Jackson Heights Life

Many of the gays I have met in the neighborhood are coupled or have made the defense of marriage their utmost priority. Though the situation is very different in the local bars and nightclubs, at the Queens gay pride parade and at Queens Pride House, I am assuming most of the people at these places and events do not actually live in the area. (I could be wrong.) I recently created a Facebook group to facilitate discussion and interaction among Jackson Heights queers regardless of their ages and relationship statuses. I encourage any gay person living in or near, or considering living in or near, Jackson Heights with a Facebook account to join it. We currently have over sixty members, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The group description is

The number of gays in Jackson Heights is clearly escalating and I’m jealous I don’t know more of them. Wouldn’t it be nice to make new friends in the neighborhood? We need a good online forum to help bring us together because walking up to strangers on the street and saying “You’re queer; right?” can be a bit intimidating. Feel free to make new friends in this group, continue old ones, meet for lunch, walking, bowling, cinema etc.

This group needed a catchy name that’s easily found by searching, but rest assured that the word gay refers, as it did in the 1960s and 1970s, to the full breadth of the community: Lesbians, gay men, homosexuals, bisexuals, and those of us anywhere along the continuum of transgender. Needless to say, no ethnic group is excluded. One of the best aspects of the neighborhood and its environs is the ethnic diversity. We are Asians, Latin Americans, Europeans, Africans, Near Easterners, Pacific Islanders and everybody else. We are also, in case you hadn’t noticed, of all ages, body types and levels of ability.

Also, anyone living close enough to Jackson Heights to want to join the fun is more than welcome, so our queer neighbors in Woodside, Elmhurst, East Elmhurst and Corona should feel free to join.

At least at the beginning, I wish to de-emphasize the commercial gay venues in the area. We all love the bars and discos on and near Roosevelt Avenue, but this group may become swamped with endless promotions for parties in each venue on every day of the week should their participation be encouraged. However, the not-for-profit and nonprofit organizations should actively participate. As of now, that means the Queens Lesbian and Gay Pride Committee (QLGPC), Queens Pride House, SAGE and New York Bear Den, but other not-for-profit groups, gay and not-necessarily-gay, local and citywide, are welcome.

I am Mosheh, better known as Mark to the world at large, and I live in the western Heights in the seventies. I created this group to spend more time with you and meet my gay neighbors in Jackson Heights.

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Is that Met Food in the pic above?  I'll assume the hanging carts in front of the freezers are a momentary thing?   

I thought it was curious too, hence the picture, but I don’t think I’ve been back since not being able to find chocolate-covered massa (“matzo”) there. I mean, what’s Passover without it?

Lest I forget, the Jackson Heights Food Group event was a two-day affair. View my pictures of the Group at Legends Bar in my “March 2010, part VI” photo album, beginning with photo number 119.

I remember the Dragon Seed vividly, I almost burst into tears when i pass its former home on the corner of 86th Street and 37th Avenue.

Despite the fact it has been closed sixteen years, Dragon Seed has a fan page on Facebook that appears to be maintained by former DS owner George Bow himself. A status update on George’s profile stated the original DS was open April 1949 to July 1993.

The Jackson Heights Food Group’s visit was certainly not the first noteworthy event to take place at the restaurant.

[Journalist Manuel de Dios Unanue,] 48, was slain in March 1992 by a hooded gunman who walked up to him in the Meson Asturias restaurant on 83d Street off Roosevelt Avenue—steps away from the small triangular plaza that now bears his name—and fired two bullets into his head.

—Joseph P. Fried, “A Journalist’s Torch Lies Fallen,” The New York Times, 7 November 1993.

De Dios, 49, the Cuban-born former editor of El Diario/La Prensa, New York’s largest Spanish-language newspaper, was shot twice in the back of the head about 9:15 p.m. by two Hispanic gunmen in their 20s as he stood at the bar of the Meson Asturias restaurant in Queens.

—Reuters, quoted in “Drug gangs are main suspects in slaying of N.Y. journalist,” Deseret News, 13 March 1992, 8A.

[A] hooded 16-year-old gunman known as Mono—who was paid $4,500 by Colombian drug capos—calmly walked up to Unanue at the Mesón Asturias restaurant and pumped two bullets into his head. The crusading journalist fell dead in a pool of blood, leaving behind a companion and a 2-year-old daughter.

—Albor Ruiz, “Another Journalist Who Died in War,” Daily News, 7 March 2002.

I had read about the murder even before I moved here two years ago, but I was unaware it had occurred at Mesón Asturias until a friend alerted me on Facebook today.

Quite late I know, but you can view my one hundred some-odd photographs of the Inclusive St. Patrick’s Parade and Irish Fair at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=510279107&aid=192003&l=43d9b82bef&s=0. A ’blog article is forthcoming.

The northern Roti Boti, the one with the Shaheen dessert counter, has already transformed into Dera.

Pictures and a review of sorts of Dera: http://www.fabulouslyunforeign.com/post/428671621. “The owner told me his father opened the restaurant in that [sic] in 1973, when the area was filled with Irish people and businesses.” I guess Dera has the same owner as (the northern) Roti Boti; has it really been there since 1973?