I have traveled in and around and through Queens on foot, by bus and car for many years, and as one might expect, I think I know the area well. If I run into unexpected traffic or blockages, I know how to avoid and get around them.
Yet, since I retired, since just before, when I began peregrinations in my corner of my home borough in anticipation of having more time for such, I have come to realize I do not know Queens quite as well as I thought I did. In prior posts I have discussed this idea some. Today I had a fresh taste of it.
I took a Q58 bus from Main Street, in downtown Flushing, to the Queens Mall in Elmhurst (not East Elmhurst, mind you; the two, for some cartographic or bureaucratic or otherwise obscure reason, are separated, and not by an antonym). That bus ride took me from Asian Flushing through Latin American, and still Italian, Corona, into the cauldron of a melting pot which is the most diverse place on our fair planet. With someone else driving, from the high vantage point of a bus, one sees details it is simply impossible to see while driving a car (for that matter, even as a passenger). Plus, a passenger doesn't have to be concerned with traffic (a big plus). Small shops, houses without any yard space, all cheek by jowl (unusual expression, and not widely used, but quite accurate), narrow side streets suddenly appearing (Penrod Street an example, Pople Avenue, and not the one in England, but another), only to disappear (Waldron, Van Dore, Van Cleef).
As we passed The Lemon Ice King of Corona the bus veered left, and I veered toward summer. The day was fair, the temperature in the 40s — near balmy compared to the single digit readings of a week earlier — and the taste of one of those ices beckoned, reminding me of a day last summer we all went there, Laura and I and our son Ben and his wife Liz and their son Brandin. I ordered a coconut ice, and it was sublime. I could've used today being 85 degrees warm and my ordering one of those ices; I have made an appointment for five months hence.
The Q58 took Corona Avenue as it meandered through the neighborhood, following its turns from a westerly to a southwestern direction, crossing Junction Boulevard and heading west again. Slicing southwest, it passed near Newtown High School (the area actually was named Newtown, adopting the name Elmhurst in 1898, when Queens County became part of New York City). Then it turned onto Broadway.
This Broadway isn't very broad, but it is a major street in central Queens: its west end is across Vernon Boulevard from Socrates Sculpture Park, a magnificent art venue in Long Island City, runs through Astoria, over the BQE in Woodside, through Elmhurst, and as it crosses Queens Boulevard it morphs into Grand Avenue (which itself forks into Grand and Flushing Avenues — the latter being nowhere close to my Flushing — both winding up deep in Brooklyn).
I got off the Q58 on the other side of Queens Boulevard. This section of Queens is deeply urban: all sorts of small business and large ones line the street, which has a reputation for being very dangerous to cross: it has two sets of lanes in each direction, local and express (a distinction often lost on drivers who seem intent of getting home before a posse gets them, or inclined to use the long stretches between traffic lights as racing strips). Only in recent years have traffic lights been adapted for the benefit of pedestrians.
I walked a block and encountered the First Presbyterian Church of Newtown (nee Elmhurst), dating from late in the XIXth century.
Constructed in 1895, it is the fifth building for a congregation founded in 1652. The church is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
This article about the organ in the church has a nice historical background of the Church, including this very apt description of its character:
As late as the 1960s, First Presbyterian's members were primarily of European descent. As Elmhurst became one of the most ethnically diverse communities in the world, the church membership evolved to include people from over 40 countries.
Nearby I found Horsebrook Island, an urban triangle named for a small body of water that once originated nearby. Paraphrasing an NYC Parks description, it flowed east, along present-day Long Island Expressway, draining into Flushing Meadows. It was buried in the early 20th century as Elmhurst developed from a suburb into an urban neighborhood.
To most people, especially in winter, it doesn't seem much: a triangle with some bushes and brown leaves and a sign, yet its importance is undeniable, if obscure. The entire area is wet, and the nearby mall, according to an article in Forgotten New York, a wonderful website I look at often, is constructed inside a bathtub, similar to the World Trade Center.
2015 article from Queens Ledger: Rescuing A Treasure: Bernardus Bloom Farmhouse
Maps are one of the great features of modern technology, both on desktop computers (yea, I still use one; my thumbs are not dexterous enough, nor my eyesight keen enough to ignore those) and mobile devices. I did have a specific mundane task to complete for this outing, going to a Spectrum store, the old Time Warner, an Internet provider which runs commercials incessantly, to the point of nausea, both in English y Español, extolling its features and services, a claim so absurd it would be laughable if its charges weren't so outrageous; I needed to get a replacement for our remote control. In planning it, I looked for a place to have lunch. Not a franchise, no thanks. Not a hot dog or a slice of pizza; no way. I wanted something different, some place, dare I say it? unique.
I found Pata Cafe, reviewed both in Yelp (I am not quite the right demographic for that site, but, as Duke Ellington used to say about music: there's good music and then there's everything else, a judgement very much on the mark for food as well), and in the NY Times. What a gem.Small and intimate is an apt description. It seems even smaller when school kids are inside; seems kids from PS 102, a couple of short city blocks away, like to get Pata's bubble tea. A gaggle of them went in before me and the space did, indeed, seem small. It is always good to remember, when one sees kids being kids, as I often did in my library work, that, I, too, once was a rambunctious teenager who liked to act out but was quite harmless. Those kids left, and quite suddenly Pata seemed small and intimate once again.
Spicy tom yum, delicious, but shockingly spicy at the start. This is a perfect example of accepting what you are served versus demanding what you want. Very much like jazz: you can demand to hear what you've heard before, or accept the artist's improvisation.
I don't know if this soup was improvised, this being my first visit to Pata, but after a few sips, and especially once I added a couple of small spoonfuls of rice (served with my green curry), it gained a complexity I utterly enjoyed. Helps to like spicy food, of course.
The green curry I ordered was fantastic. Vegetables and eggplant and shrimp swam in a coconut milk lagoon. I found it a perfect counterbalance to the spicy soup. savoring each of the many shrimp inside it. Long grain jasmine rice served with it wasn't quite enough to sop up all the liquid, so I finished it as it were soup. What a satisfying pleasure it all was; I sat in bliss for several minutes, content and unhurried. I knew Pata's crepes were raved about by devotees, but I simply had had enough.
I walked along Van Horn Street, past the school, to Grand Avenue, and was soon on a Q58 bus, headed back to Flushing. By now it was past three in the afternoon, and kids were out of school. Several got on the bus on the other side of Queens Boulevard, and most got off as the bus traveled along Corona Avenue.
We passed Alstyne Avenue and Martense Avenue, went past the 5 corner intersection of 108th Street, Otis Avenue, and Van Cleef, Street, and joined the traffic in the interchange of the Long Island Expressway, the Grand Central Parkway and the Van Wyck (pronounced as in bike, not as in candle wick, according to a descendant), a real bottleneck which in the depths of rush hour can be torturous to traverse (Queens traffic reports on radio and television rarely fail to mention the traffic by the Fairgrounds). Early enough in the afternoon, and with deft driving, we sailed on through without much ado. Soon we were back on 41st Road. I thanked the driver, wished him a good evening, and crossed Main Street, stopped into the Main Street branch of the Queens Borough Public Library (reputed to be the single busiest library branch in the country), and headed home.
Happy Lunar New Year.