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 Where are they  Visitor:[1] Home Visitor:[1] Forum
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You must be registered and logged in to post a message on this forum. Please note that all posts with authors listed as "anonymous" were migrated from the old website forum.
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From my point of view HB use to be the place of white picket fences and kids playing in the streets. I'm not *that* old, it wasn't *that* long ago. What happened? New York Times has over 50 articles on HB and not one of them is positive! Feedback please! |
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Despite its pretentious attempts to hold itself as representing the highest ideals of the Fourth Estate, criticism by the NY Times is only important to the phony intellectuals that comprise the NY Times editorial board and reporting staff. Although looking at the kind of tripe the media constantly attempts to call journalism, maybe the problem with the NY Times is that it does represent the press' highest ideals. Just be grateful you don't have to put up with the Washington Post. |
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Ok, point granted. But what is Howard Beach about these days? I lived there late '60s to '81. Time have changed, families have changed, values have changed. Do you still live in HB? |
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I think you can see the same thing in many neighborhoods and areas all over the country. Things have changed so much since the 50s and 60s that a lot of places are almost not recognizable.
I left Queens in 1976, and things were starting to change I think. I lived in west central Indiana for the next 2 years, and by the time I moved it was totally different then when I moved there.
Some might call it progress....I don't know about that.. |
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Dee,
I think that Mike hit the nail on the head, what you see in HB is just a natural 'progress'ion of events, I'm willing to bet that there are people in VA & NC who wonder how their neighborhoods changed and how all the 'Damn Yankees' got there. Back in the 70's I used to spend at least 3 months a year in Phoenix on business, I moved there in 1991 and didn't recognize the area. We moved to HB in 1955 a year or so before they extended the subway to HB and points beyond, in five years I didn't recognize that area. I was in the USMC in the early 60's and used to have to put up with all the old salts with five years of service talk about the 'Old Corps', in Leon Uris' novel Battle Cry, the guys joining the Marines right after Pearl Harbor have to listen to how things were in the 'Old Corps'. |
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Hello Johnny:
I do not disagree with any of your points. What concerns me is that for my research (as I explain in my Friendly Resarch post) I see that Howard Beach is often in the news for racial violeance. As a neighborhood HB is categorically criticized. This raises many interesting questions about HBs identify. You guys bring up a point that neighborhood change, but the point with HB is that it hasn't really changed. Has it diversified as much as the rest of the NY suburbs. Is it wrong that it hasn't? |
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Dee,
Part of why I made the comments about the NY Times is that I think it is criminal that people who have never been there will base their opinions of what Howard Beach is like on the kind of tripe the Times revels in or the comments Al the buffoon makes about it. I think that there is a great difference between change and what you termed 'real change', which I assume is a euphemistic way of pointing out that HB's racial and ethnic make up doesn't match the rest of NYC, not so much that it hasn't changed, but that it hasn't 'progress'ed. The last time I was in HB was for my mother's funeral in 2001 and I couldn't get over the fact that it now has one way streets, to me that was a huge change, it was a sure sign that HB is losing the insular character that made it so different from the rest of NYC. When I moved there, HB had a rather small A&P on 101 St., it was a big change when Waldbaum's opened a real supermarket on Cross Bay. Your first comment stated that you went to St Helen's, this may seem ludicrous to you since the 'new' church has been there for fifty years, but St Helen's opening was a big change to me, unless I happen to see it mentioned here, I never think of HB as having a second parish. Change within a neighborhood is what the residents see from within, not what the media or social pundits deem change. |
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Dee:
I don't believe there is an "identity crisis" in HB. HB is still pretty much the same as it was in the 1960's. A geographically insulated community with distinct physical boundaies of the Belt Parkway, Jamacia Bay, the Brookly/Queens line on the west (part of Gateway National Park) and the "A" subway line tracks on the east. In the 1960's the community was predominately white, Jewish, italian with older families being Irish and German. Today it is mostly Italian, with a fair sized Jewish population, still physically separated with the boundaries described above. Of course Cross Bay Blvd has evolved into a busier retail corridor that is now dominated by many national retail businesses and franchises. Gone are the "Mom and Pop" candy stores, etc. Now you have Starbucks, Burger King, Blockbuster, etc. Although Waldbaums, Pizza City and Sugar Bun bakery are still there.
I suspect residents of HB are still attracted to live in HB pretty much for the same reasons our parents did in the 1960;s......Proximity to Manhattan (with a relatively easy commute), proximity to Long Island (and its still beautiful beaches and parks), good public schools, strong identity of "community", relatively a "safe" community with low crime, comfort with living with people and a demographic that pretty much is like themselves, a safe place to raise a family, and affordable housing (compared to Long Island or Manhattan). Those that wanted more or something else left for Long Island or New Jersey. Those that really wanted something else left the NYC area completely.
The beauty of Queens communities such as HB, Woodhaven, Richmond Hill, Glendale, Whitestone, Douglaston, Maspeth and Astoria is that each community has a rich heritage and identiy that has survived over the years and given their residents a feeling of "a sense of place". This is where I grew up, this is who I am or was......... The sense of sadness that former residents often have when they read things in the newspaper or actually visit their childhood home and neighborhood, is because we tend to remember our childhood homes as perfect little places of safety and security. A known entity with know boundaries and friends. Now we see different people, unfamiliar stores, bigger homes, more expensive trappings of modern life, etc......but hey....that is America today. We all want something more than we had as children for our own families.
But...the community endures and the memories last a lifetime. Howard Beach is still the Howard Beach I remember and will always treasure.
Ray
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What a lovely post and I share you sentiment as a former resident of HB for 18 years. However, HB is seen by outsiders as a highly racist community, add to that the 'mob' culture that seems to have become a sense of pride. What are your thoughts about outsiders looking into the community? |
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I'm a bit younger than you all (I'm only 20) but I could not wait to get to college and be able to leave the neighborhood. The young generation of people in Howard Beach, Hamilton and Lindenwood are largely drug addicts and alcohol abusers. In middle school (I didn't go to that local hole for long, got beat up my first week...) I had friends who were truly scared to come over because of the racial reputation of the neighborhood. I remember one time my freshman year at Beach Channel I brought a hispanic friend home to do a project together, and just to hang out and some of the other teens in the neighborhood threw rocks at him and I.
In my point of view, the bad seeds have taken root, and they aren't just growing, they are also reproducing. All the few teens who aren't problem children can do is hope to goodness they get into a college thats either out of state or somewhere with dorms where they don't have the need to be in the neighborhood. |
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