MTA fare hikes and more in the QNYC Evening Edition for Wednesday December 19, 2012

Oh, MTA – service disruptions and fare hikes a-comin’

We’ve learned that both FASTRACK and fare hikes are in our future here in Queens. And then there’s the weekend service disruption on the 7 starting the last weekend in December to March. There is no way around it. Good luck, everyone, with the mental preparations in accepting this fate.

Need to contact your local Community Board? Here’s how

The other day we wanted to read some meeting minutes recorded at our local Community Board meeting. You might want to do the same thing, or find out when meetings are, or even email them. Fortunately, NYC.gov has a page dedicated to the basic info you’d need to contact them or find out more about them.

Neapolitan style pizza has arrived to Ditmars Astoria – welcome Tufino!

We are happy to see great pizza continue to expand into Queens (both Basil Brick Oven and Via Trenta in Astoria are making excellent Neapolitan pies these days), and the most recent contender in the pizza scene is Tufino Pizzeria Napoletana on Ditmars near 36th Street, again in Astoria. In the words of one patron after they ate there last night, “We have decided that we have to try every pie on the menu, and have started a list.” We are also intrigued by the “Tirami-choux” – a French style cream puff filled with tiramisu flavors. Yum.

Designing Tomorrow: America’s World’s Fairs of the 1930s at the Museum of the City of NY

We were turned on to this cool exhibit happening at the Museum of the City of New York in Manhattan, about six World’s Fairs, including the one in Flushing Meadows Park in 1939/40. More about the exhibit:

Showcases six Depression-era expositions that brought visions of a brighter future to tens of millions of Americans. As many Americans still waited on bread lines, fairs in Chicago (1933/34), San Diego (1935/36), Dallas (1936), Cleveland (1936/37), San Francisco (1939/40), and New York (1939/40) foretold much of what would become commonplace in postwar America–from highways and the spread of suburbia to modernist skyscrapers and products such as electric toasters, nylon stockings, and television. The fairs looked forward to an era of prosperity, when ingenuity and innovation would transform not only American cities but also the everyday lives of American citizens. Visitors will see sleek, modern furniture and appliances of the era, vintage footage from the fairs, and futuristic drawings of the New York World’s Fair’s buildings from the Museum’s collection.

We’ve also covered the World’s Fair here on QNYC – both of them, actually!

Come to Queens for modern art

Have you checked out the Fisher Landau Center for Art? We featured it on our LIC for Brooklynites “what to do” post, but we decided to go a little deeper and give you more of a taste of their offerings. Right here in Dutch Kills section of LIC you can see works by contemporary artists like Shirin Neshat, Carroll Dunham (father of Lena Dunham), Jenny Holzer, Kiki Smith or Ed Ruscha alongside pieces by Agnes Martin, Cy Twombly, Willem de Kooning and Andy Warhol. Everything is housed in a three story former parachute harness factory that has been renovated. And even better – it’s free!