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Good Things Come In Small Packages
Jacques
Martin Handsome
Forest Hills heartthrob Jacques C. Martin has a lot of experience turning
heads with his good looks –three years and four months worth of
experience, to be exact. The
pint-sized toddler has been gaining attention from crowds along Austin
Street in Forest Hills since his birth, and he recently signed on with a
local modeling agency to expand his audience. His
mother Natacha told QConf that Martin won over modeling scouts with
his mature, calm demeanor and warm smile. The three year old who keeps his
room spotless is a stand out from the crowd.
When
not watching "Sesame Street" or playing with toy cars, Martin can
be seen hanging out in the Forest Hills Barnes & Noble.
Another favorite hang out for the up-and-coming model is Kids Line,
where Martin can be seen picking out his button down shirts, slacks and
dress shoes (which he ties on his own).
The
meticulously dressed young man keeps his wardrobe in tact, even when hanging
out at the playgrounds around Queens Boulevard. Martin
has his young brown eyes set on expanding his career. This summer – after
nursery school graduation –
Martin will enroll in acting classes. Natacha says her son has auditioned
for some commercials. Talk to the Hand Don’t
believe everything you read. Especially press releases. One
release we received, from NYC
Health and Hospitals Corporation, was about how to cope with depression
stemming from excessive exposure to war news, and listed so-called experts
on the topic for media members to call. Trusting the release, we
called the listed Queens source to get the story, but was told by the
doctor, “I have no clue about this.” A
spokesperson for the hospital where the doctor worked blamed layers of
bureaucracy for the problem. The spokesperson said the press release was
sent from HHC headquarters in Manhattan, and that nobody had contacted the
“media experts” to let them know of their new duties. The spokesperson
at the hospital said, “It’s a case of the left hand not talking to the
right hand.” Now
there’s an interesting anatomy lesson from an expert! Queens Multiplicity
There are two Northern Boulevards in Queens.
That’s right,
you’re reading correctly.
There are two
Northern Boulevards in Queens.
You heard it here
first.
Let us explain.
In this paper’s
recent Insider’s Guide, we revealed a quick way to escape Shea
traffic and get to the Grand Central Parkway after Mets games – take a
small, rundown-looking, unnamed street that forks off of eastbound Northern
Boulevard.
The road, which
features no street signs and is nameless on every major map, twists and
turns narrowly through a landscape of fenced-off garbage piles and mounds of
dirt. At night, there are no lights. It’s quite scary.
But it’s worth the
adventure, because it takes drivers straight to the highway, and bypasses a
tremendous amount of Shea Stadium gridlock.
However, the
question is, what the heck is the name of the road?
For the answer, we
went straight to the source – New York City Department of Transportation
Queens Borough Commissioner Joseph Cannisi.
He personally
checked it out for us, asking his topography experts and searching
throughout DOT headquarters. Finally, he found the answer.
“Believe it or
not,” he said, “It’s called Northern Boulevard.”
Huh?
“Yeah,” he said,
“For a stretch there, Queens has two Northern Boulevards. It surprised me,
too.”
Wow, who knew? Just
for the record, the Northern Boulevard that everyone knows is actually north
of the other one, so maybe the street with no name should really be called
Southern Northern Boulevard.
Just a thought.
The old saying that “If the shoe fits, wear it” is playing out on
the backs of buses and feet all over the borough.
Phat Farm, a company
known for not shying away from heated political issues and founded by a man
— Hollis hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons — with the same quality, is
promoting the issue of reparations with one of its classic all-white low-top
sneakers.
The ads promoting
the issue are popping up on buses all over the borough, with a picture of
Rev. Run, the Hollis rapper from Run-DMC (and longtime Simmons buddy) who
was recently ordained as a minister, and the words “Isn’t it time for a
change? Economic justice now. Reparations
now. It’s an American justice
issue.”
It’s not the first
time the company has jumped sneaker-first into politics.
Last year, it turned one of its sneakers into the “Carl McCall
Running Shoe” in an effort to support the black Democrat’s chances of
beating a rather influential and powerful incumbent.
But whatever you think of the politics of reparations, you gotta love the decade-old picture of Run, complete with baby face, skinny neck and meatchop sideburns. Proud To Play Lee Greenwood The
worldly citizens of New York City are fond of the hard-nosed, no-nonsense,
heard-it-all-before persona that embodies their collective character. But
when it comes to the Lee Greenwood patriotic song, “God Bless the USA,”
New Yorkers, like the rest of the nation, actually have heard it before –
and probably many more times than they would like. The
played-out – not to mention aggressively inland – quality of the song
makes it a stupefying choice for the soundtrack of the NYPD’s
anti-terrorism presentation, coming soon to a community board or civic
meeting near you. The
40-minute Power Point presentation begins predictably with a Sept. 11
montage set to the tune of Mr. Greenwood’s enduring power ballad and
proceeds to instruct viewers on terrorism awareness.
It
might be overkill to suggest that two NYPD community affairs officers held a
recent session of Community Board 13 “hostage” to their heavy-handed,
Greenwood-backed video, or to assert that the room was “terrorized” by
the song – but the board members did seem bored, to say the least.
E-MAIL your items to: conf@queenstribune.com
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