I got a pleasant surprise (well…pleasant, but not a surprise) this morning when I grabbed a copy of the Queens Gazette and saw that my profile/interview had dropped. It was a few days too late to hype my event at the Greater Astoria Historical Society last week, but it’s nice to be given props for simply existing!
We’re getting close, I think, to needing an entire Queens section on Travalanche, modelled on the Brooklyn one, which has well over 100 posts. I have become a big booster of Queens since moving to the other side of it, and have taken to exploring it much as I plumbed the depths of Brooklyn back when I lived there. My local involvement has included talks at the Queens Museum on the New York Worlds Fairs, several talks at the Greater Astoria Historical Society (mostly about the movie industry in Astoria and Flushing), and a series of shows at QED in Astoria. Some key related articles here on Travalanche:
On the 1939 New York World’s Fair
Anarchy in Astoria: The Making of the Marx Brothers’ First Two Pictures
A Walking Tour of Historical Sites in Flushing
The Status of RKO Keith’s Flushing
Coming soon:
The Text of My Talk on the 1964 New York World’s Fair
A Piece on Queens’ Long Lost Amusement Park North Beach
Meantime, please read much more of my appreciation of Queens, and a bit about my work habits and the art of writing, in the piece in the Queens Gazette here.