An Afghan restaurant owned by an Iranian, managed by a Bangladeshi targeting Chinese customers. What better way to capture the changing face of Flushing? The Kabul Kabab House, located at 42-51 Main Street, has been a staple of the neighborhood for nearly a quarter century and serving a diverse, though mostly South Asian, customer base. [...]
Before I realized how cold it was, I decided that I would take a walk around Bush terminal (along 2nd, 3rd Avenues, between 30th-40th Streets, in Brooklyn). After writing about the Terminal, I had a driving curiosity to see what the yard looked like. . . Note: “Vivero El Badia Halal Live Poultry” (wall to [...]
A revised profile on the Queens-based, grass roots organization, Nodutdol, with an update on the organization’s current, pressing projects and campaigns. * Nodutdol—a social justice organization campaigning for peace at home and abroad—makes its home in Woodside, Queens. Founded in the Spring of 1999 by a group of 1.5 and 2nd generation Korean-Americans, Nodutdol’s current [...]
Let’s start with your poem ‘Ballad of a Maybe Gentrifier.’ I love it. It throws a wrench into the typical gentrification discussion by bringing to light the ways in which mobile, young, people of color participate in these processes. Can you talk about what inspired you to write this poem? Gentrification is so pervasive that [...]
Two $1,000 scholarships for restaurant workers and children of restaurant workers are available from the Shui Kuen and Allen Chin Scholarship, a program of the Asian Pacific Fund. The scholarship, founded in 2005, honors the values of Detroit restaurant owners Shui Kuen and Allen Chin through supporting the education aspirations of children of workers in [...]
Tonight a man walks down Main Street, into a dim retreat of street lights, the snowfall glazed over from the storm. Night is lighted on 54th, branching from a token of stores: George Michael Suits Outlet, Marin Travel, Bay Ridge Deli. Walking on he tells me, Four years ago a tornado came through blasting [...]
On Saturday, I went to the two New Year literary legends: the Poetry’s Project’s 37th Annual New Year’s Day Marathon at St. Mark’s Church, and Dark Matters, the 17th Annual Alternative New Year’s Day Marathon at the Bowery Poetry Club. Actually, I’d agreed to meet a friend at St. Mark’s Church to hear Patti Smith, but when [...]
Patriotic Cookies. Mom’s Perfect Pumpkin Bread. Chocolate Ovaltine Surprise. Those were some of the featured cookies at the LES Girls Club’s 2nd Annual Holiday Cookie Swap fundraiser last weekend at La Vie. For a $20 ticket, I received a big golden tin and entry into a jackpot of sugar! Cookies (homemade!) went for about $1-2 [...]
One recent morning, I went to Kissena Park with my dad and my little sister to explore the tai chi scene. We met up with Teacher Du and two of his students, both middle-aged women with sweet, open demeanors. (They treat him with deep respect and perform tai chi under his guidance, but there’s no [...]
GOLES (Good Old Lower East Side), a housing and economic justice organization, is urging LES/Loisada residents to attend the upcoming CB3 meeting on SPURA, the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area. According to GOLES, the community board’s draft plan for SPURA allows up to 60% market rate housing. To RSVP or for more information, contact Joel [...]
What: A COMMUNITY CONVERSATION ON PLANYC FOR A GREENER, GREATER, BROOKLYN! Thursday, December 16th, 2010 6PM-8PM St. Michael’s RC Church, 352 42nd Street, Enter at Auditorium on 43rd St. R train to 45th and the D/N/R to 36th Please RSVP: Call 212-778-9770 or email CountMeIn@cityhall.nyc.gov What it’s about: Since 2007, the City of New York [...]
Kimchee Bowl Final Nodutdol, a community-based organization in Flushing, is having their annual fundraiser this Saturday eve. The deets: Saturday, December 11, 2010 7:00pm to 11:00pm International Action Center 55 W. 17 St., Suite 5C New York, NY 10011 For more information, please visit: www.nodutdol.org To pre-order tickets, please visit: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/134620 Here’s a brief note [...]
I first noticed Bruce Lee by his bright, lucky-red awning. Bruce Lee boasts 4 dishes and 1 soup, 4 platos y 1 sopa, for a price under 5 dollars- 50 cents cheaper, if you decide to take out and do the eating elsewhere. I chuckled. It was a Sunday afternoon in early October and I [...]
I live in Sunset Park. I buy my weekly produce, tofu, and eggs on 8th Avenue; indulge once in a while on the best hot dog scallion bun you will ever have at Doe Bakery on 4th Ave near the 59th St. train station. When the health nut inside surfaces, I jog to the park [...]
Picked you up on Stanton. The fan of you, wide-lipped. #Mfinda Kalunga Park Jennifer says a Chinese woman from the senior center behind comes often, under your shade, with a bag in hand. #BRCSeniorServices Yín xìng. She crosses the fence. Yín xìng. Her hands graze the earth. Yín xìng. How did her mother do it? [...]
A few important community board meetings are highlighted below. For the latest about meeting dates, times, and agendas, please check in directly with the community board. Manhattan CB1 Waterfront Committee Meeting 11/15/2010, 6:00 pm Manhattan Community Board 1, 49-51 Chambers Street Manhattan CB1 Seaport/ Civic Center Committee Meeting 11/16/2010, 6:00 pm Manhattan Community Board 1, [...]
Relatively recently, I moved to New York (January 2010) to attend graduate school. For the first month, I lived with my sister in Morningside Heights, where she was, at the time, studying at Columbia University. Eventually I made my way down to the borough of Brooklyn, which is where I still live. My first apartment [...]
Last Saturday spent five hours on Forsyth on the same five-block stretch: Rivington to Hester. Mission was two-fold: conduct land use surveys for AALDEF (Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund) and find Moy. Half-succeeded at both, but the best part was staying planted on that little length of earth and watching how things go [...]
The Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is pleased to launch OPEN CITY, our much-anticipated blog about gentrification, local life, and all things Sunset Park, Flushing, and Chinatown/Lower East Side (LES). OPEN CITY suggests that the city in which we live and work is not something settled and known, but rather that its many lives, places, [...]