But the most exciting thing all day is my discovery of the publication, LIC in Context: An Unorthodox Guide to Long Island City. From the book's forward:
Long Island City in Context, an alternative neighborhood exploration created by Place in History, explores the development, redevelopment and perpetual reimagining of Long Island City, one of New York City's most dynamic and misconstrued neighborhoods. The project represents a collaborative effort to make sense of this physically and socially disjointed swath of Northwestern Queens, utilizing strategies culled from the fields of planning, architecture, history and art. Neither a comprehensive neighborhood guide nor a traditional exercise in urban planning or design, the book takes an ambitious, if selective, stab at evoking what is compelling and unusual about the neighborhood through the exploration of 54 sites.
What a cool book, full of great pictures and interesting sites that I want to check out. I had no idea that LIC was the former home of the Sunshine Bakery, Chiclets, and Pierce Arrow. Or that there is a big glacial rock in the middle of a parking lot. Or that it is the home of a Titanic shrine! I love the map at the front of the book, too. I'm excited to order this book. $10 + $2.50 s/h, payable via Paypal.
Find it hard to get excited about a book that shows a bulldozered nighborhood.
ReplyDeleteThought urbran renewal went out the window as discredited.
But I guess us regular folks just stand in the way of developers making money, right?
That book is totally cool--glad to see a link to it!
ReplyDeleteHey anon - I perused the entire book and found it to be more than pictures of a buldozered neighborhood. I saw a rich history of a part of Queens I only barely know, and by reading it I found myself really inspired to do some investigating. There are some wonderful buildings and little oddities throughout LIC, and I think that is pretty neat! Oh, a disclaimer: I was one of those kids fascinated by construction sites and piles of rubble, so the pictures of such sites in the book didn't faze me. I can't really talk about the whole developers issue, as I'm just really tired right now and don't know how to respond to you in a thoughtful way. In general, though, I'm not a big fan of developers. I worked in a real estate developer office and I was rather turned off by the whole scene there. Best part of that short-lived job was the proximity to the Union Square Greenmarket, where I could get amazing homemade donuts. Anyway, the book is really worth checking out. Truly!
ReplyDelete