Katie Honan

tastefullyoffensive:

[victorianhooker]

*blink* *blink* *blink*

happy 2013.

Go forth, young cousin, with one of our last surviving Hess trucks.

inothernews:

If you live in the New York City metro area, then you’ve probably seen this WNBC TV holiday promo. It’s new every year, and every year I watch it on my DVR in slo-mo to see if I can find my friends in it.

Holiday traditions. :-)

I found myself! thank you for the grab!

I love Christmas music. These are some of my favorites this year:

• Muppets & John Denver, “Christmas is Coming.”
• The Pogues & Kirsty McCall, “Fairytale of New York.”
• Vince Guaraldi/Charlie Brown Christmas, “Christmastime is Here.”
• Dolly Parton, “Go Tell It on the Mountain.”
• Stevie Wonder, “What Christmas Means to Me.”
• John Coltrane, “What Child is This?” (Live at the Village Vanguard)
• Lou Monte, “Dominick the Donkey”
• Otis Redding, “Merry Christmas Baby.”
• Run DMC, “Christmas in Hollis.”
• Jackson Five, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”
• The Dismemberment Plan, “This Christmas.”
• Mariah Carey, “All I Want for Christmas is You.”
• Martha Reeves, “Oh Holy Night.”
• Frank Sinatra, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” 

“Next year all our troubles will be miles away.”

I saw this taped to the door of St. Francis de Sales church in Belle Harbor, Queens today before attending mass with my mom. I don’t know when it was put up, or who put it there,  but I think the sentiment is shared by so many people in my hometown. Thanks all. Happy Thanksgiving. 

“Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

photo: carmel geoghegan words: tennyson, thanks to this post.

I had dinner tonight with my 87-year-old neighbor who lives across the hall. She invited me over for lo-mein and pie a couple days ago — how could i say no?

After we ate the lo-mein (house special) she showed me around her beautiful apartment with the furniture she brought to it after getting married in 1971, furniture from her mother’s house in the Bronx, furniture she decided to keep after shopping for a new living room set and not able to find anything new.

“I wanted the furniture to speak to me,” she told me. “When I told that to the guy at the store, he said, ‘maybe you should get a telephone!’”

She showed me photos of her family. She told me about her friends, some living, mostly dead. She told me who married a prince (Rita), who didn’t (her) and showed me photos from her 70th birthday party. Could it have been 17 years ago?

We then went back into the kitchen for lemon merengue pie. She apologized for taking a long time finding the words she was looking for. “My vocabulary is going with my age.”

Her oldest girlfriend is still alive — but she can’t speak.

“I think she lost it or something,” she said. She hadn’t seen her in a long time, but it wasn’t all so bad at 87. She doesn’t take so many pills. She was off the one fo high blood pressure. And two years ago, a young friend from church asked her to be the Matron of Honor at her wedding.

“People must have thought I looked funny walking down the aisle,” she said while showing me photos of her dressed in a light pink silk shirt.

“Time marches on.”

sportsnetny:

“T.V. ratings [for the NFL] are at record highs. … People are tuning in just to see terrible calls. … People love sports diasaters. That’s why they watch NASCAR, or the Mets.” - Stephen Colbert

:(

gumbrcules:

I think I’m more upset about this then my own parents split.

i’m devastated. 

:(

NEWS

- The Port Authority knew a jet skier was missing and swimming in Jamaica Bay, but didn’t notify JFK security before he hopped the fence and wandered into a terminal two weeks ago.

- A thief was captured on surveillance video stealing two Torah crowns from a Kew Gardens Hills synagogue as congregants prayed upstairs.

- Incumbent State Senator Shirley Huntley listed a bunch of unions as endorsing her in a primary race against James Sanders, Jr. even though the groups said they’re remaining neutral in the race.

- The peacock hanging around Kew Gardens Hills may have originated from nearby John Bowne High School. 

- The bathhouse at Riis Park is falling apart, and the New York Times is … oh, you know the rest.

- A ”floating garden” is coming to Long Island City.

- The city is holding a one-day trial of a pedestrian plaza on Newtown Avenue in Astoria. 

- Santana is dunzo for the season.

nice shot from the Queens Center Mall.

NEWS

- Bones found near LaGuardia Airport, although nobody’s sure if they’re human remains. 

- Russell Simmons joined lawmakers and hundreds of others help to curb the violence plaguing south Queens. 

- State Sen. Toby Stavisky and challenger John Messner will speak at a candidates forum at New York Hospital Queens on Aug. 29, hosted by the Queensboro Hill Civic Association. 

- The city announced a plan to help residents in flood-prone Springfield Gardens, finished by 2014.

- NYC’s creating new “slow-zones” in the five boroughs, including Auburndale and Corona in Queens.

- A Sunnyside community leader is trying to ban food carts from operating under the 7, saying they attract vermin. 

Astoria.

NEWS

- Cops look for an armed sex abuser in Ridgewood.

- A Brooklyn man who already operates two nursing homes in Rockaway has purchased the former site of Peninsula Hospital and the affiliated nursing home.

- An elderly man was forcibly robbed by men posing as DEP workers in Forest Hills. 

- President Obama’s ”car czar” visits Whitestone

- Peninsula Prep, a charter school in Rockaway Park, is moving to a new location in Far Rockaway while they try to settle their lawsuit against the DOE.

- Awww: The FDNY rescued a cute elderly couple and their friend, a Sister who lives in Middle Village, during Wednesday’s flash flooding. 

WHAT TO DO

- InstagramNYC meetup Saturday at the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium!

- Indaculture is playing at Caracas on B. 106 and the boardwalk in Rockaway Friday. 8p.m. Cheap rum drinks all night. 

CRUSH IT

A short video from the Far Rockaway Skate Park

Train platform.

NEWS

- There was a three-alarm house fire in Douglaston last night. 

- Jimmy Meng hires “hotshot” lawyer to defend him in his bribery case.

- Rep. Bob Turner endorses Wendy Long in her Senate run. Ed Koch (who helped Turner last September) endorsed Grace Meng in her run for Congress. 

- Police identified the badly decomposed body found in a Richmond Hill attic as a 19-year-old woman from Washington Heights. 

- A State Supreme Court Judge says the Queens DA doesn’t care about his case against an NYPD cop he says assaulted him in Jackson Heights. 

- Brand-new bench totally crushed in Sunnyside! 

U.S Open

NEWS

- Arborcide at the courthouse! 

- Police are looking in to a security breach by jet ski at JFK.

- An ethics panel rules politicians can’t attend the U.S Open for free.

- The MLS is close to a deal to build a soccer stadium in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.

- Busy 7 train — Sheldon Silver is eying Coney Island and Willets Point for a potential casino, reports the Daily News.

- But local business owners near the racino in South Ozone Park say it’s been bad for business.  ”Local people, too — they’d rather spend money gambling than eating.”

lartar:

(this is the coolest story of the day — a woman in the 1960s refused to sell her house to Macy’s. The mall was built around her home. See below for more.)

NEWS

- A relative of a Richmond Hills Sikh leader was killed in the Wisconsin attack.

- Mayor Bloomberg and co. were on-hand at the opening of the new $30 million Rockaway Park in Far Rockaway. Does anyone else think it’s weird that the park has the same name as a neighborhood on the peninsula (although I’m sure the mayor and Parks Department had no idea.)

- Also, clean your beaches and streets, on Sunday and on every day.

- James Ssanders shared some pork with a community group that’s not even in the community he represents — a very well-timed member item.

- Teen indicted in shooting of Sudanese diplomat’s wife in Astoria.

- Mary Sendak didn’t want to sell her family’s home to Macy’s in the 1960s — and her story is as incredible as the old photos of Queens Boulevard shown in the post.  The green house in this Forgotten New York post is one of my favorite in the city.

-  

NEWS

- Local Sikhs are in shock after the Wisconsin shooting, and police have increased security at centers around the city. Queens has one of the largest Sikh populations in the country.

- Melinda Katz is planning to run for Borough President.

- Astoria State Sen. Michael Gianaris is crafting a set of bills to give New York the nation’s toughest gun laws.

- Police catch Aqueduct robbery suspect in the Poconos.

- Speaking of the racino, they’re falling short on local job numbers in community, hiring less Queens residents than originally promised.

- Decomposed body found in Richmond Hill home.

- Peter Vallone says Astoria’s lost half of its cops since 2001.

FUN

- Party at the city’s only velodrome — in Flushing!

- Stages, Mountains, Water exhibit at the Queens Museum.