Chinese New Year Parade 2012 Photos

Reflects Evolving Chinese & Korean American Community

February 6, 2012 / Flushing / Ethnic & Religious Culture / Queens Buzz. I attended the year of the dragon Chinese New Year Parade in Flushing on Saturday, February 4th. It’s easily the best Queens parades because the Chinese and Koreans put a lot of effort into a sensory pleasing, cultural mélange, that includes beautiful costumes, melodic music and aesthetic theater.

Thousands participate in the parade, which first began in Flushing in 1997. In 2011 the parade starting welcoming non-Asian participation, and hence last year it was interesting to watch someone of mixed ethnic descent, run as one the leads of one of the dragon dance teams. The dragon dance teams in the Flushing New Year Parade vary, as in China, from a two member team to as many as ten or fifteen. Legend has it, that the longer the parade dragon, the greater the luck for the year.

Click here to read more about our report and view photos of the Chinese New Year Parade 2012 in Flushing Queens.

Chinese New Year 2012 in Flushing

Flushing Town Hall - Building Cultural Bridges

January 25, 2012 / Flushing / Ethnic & Religious Culture / Queens Buzz. I attended the opening ceremony at the Flushing Town Hall celebrating the Chinese new year. Flushing Town Hall is a neighborhood and Queens borough cultural center, which has easily become one of the leading places in Queens and NYC, where one can familiarize themselves with authentic Asian cultures.

Flushing Town Hall presents many exhibits and programs, which nurture an environment of cross cultural understanding. They are also an important location for innovative theater performances, jazz, and world music, of which you can read more about by using the search function on this site.

One of the reasons for Flushing Town Hall's emergence as an Asian cultural center is that Flushing is the home to the largest Chinese community in New York, equaling – if not surpassing - Chinatown in Manhattan. And New York City is home to the largest Chinese community outside of China.

This year is 2012 AD in the western world, but to the Chinese this is the lunar year 4709 and the year of the lucky dragon. Steve Chen of Crystal Window & Door Systems in Flushing [current exhibit sponsors], speaks about the Antique Chinese Windows and Doors collection currently on exhibit at Flushing Town Hall.

Click here to read more about the upcoming Chinese New Year Parade 2012 in Flushing Queens and Chinese Culture.

Public & Private Lives Converge in Urbanity

December 12, 2011 / Flushing / Art Exhibits in Queens / Queens Buzz. I visited the Crossing Art Gallery in Flushing Saturday for their opening of Personal.Spaces. The exhibit theme is about personal space in public places. An example of such is shown in the artwork to your right, where countless people are sharing public space, close enough to touch one another, but all living very separate lives. Living within their Personal.Spaces.

The Flushing art gallery did a nice job of dimensionalizing the theme through a number of different works from a multitude of artists, many of whom either work or live within the NYC area. Click here to view a brief report, including photos of the Personal.Spaces art exhibit at the Crossing Art Gallery in Flushing.

History of the Rockaways

Retired Salesman Busy Saving Queens Past

November 6, 2011 / Flushing Neighborhood / Queens History / Queens Buzz. Marty Nislick is a former Rockaways native and a retired salesman. But he's only retired from his job, not his life; especially his life as a youth growing up in the Rockaways.

Over the past few years Marty's interest in the history of the Rockaways neighborhoods of his youth has grown from a hobby to a passion. And from the day I met Marty Nislick at the Queens Historical Society in Flushing, I began to understand why. The photo to your right was taken on July 4th 1954 and featured on the front page of Life Magazine in the 1950's.

Click here to read more about the history of the Rockaways in Queens.

Horticulture In Queens

Queens Historical Society Presents History Of Queens Horticulture

October 17, 2011 / Flushing Neighborhood / Food & Wine / Queens Buzz. This past weekend the Queens Historical Society [QHS] presented a history of horticulture in Queens. The society put together a panel of four experts, who took us back hundreds of years to Dutch colonial times when the Flushing area of Queens was a mix of farmland and swampland.

The panelists walked us through hundreds of years of spice trading, informing us from whence came many of foods we enjoy today. The presentation included live samples of herbs and roots, as well as recommended reading for one interested in the history or the botany of Queens horticulture past.

Click here later today to read more about horticulture in Queens.

People-Powered Green Symposium

Fourth Annual Going Green In Queens

April 12, 2011 / Flushing / Green & Natural / Queens Buzz. The fourth annual 'Going Green In Queens' environmental symposium was held on Saturday, March 26th, at the Al Oerter Center in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

Hundreds of people, possibly more than a thousand, visited the green booths set up by a number of community organizations that are working to build a more sustainable / regenerative environment in Queens.

Booths included urban composters, community parks organizations, a solar panel provider, energy saving devices / alternative energy providers, an organic food group, sailing and bicycling groups .. and more.

Click here to view our report on Going Green In Queens 2011.

Queens College In Flushing

NYC Educators Making Things Happen

January 26, 2011 / Flushing / Queens Buzz. The following report is about a recent visit to Queens College in Flushing. The school is public, but only receives one third of its funding from the state. And so the school has sought help from alumni of the college who have supported many of the college’s efforts to enhance its facilities and programs through private donations.

The result is that Queens College provides NYC & Queens residents with a very good college education at affordable prices.

Click here to read our full report about Queens College in Flushing including a look at the Colden Auditorium, LeFrak Concert Hall and the Godwin-Ternbach Museum.

Flushing & Corona Maps - Overview

Click to view four maps of Flushing & Corona: 1) Map of Shopping Districts In Flushing & Corona with links to shop home pages on this site, 2) Map of Flushing & Corona Restaurants that have been reviewed on this site, and 3) Map of cultural attractions in Flushing & Corona most for which there are reports about them to be found on this site.

Click here to view Flushing & Corona Maps - Maps of Shops, Restaurants and Cultural Attractions in Flushing & Corona Queens.

Queens Taste 2012

Sampling the Fare of Queens Restaurants & Food Entrepreneurs

May 1, 2012 / Flushing / Queens Restaurants / Food in Queens / Queens Buzz. I arrived at Queens Taste 2012 at Caesars on the fifth floor at Citifield about an hour after the event had begun. The feeding frenzy that generally occurs at the very beginning had passed, and most people had found tables and were pleasantly enjoying the fare and light dinner conversation, along with intermittent people-watching.

Borghese Red & White Wines of LI

I started into the food and beverage area surveying the vendors offerings this year and made my first landing at the Borghese Vineyards wine table. I met Ann Marie Borghese, who along with her husband, bought a farm in the 1970’s in Cutchogue, NY, which is located about in the middle of the northern fork of eastern Long Island.

Click here to view our report of Queens Taste 2012 [formerly Taste of the World].

Festival of Herbal Tonic Soup

Asian Cooking In Flushing Queens

February 11, 2012 / Food & Wine / Flushing / Queens Buzz. I attended an herbal tonic soup class arranged by Dr. Hsing-Lih Chou at Flushing Town Hall. Dr. Chou presents one Asian cooking class each year at the same location, featuring some aspect of traditional Asian home cooking. This year he introduced us to two Asian cooking aficionados: Madame Hwei-Yun Hsieh and Mr. Kelby Leow.

Ms. Hsieh was to treat us to a lesson on how to cook her famous Chinese Sesame Oil Ginger Chicken Soup, while Mr. Leow would introduce us to his famous Korean Ginseng Chicken Soup. Dr. Chou explained that he had selected these two soups in order to ‘balance’ each other, as one had a robust flavor and the other had a more subtle flavoring.

Click here to read more about how to cook Chinese and Korean herbal chicken soups - Asian cooking in Flushing Queens.

Flushing & Corona Shops & Shopping

Flushing & Corona / Queens Buzz. This section contains shopping related stories, maps and other information about shopping in the neighborhoods of Flushing and Corona in Queens. 

Click here to view information about shops and shopping in Flushing and Corona NY.

Real Estate In Flushing

Real Estate Development In Flushing Continues

April 14, 2011 / Flushing Neighborhood / Real Estate Development In Flushing / Queens Buzz. This winter I attended the state of the borough address given by Queens Borough president Helen Marshall and another given by NYC deputy mayor of economic development, Robert K. Steel. This report captures some of their comments about Flushing Commons condominium and retail complex which is a large-scale real estate development projects in Queens. The graphic shown to your right is a depiction of the Flushing Commons when it is completed.

Following their speeches, we did some investigation and research to find out more about this and other Flushing real estate development projects. The Flushing Commons retail and condominium project begins in 2011 and is expected to be completed by 2013. Advocates of the project hail the addition of new facilities, while detractors question whether the city has made sufficient provision for infrastructure in an area that is one of the most traversed outside of Manhattan.

Click here to read more about real estate development in Flushing Queens.

Real Estate In Flushing - Willets Point

April 14, 2011 / Flushing Neighborhood / Flushing Real Estate / Queens Buzz. This winter I attended the State of the Borough Address given by Queens Borough president Helen Marshall and a month later I attended a speech given by NYC deputy mayor of economic development, Robert K. Steel. This report captures their brief comments about Willets Point condominium and retail development project, as well as a considerable amount of research I did following those two presentations.

In the following report we provide you with a history of the effort to transform the Willets Point area and an outline of the proposed plans and including a detailing of some of the issues associated with the proposed development. A graphical depiction of the Willets Point development is shown above.

Click here to read more about Willets Point real estate development project - controversy in Flushing Queens.