Summer In The City: What To Do In Queens

This summer, we will feature a guide for what to do in all five boroughs. Today Rob MacKay of the Queens Tourism Council kicks off the series with the top attractions the World's Borough has to offer this season. Plus, listeners share their favorite summer spots in Queens.

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Newsflash, if you have been meaning to sign up for our Summer Reading Challenge, the deadline is today, as in midnight tonight. Here's the deal. We are challenging you to read five books by the end of Labor Day weekend. Last year it was four. This year we're upping the ante. You need to read one book in each of the following categories, and no, a book can't double count. The categories are a classic you've been meaning to get to, a book about or set in New York City, a memoir biography, a recent debut novel, a book published in 2025. If you finish the challenge by the end of Labor Day weekend, you get a special prize. To sign up, head to wnyc.org/summerreading by midnight tonight. Again, that's wnyc.org/summer summer reading. Now, let's get this hour started in Queens.

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Each day this week, we're talking about the things you can do in each borough. Today, we're talking about the food views and hidden spots that make Queens special. As one of the most culturally diverse areas in the world, Queens offers a mix of cultures, cuisines, and experiences you can't find anywhere else. Now, if you feel overwhelmed by everything the city's largest borough has to offer, our guest, Rob MacKay, can be your guide. Rob is the Deputy Executive Director of the Queens Economic Development Corporation. He's in charge of informing the public on what's happening in Queens. Rob joins us now in studio. Hi, Rob.

Rob Mackay: Hi. Thank you for having me.

Alison Stewart: Happy you're here. Listeners, we want to hear from you. One, are you from Queens? What are your favorite things to do in Queens? Is there a restaurant you want to shout out, a site you visited? Our phone lines are wide open. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You can call in and join us on air. We want to remind you, don't call us if you're driving. You can't call us if you're driving. You can text that number. You also can't text us when you're driving, but that number is 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. If I believe the Internet, it says you have lived in Queens since 1991.

Rob Mackay: Yes. With a one-year break when I lived in Honduras.

Alison Stewart: Oh, that's another conversation.

Rob Mackay: Yes, sorry. Throw that out there in the beginning.

Alison Stewart: Why did you decide to make your life's work promoting Queens?

Rob Mackay: Basically, I grew up in Brooklyn. That's my dirty little secret. When I was actually studying at NYU. I got a job teaching English to immigrants in Woodside, Queens. That led to four years of teaching. While I was there, I would always take walks and started falling in love with the borough. Then I ended up renting an apartment. Then I ended up working in Queens. Then I ended up getting married in Queens and buying a house in Queens, and raising children in Queens, and God willing, I'll die here too.

Alison Stewart: You've actually written several books about Queens.

Rob Mackay: Yes. I'm always pretty much obsessed with Queens. I've written Historic Houses of Queens and Famous People of Queens with Arcadia Publishing.

Alison Stewart: All right, we're going to dive right in. Queens is home to the first outdoor squash court made of steel walls. Tell us about Maspeth Squash.

Rob Mackay: Maspeth Squash is got to be the most unique thing in the world. We're focusing on off the beaten path. This is off the beaten path, and then off that beaten path, and then off that beaten path. Basically, Maspeth, Queens, has a residential neighborhood, but it also has an industrial business zone, or an IBZ. Maspeth Welding is a big company there, located in the IBZ. The president is a guy named Jeff Anschlowar, who happens to be a squash fanatic. During COVID, because he's in the welding construction business, he built the world's only outdoor stainless steel squash court. It is exactly, to all the professional, the tin is where it's supposed to be, the lines are where they're supposed to be.

If you get there from where I live in Queens, you either drive or bike by all of these distribution centers for Chinese herbs. You go by the Amazon distribution center, the huge MTA bus depot. I think there's a Pepsi Cola plant there. Then you make a right turn, and you're at a squash court, which is surrounded by welding facilities, where you might even see people welding.

Alison Stewart: Does it look really cool?

Rob Mackay: It's really cool. It's unfortunate that we're on radio. The great thing about this court is that Jeff's best friend is a guy named Rob Gibralter. He is, I would say, a squash addict, but addict that could mean it can be bad if you're a cocaine addict. He's a positive squash addict. He just loves the game. He's retired after a long career, and he's there all the time. He organizes international matches. He gives free lessons. You can call him up and sign up to play for free.

I, unfortunately, my knees don't allow me to play squash, but for Christmas last year, I gave my daughter a free squash lesson with him. About two weeks, three weeks, four weeks ago, he gave my daughter, Asha, and her two best friends a free lesson one afternoon while I was there. If you want to learn how to play, you just contact him. If you want to sign up for a court, contact him. If you want to watch professional squash matches, he has the best players from all over the world that come there.

Alison Stewart: Do you have people who are novices to pros playing?

Rob Mackay: Yes, it's the whole gamut. You can learn, you can play, you can watch.

Alison Stewart: It's called Maspeth Squash.

Rob Mackay: Yes, it's pretty easy. It's a squash court in Maspeth, and it's called Maspeth Squash. I believe that the website is maspethsquash.com.

Alison Stewart: It's a hard one to say.

Rob Mackay: It's a tongue twister. Unique New York maspethsquash.com.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk bicycling. There's an Olympic-style cycling track in Queens. It dates back to the 1960s. What was the original purpose of the Kissena Velodrome?

Rob Mackay: I'm pretty sure that you and anyone listening to this is familiar with Robert Moses, the master builder.

Alison Stewart: Oh, yes, I've heard of him.

Rob Mackay: In 1962, he built a velodrome, part of his many, many projects that he underwent. Actually, it was the site for some Olympic trials, and they did some professional races and stuff there. It's still there. It's called the Kissena Velodrome. It's in Kissena Park. It's actually near Kissena Boulevard. It is a true Olympic racetrack. If you go fast on it, you'll go up on an angle and go around and around. People go there to train, people go there to hang out, people go there just for fun. It's right in, like I said, Kissena Park. It's on the other side of the Long Island Expressway from where Queens College is. Booth Memorial is the closest big street.

Alison Stewart: That's where KISS got their name. Right?

Rob Mackay: Well, two of the members of KISS are from Queens.

Alison Stewart: Yes, from Kissena Boulevard.

Rob Mackay: They had their first professional gig in Sunnyside, Queens.

Alison Stewart: There you go.

Rob Mackay: Yes, but we digress.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Luke in Crown Heights. Hey, Luke, thanks for calling on All Of It.

Luke: Hi, Alison. Thanks so much for taking my call.

Alison Stewart: [unintelligible 00:07:50]

Luke: I want to shout out some of the dancing options in Queens. I just find that the dance floors in Queens are a lot more respectful and accepting, and music-forward. I just think it's so many right in one area. On the smaller end, Mansions, Earthly Delights, Trans-Pecos. These are fantastic places for music lovers. Then getting a little bigger from there, there's incredible TV Eye, which does a great blend of electronic dance, and also lots of different types of rock and roll and various live shows. Then on the bigger and bigger end, Nowadays, iconic community dancing, fantastic space. Then on the way big end, Basement and Knockdown Center.

To have all of these in Queens, I think, is just a real testament to the borough's love of electronic dance music. I'm sure there's tons of other genres and niche places that I'm not even aware of, and I can't wait to discover throughout my life. Thanks.

Rob Mackay: If I could just add one quick thing, he mentioned the Knockdown Center, which is an old factory that they converted into a great dance place. The Knockdown Factory is spitting distance from the squash court.

Alison Stewart: Oh, so you can play squash and then dance it off.

Rob Mackay: You can play squash and then dance all night. Yes.

Alison Stewart: This text says, "Hidden gem, Queens Museum. I visited on Saturday just before the 1964-'65 World's Fair Exhibit ended." Very well done. Three thumbs up. This one says "Gonzo's, Colombian food spot in Belrose. Give that part of the borough some love."

Rob Mackay: Belrose is out near the Nassau County borough, and it's a very suburban place, so it doesn't get as much attention.

Alison Stewart: I'm speaking with Queens specialist, Rob MacKay, about things we can do in Queens this summer. Listeners, we want to hear from you. Are you from Queens? Do you have a favorite thing to do in Queens? Is there a restaurant or a place you'd like to shout out? Give us a call. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Please do not call us if you're driving, but the next thing we're going to talk about is driving. Vanderbilt Parkway was originally built for early car races.

Rob Mackay: Yes, the Vanderbilt Parkway is another one of those, you could say, off the beaten path, but it actually is a path. William Kissam Vanderbilt II, who was one of the Skains, he was back in 1908 when cars were just buggies just coming in and people were just learning how to go speed like faster than a horse. I believe he actually had the Guinness Book World Record for a while for going 40 miles an hour in Florida once. That's what it was like.

He built a parkway that basically stretched from Queens far out into Long Island. Part of the reason was so that wealthy people from Manhattan could get out to their mansions in Long Island, but he also used it to race. He actually used to hold races there. Then in the 1920s, it became a hotspot for getting rum or getting alcohol during prohibition to the mansions in Long Island. It was really a big thing. It was a toll. You have to pay tolls to go on it.

Then, when Robert Moses, our good friend from the beginning of this podcast, built the Grand Central Parkway, which was free, he ended up losing money on it, and he had to give it back to the state, the whole parkway. He had to give it to the state for tax reasons. In most parts, they built houses and streets, but there are a couple of remnants. There's a great stretch from where St. Francis Prep School is in Cunningham Park all the way out to Springfield Boulevard, where the Alley Pond Park is. There's actually a hospital for mentally ill patients where you can go.

The whole thing is just wonderful. Trees are covering you. You can bike, you can ride, you can skateboard. Late at night, you have to watch out for raccoons. The parkway, there are parts of it you can go. Bethpage has a little section. Ronkonkoma has a little section. Great Neck South High School, actually, they're still part of the Vanderbilt Parkway on their campus. I used to walk it a lot during COVID. It's about a full hour walk from one side to the other, but you're going through straight, trees, and leaves, and it's absolutely a wonderful way to get in nature while you're still in New York City.

Alison Stewart: The Forest Park Carousel was built in the early 1900s, and it has a story when you think about-- First of all, who created the first carousel?

Rob Mackay: First of all, I have to say that carousels are works of art that I don't think people understand how fantastic they are. The one that's at Forest Park was made by a guy named Daniel Carl Muller in 2003, actually in Massachusetts. There are only two carousels remaining that he made. This is one of them. It is just absolutely beautiful. The carving and the artwork. He has 36 moving horses, I was just out there recently, and 13 stationary horses. Then you've got all these other animals. There's a big mural. There's an organ that plays music while you're going around. There are all these renditions of Forest Park up on the wall.

Personally, I just love it just for the art, but it's also fun to go around, and kids love it. Luckily for us, the carousel has New York City landmark status. It's also listed in the National Register, so it has city and national landmark status. I think it'll be here for a while. It's very cheap.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to, I'm not sure I'm going to say your name right, but I'm going to give it my best shot, Assia from Astoria. Are you there?

Assia: Yes, I am. Hi, how are you? Big fan.

Alison Stewart: What do you want to tell us?

Assia: I'm an Astoria, Queens girl, native, but I just wanted to shout out my favorite bar in Ridgewood, Queens, The Deep End, because they have an amazing community-building ethos. They host Yalla! Party Project every month, which is a QSWANA party with world music and global grooves. They're all about building community and cultural exchange.

Alison Stewart: Thank you so much for calling in. Let's talk to Jesse from Manhattan. Hey, Jesse, thanks for making the time to call All Of It.

Jesse: Hi. I grew up in Maspeth, moved out in 2008, but this was before it got conical cool. Knockdown Center wasn't there yet. Squash court. It was just industrial. I was one of the only token Asian kids in a mostly Polish neighborhood. I had to go to Elmhurst.

Alison Stewart: Oh, no, we lost him. Well, congratulations on growing up in Maspeth.

Rob Mackay: There's a section that's very Polish, and that's actually not far from the squash court either. Right by the industrial business zone, actually.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Howard from Forest Hills. Hi, Howard. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Howard: Yes, sure. These are not hidden places, but I would definitely recommend them. First one is the Hall of Science, which was originally built during the last World's Fair. Another one is the Museum of the Moving Image, and they're very close to each other. I'd recommend both of them. If you want to eat, there's a third Chinatown in New York besides Sunset Park, and what you may call it?

Rob Mackay: Flushing.

Howard: Yes, that's where I would go to eat, in Flushing. Now, I live in Forest Hills. At the Westside Tennis Club, they started a few years ago having outdoor concerts. The rich people who live in that neighborhood complain about the noise, so they're always fighting about what time will be the curfew. Nine o'clock or ten o'clock. Mainly all the acts, whatever. That's what I have, but those two places, definitely.

Alison Stewart: I appreciate that. I used to bring my kid to the Hall of Science all the time.

Rob Mackay: Are you familiar with the rock band Phish? They're like the Grateful Dead.

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Rob Mackay: They're giving two concerts there just this coming week.

Alison Stewart: All right, I'm going to ask you about Hunters Point South Park. My guest, by the way, is Rob MacKay. It's a public art project. Yes?

Rob Mackay: Oh, there's a community mural there. The thing about the Hunters Park South, I don't know if you've ever been there, but it's open air, it's got a great combination. It's got volleyball courts, it's got fields where people play soccer, it's got this massive yoga stuff going on.

Alison Stewart: Yoga stuff?

Rob Mackay: Yes. Well, what do you call 300 people doing yoga at the same time?

Alison Stewart: Yoga stuff.

Rob Mackay: Tai chi yoga. It's a great, wonderful park. It's got sculptures and all that kind of stuff, but there's also a concession there. I don't know if you're familiar with the Ottomanelli family. Ottomanelli, there are butcher shops all around New York. There was one Ottomanelli, he came over from Italy, started a butcher shop. He had something like five kids, and they all went into butcher business.

This is Frank Ottomanelli. He ran a butcher shop in Woodside, which he still does. Now, he has this concession. You can go out there and sit there. He's got anything you want. Now he's doing oysters for the summer. He's got concerts. He's got a ledge, you can sit under it. He's just paying local artists to create a mural. I think he's got 15 panels right now. Each panel is done by a different artist with a theme, the community, Queens theme. He's hoping to make the whole thing snake all the way around his concession stand, which I have to say is right near where the New York City ferry stop is.

I don't know if you're familiar with the Promenade in Brooklyn. It's like that, except you're right at the water's level. The East River is going right by you, and you're staring at midtown Manhattan on the other side of the river. You're looking at the UN, all those kind of buildings. It's like the Promenade in that it's this great view of Manhattan, but it's midtown and you're actually down by the river. The East River, A, it's not a river, and B, it's to the west of Queensland. It's really the west, what are those things called? Statuaries. We'll start that in Queens.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Rob MacKay. We are talking about things to do in Queens. Listeners, we want to hear from you. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Tell us about your favorite things to do in Queens. We'll have more after a quick break. This is All Of It.

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Alison Stewart: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. I'm speaking to Queens Specialists, that's what we're calling you, Rob MacKay. We're talking about important things that you should do if you are in Queens. Let's talk to Andrea from Hell's Kitchen. Hey, thanks for calling All Of It.

Andrea: You're welcome. Thanks for having me on. I'm so excited to talk about one of the jewels of the many jewels in the crown of Queens, which is the Louis Armstrong House and Museum in Corona, I think. It also established a new kind of performing arts add-on. Maybe last year was opened up or the year before, but it's just unbelievable. Not just about Armstrong or the new performance space, because Jason Moran runs it. There's stuff for everybody in the family every weekend, all the time during the summer.

It's just like the locus of the Jazz trail that so many jazz musicians lived in Queens, and had started their families there, and were able to commute to gigs in Manhattan, and all over the place, because they could go to LaGuardia Airport and take off and play somewhere else. I'm so happy that it's expanded and that it's taking its place nearby-ish to the phenomenon that is the World's Fair Exhibition and Queens Museum.

Alison Stewart: Andrea, I'm going to dive in here, but thank you so much for calling. There's a neighborhood in Queens that was once called Black Hollywood East. Tell us a little more about it.

Rob Mackay: Addisleigh Park, it's if you're familiar with St. Albans, I think it's technically part of St. Albans. It's located in southeast Queens, not that far from JFK Airport. It was once called Black Hollywood East because so many famous entertainers live there. James Brown, who you probably know, the hardest working man in showbiz, he lived there, so did Ella Fitzgerald, so did Count Basie, so did Lena Horne, so did Joe Louis, the boxer.

I don't know if you're familiar with the Jacquet brothers, if you're a jazz person, Illinois Jacquet, Mercer Ellington. Duke Ellington didn't live there, but his son Mercer Ellington lived there. Well, as I told you, I come from Brooklyn, and my grandfather and great-grandfather, and everyone else, they were big Brooklyn Dodgers fans. Jackie Robinson lived there, and-

Alison Stewart: [unintelligible 00:21:20]

Rob Mackay: -so did Roy Campanella, who was the catcher on that Brooklyn Dodgers team. He was half Black, half Italian. They say Jackie R. Robinson might have played baseball in Brooklyn, but he lived in Queens. He slid into home in Brooklyn, but he felt at home. He came home in Queens. It's a fascinating neighborhood for a couple of reasons. First of all, it's built in the garden city style of landship architecture, where houses are far back, so they've very big lawns. There's a whole mix of different kinds of arts and craft and neocolonial, all different kinds of architecture. Beautiful houses. People do a great job of taking care of their properties.

It's a beautiful walk. We have actually, I can give you, maps of who lived where. It's one of those places that it was farmland until they built the Long Island Rail Road stop in 1898. Then developers started developing. Actually, originally, in the contract and the deeds, it was illegal to sell your house to a Black person. Fats Waller, I don't know if you're familiar with the song Ain't Misbehavin. That was Fats Waller, the slide piano guy. He used to live there on the down low. Then people were selling.

When Count Basie moves in, he was huge, and they went to court. They went to state court first, where they said, "Yes, this is racist. This is not fair, but the deed is the deed. A contract is a contract." Then, a little bit later, it went to the federal government. The federal government said, "This is unconstitutional." It has been upper-middle-class African American neighborhood ever since. There are other people. For example, W.E.B. Du Bois got married there because he married a woman from there. There are all kinds of other different people, mostly in the arts and all that kind of stuff. John Coltrane lived nearby, just outside of the actual historic district.

Alison Stewart: It's exciting. This says, "I love eating in Jackson Heights. Five, ten minutes in either direction, you can have more than a dozen cuisines from around the world, often prepared well. From momo at the Ando Food Truck, to classic Indian at Angel, to Argentinian steak at Northern Boulevard, to Mexican at [unintelligible 00:23:45], to great Japanese at 969 Coffee, Dim Sum Cafe." He's going on and on and on.

Rob Mackay: Who's that?

Alison Stewart: This is a text message with--

Rob Mackay: I eat a lot. Is that the hashtag?

Alison Stewart: Let's talk about the Queen's Night Market, as long as we're talking about food.

Rob Mackay: Queens Night Market. It's been around for 10 years now. I don't know if it gets as much coverage in the English language media, but it's all over Chinese language media. It was a guy named John Wang who grew up spending his summers in Taiwan, where they have night markets because it's too hot, so they can only have night markets at night. He worked so hard to find a place and get a place and recruit people and deal with the politicians and the city agencies, blah blah, blah, blah, blah.

He's right behind the New York Hall of Science. It's actually their parking lot. Then it goes into a green space. He has 50 to 60 stands every Saturday night selling everything. You could even get shark there from the Trinidadians. You could get Haitian food. It's not just Chinese food. You can get Taiwanese in Shanghai and Sichuan. They come in and they come out week after week. He's got live music going on there, all those kinds of things. He's got a beer garden.

It runs basically during the warm weather months, straight from, I think he opens in April, and he always ends in October. He always ends with a Halloween costume party on October 31st. He's not operating the two weeks that the US Open is going on because they turn that into a police precinct.

Alison Stewart: This segment says, "Late to the segment, but if nobody has mentioned The Noguchi Museum, please do. To me, that's the highlight. Although Socrates Sculpture Park, the MoMA outpost, and all the food in Astoria play great supporting roles, so you can make a full day of it." Culture Lab in Long Island City. What'll happen to me if I go visit Culture Lab?

Rob Mackay: Well, you'll have such a good time, you'll end up renting an apartment right across the street. Now, Culture Lab is another new entry to us. There is PLAXALL. I don't know if you're familiar with PLAXALL. I'm not exactly what they manufactured in the beginning, but they started off, and now the company owns a lot of real estate in Long Island City. They have given this space, which includes a very large outside lot, and bands play there all the time. While you're sitting in that lot, you can see Manhattan in the background. You're right on the East River. Then indoors, they have a couple of visual arts galleries and they do plays and they hold events and all that kinds of stuff. The guy who runs it, he has so many bands waiting to play there. People just want to be there, that really, they're just going all the time, and there's just always great music there all the time.

Alison Stewart: All right. Dealer's choice. Last thing you want to tell us?

Rob Mackay: Last thing I want to tell you. Well, you can find out more about it at It's In Queens. That's our website. Everything we do on social media is It's In Queens. Facebook.com/itsinqueens, Twitter.com/itsinqueens, Instagram.com/, and what comes next, do you think?

Alison Stewart: Itsinqueens.

Rob Mackay: If I could say one more thing, I guess I will say, you know what? If I can backpack something onto the Vanderbilt Parkway, Vanderbilt Parkway starts in Cunningham Park, and right there, where Francis Lewis Boulevard is, there's actually a path you can go on, which is all wooded. You're walking through nothing but woods and trees. You'll see chipmunks and those kinds of things.

You'll get to a point where there's a big sign, and the sign says, "The Wisconsin glacier or the Wisconsin ice sheet passed through here." It was a huge mass of rocks and ice, and it slowly, about two inches a year, it came down from Canada to New York, and it stopped right here. Then it stopped, and the ice melted, and that formed hills and kettle ponds and all that kind of stuff.

If you look at that ridge, if you look south, you'll notice that everything is flat the same way that Rockaway, and then all of the south shore of Long Island is flat, but the north shore, all those Port Washington, that's all hilly. It's all because the glacier stopped there 75,000 years ago. I go there. Especially during COVID, I walk there a lot, and I just marvel at something that happened 75,000 years ago has such a big impact on our life today.

Alison Stewart: For people who are listening, we do have transcripts of this segment. It'll be available on our website later if you want to write down all of these things. We want to say thank you to Rob Mackay. Thank you for all of your Queen's knowledge.

Rob Mackay: Well, actually, thank you. It's a lot of fun to be here, and I would love for you to come out to Queens. I'll take you on a tour.

Alison Stewart: Oh, that's a date. That's a date.