Queens Culture – Part 2

Wow! I don’t know how many people saw it, but the June 25th edition of The Times had a great story about how hospitals in outer borough areas of the city are losing patients to hospitals in Manhattan. These patients are choosing to use the world-class Manhattan hospitals instead of the, ahem, rather less-than-world-class hospitals right where they live.

From the article: “This fertility flight, echoed in other gentrifying neighborhoods like Chelsea and the Lower East Side in Manhattan and Jackson Heights, Sunnyside and Astoria in Queens, shows how when it comes to picking hospitals, consumers are powerfully affected by intangible forces like reputation and marketing. It is also one more measure of New York’s transformation from a place where people are defined by their neighborhoods to one where people are more likely to be tied by culture, class, education, profession and like-mindedness.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of living in Brooklyn,” said Nicole Reece, who lives in Dumbo and is due to have her first baby in July at Roosevelt Hospital in Midtown Manhattan. But she added, “I do think of myself as living in New York City proper, and I don’t really make a distinction about certain life choices based on whether it’s in my borough or not. Manhattan has some of the best doctors in the country. I live 25 to 45 minutes away from them. Why would I not choose them?”

Need I say more? See my post on June 24th, “Queens Culture – Part 1”, to read more of my thoughts on this. Basically I said I am consistently baffled why many residents of Forest Hills, other parts of Queens, or any other outer borough view themselves exclusively as residents of Queens or that borough and not New York City. We are a quick 20 minute subway express train ride to midtown. Why not avail yourself of the best health care the world has to offer? I have had personal experiences with this and am not just talking out of thin air. There is an enormous difference when it comes to the quality of medical care between Queens and Manhattan. The great thing is, since we live in New York City, we can easily avail ourselves of that great care.

In other words, this apparently new phenomenon of newer and younger residents of Queens and Brooklyn viewing themselves as residents of “New York City” is a fantastic one, one that I have been eagerly anticipating, and one that I am not surprised at all is taking place as areas like Forest Hills continue to gentrify and the differences between outer and inner borough slowly disappear. Who knows, maybe some day soon the outer borough hospitals will rise to the challenge and we won’t have to be hopping on the subway to go into Manhattan. The way things are going, with all the great changes taking place throughout the city, I bet you that day isn’t very far off.

Read the entire NY Times article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/nyregion/26hospitals.html

Name Change

Dear readers –

I decided to change the name of this blog to simplify things a bit. Let me know if you feel strongly one way or the other. The rest of the blog will stay exactly the same in terms of overall themes and the way I am covering Forest Hills.

Thanks, and as always, if you have any suggestions for my blog shoot me an email or just let me know in the comment section below. We are just starting on this journey together and I appreciate everyone’s input!

Best,

Drake