May 6, 2019
Indo-Caribbean Queens: A Curious Eater’s Guide to “Little Guyana”
QueensWhere the A train dead-ends at Lefferts Boulevard, Liberty Avenue stretches on into the heart of the enclave known as Little Guyana, part of the larger Richmond Hill neighborhood. Once a year, for the Hindu holiday of Diwali, a bedazzled motorcade turns the street into an eruption of colors, music and lights that is a…
November 28, 2018
Northward Bound: African-Americans in Queens, part 1
QueensEnslaved Africans first stepped onto North American soil in 1619, unloaded by the Dutch West Indian Company in Jamestown, Virginia. Colonists first auctioned enslaved Africans in New Amsterdam (now New York City), New York, in 1626. According to the New York Historical Society, during the colonial period, 41 percent of the city's households had enslaved…
August 5, 2016
Queens’ Street Carts of Desire: Peddling, Past and Present
QueensQueens these days is New York’s street cart central. According to the Street Vendor Project, which advocates for vendor rights in the five boroughs, the largest concentration of street vendors with licenses lives in that borough. This concentration of streetside sellers is easy enough to see on six-mile-long Roosevelt Avenue, which runs through six of…