30 Days in NYC (Day 8)- Queens

   For many years Queens was seen as the everyman, middle-class borough of New York City. It was seen as not only lacking Manhattan's glitz, but also lacking The Bronx's grittiness, Brooklyn's creativity, or even Staten Island or New Jersey's 'we get no respect' swagger. Queens has been the TV home of New York's unglamorous, mostly White middle class for years. From Archie Bunker, to the Costanzas on Seinfeld, to King of Queens and Fran Drescher's "Nanny." Essentially, Queens has a reputation for being boring. But things have changed in Queens over a generation. Queens is still home to the hard-working, unassuming residents it always has been, but now there's a twist. Queens is now the most ethnically and culturally diverse place on Earth. Immigrants from all over the world call Queens home and now foreign-born residents make up almost half of Queens' population. Exploring Queens is like making a trip around the world. You can taste the food and hear the music of cultures as varied as can be found anywhere.So it's time to put the sitcom tropes to bed and explore the incredible culture of Queens.

Day 8 - Queens (Forest Hills, Jackson Heights, and Flushing)

Morning - Unlike Manhattan and Brooklyn, Queens is a product of the 20th century. For most of the 18th and 19th centuries Queens was just farmland, with scattered towns or factories mixed in. Construction and development exploded with the completion of the Queensboro Bridge in 1909, the opening of Penn Station and the Long Island Railroad tunnel in 1910, and the first subway tunnels in 1915 and 1917. Suddenly and entirely undeveloped part of the city had rail, road, and subway access to Midtown Manhattan. Developers madly rushed into the void and began building houses and apartment buildings all over Queens. In some neighborhoods, developers were able to buy up farmland in large swaths and create entire communities. Forest Hills and Jackson Heights both were built up in this fashion and Forest Hills is where we start the morning. Multiple subway lines bring you to 71st Ave, the E and F are express from Manhattan and get you to Forest Hills in only a half hour from Midtown. Walking down 71st Ave brings you past the commercial strip of Austin Avenue, under the Long Island Railroad tracks and into Station Square, the grand entry to the Forest Hills Gardens section.