Where to buy New Year's Eve party food and more in the QNYC Evening Edition for Thursday December 27, 2012

Where to buy your New Year’s Eve party food in Queens

We put together a list of five spots in Queens where you can get some pretty kickass food for your New Year’s Eve party – Irish and UK products at Butcher Block in Sunnyside; Greet treats at Titan Food in Astoria; all sorts of party food at Trader Joe’s in Rego Park; dumplings and Pocky at Family Market in Astoria; and bread, sausages, and cheese at Slovak Czech Varieties in LIC. So many great noms!

The Throgs Neck Bridge gets an honor

The Throgs Neck Bridge – a Robert Moses project – is 50 years old this year, and the Bayside Historical Society (BHS) is recognizing that with exhibit on the bridge. The exhibit displays rare construction photographs selected from the BHS archives, as well as from the MTA Bridges and Tunnels Special Archive. Alison McKay, archivist for the BHS, said about the bridge, “The construction of this span had a major affect on the entire Bayside community. The bridge comes into Queens by way of the Clearview Expressway which cuts right through an already established part of the community.” The exhibit runs through 2013.

The Q58 is the slowest bus in Queens

The Straphangers folks are at it again and are doing some end of the year assessments. The Q58 bus won the 2012 Pokey Award for Queens, an award given the the slowest running buses. On the brighter side, no Queens buses were given the Schleppie Award, the award given to buses that are unreliable. The Q58 runs between Ridgewood and Flushing.

The bike lanes are installed in Astoria Park and they look great

We checked in on the bike lanes installed in Astoria Park and Ralph DeMarco Park along the waterfront in Astoria – they are part of the Queens East River & North Shore Greenway. There are separated lanes for peds and cyclists; some parts are share-the-road; and there are times when peds and cyclists split off to their own lanes. It looks pretty cool. And this will increase usability in park, which is a good thing.

The folkloric dancing of Ecuador is alive in Queens

We came across this fascinating video about the traditional dances of Ecuador, which is a way to stay connected to the culture. Esau Chauca, executive director of Ayazamana Cultural Center in Queens (they practice in LIC) says, “Its very important [that]we teach others about Ecuadorian culture] because what happens is, a lot people say they’re Latino, but they don’t really have an understanding or identify themselves with a particular group or a culture.” The dancing looks like a lot of fun!

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/55166665]