Queens

Home sales in Queens plunged annually from the spring of 2007, according to a new report, joining Brooklyn and Manhattan in steep year-over-year sales slides.

Queens home sales were down 23.7 percent from the second quarter of 2007 through the second quarter of 2008, to 2,363, according to the report out this week from appraisal firm Miller Samuel and brokerage Prudential Douglas Elliman. The second quarter sales amount--nearly 3,100--represents, apparently, a quarterly peak since 2004.  read more »

A report earlier this month showed Brooklyn home sales plunging 43.6 percent annually. And, in Manhattan, sales dropped 21.8 percent year over year. The reports tracked deals closed in the quarter ending June 30 (the Manhattan and Brooklyn ones are available

Back in April, as I was trying to figure out how the hell to get out to Glendale for my interview with the Cash Giveaway King of Queens, Damon Hemmerdinger, development director for the Shops at Atlas Park, I asked his rep:

"Think ol' Dale [Hemmerdinger, M.T.A. chairman and also Damon's father] can hook me up with a closer subway stop?"

"Funny!" she said. "But the bus stop right in front is relatively new so consider yourself lucky!"

Luck is one way to put it. Some city officials call it fishy.  read more »

According to Friday's Metro, City Council members are upset about the new bus service,

Regulators continue to crack down on the infamous Kalua Cabaret in Jamaica, Queens -- site of the controversial 2006 police shooting that claimed the life of Sean Bell.

First, the State Liquor Authority stripped the notorious strip club of its liquor license. Now, health inspectors have shuttered the topless juice joint for a number of unsanitary conditions, including evidence of mice.

Passionate preservationist Michael Perlman, savior of Manhattan's Moondance and Cheyenne diners, is now spearheading a campaign to reopen Queens' historic Ridgewood Theatre, which closed this past March after nine decades in operation.  read more »

"The four-car G train is just like one step above the horse and buggy days," State Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn told the crowd at Wednesday night's Save the G rally at Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Fort Greene.

Almost 100 G riders kicked off a monthlong campaign to increase service on the "forgotten stepchild" of the New York subway system, as Mr. Jeffries and others have called it.

"It's important to increase the intensity of the public campaign," Mr. Jeffries said, "to stress to the M.T.A. that G train service enhancements are absolutely necessary."

On June 25, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board will meet to discuss systemwide service improvements. Mr. Jeffries, who organized the rally, intends to make sure the G is a top priority. In the coming weeks, G advocates will be writing letters, sending e-mails and corralling the support of elected officials in an effort to "convince the M.T.A. to do the right thing," as Mr. Jeffries put it.  read more »

NY1 is reporting that Woodhaven Lanes in Forest Hills will shutter May 18 because of high rent:

The owners of the property had asked for a rent decrease, but the management company said they could not accommodate because of their mortgage costs. A last-ditch effort to find a new lease holder was rejected by the bank.  read more »

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Sorry, outer-borough bargain-hunters; the median sales price in Queens actually increased slightly to $498,500 in the first quarter of 2008, compared to $492,900 in the same period last year, according to Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Q1 2008 Long Island/Queens Market Report.

Credit all the new high-end developments coming on-line, not increasing demand, for the price hike.  read more »

Brooklyn is the seventh-largest county in the United States, according to new census estimates. The County of Kings has 2,528,050 residents. Queens was No. 10 with 2,270,338; and Manhattan was No. 19 with 1,620,867 residents. The census' estimates run through July 1, 2007.

Although all three experienced population gains over previous years' estimates going back to 2000, none were among the nation's 100 fastest-growing counties; nor were the Bronx or Staten Island. The Bronx was No.  read more »

Queens shopping mall developer Damon Hemmerdinger is doing his part to boost sluggish retail sales.

The son of MTA Chairman Dale Hemmerdinger is handing out $50 bills on Friday afternoon to patrons at his Atlas Park shopping center in Glendale.

Ironically, Manhattanites looking to cash in should be aware of bus delays.

Within the next two months, Mr. Hemmerdinger plans on giving away a total of $20,000, as part of his "Atlas Solution," a sort of private-sector economic stimulus plan. He is also challenging other mall owners around the country to do the same. If they join the effort, he estimates, the plan could infuse as much as $340 million into the economy.  read more »

The median Queens home sales price was $460,000 by the end of 2007, according to a fourth-quarter report authored by Jonathan Miller, executive vice president of research firm Radar Logic Inc. The report, released in Janaury, is now available online (PDF) and also covers parts of Long Island. The average sales price was $496,533.

Queens home sales dropped 27.2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006 to the fourth quarter of 2007, according to a new report from brokerage Prudential Douglas Elliman and research firm Radar Logic. Sales also dropped from the third quarter 28 percent, suggesting that the largely suburban borough is mimicing much of the nation rather than its fellow boroughs to the west and south, Manhattan and Brooklyn.  read more »

Frankie's Playce, billed as "the only full-service toy store in Queens to incorporate children's haircutting," will open next month at The Shops at Atlas Park in Glendale.

The chop shop for tots is among several newly signed tenants at the 12-acre open-air shopping center, managing agent Atco Properties announced today.

M12ThirtyOne, described as "a Soho-style men’s clothing boutique," also opens in November.

Read the full announcement after the jump.  read more »

We’ve taken a look at the new third-quarter housing numbers for Queens from Jonathan Miller and Prudential Douglas Elliman, and it looks like prices kept falling through the summer into the fall--this time, along with sales.

The average home sales price did increase from the quarter before (when it was $482,971) to reach $484,847. But it's barely noticeable against the larger drop from the third quarter of last year, when the average was $499,388.

The median price also dropped, but more steeply. The third quarter's $455,000 is 3 percent lower than the second’s $469,000 and 9 percent below the $500,000 in the third quarter of 2006.

So, while the higher-end properties in the land of the 7-train may be sustaining high prices, the average property is getting cheaper.

But, in a change from last quarter’s sales increase, the Queens market slowed down over the summer.  read more »

We've got more fun facts from the forthcoming book The Neighborhoods of Queens:

• Stockholm Street in Ridgewood is the only brick road in Queens.
• Woodside and Sunnyside host New York City's only St. Patrick's Day Parade open to gays and lesbians.
• Ground was broken on the Triborough Bridge the day after the 1929 stock market crash that sparked the Great Depression. Robert Moses Got Things Done!
• Cyndi Lauper grew up in Ozone Park.
• In the mid-19th century, Rockaway Beach Hotel--then the world's largest hotel--stretched between Beach 110th Street and Beach 116th Street in Rockaway Park.
• Now, the Rockaways have no hotels at all.

We've been perusing an early copy of a new book called The Neighborhoods of Queens. Authored by Long Island resident and journalist Claudia Gryvatz Copquin and with an introduction by city historian Kenneth Jackson, the book will be published by Yale University Press in November. It's one of those books where you can open it to any page and find something interesting.

Like, take pages 76 and 77: About half the land in Glendale, a neighborhood in the center of Queens that claims the late Phil Rizzuto as a favorite son, is covered by cemeteries. The neighborhood's southern half, in fact, is called Cemetery Belt, and some of its, um, residents include baseball greats Jackie Robinson and Lou Gehrig and actors Mae West and Edward G. Robinson.

Extra Glendale bonus nugget for the baby boomers out there: The neighborhood includes the house featured in the opening credits of the CBS sitcom classic All In The Family.

Appraiser Jonathan Miller called us late yesterday to tell us his third-quarter housing numbers for Long Island and for Queens will be out by Tuesday.

It'll be interesting to see what happens price-wise: Both the median and average sales prices of Queens homes declined in the second quarter from the first of this year.

Did the prices tumble further in the summer? Is it a buyer's market yet in Astoria, Flushing et al? Stay tuned...

Appraisal firm Miller Samuel has posted its second-quarter housing market report (PDF) for Queens and Long Island.

Queens home prices in the spring stayed generally the same as in the winter, according to a new report. Home sales, however, increased.

The report, from appraisal firm Miller Samuel and brokerage Prudential Douglas Elliman, says the average sales price of a Queens home was $482,971 in the second quarter; that’s only slightly less than it was in the first quarter ($490,637) and in the second quarter of 2006 ($488,925).

The same is true for the median sales price. It was $469,000 in the second quarter, down from the first quarter median of $492,900 and from the second quarter 2006 median of $490,000.

Home sales increased over 42 percent from the first quarter to the second quarter, with Queens notching around 3,100 home sales in April, May and June. This second-quarter amount was also an 18.9 percent increase over sales in the second quarter of 2006.  read more »

Congratulations, New York! You are home to the worst national park in the country.

A recent report from the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) revealed that Gateway National Recreation Area in Queens and its surrounding environs are in rough shape. Highly polluted water in and around the park, minimal visitor services and the "widespread loss of native species" are just a few of the problems plaguing the park, according to the report.  read more »

A residential portfolio in Brooklyn and Queens owned by the LeFrak family is in contract to sell for $250 million, two sources said. The portfolio, dubbed the Kings and Queens portfolio, consists of about 2,000 apartments.  read more »