"Diversity" cont.

Following up on the diversity index post from last week, more on the WNYC story about tract 754 in Midwood being the "least diverse neighborhood in the city."

One problem with this contention is that a single census tract is almost never a "neighborhood." Now, there are some cases where you can make the argument that a neighborhood falls within a single census tract: Co-op City, Broad Channel, Breezy Point, and City Island come to mind, for instance. But tract 754 is definitely not a "neighborhood." In fact, the article references several things outside the tract to try and demonstrate the character of the neighborhood, such as the synagogues within walking distance, and the kosher bagel shops and travel agencies advertising trips to Israel on the commercial strip about 5 blocks away. So let's analyze the larger neighborhood picture to see if it's really the "least diverse neighborhood in the city."


View Midwood in a larger map

In red, above, is Brooklyn Census Tract 754, which has a diversity index of 1. In blue is tract 754, plus every tract that borders it (748, 750, 752, 756, 758, 760). This isn't meant to be the borders of "Midwood," it's just meant to give an example of a reasonable geographical area that could be called a "neighborhood" which centers on tract 754. This lets us see how diverse tract 754's "neighborhood" is.

Running the diversity index on the larger area, it ends up at 27*. And if you include an additional two tracts to the west, which encompass the commercial strip WNYC article describes in the article, it ends up even higher at 32.

Now, 27 is still not very high, especially for New York City, whose diversity index as a whole is 78.5, or for Brooklyn, which scores a 74, or even for New York State, which scores a 62**. But it is still far from extreme. For instance, it's a score as high or higher than 8 states (New Hampshire, Vermont, Montana, North Dakota, Iowa, West Virginia, Kentucky, and tied with Wyoming). It's also a higher score than several other places in New York that are considered "neighborhoods," like Howard Beach (23), Gerritsen Beach (21), Broad Channel (19), Manhattan Beach (10), and Breezy Point (7).

For those curious, these are all predominantly white neighborhoods. There are also predominantly African-American neighborhoods, all in Central Brooklyn and Southeast Queens, that I can assume would also score lower than the "Midwood" area I aggregated (there are no predominantly Hispanic or Asian neighborhoods that even come close to Midwood's score, although there is one tract in Chinatown that scores a 24). But what you would call a "neighborhood" in those areas is made up of many more census tracts than the neighborhoods referenced above, which are made up of 3 tracts at most and are generally just one or two, and more than I can do a quick and accurate back-of-the-envelope calculation with. For instance, a reasonable definition of "St. Albans," would be about 15 separate tracts, and for "East Flatbush" would be about 30. For what it's worth, I'm almost certain St. Albans, Cambria Heights, Laurelton, and East Flatbush would all score lower than 27.

There are also some other predominantly white neighborhoods made up of several census tracts, like Borough Park, which would score lower than 27. And in addition, there are several areas - both predominantly white and predominantly African-American - of at least seven census tracts (the same amount as the "Midwood," area I aggregated), but which only make up part of a neighborhood, where this is true as well.

The real point to this exercise is to demonstrate that much of the conversation around the neighbohoods of New York City is heavily dependent on the details of the geography you use. There is no real objectively "correct" geography when it comes to "neighborhoods" in New York, but it's important not to be loose with the term either. The WNYC article reads as claiming that Midwood is the least diverse neighborhood in New York (which is demonstrably untrue), and you have to really examine the article with much closer attention than I believe it is fair to expect a lay reader to do in order to realize that this might not be the case.

Neighborhoods: Midwood
Tracts: B748, B750, B752, B754, B756, B758, B760

*I should note that I calculate the diversity index slightly differently from the most commonly used calculation, which is USA Today's. Specifically, I include "other race" in the base calculation. In the neighborhoods I analyzed, this doesn't have an effect of more than a point or two difference at most. 

** I should also note comparing the diversity index across different sized geographies is not really a good comparison. Especially at very small geographies, it breaks down. For instance, the vast majority of houses in America have a diversity index of 0, as everyone in the household is usually of the same race. An area's diversity index should really be compared across other similar sized geographies, in this case about 18,000 people.

Jamaica Bay

Three years ago I took a rowboat with Marie Lorenz out to North Brother Island, the most desolate census tract in New York. Last month we took the same, albeit slightly more beat up, rowboat out to the second most desolate census tract in New York - Jamaica Bay. Check out the pics and commentary here.

The Jamaica Bay islands are actually split between Brooklyn and Queens - as a result they're divided into three different tracts: the populated part of the islands (which is Broad Channel, Queens), the unpopulated parts of the Queens side (which are home to Cross Bay Boulevard and the Jamaica Wildlife Center), and the Brooklyn side. The Brooklyn side has no residents, no industry, and no land connection, save for a tiny sliver of the island that hosts Cross Bay Boulevard. I'm calling it the second most desolate tract because, unlike North Brother, it's legal to visit most (but not all) of the islands, and we also actually ran into a guy walking his dog on one. When we asked how often he saw people out here, his answer was "hmmm... the last time was probably about a year ago."

Altogether we visited one Brooklyn island, one Queens island, and one split between the two boroughs (mostly in Queens, with a small sliver in Brooklyn). We also made two stops on the Rockaway Peninsula: once right past the CrossBay Bridge, where we grabbed a beer at a bayfront bar and lunch at Rockaway Taco (this was a weekday, so thankfully minus the lines); and once at the end of the trip on the tip of Far Rockaway, where we ditched the boat and hoofed it back to the A-train. If we had just gone a slight bit further, we would have landed in Nassau, making it a three-county boat trip. Oh well - next time.

The most interesting thing about Jamaica Bay is how shallow it is. We literally walked through the bay from one island to another.       

Neighborhoods: Jamaica Bay, Far Rockaway, Rockaway Park, Seaside
Tracts Walked: B703.03, Q1702.02, Q942.02, Q1008

Numeric Extremes Walk - Part II

39,038. This is as high as you can go in Five Boroughs. And we’re going to walk there. From 1.

Meet this Sunday, September 18th, at 9:45 AM at the Southeast corner of 1st Avenue and East 1st street in Manhattan - which, at 1, is the lowest product of two intersecting streets in the five boroughs.

20 miles later we’ll hit the corner of 262nd Place and 149th Road in Rosedale, Queens. Multiply those together and you get 39,038, the highest product of any two intersecting numbered streets in NYC.

A warning - this walk is doubling as me knocking off another 24 tough-to-reach Queens tracts. I've arrainged the route so it's not adding any distance to the walk, but this will be your answer for all "why are we turning here" type questions.

After our destination, we’ll have a about a mile walk to the LIRR, which will cost you $3.75 to get back into town.

For those of you for whom 20 miles is a bit much, we'll be hugging the subway through about mile 5, and then staying reasonably near it through about mile 11. It's 2011 - bring a five-borough atlas or a smart phone if you're planning on ditching early and need to figure out how to get to the train. No time to give directions - we're walking here!

3/4

A recent walk in Forest Hills Gardens took me over the three-quarter mark. 1668 out of 2217. Forest Hills Gardens is a really pleasant walk - heading by the West Side Tennis Club, which hosted the US Open until 1977. The main stadium has been abandoned for a while (and is the subject of preservation fights). It would be a great candidate for inclusion in the Open House New York weekend.

3/4 seems like a lot, but the reality is I've already collected all the low-hanging fruit. The hardest part of this project isn't walking the tracts - it's getting to the tracts. Most of the ones I have left are in Eastern Queens and Staten Island - areas that will take me an hour+ to get to on bicycle or public transportation.

Still, I'm confident I'll be done with the other three boroughs this summer or early fall. And then maybe I should move to Hollis next year.

Neighborhoods: Forest Hills, Forest Hills Gardens
Tracts Walked: Q717, Q709, Q711, Q713.02, Q725, Q727, Q729, Q731, Q733, Q735, Q757, Q769.01, Q769.02, Q771.

Numeric Extremes Walk, Part I

This Sunday, June 19th, I’ll be leading a walk from the lowest zip code in the New York, 10001 in Midtown, to the highest, 11697 in the Rockaways. In doing so we’ll also walk the length of Flatbush Avenue, the second longest street in Brooklyn. We’ll end at the beach in Ft. Tilden Park, so bring your bathing suit. 15 miles. We should be done around 6, where the options will be eating, drinking, swimming, going home, exploring Ft. Tilden park (there's some cool stuff in there), or joining me in walking Queens Tract 916.01 through Breezy Point to the tip of the Rockaway Penisula.

Meet at 11:45 at the tip of Herald Square (the intersection of 34th, Broadway, and 6th Avenue).

I'll be doing at least one other "Numeric Extremes Walk" this summer, maybe more if I can think of them.

Meadowmere

Leading a recent walk through Queens, we passed through Meadowmere, a tiny area of four streets nestled at the end of a long finger of land belonging to Queens which snakes around the East side of JFK airport. Take a quaint wooden footbridge over Hook Creek and you're in Meadowmere Park, Nassau County. 

I told the group that this was the "most remote neighborhood in New York."  But upon being challenged, I couldn't really substantiate the claim. It's not the furthest neighborhood from Columbus Circle, where New York's mile 0 is (that would be Tottenville). It's not the neighborhood furthest from any other in the five boroughs (that would be City Island). It's not the neighborhood furthest from public transportation (that would be Breezy Point, although it wasn't between 2008 and 2010 when it had Ferry service). It's not even the neighborhood with the worst city infrastructure - unlike this area, it finally got sewers and drainage a few years ago - although each household had to pay $5000-$10,000 for the privilege.

It is the neighborhood furthest from any other in the five boroughs that isn't an island. But that seems like a pretty big caveat. Still, the feeling of remoteness is greater than in any other area I've been to. If you find yourself there, grab dinner or drinks at the Bayhouse Restaurant (actually in nearby Warnerville), displaying it's proud "A" rating from the New York City Board of Health and Mental Hygiene, which proves it is indeed still in the five boroughs. If you've got a boat, you can kick it under the Crossbay Bridge and up the head of Jamaica Bay, and tie if up right on their patio.

Neighborhoods: Meadowmere
Tracts Walked: Q664

Queens Tribune Article

Short article about me by Nathan Tempey of the Queens Tribune. As an added bonus, included is this picture of me looking seriously bootylicious.

Damn.

The stroll itself was nice - walking all of the New York Connecting Rail Road (and other freight tracks) is a loose goal of mine, and I was happy to get in a mile or so of that. Other highlights included an Albanian Mosque in Glendale, a nice view from a rickety old bridge over the railroad tracks, which you can see in the article also. Drawbacks included a 25-degree drop in temperature from the day before, and learning the M-train at Fresh Pond Road was out of service.

Neighborhoods: East Williamsburg, Middle Village, Maspeth, Glendale
Tracts Walked: B483, B455, Q535, Q595, Q603, Q607, Q633.01, Q623, Q625, Q627

Kew Gardens

Most walks through the boroughs of New York are fairly boring, but also fairly pleasant. This best describes yesterday's quick stroll through north Richmond Hill and Kew Gardens, an upper-middle class Queens neighborhood marked by tree lined streets, older single family homes, a synagogue or two, and chirping crickets at twilight - which seemed a bit out of place a block away from the elevated train. A quaint little commercial area on Lefferts Avenue, and the worst (non-$1.00) pizza I've ever had on Jamaica Blvd were the only two real encounters of note. One thing that should have tipped me off about the pizza place was that instead of having the cheese in the regular glass jar, they just stuck out a green plastic container of Kraft Parmesan.

Now, I'm sure if I were looking or had researched the area a bit beforehand I would have found a quirky thing or two, but that kind of defeats my goal of getting an overall general knowledge of the entire city. Calm and static areas are as much a part of New York as Bleecker Street on a Friday night. Heading out to an otherwise nondescript area for the sole purpose of seeing the one interesting thing there isn't a bad thing, but it's another project for another day.

For people visiting the area, try to get off of Queens Boulevard, which is like hiking through the Grand Canyon and thinking you've seen Arizona.

Neighborhoods: Kew Gardens, Richmond Hill
Tracts Walked: Q128, Q130, Q132, Q135, Q136, Q140, Q142.01, Q773, Q775

Laurelton

I've been on a bit of a Queens kick lately, and when there's someone with a car who wants to walk Census Tracts with me, I'm taking the opportunity to go somewhere I can't get to easily by subway or bike. These two things led me out to the Laurelton and Cambria Heights neighborhoods in the Southeastern corner of Queens.

I really don't much to say. Far Eastern Queens, in most ways, is more Nassau than Astoria (or even Flushing), and the only way you know you've crossed the border into Valley Stream is that the street signs have a different font. The only person I've ever known that's lived in this neighborhood did so precisely because it was as close to Long Island as he could get and still be within the city limits, which was legally required by his City Government job. Houses are lovely, single-family, and mostly suburban-style detached; the foreclosure crisis of Southeast Queens seems to not have made it this far over.

After a bit we walk by Montefiore Cemetery (Rabbi Schneerson's place of burial). I was expecting some local Chabad infrastructure around the cemetery - maybe a tzotzke store, maybe a kosher restaurant, maybe even a small hotel - but all there is is a small, nondescript Chabad House. Despite the rain, and being halfway down the block, I actually get an "excuse me - you are Jewish?" from a guy leaving the building. The guy's Yiddish was better than his English - very strange for a young Chabadnick, who in this day and age almost all grow up learning the the local vernacular language as a first, or at least co-first, language.

Further north we come to Linden Blvd, which looks, well, pretty much like the rest of Linden Blvd looks throughout it's 6 miles in Brooklyn and 5 .5 miles in Queens. We stop to eat at a Haitian restaurant called Port-a-Prince. The place is somewhat schizophrenic - the interior is immaculate and looks like it could be any fancy French place in Manhattan, yet they give us plastic forks to eat with. Everyone in the place is speaking exclusively French Creole - to the point where I find myself ordering the "Poulet" and hoping for the best.

I'm rewarded. Not only is the food pretty good, in terms of "calories-per-dollar" this has got to be one of the greatest deals in the 5 boroughs - a giant heaping plate of rice, beans, salad and chicken fit for a meal for two, all for $6. I guess they save on the cutlery.

Neighborhoods: Laurelton, Cambria Heights
Tracts Walked: Q604, Q606, Q612, Q614, Q616.01, Q616.02, Q618, Q620, Q632, Q638, Q646, Q650

Christmas in Middle Village

Went to go see the Christmas Lights that were referenced in this article the other day. The author of the article seems quite proud of the fact that "no guidebook mentions these," comparing them to the (relatively) heavily touristed Dyker Heights lights. Well, there's a reason no guidebook mentions them, and it's because they aren't really that noteworthy. It's a lovely block with lovely Christmas decorations. You'll find something similar in almost every neighborhood of the boroughs during this time of year. Much cooler was the gigantic 10-foot-tall snowman we found across 69th street.

I actually enjoyed the article (as well as this one about the Christmas display at the Garabedian's house on Pelham Park North in the Bronx), especially the profiles of the families on the block. But it's certainly not some kind of hidden find, and it's especially misleading to imply it's a display anywhere close to on par with Dyker Heights.

There's certainly something to be said for writing about what you find on a nice Christmas walk through 12 census tracts in Southwest Queens. But such walks are really meant for blogs like this, not the New York Times.

Neighborhoods: Middle Village, Maspeth, Rego Park. Tracts Walked: Q657.02, Q659, Q651, Q655, Q657, Q669, Q671.01, Q671.02, Q679, Q505, Q695, Q687

4-corners ride wrapup

Well, we had to overcome fatigue, rain, busted tires, and a death-defying ride down Todt Hill Road (a twisting, 2-lane, no shoulder descent down from the highest point in the 5 Boroughs) in the dark with all three of the drawbacks mentioned above. And it took almost it took almost 16 hours, and we didn't get back home until about 3:30 in the morning. But the entire 4-corners ride was successfully completed by three of us. I personally rode a stretch on each "Broadway" in every borough, plus one in Jersey. The route didn't have the Broadway in Brooklyn, but I did it on the ride form my house to the starting point.

As follows is the numerical wrap-up - I of course had to enumerate the amount of Census Tracts that were ridden. I don't count this for the walking project purpose of course, but it's fun to know. Because we rode on a lot of borders, and I didn't use my strict "borders don't count" that I do while walking, the numbers are somewhat approximate.

Next spring - 12 County ride. Watch for it.

Pictures are here, and you can see the complete route here.

By the numbers:

Mileage
Total course - 96.64 miles over 9 Counties and 189 Census Tracts (152 tracts in NYC).

Starting point - the geographic center of New York City - Stockholm street between Wycoff and St. Nicholas in Bushwick.

14.63 miles total to corner #1: Hillside Avenue and Cherry Street, Queens.
31.08 miles (45.71 miles total) to corner #2: Northwest corner of Mt. St. Vincent College, Bronx.
49.89 miles (95.6 miles total) to corner #3: Tottenville Beach off the end of Surf Avenue, Staten Island.
1.04 miles (96.64 miles total) to corner #4: Tottenville Beach off the end of Amboy Street, Staten Island.

.9 miles in Brooklyn (Kings County). 5 Tracts

31.65 miles in Queens (Queens County). 80 Tracts

.82 miles in New Hyde Park (Nassau County). 1 Tract

1.64 miles on Randall’s Island (New York County). 1 Tract

14.85 miles in the Bronx (Bronx County). 34 Tracts

.07 miles in Yonkers (Westchester County). 1 Tract

2.85 miles in Manhattan (New York County). 11 Tracts. 4.49 miles and 12 tracts total in New York County with Randall’s Island.

5.32 miles in Ft. Lee and Edgewater (Bergen County). 2 Tracts

19.52 miles in North Bergen, Guttenberg, West New York, Weehauken, Hoboken, Jersey City, and Bayonne (Hudson County ). 33 Tracts. 24.84 miles and 35 tracts total in Jersey.

19.02 miles in Staten Island (Richmond County). 21 Tracts

People
Started the course: 15 people
Total participants: 16 people (we picked up one at the start of the Bronx)

Made it to at least one corner - 16
Made it to at least two corners - 11
Made it to at least three corners - 4
Made it to all four corners - 3

One County Wonders - 16
Two County Titans - 16
Three County Thugs - 16
Four County Fighters - 15
Five County Flamethrowers - 11
Six County Slayers- 9
Seven County Superstars- 6
Eight County Aces- 6
Nine County Nerds- 5

In-between

I've always loved the areas that legally belong to one borough, but geographically to another. The most famous of these is Marble Hill - once part of Manhattan Island, the small neighborhood was cut off from it by the Harlem River Ship Canal in 1885, forming an island for the next 22 years until the creek separating it from the Bronx was filled in in 1917. Today it's got a 718 area code, but votes for Manhattan Borough President.

Another of these are the waterfront piers of Downtown Brooklyn and Red Hook. New York County has jurisdiction over the East River up to the bulkhead line of Brooklyn ("low water mark of the shore of Long Island" according to the New York consolidated law), leaving the piers technically governed by Manhattan.

A third I discovered after this walk through Ozone Park and Woodhaven. On the way to meet up with the Burn Some Dust crew for walk # 32 I headed across Conduit - a major road that cuts the street grid which can only be crossed about every 6 blocks or so - by way of Sutter Avenue to East New York. The difference was stark - neat rows of manicured lawns gave way to dilapidated houses and streets without drainage.

The thing was, I wasn't in East New York - I was still in Queens. The line between Brooklyn and Queens running from Howard Beach to East Williamsburg is the only major land border between two boroughs. While once fairly distinct demographically, the two boroughs have been sort of slowly bleeding into one another over this imaginary line during the last decade or two. Whereas in 1980, your average layperson would have been able to pinpoint where Bushwick becomes Ridgewood, or Cypress Hills becomes Woodhaven, today it's next to impossible if you don't know beforehand.

Where I happened to be, the demograhic and mental border between the two boroughs was definitely Conduit - if I'm a parent, I tell my kids not to cross Conduit Avenue. But the geographic and political border was a few blocks west, running down Ruby Street, and then across a few blocks to Sapphire. This led to a strange little area of no-man's land - Queens Census Tract 44:02.

The real interesting thing was that there was also a slight, but noticable difference between the Brooklyn and Queens sides of the line. On the Brooklyn side, stuff was a little better, and there was even a little bit of New Construction. The Queens side, however, looked like it had been completely neglected since about 1972. I can imagine what happened - Brooklyn thinks it's part of Queens, Queens thinks it's part of Brooklyn, and both boroughs completely neglect it. The result is definitely the absolute shoddiest area of town I've ever been to - if any location scouts out there are looking for a stereotypical 1970s, post-apocolyptic area to film in, head out to the triangle between Conduit, Linden, and Ruby.

Neighborhoods Walked: Lindenwood, East New York. Tracts Walked: Q44.02

Hollis

A lovely neighborhood - went to check out the Jam Master Jay mural at 205th and Hollis Avenue and the Hip-Hop Museum at Hollis Famous Burgers at 203rd and Hollis. It was a hot day, people were barbequing every block, but no improptu invites - oh well. Hollis Famous Burgers claims Hollis is the most famous neighborhood in New York. What? South Bronx baby!

I was scoping out the joint as a potential dinner stop for my Going Places, Doing Stuff tour, which it ended up being. The museum part's a little sparce (read the Times article), but $4.50 gets you quite the fat cheeseburger. There's definitely something unorthodox about it, but it's good.

Neighborhoods: Hollis, Jamaica, Queens Village. Tracts Walked: Q400, Q402, Q404, Q500, Q502.01, Q502.02, Q504, Q506, Q508, Q510, Q512, Q516, Q518, Q520, Q522, Q524, Q532

What's the opposite of this project?

While Going Places and Doing Stuff with Matt Green and Jason Eppink last Saturday, I came across 13 people doing what is, perhaps, the exact opposite of my project. Instead of trying to see 2217 census tracts once, they were attempting to see one census tract 2217 times - and then another 3432 times for good measure.

The Self-Trancendence 3100 takes place in Queens Census Tract 452 - a sleepy, suburban area near St. John's University that's dominated by the Thomas A Edison technical high school and surrounding yards. The race involves running 3100 miles over almost 2 months around a single city block, bordered by Grand Central Parkway, 164th Place, 85th Avenue, and 168th Street - a total of 5649 laps. There is little that I personally would find more mind-numbing, although one person we talked to who had completed the race swore it wasn't boring. Doing one lap, plus hanging out in the park and walking around the corner for lunch was perfect for me, and quite enough to knock Q452 off the list.

We went on to climb abandoned gas cannisters, skip around a playground with this guy, and break several world records. Big thanks to Matt, Jason, Flux, and the Rude Mechanical Orchestra for putting together a great day.

Neighborhoods: Jamaica, Jamaica Hills. Tracts Walked: Q452

Ozone Park and Woodhaven

Queens, as you may have heard, is the most diverse county in the United States. And there's a lot of interesting and vibrant areas that are a result of this diversity - generally concentrated in the Northwestern part of the Borough. It's always fun to go visit Jackson Heights or Astoria or Elmhurst and see what kind of stuff you run into. This vibrancy and energy is a far cry from 20 or 30 years ago, when the neighborhoods were much more monolithic.

There are, however, some other neighborhoods that are just as ethnically diverse but are far more boring. Just because people now hail from all over the globe doesn't mean the nondescript sidewalks and houses of Woodhaven and Ozone Park are that different from a generation ago. The faces are different, the neighborhood remains the same.

Boring doesn't mean bad - the area's certainly pleasant, just not really the type of place to go looking for anything of note. But I haven't walked the whole area - maybe I'm missing something right around the corner. Between the J-train and Forest park there's a lovely area of Victorians that remind me of similar areas in Flatbush. It's fairly high on my list of areas I'd like to live in if I ever decide the quasi-suburban life is for me.

Neighborhoods: Woodhaven, Ozone Park. Tracts Walked: Q8, Q10, Q12, Q14, Q16, Q18, Q32, Q34, Q36, Q38, Q40.01, 40.02, Q42, Q52, Q54, Q58

Northeast Queens

An uneventful walk through a lovely, if somewhat nondescript area on lovely, if somewhat nondescript day. There's a show at Queensboro Community College to see the Flying Karamozov brother, who I loved as a kid (and one of whom played the flute at my parent's wedding), so I take the #7 to the end of the line and walk it over to Bayside. There's some interesting architectural details on Tudor-style apartments, the kind of stuff Kevin Walsh of Forgotten-NY would love (I loved it too, but not enough to keep track and write about it), some interesting industrial areas in north Flushing, and a pretty good Sri Lankan restaurant at the end in a little South Asian corner near Kissena Park. But really, it was mostly just a way to get some census tracts in in an out-of-the-way part of town. 28 to be exact - only 79 more walks like that and I'm done!

Neighborhoods: Flushing, Whitestone, Bayside. Tracts Walked: Q889.01, Q889.02, Q867, Q1161, Q1159, Q1157, Q1155, Q1151, Q1147, Q1141, Q1175, Q1159, Q1129, Q1459, Q1429, Q1451.01, Q1451.02, Q1447, Q1441, Q1399, Q1403, Q1409.01, Q1409.02, Q1417.01, Q1207, Q1203, Q1205, Q859

Idiotarod 2009

EDIT: Here the video of running through Queensbridge

This was my first Idiotarod - we were the "Tourists from Tallahassee," bribing judges with Empire State Building tickets and fresh squeezed OJ screwdrivers. I was the crotchety old tour guide. The whole thing was loads of fun - I had been needing a day of doing something silly for no particular reason.

The route was pretty good - from the East River waterfront on the Upper East Side, over the 59th Street Bridge to Long Island City, then north straight through the Queensbridge projects (that was fun - a couple hundred arty Hipsters dashing through the biggest housing project in New York) to the park by the river. Down Vernon to Hunters Point, then over the Pulaski Bridge into Greenpoint, finishing by the water at the northern end. Lots of pictures on Flickr. None I can find of our team yet though.

Neighborhoods: Long Island City, Upper East Side, Queensbridge, Hunters Point, Greenpoint. Census Tracts: M106.02, M110, Q25, Q37, Q1, Q7, B563, B565, B575

South Ozone Park

Number 7 on stuff white people like - diversity. As a result, there's a lot of press in New York-centric publications about the various diverse neighborhoods around town. Jackson Heights in Queens, followed by Ditmas Park and Kensington in Brooklyn and Sunnyside in Queens, get the most press for this (probably because they're the closest to Manhattan and Northwest Brooklyn, and as such, to the people who write about this kind of stuff). One neighborhood that usually gets slept on is Ozone and South Ozone Park.

After dropping the lady off at JFK I decided to save $5 on the Airtrain fare. You used to be able to walk out the other side of the Howard Beach station to the Aqueduct stop (about 10 minutes), but they've fenced that off now, so it's tough to do, especially with luggage. So instead I get off the Airtrain at Lefferts Boulevard. It's much more than a 10 minutes walk to the train from here, but I've got time to schlep through Ozone Park.

Ozone Park itself is pretty much the definition of nondescript Queens - blocks of wood-frame detached houses account for the vast majority of the neighborhood. Aqueduct Raceway is kind of interesting - they have guards around the back at the entrance for horses and trainers. Someday I'll go to the track and write up that tract properly. I can't in good faith check it off the list quite yet. In fact, looking at the map, I realize I've walked borders pretty much the whole way. I can really only say I walked one tract - 846.01

I head around the racetrack and across the main commercial thoroughfare of the area, Rockaway Parkway. It's kind of a hybred between a regular neighborhood commercial thoroughfare like, say Roosevelt Avenue, and a more industrial-commerical thoroughfare, like Northern Boulevard. You get these kind of streets out in the less densely populated parts of the boroughs. I grab some beans and rice (three bucks!) jump on the A train and head on back.

Neighborhoods: Ozone Park, South Ozone Park, Aqueduct Raceway. Tracts Walked: Q846.01

Ridgewood to Maspeth

After walking up from Crown Heights, through Bed-Stuy and East Williamsburg to Queens, we continued on. We actually couldn't quite tell where Brooklyn ended and Queens began - the Ridgewood/Bushwick boundary is growing more fluid by the year. There's no difference in the street grid - I've always thought a much more natural borough boundary would either be Broadway, which separate Bushwick and Bed-Stuy, or the Ridgewood/Maspeth border, where the grid becomes the regular Queens street grid - you know, the one with 4 or 5 streets for every number.

There used to be a demographic boundary - Ridgewood was middle-class, largely white Queens, while Bushwick was low-income, mostly Puerto Rican Brooklyn (in all probability a result of racial housing discrimination in Queens). Up until the 1990 census there was a stark demarcation right along the Brooklyn/Queens border. Politically, the border was almost always the boundary between different legislative districts. Now, however, demographically Ridgewood can really be viewed as where Bushwick blends into Queens - while the area slowly grows whiter and more affluent the further you get from Brooklyn, there is certainly not the stark demarcation along the borough boundary that there used to be. And politically, city council and state legislative districts now encompass both sides of the borough border.


We walk through Ridgewood a bit, and then work our way up through the residential part of sleepy Maspeth, over to the industrial section on the west. My Hagstrom's map says that the Hagstom's factory is there, but I can't find it. The terrain is a bit hilly, yielding some beautiful views of various industrial scenes against the New York City skyline in the background. We somehow make our way under the BQE/Queens-Midtown Expressway cloverleaf up into Sunnyside. Sunnyside is kind of a poster child for the outer borough, multiethnic neighborhood, and as a result the commercial streets are generally pretty interesting to walk along. We walk along 48th Avenue for a bit (where 48th crosses Greenpoint Avenue is a pretty cool commercial area, with a Spanish-Language Theatre), then head up to Roosevelt where we eat at an overpriced restaurant (should have had my man Sietsema's Guide to Cheap Eats with me!) and catch the #7 back home. It's been one of the more long and satisfying borough trekking days I've had in a while.


Neighborhoods: Ridgewood, Maspeth, West Maspeth, Sunnyside. Tracts Walked: Q549, Q589, Q587, Q593, Q601, Q599, Q525, Q527, Q529, Q219, Q205.01, Q205.02, Q235, Q185, Q189

Queensbridge

New York City's largest housing project (and former home to Ron Artest, Nas, and many others) doesn't have quite the same rep it once did - my old walk home took me up Vernon Boulevard behind the projects countless times at 3:00 AM. The Park behind the projects has some of best views of the city you'll find (and a great vantage point for the OATS piece across the River on Roosevelt Island). North of the Queensbridge projects, but south of the Ravenswood projects on 36th Ave is an interesting, mostly industrial area, noteworthy for some vintage cabs you'll find parked on the street, a wonderful-smelling donut (I think) factory, the huge, Mr. Burns-esque power plant, and the WallNuts. Really, if you are at all into commissioned graffiti murals, I really must insist you wander around industrial Long Island City. Anywhere North of Queensbridge and West of about Crescent the WallNuts have on lockdown.

Neighborhood: Long Island City, Queensbridge. Tracts Walked: Q25, Q35, Q37, Q39, Q41, Q43, Q27, Q29, Q49