The Queens Nobody Knows

August 1, 2020
An eminent walker in the city digs deep into New York's largest borough, a place full of surprises. Sociologist Helmreich (1945-2020) had an unusual passion: He walked every block of New York's five boroughs, collecting stories and finding hidden treasures. Here, he does a second take on Queens, which, though the largest of the quintet, "might not be of particular interest" to visitors and residents alike. Although it's home to the city's two major airports, it's a place people gallop through in order to reach Manhattan. All unfair, by Helmreich's lights--2.3 million people live in the borough, which "contains fifty-seven distinct communities spread out over about 109 square miles." Once a haven for Jewish, Polish, and Irish immigrants, many of those communities are now flourishing with newcomers from Africa, Central America, South Asia, and other venues, to say nothing of farms, parks, and "the city's tallest tree." The Corona area was Madonna's first home in the city--and in a former synagogue at that--while Steinway Place was the site for a huge piano manufacturing plant. East Elmhurst was home to Malcolm X, Dizzy Gillespie, Eric Holder, and other notable African Americans while, back in Corona, Louis Armstrong's home is "all that's left of the black heritage" of old in a community that "is overwhelmingly Hispanic--with Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and Mexicans predominating, and augmented by immigrants from many other Latin American lands." Helmreich walks and walks, talking with street vendors, retirees watering their gardens, newcomers, and, it seems, thousands of other voices. He paints a vibrant portrait of a place constantly on the go yet at a far less hectic pace than Manhattan--and with better pizza, too, in venues like Howard Beach, "where the presence of Mafia members...[has] given the area a somewhat unsavory reputation." New York fans will devour Helmreich's genial, rich, and constantly illuminating travelogue.

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