research. If you tend toward the latter, start by looking for Queens articles on Eater, Serious Eats, Grub Street and this publication’s Hungry City column. Then explore specialized publications like Chopsticks and Marrow, Culinary Backstreets’ Queens page, and Edible Queens. For the deepest dive of all, click on any Queens neighborhood in the vast listings of Dave Cook’s Eating in Translation blog.

Joe DiStefano, the author of 111 Places in Queens You Must Not Miss and the creator of Chopsticks and Marrow, deftly sums up the borough’s culinary appeal: “If I want to eat Thai food, I eat where Thai people live and work and play and pray: Elmhurst,” he said. “When you go there, you’re getting a huge degree of specificity. You don’t go to where the menu is an encyclopedia, you go where ‘all we do is chicken and rice.’ That analogy holds true in every neighborhood in Queens,” he added. “ ‘We’re a Korean barbecue restaurant but our specialty is kalbi. Or we do Korean sashimi or we do just porridge and we don’t care.’”

ADVERTISEMENT

There’s far more to do in Queens than eat, which is lucky, because you certainly want to have something to do between meals. What follows is a humble sample of my recent food adventures in three areas, plus a handful of suggestions for pre- and postprandial activities.

A meal of roasted and crispy pork with noodles and broccoli at Moo Thai Food in Elmhurst, Queens.CreditCalla Kessler/The New York Times

I

Jackson Heights and Elmhurst

Walk east from the Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Avenue subway stop, and you’ll pass Mexican taco trucks and Colombian bakeries; north, and it’s South Asian sweets shops and Himalayan momo trucks; southeast and you’ll pass a Chinese supermarket on your way to some of (most of?) the best Thai food in New York. If this is not the most diverse neighborhood in the world, it’s at least the most diversely delicious.

As you stroll, occupy yourself by shopping for saris and spices on 74th Street, admiring the prewar buildings of the Jackson Heights Historic District, or having a drink at Terraza 7, a quirky, thumb-sized Colombian bar featuring eclectic live music. But the star nonfood-related attraction is a few stops east on the 7 train: Corona’s Louis Armstrong House Museum, the place where the trumpeting legend lived for three decades, frozen in time from the 1970s and open for tours Wednesday through Sunday

But mostly you’ll eat, which is how I lured my friends Lee and Caryn and their two teenage daughters to join me one afternoon. We met up at Diversity Plaza, an accurate, if cloying, name for the pedestrianized block of 37th Road I mentioned earlier, in the South Asian business district of Jackson Heights. Our first stop was Namaste Tashi Delek Momo Dumpling Palace, a decidedly unpalatial eatery in a dingy basement where curries are sold alongside lottery tickets. On our visit workers were tossing pallets around just off the cramped dining room.

Video

Preparing beef momos at Namaste Tashi Delek Momo Dumpling Palace, in Jackson Heights.Credit

“This is what you’ve dragged us out here for?” my friends didn’t quite say as we found a seat at a table near the counter. But then came jhol momos: tidily crimped, doughy dumplings swimming in a tomato-and-sesame broth spiced up with chiles and Nepalese hog plum powder (eight for $7). They were good, but not as much fun as the steamed beef momos ($1 cheaper), which we dressed up with three sauces of varying heat, spooned out of glasses capped with plastic coffee lids.

ADVERTISEMENT

Jackson Heights is also known as a Colombian neighborhood, and the country’s largely chile-free, hearty and accessible cuisine includes great snack food: empanadas that pack meat or other fillings inside a fried cornmeal shell (try them at Empanada Spot, from $1.50); cheesebreads like pandebonos (Miracali, $1.25); and summertime fruit, ice and condensed milk treats called cholados for around $6. (I like the ones at Delicias Colombianas on 82nd Street near 37th Avenue.)

But I’ve been to all those places countless times, so I dragged Lee, Caryn and company to the adjoining East Elmhurst neighborhood to eat at Cali Aji, which a Colombian friend had recommended. A few eyebrows were raised (in a friendly way) when our non-Latino group goofily paraded into the small, homey spot that looks like a converted pizza shop. We feasted on sobrebarriga ($13) — a slab of brisket in a tomato-based sauce that, dressed differently, would have felt at home at a Seder or barbecue joint — and several seafood dishes. It’s also a good place to try juice made from the lulo — a citrusy fruit that looks like a persimmon on the outside and a quadrisected green tomato on the inside, and was a hit with everyone. The somewhat unlikely highlight, however, were the tostones, which were so perfectly round, hot and crisp that they even convinced Lee, whom Caryn referred to as an “avowed hater” of the fried green plantains, to reconsider.

For a variety of goat tacos, go to the Crus-Z Family Corp. Mexican restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens. CreditCalla Kessler/The New York Times

Image

For a variety of goat tacos, go to the Crus-Z Family Corp. Mexican restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens. CreditCalla Kessler/The New York Times

Mexican food is tricky business in this area, where, along Roosevelt Avenue, some spots exist more as Corona dispensaries for tired workers than culinary temples. That’s why I was hesitant to take some friends to the Crus-Z Family Corp restaurant (sometimes known as Family Cruz online). But doubt faded when our server brought out warm, slightly greasy tortilla chips and dirty scarlet chile de árbol salsa that packed deliciously short-lived heat. We over-ordered — pozole and a packed cemita sandwich among our unfinished choices — but the highlight was a platter with four samples of goat tacos ($3.50 each): moist shredded barbacoa; an “enchilada” or chile-marinated version of the same; the surprisingly tasty panza (stomach); and “rellena,” coagulated blood with jalapeños and onion, my unlikely favorite.

I brought the group next to the cafe side of La Gran Uruguaya restaurant, just a few blocks away, for the most Uruguayan dessert possible: chajá ($5.25). Vanilla cake with peaches and dulce de leche is buried in nondairy whipped cream studded with chunks of meringue ($3 for a small piece). I’ve never seen it anywhere in the city except on these few blocks of 37th Avenue, where the neighborhood’s Uruguayan eateries are concentrated.

La Gran Uruguaya on 37th Avenue in Jackson Heights is one of the rare local places where you can find chajá: vanilla cake with peaches and dulce de leche.CreditCalla Kessler/The New York Times

Image

La Gran Uruguaya on 37th Avenue in Jackson Heights is one of the rare local places where you can find chajá: vanilla cake with peaches and dulce de leche.CreditCalla Kessler/The New York Times

You’d need a week to explore the Thai offerings found largely in Elmhurst, but the place to start is the south side of Broadway between 81st and 82nd streets, home to two specialized restaurants, Eim Khao Mun Kai for that chicken and rice dish Mr. DiStefano mentioned, and Moo Thai Food, which serves pork only. Down the block is Lamoon, which opened last year and specializes in northern Thai cuisine and makes food writers swoon. Order anything that includes nam prik noom, a Northern Thai “young chili dip,” in the description. The ingredients of my second favorite Thai dish in town, sai aua, include an aggressively spicy sausage made with pork, pig ear, lemongrass, lime leaves and cilantro. (My favorite is miang kah-na, dried pork, onion, peanuts and chunks of peel-on lime wrapped in Chinese broccoli leaves. It’s $11 at Paet Rio on the same block, but I’m partial to the $9.95 version, spelled ming ka-na, a few blocks away at Kitchen 79.)

A meat market on 30th Avenue in Astoria.CreditCalla Kessler/The New York Times

Image

A meat market on 30th Avenue in Astoria.CreditCalla Kessler/The New York Times

ADVERTISEMENT

Astoria and Long Island City

The two neighborhoods closest to Manhattan are also the ones you could visit even on a diet, stopping at the Museum of the Moving Image, MoMA PS1’s contemporary art exhibits, and the Noguchi Museum, dedicated to the work of the 20th-century sculptor Isamu Noguchi. Long Island City is also home to Queens’s lone Michelin star (versus 98 in Manhattan and Brooklyn) earned by Casa Enrique. It’s delicious. Skip it.

Instead, dive into traditionally Greek, now polyglot Astoria, starting with a startlingly non-greasy $8.95 pork gyro at BZ Grill or, even better, their sandwich made with loukanika, a Greek sausage stuffed with pork and leeks and fragrant with red wine. Others will tell you to hit an old school Greek taverna next, but to me the unique Astoria Greek experience is at Astoria Seafood, where I took two out-of-town visitors: my brother Jeremy and our friend Len. The day before, Jeremy told us, he had met a friend for lunch in Manhattan and had a mediocre $16 turkey burger. That was a wrong that had to be made right.

At Astoria Seafood, customers pick out their own seafood, which the restaurant will then prepare.CreditCalla Kessler/The New York Times

At Astoria Seafood, customers pick out their own seafood, which the restaurant will then prepare.CreditCalla Kessler/The New York Times

From the street, Astoria Seafood looks like an average neighborhood fish market. But the inside is as descript as the outside is non-. Boisterous lunch customers pack tables, blabbing in Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Greek and English. Trays of fish line the back, and workers yak behind a counter filled with prepared dishes like spanakopita and seafood rice.

“Pull the bag inside out and use it as a glove,” the man behind the counter said, directing me to pick out my own fish, which I did: a $12 slab of swordfish, $11 for eight chunky scallops, and a bargain $4 for a slippery handful of calamari. I dropped it off with him, and minutes later, my purchase reappeared at our table, grilled and doused in olive oil, minced garlic and several jolts of vinegar. The caramelized tentacles of the squid were crunchy outside and silky inside; the swordfish was impossibly juicy. With drinks and sides, our bill came to $48: the equivalent of one lame Manhattan turkey burger each.

A spinach pie at Ukus, a Bosnian restaurant, in Astoria.CreditCalla Kessler/The New York Times

Image

A spinach pie at Ukus, a Bosnian restaurant, in Astoria.CreditCalla Kessler/The New York Times

You could go Egyptian or Brazilian or more Colombian in Astoria, but for my next visit, I took my friends Zack and Carolina and their young kids to Ukus, an extraordinarily casual Bosnian restaurant where we were greeted, waited on, cooked for and served by the same somberly friendly man. Beverages were self-serve — we tried the Cockta soda, a citrusy, less cloying version of Dr Pepper, and thick Croatian pear juice. Ukus’s family-friendliness was tested when 5-year-old Clara began shooting spitballs, but neither our multitalented server nor the other customers batted an eye.

We shared a $6.50 begova corba, a chicken and rice soup just like what your grandmother would have made, were she Bosnian, and five beef kebab/sausages called cevapi, served inside pita bread and ready to be doused in ajvar (a red bell pepper condiment) or kajmak (a fresh cheese spread) — a bargain at $7.50.

ADVERTISEMENT

A selection of dishes at Point Brazil in Astoria.CreditCalla Kessler/The New York Times

Image

A selection of dishes at Point Brazil in Astoria.CreditCalla Kessler/The New York Times

We also had a dense dessert called a Russian hat, in this case a yellow cake buried inside shaved coconut and drizzled with chocolate syrup, but a better idea would have been to up the international quotient by heading over to Point Brazil for some tangy Brazilian passion fruit mousse ($3) and coffee.

Flushing and beyond

No part of Queens presents a more bafflingly spectacular array of restaurant options than Flushing’s Chinatown and the heavily Korean neighborhood of Murray Hill, easily complemented by the digestion-aiding (or at least digestion-neutral) attractions, situated in and around Flushing Meadows Corona Park, home to the Unisphere and other less-well-maintained structures from the 1964 World’s Fair, as well as the Queens Zoo, Queens Museum and eastward, the Queens Botanical Garden. (The park is also home on Saturdays to the Queens Night Market, open April to August and for a month in the fall. It features food vendors from Norway to Singapore to Puerto Rico, and a crowd diverse in age and origin.) Flushing, a town merged into New York City in 1898, has several historic buildings you can visit on specific days, including the 17th-century Bowne House (Wednesdays), the Queens Historical Society (Tuesdays and weekends), and the Quaker Meeting House (Sundays).

More on traveling in New York City ...

I had three meals in the Flushing area, each of them nothing like the other. My first stop was a splurge, Xiang Hotpot, on the second floor of the New World Mall and, like a portal to a different universe, a palatial China-themed hall halfway between elegant and raucous, where on a Sunday night a friend and I were the only non-Asians.

Xiang HotPot in Flushing, Queens, is a palatial China-themed food hall.CreditCalla Kessler/The New York Times

Xiang HotPot in Flushing, Queens, is a palatial China-themed food hall.CreditCalla Kessler/The New York Times

The fun of a hotpot restaurant is that you cook your own food, in our case pork meatballs, pig kidney, black tofu, shrimp paste with bamboo and (because I couldn’t resist) a bullfrog. Here, the built-in pots are divided, in modified yin-yang style, allowing you to choose two soup bases including the “special spicy pot,” with chiles, Sichuan peppercorns and globs of melting beef tallow. (Beef tallow is a standard cooking fat for hotpot restaurants, just as it used to be for McDonald’s French fries and still is for Belgian street fries, for deliciously crisp results.)

The rest of the fun is that sauce bar, where you can whip up your own dipping bowls based in soy or sesame or seafood sauce, say, and adding ingredients like ground peanuts, cilantro or red chiles. Despite the near-infinite combinations, it’s really hard for even the most amateur sauce maker (me) to make something that isn’t delicious. The cost, at just over$120 for two (with tip), is a worthwhile splurge.

A seafood pancake at Dae Sung Kal Guk Su in Murray Hill.CreditCalla Kessler/The New York Times

My guide to Murray Hill was a Korean-American dentist and Flushing local, Ester Linton, who suggested we have the knife-cut noodle soup called kalguksu at Dae Sung Kal Guk Su. That the noodles are cut (into delicate, silky strands) is an important detail, for we also ordered sujebi, a hand-torn noodle soup traditionally associated with lower classes. “Ah, you like the peasant food,” Ester told me when I indicated a preference for the sujebi. But it was actually a reaction to the variety: Whereas our kalguksu had come in plain, light broth with short-neck clams (delicious), the sujebi came with fish cakes and was jazzed up with spicy broth (more delicious). Both soups were $13.99, and were plenty for two or three.

An assortment of Korean dishes at Myung San in Flushing.CreditCalla Kessler/The New York Times

Image

An assortment of Korean dishes at Myung San in Flushing.CreditCalla Kessler/The New York Times

Ester also brought us to Myung San to try ganjang gaejang ($19.95), raw crab in a fishy, salty, soy-sauce-based marinade. The dish, she explained, is known as a “rice thief,” since once the meat is gone, soaking the rice in the remaining marinade pooled in the crab shell yields results so allegedly delicious that Koreans cannot stop eating it.

ADVERTISEMENT

I had a different reaction and declare the dish innocent of all charges, and kind of disgusting. But if everything you try in Queens suits your palate, you’re probably doing something wrong.

---

Seth Kugel, a frequent contributor to the Travel section, is the author of “Rediscovering Travel: A Guide for the Globally Curious.”

---

52 PLACES AND MUCH, MUCH MORE Follow our 52 Places traveler, Sebastian Modak,

Jackson Heights

Jackson Heights is interesting for many reasons.  It is has a reputation of being an around the world food tasters paradise with smells and tastes available from chefs from Tibet to Uruguay.

But it is also one of the first planned communities in the United States.  The many garden apartments complexes were designed with plenty of architectural detail and the longer you  looks at them, the more secrets you will uncover.

I put together a small sample of what I find interesting.  But there's so much I could only provide a sample.  Stroll the streets and observe people from around the world, rich and poor, gay and straight, shop, eat, attend school, enjoy the parks and generally just live in peace together.

The Post Office 

1. Post Office 38-02 37th Avenue

This Federal building was built in the Neo-Georgian style between 1936-37 as part of the Federal governments economic stimulus program (Historic Jackson HeightsDistrict)  The mural on the wall to the left. as you walk in, is by Peppino Mangravite.  It is titled, “”Development of Jackson Heights”.

Commissioned during the Depression as a Work Project Administration Fine Arts Project, it depicts the transformation of Jackson  Heights from cornfields to Garden Community.  Of course central to the mural and the development of the neighborhood is the construction of the subway featured in the middle of the mural.More information here

If you are only interested in the multi-cultural food aspect skip to the red numbers at the end of this section

A Very Short History

Shortly after the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, New York City became the city we know  , today.  Before then, NYC was only Manhattan and parts of the Bronx.  Brooklyn and even Williamsburg for a time, were separate cities.  Queens County which included parts of what is now Nassau County was mostly farmland with Flushing, Jamaica and Newtown being the largest towns.  In 1898 the city incorporated into the 5 borough city,

In 1909 the Queens Borough Bridge opened, connecting Manhattan to Queens.  (and half a century later Paul Simon wrote Feeling Groovy)

Shortly after the Queensboro Corporation, lead by Edward A. McDougal was formed.  In 1917 the elevated railway line - IRT Flushing line (today's #7 line)reached the neighborhood and the Queensboro Corporation’s development of the area took off.  

The Garden City movement, a reaction to the overcrowded tenements and squalid living conditions of inner London, was founded by  Ebenezer Howard.  His book,  Tomorrow -a Peaceful Path to Real Reform, written about London, was his solution to the awful living conditions there.  It is little coincidence that August Belmont, one of the major financiers of the IRT subway was a major propropent of the Garden City Movement in the United States. Conditions in Manhattan especially the Lower East Side, were very similar to London and with new and easy access to the cornfields of Queens Jackson Heights became the first planned Garden City Community in the United States.  Much more about the Garden City movement.    

From the steps of the Post Office you can see a pretty good panorama of Jackson Heights past ,and present.  Across is a white painted brick building which was the second and last home of the Queensboro Corporation (the first one was on 82 Street just around the corner) Take a look around before turning left on 37th Avenue.

Once the Offices of the Queensboro Corporation

2. Starbucks:  78-25 37th Avenue- The white-painted, tudor style  brick building was the last home of Queensboro Corporation.  Built in 1947 the commercial strip now houses several businesses.  (Jackson Heights Historic District p.111)  There are far better places to stop for a bite to eat.

3. Arepa Lady-77-17 37th Avenue This is a good example of Jackson Heights today. Maria Piedad Cano, who was a judge in her native Colombia, opened a food truck under the #7 tracks after fleeing the violence in Colombia.  This location is her second brick and mortar store in Jackson Heights.  Check inside for photos and delicious arepas - corn cakes with a variety of toppings.

P.S. 69

4. PS 69- 77-02 37th Ave.  If PS 69, built between 1922-24 looks like a typical New York City School building it is because it is a C.B. J. Snyder school.  C.B.J. Snyder was superintendent of NYC school building for more than two decades.  He believed that air and light were essential for education and built schools with large sunlit classrooms to provide optimum learning environments (and to make it difficult for teachers to open and close windows- a process that requires a long heavy wooden pole, but that’s my old life leaking through).  

Though not on this tour Newtown High School 48-01 90th Street is another Snyder School nearby. Built in 1921 it is in the Flemish Renaissance Style.  The landmarked building reflects the Dutch colonial history and the name Newtown is the original name of Elmhurst. 

5. Jewish Center of Jackson Heights 77th Street and the corner of 37th Avenue

At firs,t the Queensboro Corporation perceived Jackson Heights as a restrictive community - no people of color, no Jews.  Look around and see how well that worked out.  In the 1950s and 60s Jackson Heights was home to a large Jewish Community.  The Jewish Center of Jackson Heights served that community- but like so many of the city’s Jewish communities it saw its population drop precipitously.  In order to keep its door opens the center rented space to various LGBT organizations, and may have been instrumental in Jackson Heights becoming a LGBT friendly community.   Here is an interesting video  from PBS.

6. Queens Pride House- 76-11 37th Avenue

http://www.queenspridehouse.org/about-2/mission-history/

For a variety of reasons, one was the reaction to the tragic murder (sign on 78th St and 37th Avenue) of Julio Rivera, another is the the proximity to the Theater district on the #7 train and third being the willingness of the Jewish Center to rent space to LGBT groups- Jackson Heights is a community with strong ties to the LGBT Community. The first weekend in June it hosts the Gay Pride Parade, the largest area parade outside of Manhattan.

Turn left again and head south on 77th Avenue towards Roosevelt Avenue.

7. Club Evolution 76-11 Roosevelt

This dance club has Rainbow flag awning.

Walk east towards 79th Avenue.

8.  La Optica 79-02 Roosevelt Avenue

     In front of La Optica, an eyeglass store, if the weather is good you can usually spot a vendor of Native American Crafts.  In front of his display hang two long feathered Native American  headdresses.  If you want to take a photo, do so from across Roosevelt Avenue-the proprietor doesn’t allow close ups.  For that matter when I point out the stand I do so from the north side of the Avenue because I have already been told that it is not a tourist attraction.  But he is happy to have you browse his wares

Just to the north of Roosevelt (make a left on 80th Street is a little coffee shop.

9. 969 NYC Coffee-  37-61 80 Street. It is a coffee shop, and a tiny Japanese grocery and it has the best onigiri- which are essentially rice balls wrapped around a protein- I like  the cooked salmon.  If the owner is there he is happy to talk to you about his NY experience.

Continue east on Roosevelt to  83 Street.  Make a left and head north. (back towards 37th Avenue)

10. Row Houses  and Spanish Gardens

Original Row Houses

The Row Houses:   
These  were built in 1911. Originally there were ten, but only eight remain.   These attached two story, single family houses were the original concept for Jackson Height

The Spanish Gardens -Eastside of the block between Roosevelt and 37th Avenue

From Jackson Heights Historic District

"The Spanish Gardens , built in 1924-26 and designed by Andree J. Thomas is one of the characteristic garden apartment projects in Jackson Heights.  Occupying most of the block, the complex of six freestanding H-shaped buildings is planned with three buildings along each blockfront joined by a common landscaped garden at the interior of the block.  The passageways between the buildings are spanned at the street front by brick walls and entrance gages.  Each building also has a front garden. Each of the brick building has a broad, recessed five-story section and projecting end section of four stories, this plan creates an entrance court at the front.  The side faces also have shallow and wide light courts.  Each building has a central entryway in a projecting stone porch flanked at each side by secondary entrances in arched stoe enframents.

In 1925, the Jackson Heights News sponsored a contest to select the name for the complex.  The “Spanish Gardens” was chosen because it appropriately reflected the Spanish flavor of the building's architectural feature. Among the Spanish Renaissance-inspired details are the entrance porches with engaged pilasters supporting red tile roof, surmounted by terra-cotta escudo (shields) flanked by griffons; the corbled balconette flanked by Moorish style pilasters in the central stairhall bay and the tiled roof parapets” (Jackson Heights Historic District, page 174)

Note - The Jackson Heights Historic DistrictDocument clearly details all the structures in the historic district.  I quoted the paragraphs for the Spanish Gardens to give a feel for what the details are like.  The are over two hundred pages of these details in the document and going block by block quoting them is beyond the ambition of this entry. 

Places to Eat along the route

Places to eat in Jackson Heights are too numerous to begin to address.  In this area- I note the following only because they represent a variety of tastes- and because- I like them. And we pass them on the walk. There are hundreds that may be equally good or better but I just haven't made it in them.

11. Papa's Kitchen 37-07 83 Street. Real Filipino food.

Turn Right on 37th Avenue

12. Jahn's-81-04 37th Avenue.  The awning says founded in 1897.  Once it was a chain with many stores.  This is the only remaining one.  But it is a one of the few classic ice cream parlors left.

13. Linden Court Garden between Roosevelt Ave  and 37th Ave, between 84th and 85th Streets.

These apartments were built in 1922.  They were the first through-block design, first enclosed private park, first garages, first detached buildings and first co-op plan ownership.  Designed in Neo Geo-Georgian style they where constructed in 1922.  The Olmsted Brother’s firm Of Central Park fame) designed the parks.(Where is Jackson Heights)

14.Sac's Place- 86-14 37th Avenue  An authentic Italian Pizza place complete with red and white checkered tablecloths.

15. La Nueva-86-10 37th Avenue.  I love the alfijores- hard to describe-but my best try is dulce de leche filling surrounded by two short bread cookies  Great pastries, great breads, non-stop soccer games on their large screened TVs. Its a Uruguayan bakery.

Turn left on 87th Street

16. English style private homes 87 Street between 37th Avenue and 35 Avenue

Groups of semi-detached and attached houses built in the 1920s and 1930's by the Queensboro Corporation. These clusters of houses are arranged in symmetrical pattern.

From the Jackson Heights Historic District text:

“The design of the houses is derived largely from the neo-Georgian style.  Elements typical of that style include the red brick facing with white trim, the steeply pitched slate roofs with prominent gable and shed dormer, and the wood shutters at the window.“ (Jackson Heights Historic District p.213)

17.  The Salvation Army Queens Temple Corp Center  86-07 35th Avenue

There are two structures on this block.  The one closest to 87th Street is one story high and today owned and operated by the Salvation Army.  It was once the beginning of a grand Christian Scientist Church that never made it past the first floor.  The structure on the 86th Street side encloses a rotunda.  It was built 25 years after the first one was started.  I don’t think it has anything to do with the Christian Science Church today.

18. The Belvedere 84th Street between 34th and 35th Street

Some of the later buildings in the community. They were built in Neo-Georgian style between 1939-1940.

19. Saint Joan of Arc Roman Catholic Church 82-00 35th Avenue

Like the Christian Science Church the plans for this site were more ambitious than the result.  In 1927 there were plans to build a cathedral here, named after the newly canonized Saint.  Permission to build the cathedral was never granted and the church was built instead.  Check out the bell tower.

20.  The Community United Methodist Church  81-10 35th Avenue

The first House of Worship to be completed in the new community, the cornerstone is dated 1920 and construction was completed in 1923.  There is a wonderful garden in the back of the church with an entrance on 82 Street though it is not always open.  On the corner of 81st Street and 35th Ave the letters have numbered subscripts- the value of the letters in the Game of Scrabble. In the 1930s, 35-26 79th Street was the home of Alfred Butts the inventor of the game. He brought it to the church hall for testing.

21.The Chateau 80-81 Street between 34th Ave  and 35th Avenue. 

Okay I said I wouldn't  put in any more quotes directly from the historic district document, but I wasn’t capable of capturing the essence of this one so I broke my own rule.

“The style of the Chateau derived from French Renaissance architecture, has been described as “reminiscent of the architecture of Henri IV of France”  Particularly suggestive of this inspiration are the imposing slate mansard roofs with dormers and finials:the Flemish bond brick facing and the decorative banding: the diaperwork patterning on the towers of the “A” buildings, the brick chimneys with decorative tops: and the stone entry portals, flanked by decorative colonnets and capped by doods.  The segmental-arched door  openings contain glass doors, with decorative iron grilles.  All of the original doors survive.  Almost all of the original four-over four double -hung wood sash windows survive, as do most of the multi-pane wood casement windows in the towers of the “A” buildings.”   (Jackson Heights Historic District, p.138)

22.The Towers  80-81 Street, Northern Boulevard to 34th Street

These buildings were built in 1922 in the Neo-French Renaissance style..  They were advertised as comparable to Park Avenue apartments.  Large gardens open to the street on 34th Street.  And the griffins guarding the garden gate on 81 Street have become somewhat of a symbol for Jackson Heights.

Garden behind Community Church

23. St Mark Episcopal Church  on 34th Avenue between 81st and 82nd Street

A pretty stone church built in 1927 in the Modern Gothic style.   

24. Travers Park- between 77th and 78th Street with the South Border on 34th Avenue

Newly renovated New York City Department of Parks playground and park space

From Travers Park turn back South towards Roosevelt Avenue.   Head towards 74th Street between 37th Avenue and Roosevelt.  There you can experience Jackson Heights thriving multi-cultural community.  

Following is a list of some interesting food places.

1.     Lhasa Fast food 37-50 74th Street

Ok you reach the above address and there seems to be a mini-mall filled with electronic stores.  Yes you are in the right place.  Go in. Walk around the staircase and in the back is aTibetan Restaurant

2.    Jackson Diner 37-47  74th Street

       The quintessential Indian Restaurant - it's the one in all           the guide books

3.    Patel Brothers Grocery- all manner of  South Asian         food, produce, nuts, beans, spices                              

       And things I can’t identify

And of course check out all the Sari and jewelry shops on the block. If you are lucky there may be people doing the henna hand painting on the street.

4.    Sammy’s Halal Food Trucks 73 and Broadway

       The Epitome of Halal food card food, chicken and rice,      lamb and rice, falafel and rice etc

5.    Diversity Plaza  73-19 37 Road. Right where you get off the train at either the 74th Street  Station on the #7 line or  the Roosevelt Avenue     station on the E, F or R line, there is a little  triangular  pedestrian area. There is a movie marquee,  that has long ceased serving as a theater. It  says Ittadi Gardens.  Check out the Momo trucks   surrounding it for Northern Asian Dumplings. Also there are the Indian Sweet shops on the plaza though I prefer Rajbhog Sweets (#7)

6.     Phayul  37-65 74th Street -second floor

        Another option for Tibetan food

7.     Rajbhog Sweets 72-27 37th Avenue

        Delicious Indian Sweets

8.      La Boina Roja Steakhouse  80-22 37th Avenue

   A step up in atmosphere and service.  A good steak         house  with Colombian  Food

    

 9.      El Chivito de Oro 84 02 37th Avenue

          An Uruguayan  Restaurant with steak and very                 popular  empanadas.  Can get very  crowded.

10.     Lety's Bakery and Cafe-77-07 37th Avenue

11.     Cositas Ricas79-19Roosevelt Avenue.ColombiaBakery

12.     El Abuelo Gozon- 79-03 Roosevelt Ave.Cuban 
          Sports Bar 

13.     Don Alex- 84 -10 37^th Avenue Peruvian Food 

14.     Oceanic Boil -84-20 37th Avenue. Cajun Style Seafood

15.     Tibetan-  Japanese Restaurant 75-26 37th Avenue

16..    Sompong Thai 37-09 83 Street- a cozy Thai place

17.    Copacabana- 80-26 Roosevelt Ave. ABrazillian Grill- Buffet Style

18.   Farine Bakery 74-24 37^th Avenue- A famous Manhattan pastry chef, Michael Mignano, opens a French patisserie selling Halal food.  Only in Jackson Height

          Walking along Roosevelt Avenue there is plenty of culinary experiences right on the              street.  Check out:

• the many food trucks 
• the home made Mexican ice cream sold from coolers, in plastic cups stuck on a popsicle stick
• fruit, fruit,fruit-  cut up and  whole -sold from carts on the street 
• horchata- a drink made with the jicaro seeds ground with rice and spices such as ground cocoa, cinnamon, sesame seeds, nutmeg, tiger nuts and vanilla.    
• blended fruit drinks- sold from store front window- you get to choose the fruits and vegetables to blend          

The following sources were invaluable for information in putting this post together
   

   Jackson Heights Historic District, Landmark Preservation Commission: http://s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/1831lp/.pdf

   Jackson Heights Parks/ Jackson Heights Gardens:  www.mpcproperties.com/jacksonheightstour.php

Nevius, The Transformation of Jackson Heights, Curibed New York. https://ny.curbed.com/2017/4/19/15328342/jackson-heights-queens-history

An actual book
Karatzas, Daniel.  Jackson Heights a Garden City, 1990
(its out of print but available by request from the Queensboro Library)

Fathom, The Homeboy's Hot List for Jackson Heights. https://fathomaway.com/best-restaurants-jackson-heights-queens-nyc/


PBS passport holders can watch the Frederick Wiseman Documentary In Jackson Heights, Everyone else can check out clips here.