New York Guide
Queens
Of New York City's four outer boroughs, Queens was for many years probably the least visited – not counting when outsiders passed through Queens' airports, JFK and LaGuardia. If Brooklyn, with its strong neighborhood identities and elegant architecture, represents the old, historic city, then Queens, with its ever-shifting ethnic composition and frankly utilitarian housing stock, represents the "new" New York – the city as an international crossroads, the melting pot on full boil.
Queens is, in fact, the most diverse county in the US, with nearly half of the borough's 2.2 million residents foreign-born, and these hailing from 150 different countries. Not surprisingly, the borough is something of a culinary hotspot. In Woodside, Jackson Heights, and Flushing and you can eat Thai drunken noodles, Indian vindaloo, and Colombian arepas, respectively. In Astoria, you'll find Bosnian burek and Greek spanikopita, Brazilian feijoada (black bean stew), and Egyptian braised lamb cheeks.
Culturally, the richest spot in Queens is Long Island City, where a cluster of galleries has cropped up around the contemporary art center PS 1, a MoMA affiliate. Farther out, Flushing Meadows– Corona Park draws sports fans and families – the former to the New York Mets' new stadium, Citi Field (which replaced Shea), and the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, home of the US Open Tennis Championships each fall, and the latter to the Queens Museum, Queens Zoo, and New York Hall of Science.