This Issue Is Sure To Show You Something You Haven’t Seen

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It’s difficult not to notice some sweeping changes in the Queens social and political landscape this fall. Just when you thought we were safe, in “historical movement” fashion, a Republican (who was endorsed by Ed Koch, of all people) wins the congressional seat that has been held by a Democrat since Calvin Coolidge was president. The Occupy Wall Street Movement is sweeping across the world and demanding attention. Although many might think the protests are a necessary distraction, it is still a bit unnerving that there are so many people willing to join this group at the drop of a hat.
A good part of the Queens social scene gets a facelift this season as the long-anticipated Aqueduct Racino opened on October 28, bringing a new type of gambling to the borough. Though gambling has always existed at Aqueduct, the addition of slots at the racetrack will certainly save the horse racing industry – at least for a while – and create a fabulous destination spot in Queens. We’re excited about the expansion prospects for the Aqueduct area. In the category of “really cool stuff you wouldn’t come across anywhere except here,” how about our Made In Queens feature on beekeeper Chase Emmons, who does his craft on a rooftop farm in LIC. Check it out on page 9. You can admit that you have had some of that tasty grub from one of those mobile food trucks throughout the borough of Queens. Sure, some restaurants owners have their issues with them, and their A, B and P ratings with the Department of Health might not use the same measuring standards, but we give
you an insider’s look at the new permanent food truck lot in Long Island City. Pia Toscano is the new celebrity of Queens, and has performed around the borough for years. The American Idol contestant became an overnight smash and now has a record deal. Check out our interview with her beginning on page 30. Kaitlin Monte is the newly crowned Miss New York. We sat
down with this bright, energetic young lady who talked to us about life in Astoria and her efforts to end bullying. Our It’s List this issue ranks Queens Kickstarters – a bunch of overachieving individuals who have one common trait: they think outside the box. They do take risks, but there is no real reward without passion and risk. We love our top 15 Queens Kickstarters, which begins on page 22. Who says you have to travel out of Queens to get an out-of-mind experience? We couldn’t believe how many people in Queens have a passion for riding horses. Our feature on horses and a Forest Hills riding school will surely leave you intrigued. It begins on page 36. And finally, Maspeth is mourning the tragedy of losing a well-liked young man named George Gibbons recently. He was innocently riding in the back seat of a cab, while someone was driving the wrong way on 58th Road and hit the cab head-on. It is quite difficult not to question why it’s the innocent people who lose their lives in these incidents and the ones who cause it walk away. George leaves a lot of people who loved him searching for answers.

Walter (Walter Sanchez, Publisher)

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Visiting and picking the top drinking holes in Queens (outside Long Island City and Astoria) took a great deal of time and hard research (yeah right!), according to our senior editor Dan Bush, but I think we nailed it in this issue. Bars in Astoria and LIC are certainly in another league, but our Top Five hold their own when it comes to our criteria: drink menu, atmosphere, uniqueness, comfortability and customer profile. Check out our list on page 14.

With nearly two-and-a-half million people in Queens, you could live here a lifetime and never experience 90% of the borough. Our mission at It’s Queens is to give you some of those hidden treasures to stimulate your love for this diverse county.

My favorite story in this issue is about Mamita’s Homemade Ices, which starts on page 12. Lisa Fraser captures the small beginnings of this family business on Liberty Avenue to the $7 million company that churns out 100,000 ices a day that is has become.

Cherry Valley Deli in Whitestone is a staple of Queens. It’s well known throughout the city for great food and a great place to hangout. If you don’t know about it, ask your kids. It’s featured in our Supreme Sandwiches story, which rates the best sandwiches in Queens.

If you haven’t seen The Saw Lady of the Subways, get to know this Astoria native in Nathan Tempey’s feature piece on page 36.

The It’s List: Top Movers & Shakers of Queens 2011 has a few hidden faces you’ll want to know, such as Peter Cardella, a mild mannered 94-year-old senior advocate who politicians have to go through if they want the Ridgewood vote.

And only handsome guys like Steve Lavin make it on our cover. He is on the verge of making St. John’s basketball a national powerhouse and Queens the college basketball town it once was. Read his story on page 34.

By the way, thanks to our digital design guru Joe Butchey, we are on the cutting edge of digital magazine development. Check out the digital edition by clicking the image above. It’s pretty neat and we’re proud of it.

Walter (Walter Sanchez, Publisher)

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Talk to old-timers and they will say that former times produced outstanding public servants. They cannot argue, however, that the Queens Borough President Donald Manes scandal, though it was quick and tragic, was most notable for its negative impact on politics.

Geraldine Ferraro is really the darling of Queens politics. Ferraro, who once had a small office on Grand Avenue in Maspeth, ascended in the political world to be a vice presidential candidate. She must surely be considered the trailblazer for women in politics in this country.

Tom Manton, who took over the reigns of the Queens County Democratic Organization following Manes’ suicide in 1986, led the charge to change the notion that politicians needed to be white and male. Manton had an uphill battle following the relentless media assault on Manes and Queens politicians. But in time, through his work with African Americans in South Queens and Hispanics and women throughout Queens, he truly strengthened the bond between the people and politicians here.

Corona just gained the distinction of being the zip code with the largest adolescent obesity rate, so we thought it the right time to rate burger joints in Astoria. Note BareBurger in Astoria. Ostrich, elk and bison burgers? Only in Queens.

Kirsten Gillibrand turns out to be more than just a pretty face after all.  Playing second fiddle to Chuck Schumer is no easy task, but when you read our cover story you’ll agree that she is carving out her own niche in Washington.

Queens fashion is a highly debated topic in New York. We at the staff here think it happens to be an important part of our culture. Be sure to check out our “Fashion Police” section.

Happy reading, and enhance your experience by scanning the barcodes throughout the magazine – they’re a lot of fun.

Walter (Walter Sanchez, Publisher)

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One of the staff’s favorite pages in It’s Queens is the Hot & Cold feature (page 7) because we are forced to be as current as possible and things change so quick around here our collective heads spin constantly. QR (We call them 2D BQE) Bar Codes will rock the house soon. They are all over our newspapers each week and we have them throughout this magazine.

If you don’t know what they are, ask your ten year old. He surely knows. Your cell phone can take a picture of the square code and the device goes directly to any website the bar code creator desires. It will be the hottest thing since sliced bread and you saw it here first. Just download any bar code reader and away you go. (We have directions on page 8 and a whole page of codes on 57.)

Go Islanders Look for the Islanders to be making their way to the “getting hot” side of the chart soon if Queens leaders get their way. And Real Blogs will make their way into the “hot” zone soon, as more and more “authored” posts become mainstream and people in Queens trust them.

Geraldine Ferraro has done more for women than almost anyone we know. She held a congressional seat in Western Queens four decades ago and was a pioneer before it was fashionable. See our profile on page 17.

Yes, Andrew Cuomo broke into our Top 15 Queens Celebrities list. Much of that had to do with the ineptitude of our current Governor David Paterson and that Cuomo is a clear frontrunner to be the next governor of New York State. Fifteen years ago his father Mario would have been on the list. Andrew has climbed to rock star status with the help of Paterson, and the best news is as governor he can’t do much worse.

Even Gene Simmons is from Queens Who would have known Nancy Reagan was born in Flushing and raised in Queens? On the “I already knew that” side of celebrity alley, Gene Simmons, Fran Drescher and Donald Trump come to mind, but Paul Simon is the favorite among music lovers. We’re not so celebrity-savvy around here, but everyone seems to like LL Cool J. His smooth style hip-hop is a cross between Shaft, Barry White, and “The Rock.”

Part of our job here is to highlight places under the radar. Check out Dutch Kills Bar at the intersection of Jackson Avenue and Queens Boulevard. It’s all about the ice and the atmosphere on page 18.

Miss USA Rima Fakih was actually pretty cool. Her teen years were spent in Queens and she could have been the girl you saw on the 7 train every morning. Check out our down-to-earth interview with her on page 32.

We’re getting into fashion around here. If you read any one of our six Queens papers you know Holly. She is like a comic book superhero who finds the best bargains in fashion. Check out page 46 and look for our Fashion Expo on November 13 in Hollis, Queens. Lots of local clothing designers, threads and cool people. Check out the Queens Ledger group of newspapers for details. We also shine the spotlight on a local bathing suit designer named Monica Yepez on page 50.

Forest Hills Gardens is 100 years old. Our look at the one-of-a-kind neighborhood begins on page 58.

We hope you enjoy the issue.

Walter (Walter Sanchez, Publisher)

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It is truly rare in the industry of news journalism to find a person who is defined in one medium, but has the skills, passion and instincts that would allow them to excel in another. Most know that television news personalities have a face for TV and the verbal ability to relay a story that has mass appeal to viewers. Not very many, however, have the skills to do the reporting it takes to get the story. You wouldn’t characterize newspaper personalities Jimmy Breslin or Pete Hamill as having a face for TV, but their skills and instincts made them two of the most outstanding newspaper reporters this city has ever seen.

Well, we found one who transcends both news mediums.

Top “Trendsetter” Mary Murphy grew up in Woodside and has never moved out of Queens. In her position at WPIX Channel 11 as an investigative reporter, we see Murphy as one of the few television journalists with a true instinct for the news. Obviously, we are biased on the side of print reporting, but Mary is more like a true newspaper journalist – out in the field, working the beat – yet she has the face for television. Murphy’s story begins on page 36, and it is no surprise, after meeting with her, that she has been recognized by her industry as a leader – winning nearly two dozen Emmy Awards for her top-notch reporting on the World Trade Center attack of 1993 and the Joel Steinberg trial.

Check out the TOP 15 TRENDSETTERS starting on page 21. It includes business networkers, a hyper-local online network entrepreneur, a bartender and many more. Steve Madden, the famous shoe designer even snuck onto our list. All are setting trends that are important to either Queens or their industry. Since employees and immediate family of our company are excluded from our list, we can’t list our magazine as setting a trend, but we are. Magazines are popping up all over, but none with digital editions like ours.

Our magazine is online as well. We just emailed 80,000 copies to movers & shakers in Queens. It opens like a book and the pages come alive. Check out the Hooter’s ad or the Burger King ad – they’re fun and dynamic. Get used to this kind of marketing – it’s here, we just did it before most of the others. (See www.itsqueens.com under “View Digital Edition.”)

On that note, people are mobile and news is going mobile. There are more than FOUR BILLION mobile devices in use today. Nine million iPhones alone were sold in the last three months alone. 53 percent of the world’s internet users also use their mobile devices to access the web. And the numbers are growing every day – 72 percent of adults have viewed the internet over a wireless connection and 32 percent of those who have mobile internet access say that it is their primary way of accessing the internet. If that doesn’t tell you that your company might be “behind the curve,” it should.

To meet this demand, our company, which also publishes the Queens Ledger/Brooklyn Star group of weekly community newspapers, recently launched mobile editions, fresh with the ability to send news text alerts and offer mobile coupons to our advertisers. If you have not seen our award-winning newspaper websites check out www.queensledger.com today, or check out our mobile edition at the same web address on any mobile device.

One of the most exciting plans we have for 2010 is a new partnership with WPIX Channel 11 News. WPIX News Director Bill Carey (a Maspeth native) is working with our news company to deliver local news to Channel 11 TV and Internet News, while their resources for city, regional and national news will be at our disposal. Who wins? Queens Ledger/Brooklyn Star readers and WPIX TV viewers.

Walter (Walter Sanchez, Publisher)

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Odds are that this magazine you are now holding is the first magazine you will read that is also available online in a digital format, as well. The digital format (which can be found at www.itsqueenmagazine.com under “View Digital Edition”) is growing rapidly in popularity around the world in major markets like ours.

This digital process allows us to make more out of our subjects, stories, and advertisements. PAGES COME ALIVE in our digital edition through video and audio, as well as through embedded elements that direct you to websites, social networks, or resource material. These elements will either make you feel old and that the world is passing you by, or excited about where this new technology can take you.

The latter has happened to us at BQE Media – and you need to trust me, you will be reading your magazines, newspapers, books and notes in digital format sooner than you want.

We have been sucked into digital media, social networking, and web 2.1. We’re still not sure if it’s a curse or a blessing, but we’re taking it for a ride.

Check out the ARBY’S ad on page 9. The roast burgers are eaten when you flip to the page on your computer. Check out the FORCE FITNESS CLUB ad on page 52. Not only is there a video on the page, there is a Google map of their location, a schedule of classes embedded in the ad, and a photo gallery with dozens of pictures.

Check out the TOP 15 GOING GREEN starting on page 19. Click on the picture of Gus Antzoulis (#14) on list, and you will be taken to the Maspeth Dry Cleaner video. From there you can reach him to chat or send an email to get advice or a feel for his business. That’s just the beginning of the power of this new technology.

We don’t expect people to just happen to find our digital magazine buried within our website though. We are emailing the digital version to the 80,000 people who signed up on the websites of our eight community weekly newspapers within the last 8 months.

How’s that?

Our company also publishes the Queens Ledger/Brooklyn Star weekly newspapers. If you have not seen our award winning newspaper websites check out www.queensledger.com today. Visitors can read the news in Queens and Brooklyn, but they also place free classified ads, list events, or start a blog. They can also respond to articles and find local businesses in our directory, which has 35,000 businesses.

It’s web 2.1 in its infancy. In order to take advantage, however, users must give us a verified email address, like the 80,000 who will receive the digital version of It’s Queens.
I think you all will be pretty amazed.

Walter (Walter Sanchez, Publisher)

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From the two busiest airports in the free world to the best New York Pretzels in the best pretzel city in the U.S., Queens continues to surprise us with its diverse menu of eateries, activities, and opportunities. Our innovators are in a class by themselves.

Queens Innovators Innovators are not simply individuals who had an idea and “went with it.” A genuine innovator has more than an idea. He or she has a vision, seizes an opportunity, takes a risk, and then follows through. There are bumps in the road, obstacles, detractors, supporters who share the vision – and finally, maybe, just maybe, there is that innovation which saves time, money, lives, or simply makes daily life easier.

True innovation makes a measured difference to someone out there, doesn’t it?

Well look no further than page 20 in this issue for our Top 15 Innovators of Queens. In our quest to have something for everyone in It’s Queens, why not think about getting a nice hot towel shave? Check it out…this issue we give you the five hottest in the borough.

With the proliferation of big box stores, whose philosophy (by definition) is to put the little guys out of business, we thought we would point out some brave and crafty souls whose businesses bucked the odds and thrived in this age of chain stores that are better known for their lousy service and low prices.

Also, check out our Top 5 Developments and the Top 10 all-time moments at Shea Stadium. As Queensites know very well, the Mets will play in a new stadium next season, so dear old Shea will be gone forever.

It’s Astoria Try living in Astoria. We did – and it’s great. Astoria is not just for Greeks anymore. Artists, serious business people, some great watering holes and outstanding food is on the mind of residents of Astoria these days.

Queens Fashion – Oh Yeah! Feedback from our readers on recent issues of IQ has led us to start a fashion section. (One quick look at the get-ups that people around our office sport and it was obvious to me we shouldn’t hire a fashion guru for the magazine from within the organization.) For those who think Queens fashion is an oxymoron, think again. There is some real time and money spent by Queens residents on fashion and you’ll be surprised where they shop for it.

Enjoy the fall issue!

Walter (Walter Sanchez, Publisher)

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Well, the 25-year-old actress who plays the part of Betty Suarez, the ugly duckling, is in Queens filming the fall season series for ABC television.
What’s great about America Ferrera is that in real life she shows a self that all women should exhibit. Physically, she isn’t what Americans (our fellow countrymen and women, and not fans of the actress) consider a “hot” movie star, yet her stature and style make her an attractive star of the silver screen, as well as for this issue’s cover.

We also have the Top 15 Masterminds of Queens in this issue. Masterminds are a unique group of individuals who have made an impact on Queens that will last for generations to come. People like Claire Shulman, who helped the USTA expand, and Chris Ward, who was the man behind the AirTrain. Or Dick Aurelio, creator, founder, and driving force of Time Warner’s 24-hour all-news network, NY1. According to our sources, there were those inside the company who thought too many resources were going into covering local news, but he won the battle and we’re all better for it.

In this issue we also profile the top 5 golf holes and tattoo parlors, rank the best places to host your summer party, give you a taste of Spain right here in Queens, and so much more.

Forest Hills is our neighborhood profile. It is more diverse than people think and it is worth a trip down Austin Street.
In the next issue we’ll profile the Top 20 Innovators in Queens. We already have a few, but our readers can suggest someone by sending a note to editor@itsqueens.com.

It’s worth noting, that this issue marks the appearance of It’s Queens on hundreds of newsstands across the city, and if you are reading this, it looks like you’ve already found one.

Enjoy the summer issue!

Walter (Walter Sanchez, Publisher)

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When word began to leak as to what the next It’s Queens “Top 20” list would be, the questions we inevitably were asked were: “What is a stealth operator?” and “Is it good or bad to be one?”

If you’re looking for some negativity in being a stealth operator, don’t read any further. A stealth operator is someone who gets a good deal accomplished. Our typical stealth operator is not some high-profile, bigger-than-life personality, often because if he or she is seen as a big player it could hurt their ability to be as productive as they can be.

Take for instance John Kotowski from CUNY. Those readers who are familiar with him know he doesn’t really talk about the large sums of money he has secured for the CUNY system. Not only is he a humble guy in general, but, if for example, Senator Padavan knew how much Helen Marshall was earmarking for CUNY, Padavan might not work to get as much from the State Senate for CUNY. Kotowski’s ability to stay under the radar makes him highly effective at bringing in million of dollars to CUNY.

Some of our stealth operators, though, are under the radar because nobody knows about them yet, but we wager that they soon will. Like D.A. Brown’s top assistant district attorney, Jesse Sligh. His genuine humility and desire to stay out of the limelight are just part of his personality. Sligh doesn’t want attention, and maybe he won’t be too happy when he discovers that he is an It’s Queens Stealth Operator, but after we give him one of those rare “It’s Queens” lapel pins that our Top 20’s receive, maybe he’ll warm to the idea.

In addition to our standard Top 20, we hope you enjoy the rest of the spring issue, where you can find the best places to buy a cigar, find out what the hell “CaberReyes” is, read a great interview with Queens legend Jimmy Breslin, and so much more.

One more thing: Be sure to keep checking back with www.itsqueens.com often. We are working on some great multi-media features that are going to put the borough of Queens at your fingertips.

And keep sending us your photos of Queens for our photo contest, you can check out this month’s winners on page 60. And just for this issue, the first five people who can tell us where in the borough this photo was taken will win a pair of tickets to the show “Secrets of a Soccer Mom.” Submit your answers by April 15 to contest@itsqueens.com

Happy reading.

Walter (Walter Sanchez, Publisher)