There's an article in today's
New York Times Real Estate section about Jackson Heights touching on this topic.
A Migrants’ Enclave Attracts a New BreedBy JOHN FREEMAN GILL
Published: February 4, 2011
A WESTERN Queens neighborhood planned by an innovative developer beginning a century ago, Jackson Heights is a vibrant oxymoron: an enclave where much of the world is represented. Long a magnet for immigrants, the area today is dazzlingly multifarious: more than 30 languages are spoken, including Bengali, Korean, Spanish and Urdu. Nearly two-thirds of residents were born abroad, according to census surveys from 2005 to 2009.
But over the last five or six years, brokers say, new arrivals from far-flung lands have increasingly been joined by young professionals migrating much shorter distances: north from Brooklyn, or east from Manhattan and the Queens neighborhood of Astoria.
The ranks of these new buyers are thick with architects, academics, lawyers and artists. “These are people who are not Wall Street types, and who tend to be creative professionals,†said Daniel Karatzas, an associate broker with the Beaudoin Realty Group and author of “Jackson Heights: A Garden in the City,†a history published in 1990 with support from a local civic group. “Fifteen years ago, this was not on their radar screen.â€
Projit Mallick, a lawyer in his 30s who grew up in Kolkata (previously transliterated as Calcutta) and Los Angeles, is one Astoria transplant. Drawn by the abundant prewar housing stock, Mr. Mallick in 2004 paid $295,000 for a three-bedroom co-op on 82nd Street with his new husband, Andy Theodosiou, a naturalized Greek-American raised in Astoria. Their 1,500-square-foot apartment is a distinctive space created by a previous owner, who conjoined a pair of one-bedrooms, turning the superfluous second dining room into a third bedroom.
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