Farmer’s Market Faltering

I saw on Queens Central that a visitor to the Farmer’s Market on Metropolitan Ave. this past Saturday found only one vendor there. They said they wondered if it will even survive through to November, after which it is supposed to pack up shop until it returns in the Spring.

If it does not survive it is sad, but understandable. The location just isn’t the best for a Farmer’s Market. These markets have been big hits in the city because they bring fresh local produce to many people who don’t have access to it — in other words, those of us urbanites who don’t own cars. Now, it seems to me Forest Hills is divided into the part that includes more of the car-less (in the area surrounding Queens Blvd.) and then there is the area where the majority is car-reliant (those surrounding Metropolitan Ave.) Now, where is the best place for a Farmer’s Market? Closer to Queens Blvd. it would seem.

Someone once mentioned having the Farmer’s Market in Station Square – once again, a fantastic idea. And of course like all of them these days, one that is not being done for who knows what reasons.

So as for the Farmer’s Market suffering from dwindling business, I am not that surprised given that it’s a schlep for us pedestrian urbanites to walk to, while there isn’t that much of a demand for it among the car owners who are right near it.

The fact that the person who went there saw only one vendor definitely spells bad news – obviously the others are giving up on the location. But, keep in mind, that the business there also isn’t being helped by the opening of the Twin Value this past Friday, and the fact that it is the middle of August vacation season. Heck, even the lines at Natural this past weekend seemed to be much shorter than normal. So I guess we will see how it goes, but an easy way to fix this would be to move the Farmer’s Market to a location near Queens Blvd.

Boulevards of Death

I love how this article calls these “crashes,” as if it is too hard to simply acknowledge that these are slaughters of pedestrians by drivers, clear and simple. How many times I have almost been killed or maimed crossing Queens Blvd. by some irresponsible driver I don’t even know because it has happened so often. I always wait for the walk signal too, having so many, many years ago realized that to try to cross Queens Blvd. against the walk signal would almost surely eventually result in my demise.

There is so much revealing–and potentially life saving information from this City study and the Times article–that this blog will be digesting it and referring to it for probably quite a while.

Queen Blvd., after all, is one of the worst parts of living in Forest Hills. It’s a horrible mistake the way it is currently is, and one that needs to be dramatically altered to save future lives.

Here is one interesting excerpt from the Times article:

Transportation officials say they are planning a media campaign to educate New Yorkers about safe driving practices — including a reminder that the standard speed limit for the city’s streets is 30 miles an hour, a fact that Ms. Sadik-Khan, in an informal poll of her friends, discovered that almost nobody knew.

The study found that 43 percent of pedestrians killed in Manhattan did not live in that borough, and that Brooklyn had the most pedestrians killed or seriously hurt and Staten Island the fewest — both in raw numbers and per capita.

Pedestrians would be well advised to favor sidewalks to the right of moving traffic — left-hand turns were three times as likely to cause a deadly crash as right-hand turns — and to stay particularly alert at intersections, where three-quarters of the crashes occurred.

Read the entire article here:

N.Y. / Region

Deadliest for Walkers: Male Drivers, Left Turns

By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM

Published: August 16, 2010

A study of crashes involving pedestrians offers insight into the life on the streets of New York City.

The Fashionable of Forest Hills

In case you missed it, Fox’s Good Day New York recently paid us a visit. And guess what?  We’re getting a little hipper. At least that’s what Christal Young says at the end of her report. And come to think of it, that’s fine with me. We can use a little more hip here in the Hills. And I don’t mean the artificial kinds. We have plenty of those already. 🙂

Click here to watch the segment:  Where’d You Get That? Forest Hills — Christal Young Reports