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Title details for The Queens Nobody Knows by William B. Helmreich - Available

The Queens Nobody Knows

An Urban Walking Guide

by William B. Helmreich
ebook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available

The only neighborhood-by-neighborhood guide to New York City's largest borough, from the award-winning author of The New York Nobody Knows
Bill Helmreich walked every block of New York City—some six-thousand miles—to write the award-winning The New York Nobody Knows. Later, he re-walked most of Queens—1,012 miles in all—to create this one-of-a-kind walking guide to the city's largest borough, from hauntingly beautiful parks to hidden parts of Flushing's Chinese community. Drawing on hundreds of conversations he had with residents during his block-by-block journey through this fascinating, diverse, and underexplored borough, Helmreich highlights hundreds of facts and points of interest that you won't find in any other guide.
In Bellerose, you'll explore a museum filled with soul-searing artwork created by people with mental illness. In Douglaston, you'll gaze up in awe at the city's tallest tree. In Corona, you'll discover the former synagogue where Madonna lived when she first came to New York. In St. Albans, you'll see the former homes of jazz greats, including Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday. In Woodhaven, you'll walk a block where recent immigrants from Mexico, Guyana, and China all proudly fly the American flag. And much, much more.
An unforgettably vivid chronicle of today's Queens, the book can be enjoyed without ever leaving home—but it's almost guaranteed to inspire you to get out and explore this captivating borough.

  • Covers every one of Queens's neighborhoods, providing a colorful portrait of their most interesting, unusual, and unfamiliar people, places, and things
  • Each neighborhood section features a brief overview and history; a detailed, user-friendly map keyed to the text; photographs; and a lively guided walking tour
  • Draws on the author's 1,012-mile walk through every Queens neighborhood
  • Includes insights from conversations with hundreds of residents

    • Creators

    • Publisher

    • Release date

      October 27, 2020

    • Formats

      • Kindle Book

      • OverDrive Read

        • ISBN: 9780691200026

      • PDF ebook

        • ISBN: 9780691200026
        • File size: 168364 KB
      Kindle restrictions

    • Languages

      • English

    • Reviews

      • Kirkus

        Starred review from August 1, 2020
        An eminent walker in the city digs deep into New York's largest borough, a place full of surprises. Sociologist Helmreich (1945-2020) had an unusual passion: He walked every block of New York's five boroughs, collecting stories and finding hidden treasures. Here, he does a second take on Queens, which, though the largest of the quintet, "might not be of particular interest" to visitors and residents alike. Although it's home to the city's two major airports, it's a place people gallop through in order to reach Manhattan. All unfair, by Helmreich's lights--2.3 million people live in the borough, which "contains fifty-seven distinct communities spread out over about 109 square miles." Once a haven for Jewish, Polish, and Irish immigrants, many of those communities are now flourishing with newcomers from Africa, Central America, South Asia, and other venues, to say nothing of farms, parks, and "the city's tallest tree." The Corona area was Madonna's first home in the city--and in a former synagogue at that--while Steinway Place was the site for a huge piano manufacturing plant. East Elmhurst was home to Malcolm X, Dizzy Gillespie, Eric Holder, and other notable African Americans while, back in Corona, Louis Armstrong's home is "all that's left of the black heritage" of old in a community that "is overwhelmingly Hispanic--with Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and Mexicans predominating, and augmented by immigrants from many other Latin American lands." Helmreich walks and walks, talking with street vendors, retirees watering their gardens, newcomers, and, it seems, thousands of other voices. He paints a vibrant portrait of a place constantly on the go yet at a far less hectic pace than Manhattan--and with better pizza, too, in venues like Howard Beach, "where the presence of Mafia members...[has] given the area a somewhat unsavory reputation." New York fans will devour Helmreich's genial, rich, and constantly illuminating travelogue.

        COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    Formats

    • Kindle Book
    • OverDrive Read
    • PDF ebook
    Kindle restrictions

    subjects

    Languages

    • English

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