Astoria in Queens

9 February 2024 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, New York City Reading Time:  12 minutes

The Last Word, Cocktails and Oysters, at Ditmars Boulevard © Kenneth C. Zirkel/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Last Word, Cocktails and Oysters, at Ditmars Boulevard © Kenneth C. Zirkel/cc-by-sa-4.0

Astoria is a neighborhood in the western portion of the New York City borough of Queens. Astoria is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to four other Queens neighborhoods: Long Island City to the southwest, Sunnyside to the southeast, and Woodside and East Elmhurst to the east. As of 2019, Astoria has an estimated population of 95,446.   read more…

TWA Hotel at JFK Airport in Queens

1 October 2019 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Architecture, House of the Month, Hotels, New York City Reading Time:  10 minutes

Retired airliner is used as cocktail bar © Jag9889/cc-by-sa-4.0

Retired airliner is used as cocktail bar © Jag9889/cc-by-sa-4.0

TWA Hotel is a hotel at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York City, that opened on May 15, 2019. It utilizes the headhouse of the TWA Flight Center airline terminal, designed in 1962 by the architect Eero Saarinen. The TWA Hotel project added two buildings on either side of the existing headhouse.   read more…

Museum of the Moving Image in Queens

25 November 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, New York City Reading Time:  6 minutes

© NickCPrior/cc-by-sa-3.0

© NickCPrior/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Museum of the Moving Image is a media museum located in Astoria, Queens in New York City in a former building of what is now the Kaufman Astoria Studios. The museum originally opened in 1988 as the American Museum of the Moving Image. In March 2008, the museum broke ground for a $65 million expansion that doubled the museum’s size and added a new theater and educational space. While the museum remained open during most of the construction period, with its old theater demolished and the new ones yet to be built, screenings series and other events were held off site, although the collection was still available to scholars. The museum opened its redesigned and expanded building, designed by Leeser Architecture, on January 15, 2011.   read more…

Theme Week New York City – Queens

23 November 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, New York City Reading Time:  14 minutes

Long Island City © King of Hearts/cc-by-sa-3.0

Long Island City © King of Hearts/cc-by-sa-3.0

Queens is the easternmost and largest in area of the five boroughs of New York City. It is geographically adjacent to the borough of Brooklyn at the southwestern end of Long Island, and to Nassau County further east on Long Island; in addition, Queens shares water borders with the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. Coterminous with Queens County since 1899, the borough of Queens is the second-largest in population (after Brooklyn), with a census-estimated 2.3 million residents in 2015, approximately 48% of them foreign-born. Queens is the fourth-most densely populated county among New York City’s boroughs, as well as in the United States. If each New York City borough were an independent city, Queens would also be the nation’s fourth most populous city, after Los Angeles, Chicago, and Brooklyn. Queens was established in 1683, as one of the original 12 counties of New York and was named for the Portuguese Princess Catherine of Braganza (1638–1705), Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland. It became a borough of New York City in 1898, and from 1683 until 1899, the County of Queens included what is now Nassau County.   read more…

Portrait: Steinway & Sons, manufacturer of grand pianos and pianos

29 July 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Hamburg, New York City, Portrait Reading Time:  14 minutes

© Steinway & Sons

© Steinway & Sons

Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway, is an American and German piano company, founded in 1853 in Manhattan, New York City, by German immigrant Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg (later known as Henry E. Steinway). The company’s growth led to the opening of a factory in Queens, New York City, and a factory in Hamburg, Germany. The factory in Queens supplies the Americas and the factory in Hamburg supplies the rest of the world. Steinway has been described as a prominent piano company, known for making pianos of high quality and for inventions within the area of piano development. Steinway has been granted 126 patents in piano making; the first in 1857. The company’s share of the high-end grand piano market consistently exceeds 80 percent. The company’s dominant position in the high-end piano market has been criticized, with some musicians and writers arguing that it has blocked innovation and led to a homogenization of the sound favored by pianists.   read more…

Theme Week New York City

8 September 2012 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon voyage, New York City, Theme Weeks Reading Time:  10 minutes

Seen from Rockefeller Center © flickr.com - jerryfergusonphotograph y/cc-by-2.0

Seen from Rockefeller Center © flickr.com – jerryfergusonphotograph y/cc-by-2.0

New York is the most populous city in the United States of America and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. There are more people living and working in Greater New York than in all of the German cities with more than a million inhabitants combined. The city is referred to as New York City or The City of New York to distinguish it from the State of New York, of which it is a part. A global power city, New York exerts a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment. The home of the United Nations Headquarters, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has been described as the cultural capital of the world.   read more…

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