Bigger Is Better at Queens Center Mall

Efforts to increase the size and “wow factor” of the nation’s most profitable retail venue, Queens Center Mall, reached completion in March this year and opened to an awe-struck shopping public.

At the heart of the $275 million expansion is a two-level retail bridge spanning 92nd Street, a new food court and a new wing that includes 40 stores. Anchoring the mall’s expansion are J.C. Penny’s, which expanded to 204,000 square feet, and Macy’s, which will add an entire floor to its store.

“The city worked to allow us to make this structure,” said an official from the Macerich Company, which owns the mall, referring to a mixture of variances and permanent changes in the city’s zoning laws that enabled the expansion. The bridge itself, which allows shoppers to travel easily from between the old and new wings of the mall, created a seamless flow from Macy’s to J.C. Penny’s, the mall’s two anchor stores.

Silvercup Studios: A Little Bit Jersey

Once a vast bakery on the western edge of Queens, this year Silvercup Studios discovered in itself a little bit of that New Jersey feeling. Production officials from HBO, who had already made use of the Long Island City studios while shooting interior scenes for the now-concluded hit show Sex and the City, cast Silvercup in a starring role for the latest season of The Sopranos.

In the fourth season of the HBO drama about a neurotic, strip club-owning crime boss and his complicated relationship with his family and underlings, scenes from a wide variety of Jersey location were created at Silvercup. In fact, the inside of a strip club owned by Tony Soprano, a place with the uncanny name of “The Bada Bing,” exists only on a Queens soundstage. All the plots and murderous decisions hatched in the club’s back room are shot in a back lot at Silvercup now.

The haunts of other Soprano characters can be found inside Silvercup as well. Soprano son AJ, who is not the brightest student in the tri-state region, attends a high school that was created on a soundstage there. The imposing Soprano home, whose exterior has become something of an icon, is a real house in the exclusive community of North Caldwell, New Jersey. The inside of the home, where much of the marital drama between Tony and Carmella Soprano took place, is similarly shot in Queens.

Douglaston Hill:
On The Verge of History

Borough preservationists and architecture buffs have complained for decades over the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission unwillingness to recognize and protect historic neighborhoods in Queens. Manhattan boasts 55 historic districts, while Queens makes due with a mere five.

Soon there will be a sixth, however, as Landmarks officials moved ahead with plans to recognize the community of Douglaston Hill as a historic district. A map consisting of 31 homes, most of which were built around the turn of the last century, has passed through several levels of review by city commissioners and local residents, with only one final public hearing separating the neighborhood from history.

If passed, homes in the newest historic district would be forever preserved and all exterior renovations would be subject to special permits and supervision from the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Barnes & Noble Fuels Retail Renaissance

The stretch of Union Turnpike near the Queens campus of St. John’s University has never enjoyed much of a reputation for top shelf retail. Just one year ago, those rundown blocks had little more to offer than a few restaurants and a pharmacy.

This year, however, marked the beginning of a major revitalization in the area, as a brand new Barnes & Noble bookstore became the centerpiece of the new retail revival on Union Turnpike. The massive bookseller, known for dizzying stores that offer everything from fiction to DVDs to a café setting, opened its doors on June 22. In all of Queens, there are only two other Barnes & Noble locations, in Forest Hills and Bay Terrace, and local residents generally greet the arrival of the big bookstore as an indication that a community is on the rise.

According to the manager of the new store, the Union Turnpike Barnes & Noble is the largest bookstore in Queens, with over 26,000 square feet of music, books and magazines. The new store also plans to engage the local arts scene, collaborating with neighborhood poetry groups to stage open mic nights and bringing in authors for book readings.

If the dream of the Olympics coming to New York City comes true, Queens will be the home for the athletes at the proposed Olympic Village in Hunter’s Point.

2012 Olympics: Athletes Sleep in Queens

If the dream of an Olympic games hosted by the Big Apple ever comes to pass, thousands of the world’s premier athletes will do their own dreaming throughout the global event in a sprawling apartment complex that will rise above the East River in Hunter’s Point.
NYC2012, the non-profit group that pushed New York City to a spot among the five finalist cities hoping to host the 2012 Summer Games, released a blueprint this year for an Olympic infrastructure that will feature a major role for Queens. Though the decision to place the centerpiece stadium, which will double as the New York Jets new home, on Manhattan’s West Side—as opposed to Queens—stirred up enduring controversy, the Olympic plan does place the 4,500-apartment Olympic Village and several major venues in Queens.

According to the plans, the pond at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park will get a complete makeover for use in canoeing and kayaking events, a newly constructed multi-purpose athletic center in Astoria will host cycling events and the Astoria pool will get an overhaul as the site of swimming races.

These Olympic dreams now hinge on the vote of the International Olympic Committee, which won’t meet to pick a host for the 2012 games until next summer.Rockaway Homes By The Sea Good news came to the Rockaways this year, as developers and politicians cut the ribbon on the hotly anticipated Averne By The Sea project, an ambitious beachfront development campaign that will see new homes, retail areas and community centers rise on the peninsular community.

The first portion of the sprawling 117-acre development debuted in May to rave responses by political leaders who had worked for years to plot the revitalization of the often-troubled Rockaways area. When complete, the Averne project will include 2,300 new homes, 250,000 square feet of new retail space, a new school, 10-acres of park and a YMCA—all on prime oceanfront terrain.

The first 27 of the new homes were completed this year and made available to residents of Community Board 14 through a special lottery. The homes were touted as relatively affordable, starting at $395,000, and developers plan to spend $2 million on a ferry to link the Rockaways to Manhattan.

Iraq Vets Open A Restaurant

NOVO, a French-Dominican restaurant owned by Marines who served in Iraq had its grand opening in April. Located at 78-23 37th Avenue, the new eatery will also offer pastry classes, according to owners Randolph Breton and Deo Castillo.

Between handshakes with curious passersby, Breton, a sergeant who returned in September, said, “I’m just glad to have something for the community, a place where everyone can come together.”

Menu items include banana pancakes, pollo con penne (chicken with penne) and a lettuce, tomato avocado salad. Store hours are noon to midnight on weekdays, and noon to 1 a.m. on weekends, Castillo said. For more information, visit www.novocuisine.com.

Kissena Velodrome Reopens

New York City’s only bicycle racetrack reopened this year following a lengthy and expensive renovation, but the makeover once again established the historic Kissena Velodrome as the top cycling venue in the region.

Originally opened for the 1964 World’s Fair, the once grand Kissena Velodrome fell into disrepair and had not been able to host major cycling events for years. The renovations, completed in April, re-paved the entire racing surface, introduced new grandstands and built a new tower for race officials. The banked oval on which speeding cyclists race also received a new fence to increase safety for riders and spectators alike.

In the wake of the renovations, enthusiastic cyclists again began hosting top level racing events in Flushing, which became something of a ground zero for cycle enthusiasts in the country after the Velodrome was first built.