NY Wiki: May 2005 Archives

« April 2005 | Main | June 2005 »

May 21, 2005

Fulton Fish Market

Why They Love Working With Fish

It's amazing to see what the ocean produces. Sometimes you'll find a
fish that is normally a Pacific fish, that will make it through the
Gulf Stream, through the Panama Canal or all the way around South
America, like an opah, to the East Coast, which is so bizarre.
Sometimes a fisherman will catch a strange fish, send it to us and
say, "Please tell me what it is when you get it." - John Flanigan

This is fun. It's like Wall Street, except with fish. What's beautiful
about a fish being perishable is from a Monday to a Friday, the price
of a certain species can fluctuate hundreds of percent. So when you
buy it and when you sell it is very important. That's where the fun
part is. - Eddie Cruci

They say there is a curse in the fish market; once you start, you can
never leave. I tried a couple times, but you always find yourself
coming back. I did a little bit of college, but I found that I liked
doing this.

It's sort of like playing cards; always a gamble, always taking
chances. This is the second-oldest profession after prostitution, the
fish business. - John Flanigan

Every species has its own little nuance. There is so much mutation
over time. It's Darwinian: how to be more hydrodynamic, or how to be a
better predator, or be a better prey with camouflage, or fighting
mechanisms. - Eddie Cruci

I've learned a lot. Before, I was just into crabs and shrimp. Now I'm
into whiting, sushi. I've really developed a thing for squid, Alaskan
crab legs.

I don't know how these guys out here fillet. They're cutting fish, if
they slip, they cut off a finger, it's 10 degrees out, they're just
cutting away, it gets pretty crazy. I guess that's the appeal of it. -
Keith Nicolay

I'm very persnickety when it comes to fish. It's got to be white
fillet. I'm not a fish person. I didn't grow up liking fish. I still
don't like fish. I don't know how you can dig into a hearty piece of
fish; it's a delicate thing. I like McDonald's and Chinese food.
- Eddie Cruci

[NYT]

Posted by omor at 03:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 18, 2005

housing market creeps up

"More and more it's a case of winners and losers in the middle class,"
said Susan S. Fainstein, a professor of urban planning at Columbia
University. "There are two groups. If you have a secure and steady
job, own a home, you can be doing quite well. Then there are all those
people who are on a slippery slope who are afraid that they're going
to lose their job or that it will go off to India.

"All of the suburbs that have maintained quality housing have become
more and more exclusive," Dr. Fainstein said.

More exclusive perhaps, but also, say some, communities in high-priced
markets grow less diverse and its residents less connected socially.

"It has a huge impact of community connectedness," said Robert Fisher,
the director of urban and community studies at the University of
Connecticut's West Hartford campus. "The issue of social
connectedness, a lot of that has to do with destabilization. While
bringing affluence into these communities, a lot of people are pushed
out as well."

March 28, 2004
Through the Roof
By RICHARD LEZIN JONES

ROSLYN HEIGHTS

KIRIL TZOTCHEV has a problem: figuring out how to live among the
wealthy, even though he isn't really one of them.

To hear Mr. Tzotchev tell it, he is just about the furthest one can be
from rich: he is an artist. But those who buy his work tend to be in a
higher tax bracket. So when it came time to shop for a home, he kept
in mind the old adage and followed the money.

"My art, the wealthy people can afford it," said Mr. Tzotchev, 42, a
naturalized citizen who came to the United States from his native
Bulgaria more than a dozen years ago. "I want to be around the rich
people," he said with a chuckle that indicated he was only half
joking. "As an artist, I have to be here."

So he focused his house hunt on the area around tiny Roslyn Heights, a
place close to some of the most affluent communities on Long Island,
yet known as a potential trove for middle-income bargain hunters.
Still, the prices for places he liked were a bit outside sculptor
range. So he decided to wait out the market. That was two years ago.
He's still waiting.

"The price," Mr. Tzotchev said, "it keeps going up and up."

Up is the operative word for home values everywhere in the New York
metropolitan area, particularly with mortgage rates so low as to be
virtually unprecedented.

Those factors have combined to increase price tags even in places like
6,300-person Roslyn Heights, which was once seen as a refuge for those
with mid-level incomes but upper-crust aspirations.

According to sales figures for Roslyn Heights compiled by the Multiple
Listing Service, the sales database shared by real estate agents,
buyers need more than twice as much money as they did just two years
ago to get a foot on the bottom rung of the market. The lowest sale
price for a house in the hamlet has risen from $135,000 in 2000 to
$322,000 today.

Multiple offers on many properties are a given. Bidding wars are not
uncommon. And sociologists and other planning experts say that a
byproduct of these escalating pricetags is that very often the middle
class, who for decades formed the core of communities like Roslyn
Heights, find themselves priced out of the market.

Agents say it isn't hard to figure out what's driving values here so
high.

"Lack of product. Period," said Linda Wohl, a vice president with
Daniel Gale Associates and manager of the real estate brokerage's
Roslyn office. "The school district is excellent. The community is
desirable because of that. There's the accessibility. We have more
buyers than we have houses."

According to Multiple Listing Service statistics for Roslyn Heights,
the average sale price of a home has nearly doubled in the last four
years, from $429,463 in 2000 to $848,926 today. That's a sharp
acceleration from the 1990's, when home values in Roslyn Heights grew
about 16 percent, according to census figures.

"The market has changed," said Ms. Wohl, who has sold real estate in
the Roslyn area for nearly three decades. "The market is a little bit
of a slow roller coaster. This is a seller's market. Still, I remember
when interest rates were 17 percent and we still sold houses. Now, we
have more buyers. There are multiple offers. The numbers are
incredible."

And that is a sentiment shared by both agents and prospective buyers
alike. "I don't know where people get the money to afford it," Mr.
Tzotchev said. "If you don't inherit, I don't know where you get it."

Downwardly Mobile

Sociologists and economists say soaring real estate prices mean it
simply costs more for a middle-class family to stay in the middle.
Some experts see a widening gulf in the middle of the middle class,
separating those who have and those who have more.

On Long Island there are great extremes of wealth and poverty, and
then, somewhere in the middle, is a middle class whose definition is
at best slippery.

Nationally, if a family's annual income is $75,000, by most
definitions the family belongs to the middle class.

By that standard a low six-figure income would put a Long Island
family in the upper middle class nationally - yet that family may well
not be a position to buy a house in most of the Island's communities.

"They're the ones who are the forgotten middle class," she said.

Dr. Fainstein said that those most affected by skyrocketing home
values in the region are first-time buyers and the young.

"The people for whom it's really hard are people just entering the
housing market, young couples, people without a nest egg or without
parents who can help them," she said. "They're the middle class that's
downwardly mobile, because even if you have a decent income, who has
$60,000 in the bank for a down payment when they just got out of
college or graduate school or wherever?"

The current tightening of the real estate market in the New York
metropolitan region is simple supply and demand. Because there is
little affordable housing being built, whatever existing quality
housing stock remains is sometimes fought over by prospective buyers
with dueling bids.

All of which serves to price large segments of the middle class out of
some real estate markets.

"I don't know how people are doing it," said Rachel Ranis, a sociology
professor at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn. "It's very hard
for any family to buy in this market unless both parties are working."

At the same time it has become harder for many to enter the housing
market, those who do make it want even more once they get there.

"People's expectations have gotten higher," she said. "Before, we were
happy to have just one car in a household. Now, everyone has to have a
car. If you buy a house, everyone has to have a room. People have
changed a lot."

What has remained largely constant, Professor Ranis said, are the
forces that drive homebuyers into the suburbs around the region: the
quest for bigger yards, better schools and perhaps a slower, more
measured pace of living.

Professor Ranis noted that another factor appears to be playing a
larger role: worry.

"One thing we find is that you're worried that you will be able to
duplicate what you've always considered middle-class," she said. "The
key value is how to keep yourself where you are and your children, how
to give them the best start.

"There's a lot of pressure on people to keep up with what they're
accustomed to," she said. "It's no longer about keeping up with the
neighbor next door, it's their own wants and what they're accustomed
to."

But in the status-conscious suburbs, a larger home is still the No. 1
symbol of success.

"The ones who are doing well, you see people going out and getting
bigger and bigger houses," Dr. Fainstein said. "You look at some of
these homes that have closets the size of my bedroom when I grew up."

And the reason size matters?

"It's the symbol of your achievement, the symbol of your status," Dr.
Fainstein said. "It puts a premium on those homes with the center hall
and the chandelier and all this space where you can demonstrate your
lifestyle."

While practically no one would prefer that a community be poorer
rather than richer, some experts wonder about the effects of such
changes on the character of established middle-class communities.

"All of the suburbs that have maintained quality housing have become
more and more exclusive," Dr. Fainstein said.

More exclusive perhaps, but also, say some, communities in high-priced
markets grow less diverse and its residents less connected socially.

Not to mention, Dr. Fisher said, those who because of high prices
never get to enter some communities in the first place. "What's
happening is that the American dream is a little bit less within the
reach of a lot of people," he said.

Shaped by Transportation

For decades, Roslyn Heights has been a fairly typical Long Island
bedroom community. But its roots go deeper than those of most Nassau
or Suffolk locales.

Present-day Nassau County was part of the Dutch New Netherlands
colony, but Myrna Sloam, the archivist at the Bryant Public Library in
Roslyn, said the first Old World settlers in the Roslyn area were the
English, who crossed Long Island Sound from Connecticut and set up
quarters at the head of Hempstead Harbor in 1643 as a first step
toward establishing what is now Hempstead about eight miles south.

The settlement became Roslyn, and Roslyn Heights is one of a cluster
of communities around it, also including Roslyn Estates, Roslyn
Harbor, East Hills and Flower Hill.

Like countless other towns on the Island, early life in the Roslyns
revolved around the water - fishing and clamming - but even from its
beginnings, life here was a little bit different, Ms. Sloam said.

"It was almost an industrial village," she said. "There was farming on
the outskirts, but there was a grist mill going back to the 1700's.
There was a paper mill and other parts of a little industrial,
craftsman community."

Perhaps the most significant event in the area's early history was
when the Long Island Rail Road came to the Roslyn area in 1864. "That
made it easier for people to get out here," Ms. Sloam said.

It also made it easier for residents to make their way into the city.
Before the rails came, the preferred method of transportation into
Manhattan was by steamboat. Estimated travel time? About 3 hours. "And
that was the fast way," Ms. Sloam said. "The roads could take 6 or 7
hours if it rained." (Insert your own Long Island Expressway joke
here.)

As the area entered the 20th century, the mills faded, the steamboats
disappeared and Roslyn Heights began to grow up around the train
station. By the 1930's the five main villages that make up the Roslyns
were in the middle of an uptick in home construction that would herald
the population boom across the Island after World War II.

"None of the other industries carried on in any other way," Ms. Sloam
said. "It just became a suburban community."

And, in some areas, a decidedly upscale suburban community at that.
But in a sea of affluence, Roslyn Heights had reputation as place
where middle-class buyers could find bargains.

"Traditionally, the Heights was more affordable," Ms. Sloam. "But from
what I'm hearing the prices have gone up."

Making things more difficult for homebuyers here is the growth in home
prices in surrounding communities. Two census tracts within seven
miles of Roslyn Heights - including communities like Old Westbury and
Brookville - notched the highest percentage increases in home values
on Long Island from 1990 to 2000, according to census figures.

The spike in home prices here over the past few years came after a
decade during which census figures show Roslyn Heights actually lost
population. In the 90's, the population of the Heights dipped about 2
percent. Its black population fell from 9 percent to 6 percent, while
the number of Asians (5 percent in 1990) and Hispanics (4 percent in
1990) grew to 10 percent and 7 percent, respectively.

The community's growth has also been reflected in its schools, which
agents say buyers frequently cite as a key draw. More than half of the
children of Roslyn Heights attend the Roslyn Union Free School
District; the rest are in the Mineola district. Barry Edelson, the
district's director of community relations, said that over the past
decade and half the student population has grown by more than third,
from 2,400 in 1990 to roughly 3,300 today.

"We've grown a lot in the last 10 to 12 years," said Mr. Edelson, but
not because many new homes had been built. Rather, he said, "it's been
strictly demographic - we're going from a town of people without
children or whose children are not in school to younger families."

Indeed, fully 40 percent of taxpayers in the district have school-aged
children, Mr. Edelson said, an increase of about 15 percent from a low
several years ago.

Besides the area's school system, another attraction for potential
buyers is the area's proximity to New York City. Located about 20
miles east of midtown Manhattan and convenient to Northern Boulevard,
the Northern State Parkway and the Long Island Expressway, the Roslyns
are enticing for weary commuters.

"People always talk to me in terms of access and accessibility," said
Renee Hughes, an agent with Daniel Gale.

And when it comes to price tags? Ms. Hughes says she rarely sees
customers who lapse into slack-jawed sticker shock anymore.

"It's about 50-50," she said. "Some do. But most people already know
what they're getting into."

A Seller's Market

During an open house here last Sunday, Yami Dotan, a Century 21 agent
in the Roslyn Heights area for a dozen years, frowned as she described
a couple who had recently made an offer on a home that they coveted.

"They made a low offer," Ms. Dotan said. "I say to everyone, 'Give
your best offer, as close as you can to the asking price,' because
owners here will get the asking price."

Ms. Dotan said she knows a handful of sellers who have increased their
asking price after noticing what was happening in the market.

"It's amazing," she said. "I remember days I would have a listing and
I would open the door for an open house and the listing would expire
and not go sold. I would get so frustrated.

Within 40 minutes of the Sunday open house, four families had visited.
The asking price for the rather ordinary-looking, gray four-bedroom
Colonial built just after World War II: $729,000.

Prospective buyers have learned that such prices are just about par
for the course here in Roslyn Heights, a pleasant though unremarkable
community where much of the housing stock is postwar Colonials and
split-levels.

Sarah Pak was one of those visiting the open house. She said she had
scoffed at the idea of paying in the upper six figures for a home in
the area last year, much to her chagrin. In just the past year, real
estate sales figures show, the average price for a home here has
jumped about $150,000.

"The demand is very high," said Ms. Pak, 37, who visited the gray
Colonial with her husband, Yoon, 38, and their children, Curtis, 7,
and Joseph 3. "I'm not surprised. We were looking last year. The
prices have gone up since then."

Ms. Pak said that she and her husband are concerned about letting
another year pass without buying something.

"Now, I realize," she said, "this is the time."

The Paks' story is familiar to Ms. Dotan. "I had a customer two years
ago, his friends told him, 'Don't buy, wait, the market's too high,
it's going to crash,' " she said. "Now he can't afford it because he
has the same budget and the prices have gone up and up."

Since Ms. Dotan's prospective buyer balked in 2002, the average price
here has increased by more than a quarter million dollars, according
to sales figures.

"Every time you think it's the top," Ms. Dotan said of home prices
here. "And then it goes up again."

Part of what's driving the increases in home values here is what
agents said was a spike in renovations and what are commonly known as
"knockdowns" - homes that have been purchased with the intent of being
razed so that a new, more luxurious property can be built.

After leaving the gray Colonial, Ms. Dotan headed toward one property
in the Country Club section of Roslyn Heights that was bought in the
last five years or so for about a half-million dollars. The original
home had been rebuilt and reborn as a majestic four-bedroom Colonial
with a maple and granite gourmet kitchen and a walk-in closet upstairs
about the size of a freight elevator. The owner was selling, asking
$1.5 million.Ms. Dotan said it wasn't far-fetched for the owner to try
to command that kind of asking price. In fact, she said, he was one of
the customers who raised his initial price after watching the market
boom.

"We had to raise the price here," Ms. Dotan said. "He saw what's going
on around here."

Some people involved in construction and real estate on Long Island
wonder whether the market for such opulent homes can be sustained.

"I think anything over a million dollars and higher has plateaued,"
said Muzzio Tallini, a builder with Signature Homes in Elmont. "I
think people who spend that kind of money want value and they're going
to start asking, 'Who are you to be charging that kind of dough?' "

A visitor to the Country Club Colonial, Mike Youdim, was looking for a
home in the Roslyn Heights area so that he and his wife, Sharona, can
be closer to his parents.

"These prices are whew," he said, shaking his head as he made his way
through the master bedroom upstairs. "It's ridiculous."

Mr. Youdim told Ms. Dotan that about four years ago he was looking for
a home in the area and found that didn't want to pay for anything in
the what-now-seems-pretty-reasonable half-million dollar range.

"We were hoping the prices were going to steady," Mr. Youdim said.
"But every year you wait, it goes up another 15 or 20 percent."

Location, Location

Kiril Tzotchev knows from those kinds of increases. Even after more
than two years of looking for a home in the Roslyns, he still
struggles to fathom how the market is able to sustain itself.

Currently, he and his wife, Irina, are renting a modest place in
Greenvale, about three miles northeast of Roslyn Heights.

"We're just trying to make a living," said Mr. Tzotchev, who also
rents an artist's studio down in Sea Cliff.

And while Mr. Tzotchev dreams of home ownership, he fears that at the
current rate he won't be able to afford anything he likes unless he
hits the big time. And he wonders if even that will help.

"It's very expensive even if you are famous artist," he said.

Not too long ago, he came upon a house that looked great on the
outside and had a decent price tag: $400,000. Once inside, he realized
that there was a catch: it had only one bedroom.

"Four hundred thousand dollars," he said, disbelief dripping from
every syllable. "For one bedroom."

In hindsight, he wishes that someone had warned him away from the area
before he fell in love with it.

"When I emigrated, I didn't even know where I was going," he said.
"'Nobody said, 'This is the place to be for artists."'

But he found that for him it was.

Mr. Tzotchev is able to make a decent living between sales in a good
year, he may sell a piece every month or so and teaching art courses
at the Nassau County Museum of Art. Indeed, he's so spoiled by the
area's charms and its well-heeled art buyers that he seems determined
to stick the market out.

"I like the quietness of the area," Mr. Tzotchev said. "As an artist I
want to be not disturbed. That's why I'd like to be in a quiet area
amongst the birds." He paused, then added with a laugh: "Amongst the
rich people and the birds."

Posted by dc at 07:41 PM | Comments (0)

May 13, 2005

Avalon Riverview, Citylights

Avalon Riverview, Citylights in Long Island City.

Previously: Queens West.

[Photo credit: Ixtayul / Metroplus; more pics]

Posted by omor at 10:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 10, 2005

Bayside, Queens

Bayside, a quiet area on Little Neck Bay that is less than half an hour
from Pennsylvania Station by the Long Island Rail Road. Bordered on
the north by the East River and Little Neck Bay, on the south by
Union Turnpike, on the east by the Cross Island Parkway and on the
west by Utopia Parkway and Francis Lewis Boulevard, it is known for
its laid-back style of living, exceptional schools and in some quarters
hidden utility lines and the charming absence of curbs and sidewalks.

2004 April 25
IF YOU'RE THINKING OF LIVING IN | BAYSIDE
Bayside Community Spirit and Top-Rated Schools
By CLAIRE WILSON

ROSEMARY ZIMMERMAN is one of Bayside's busiest preservationists. She
restored the house she lives in, then bought and restored her childhood home
next door, a 1920's-era colonial that once served as a Christian Science church.
And with the houses pretty much done, at least for the moment, she volunteers
for the Bayside Business Association's tree-planting program, whose goal is to
keep this leafy swath of northeast Queens as green as it was when Mrs.
Zimmerman was a child, if not greener.

"We've planted about 100 trees in the past 10 years, and we're hoping to get Bell
Boulevard treed," said Ms. Zimmerman, a media sales representative who
moved back to Bayside with her family after brief stints living in New Jersey and
neighboring Little Neck. "We got state money to restore it with new lighting and
sidewalks. The plans are all ready to go."

Zealous volunteers like Ms. Zimmerman and supercharged civic groups are
almost too numerous to count in Bayside, a quiet area on Little Neck Bay that is
less than half an hour from Pennsylvania Station by the Long Island Rail Road.
Bordered on the north by the East River and Little Neck Bay, on the south by
Union Turnpike, on the east by the Cross Island Parkway and on the west by
Utopia Parkway and Francis Lewis Boulevard, it is known for its laid-back style of
living, exceptional schools and in some quarters hidden utility lines and the
charming absence of curbs and sidewalks.

In spring, streets lined with single-family homes and attractive co-ops and
condominiums are sugar-dusted with cherry and Callery pear blossoms that
compete for attention with luscious pink magnolias and canary-hued forsythia.

Jerry Iannece, a lawyer and father of two who is chairman of Community Board
11, credits local volunteers with overseeing the details that give Bayside its
appeal, from public Christmas trees and menorahs to staff levels at the 111th
Police precinct and land-use issues at Fort Totten, the Civil War fortress, part of
which is slated to become a public park in the next few months.

"They are outspoken and involved, and they are passionate about their
community," Mr. Iannece said. "Everything we do here revolves around
quality-of-life issues, and we love doing it."

Betsy Pilling, a broker whose family real estate concern has been in business in
Bayside for 30 years, says it is a perfect environment for raising children. "It has
the advantages of city living with none of the disadvantages," said Ms. Pilling,
who has three daughters. "You can have a comfortable lifestyle here and feel
you have done the best for your family."

The profusion of civic associations and community groups corresponds to
Bayside's informal division into enclaves, with the character of each informed by
the size, style, age and design of the houses there. They range from Bayside
Gables, a cluster of private curving streets and sloping lawns where residents
pay common charges for private security and groundskeeping, to Bayside Hills,
where the brick houses have slate roofs and the streets have elaborately
landscaped center medians. Weeks Woodlands and Bell Court have homes that
are diverse architecturally. Houses with water views, although separated from
Little Neck Bay by the Cross Island Parkway, are likewise one of a kind.

One of these is said to have belonged to W. C. Fields, who, like Gloria Swanson,
Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino and Norma Talmadge, lived in the area when
Astoria Studios was in its heyday. Miss Swanson is said to have once walked
down Bell Boulevard with a pig on a leash.

CO-OPS and condos of all descriptions are concentrated in the Bay Terrace
enclave, but whether the Bayside property is a luxury apartment or a small
detached two-family in a zone called Treasure Island, prices are going up.

Holly Park, a broker with ReMax, says many first-time buyers are quickly priced
out of houses and opt for co-ops or condos. "The average home for the first-time
buyer is between $550,000 and $650,000 for a single-family detached," Mrs.
Park said. "There's a small inventory of homes in the $400,000-to-$550,000
range, but they sell in no time."

According to the broker, a two-bedroom one-bath garden-style co-op apartment
in the 1,326-unit Bay Terrace Cooperative Gardens sold recently for $180,000,
while similarly sized units in the more upscale 21-story Birchwood co-op are
priced at $250,000. Birchwood has a pool, health club, doormen and parking.
Maintenance is $700 to $800 a month.

The median price of a single-family home has more than doubled in five years,
to almost $700,000 from $257,000 for a small two- or three-bedroom house on a
50-foot-by-100-foot lot. Increasingly, houses exceed $1 million; this has been
fueled by builders who buy small older homes on large parcels of land, knock
them down and build several homes or multiple dwellings in their place.
Two-family houses with rental units are very much in demand.

Low interest rates on mortgages have softened the rental market, however,
making desirable units easy to come by, according to Donna Reardon of
Prudential. "Three years ago, we didn't have an apartment to offer anyone, and
now we find they stay vacant a little longer than usual," she said.

The highest demand is for one-bedroom one-bath units, which rent for $1,100 to
$1,200 a month. Two-bedroom units average $1,300 to $1,500, Ms. Reardon
said.

Property taxes are low in Bayside, running about $3,300 a year, compared with
more than $5,000 for a comparable property just over the line in Nassau County,
but schools seem to be an even more important attraction. District 26 is the
highest ranked in the city, with 93.8 percent of fourth-grade students performing
at or above grade level in math (at Public Schools 188 and 205, it is 100 percent)
and 86.1 percent performing at or above grade level in reading.

Eighth graders at the two middle schools in Bayside, M.S. 74 and M.S. 158, are
also among the highest achievers in the city. In the four middle schools in District
26, 68.9 percent of the eighth graders perform at or above grade level in math
and 64.8 percent in reading.

Anita Saunders, who is superintendent of District 26 as well as local instructional
superintendent, said that money from private sources like the Empire State
Grant, VH1 or the Annenberg Foundation helped to finance special music and arts
programs but that there was a special emphasis on reading. Many fifth graders,
for example, are enrolled in a Shakespeare for Kids program and at some
schools, parents join children for Breakfast with Books. Some schools have adult
book clubs, too. "Expectations are high, people work hard and almost every
school gets better each year," Ms. Saunders said.

Bayside High School and Benjamin Cardozo High School both have newly
renovated athletic fields. At Bayside, with a student body of 3,100 in Grades 9
through 12, there are selective music and art programs as well as selective
science and math courses; six students recently won awards in the 2004 New
York City Science and Engineering Fair.

On the SAT reasoning tests, the average score on the verbal test was 466 last
year, compared with a statewide average of 496, and 504 in math, compared
with 510 statewide. Last year, about 54 percent of Bayside's graduating seniors
went on to four-year colleges.

At Benjamin Cardozo, with almost 4,000 students in Grades 9 through 12, last
year's average score on the verbal SAT reasoning test was 497, while the
average score in math was 545. There are 19 advanced placement courses at
Cardozo, where students can apply from outside the district for special academic
programs, including the Da Vinci Science and Math Institute or the mentor law
and humanities program. There is also a highly regarded dance program to
which admission is by audition only. Some 85 percent of last year's graduating
seniors went on to four-year colleges.

Private school options in Bayside include the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic
School, with 540 students. It teaches kindergarten through the eighth grade and
has a special program for 2-year-olds. Tuition is $2,750 a year per child if the
family is in the parish, $3,300 if it is not. Last year's fifth-grade cupcake sale
raised $1,700 for a Manhattan-based program for the homeless, Dennis Farrell,
the principal, said.

At St. Robert Bellarmine on 213th Street, tuition is $3,200 per student if the
family is a member of the parish, $5,000 for two children in a family and $5,500
for three or more, according to Sister Mary Ann, the principal. The school has
335 students in prekindergarten through the eighth grade. Out-of-parish tuition is
$4,200 per child.

The 45-year-old Queensborough Community College offers associate's degrees
in business, health careers and fine and performing arts to 22,000 students. It
has just instituted a course in massage therapy that will soon welcome
stressed-out members of the public to its student-staffed clinic.

The first residents of Bayside were the Matinecock Indians, whose name means
"land of the hilly ground." They lived peacefully on the shores of Little Neck Bay
until 1637, when the West India Trading Company lured the first Dutch farmers
with the promise of free property. The first permanent dwelling, a stone
farmhouse, was constructed by an Englishman, William Lawrence, in 1644. The
area was occupied by British troops during the Revolutionary War. The area's
name, written as Bay Side, first appeared on a public record in 1798.

By the end of the 19th century, wealthy Manhattanites had claimed Bayside as
their summer resort of choice, and Joseph Crocheron, a businessman whose
Bayside House was a favorite stomping ground, lives on in Crocheron Park, a
breezy green space on the water that bears his name.

It is adjacent to J. Golden Park, another of the four major parks in Bayside that
also include the 623.5-acre Alley Pond Park, which has a popular environmental
center for children, and the 18-hole Clearview Golf Course. Weekend greens fees
are $34.

Shops in the Bay Terrace mall, built in 1959 but recently renovated, include
Murphy's Flowers, Waldbaum's, Barnes & Noble and Victoria's Secret. They
complement the smaller shops and family-owned restaurants on the bustling Bell
Boulevard, which hops with night life on the weekends.

Parking is scarce around Bell Boulevard, especially near the train station, but
Maureen Higgings, a Pilling broker, said, "It's a place where you don't need two
cars because you can walk to the shops."

nyt

Posted by dc at 01:20 PM | Comments (0)