BEING GREEN IS EASIER THAN YOU THINK

Steps: 23,176

Last week, while dropping off Jax’s water sample to be tested for narcotics, Janie Bruckstarr stumbled upon this little gem out in Sunnyside. www.myspace.com/strayvintage (See, we do leave Astoria from time to time.) The shop’s called Stray…vintage and more, and it’s a spectacular find, as far as reasonably-priced vintage stores go. Janie brought home this cheery little drop-waist number for under $30, sending the rest of the AstoriaGirls all in a tizzy, so we schlepped it back up to Sunnyside to see what we could see. And we saw plenty. But, for all my unbridled enthusiasm, I’d forgotten how outrageously broke I was that week, and had to stop myself from purchasing half the jewelry counter. The place is sensibly priced, stocked full of authentic vintage items and some great consignment stuff too. I was about to leave with my proverbial tail between my legs, when Gwenny Deets struck up a conversation with the owner, Stray Dan, who happened to mention some nonsense about a Green Building warehouse down on Astoria Boulevard. My ears pricked up. You mean in the projects?! Dan agreed it was pretty far East. Now nothing excites me more than an excuse to go traipsing along the East River. Most people shy away from the likes of 3rd Street and beyond, but really, I'll use any excuse to go wandering that side of the N/W line. Any chance I get.

So today, after a few cups of morning espresso, the AstoriaGirls picked up Miss. Marble and headed down to Astoria Boulevard, which just so happens to be Jax’s old digs. JBrucks and I reminisced back to the summer of ’07, when we stumbled upon his halfway house on the way to Astoria Park. There he was. Takin' a smoke break on the stoop, catcalling the locals, and grumbling about some narc confiscating his bowl. One thing led to another, and before long we'd decided we'd be fools not to split our rent three ways. We slipped his parole officer a fiver, tossed Jaxie in with our Mexican takeout, and the rest is history. Ohh the memories. We’d just finished telling Miss Marble and Gwenny Deets the charming tale, when it dawned on us that no one had asked Stray Dan for directions. (http://www.bignyc.org/hoursaddressdirections) No worries, we thought. We’ll just head east on Astoria Boulie and hit it in no time. It’s a warehouse, right? Can't miss it. So onwards and Eastwards we went, stopping in at a few “antique” furniture depots not particularly worth mentioning, but I guess I just did anyway. At this point, we’d already gone well beyond 21st Street, and Miss. Marble began to fret that 4:30pm was drawing nigh…

Flashback: Earlier this morning, Janie B struck a shady deal with our Postman. She agreed to an illicit meeting at the post office at 4:30 to retrieve two packages she’d missed earlier in the week. And if you know anything about anything, you know that making a deal with a Postman is worse than making a deal with the devil. A Postman never rings twice and NEVER makes promises. Janie B was smart enough to realize she’d come across a once in a lifetime opportunity. You don’t turn down an offer like that. Not on a Saturday. Not after-hours. A Postman strikes you a deal, you be there. It’s like signing your soul away.

So here it is, nearly 3:45, we’ve passed 14th Street, and there’s not a warehouse to be found. In fact, there’s not much of anything. No cars. No people. Just a few plastic C-Town bags blowing in the breeze like little urban tumbleweeds. Onwards and Eastwards we go, until GwennyDee spies what appears to be a homeless colony camped out in mesh wire enclosure. Miss. Marble’s hackles go up. And then WHAM. We’re in it.

You know what I’m talking about.

When you’re walking, just sorta singsonging along, and you cross the street and all of sudden you just know. Instinctual-like. All the buildings start looking the same, people are yelling things like My, aren’t you scrumptious!, and that magnetic arrow on your interior compass starts pulling you around, sending you back from whence you came. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. You could have grown up in the podunkiest town in that state beginning with M, but you know exactly where you are. 3:57. We see the River but no warehouse. I'm lovin' it.

Now I’ll be d*amned if the AstoriaGirls walked all that way down Astoria Boulevard, only to show up empty-handed when we face Il Postino and his host of incubi. But the magnetic pull’s got a hold of Miss. Marble and we’re already backtracking past the homeless colony. Only it’s not a homeless colony. And it’s not a padlocked enclosure either, but a small public park, and, lo and behold, the homeless people are actually gardeners. It's kismet! We march right up and ask for directions, and one gardener tells us to take a right and then a left, and then another right and then a left. Now usually, when someone tells you to "take a right and then a left, and then another right and then a left", it’s New York speak for eff off you effing tourist, and stop standing in the middle of the sidewalk. But we AstoriaGirls had an inkling that this homeless gardener might actually be on to something. So we took a right and then a left, and then a right and BINGO. Gwenny Deets spotted this sign shimmering like a beacon in the distance…

So we enter, and behold! Enough building materials to create a brand new Astoria from the ground up. It’s like a giant erector set, but for grownups who know how to hammer for realsies. I’m talking walls upon walls of doors, windows, kitchen cabinetry, clawfoot tubs, a ceramic rainbow of toilets and tiles, plumbing, furniture, lamps, diner booths, arcade games, laboratory equipment, microscopes, bins brimming with electronics, roller coaster tracks, and just about anything you’d need to build your own theme park. And it’s cheap, man. With the way real estate prices are going, you’re better off buying a start-up kit at Build It Green! and assembling it all in a back alley somewhere. Not only that, but the place was loaded with happy, shiny eye-candy; the sensitive, environmentally-friendly kind, only rugged and more musclebound.

We AstoriaGirls found a little something to take home with each of us. Vintage glasses went for 50 cents a pop, and I picked up two 1960's valises for $15. (Been dying to construct a suitcase bookshelf for ages. To make your own go to: http://readymademag.com/printarchive/article?id=900) JBS picked up a few chemist's flasks to use as itty bitty vases for single blooms, and Gwenny Deets got the digits to some stud rockin' a pair o' buddy holly glasses. All in all, the day was a success, and we've added another landmark to the AstoriaGirl Map.

So cha-check it out. Until the next adventure...

- WILLA K

JAX

Born and bred in the gutters of Astoria Boulevard, Jax the Fish, has ultimate street cred. A skilled Siamese Fighter, he did some time for assault before we crossed paths, but he’s not a bad roommate if you can get over his past. He’s been the eyes and the ears of the ‘hood for decades, and a fathomless source for all things Queens-related. Jax is currently on house arrest, but his parole officer says if he keeps it clean for the next six weeks, we can take him on daytrips. We test his water weekly. It's not easy sharing a place with a junkie fish, but Janie Brucks and I take it day by day. Besides. His information is invaluble. The nasty b*stard can be reached at JaxHatesTheAstoriaGirls@gmail.com He's got the answer to anything and everything you'd ever want to know about Astoria. But don’t expect him to be nice about it. He tell it like it is.

So "ASK JAX." Go on. We dare you.

MARBLE

A canine of impeccable taste and high breeding, its hard to believe Miss. Marble was once a wayward urchin combing the streets of the city’s elite. Only a year ago, our fledgling aficianado was found wandering the back alleys of the Upper West Side, nosing around the trashbins of 5-star restaurants, and sniffing out gourmet bistros before she could lose her babyteeth. Gwenny Deets discovered the prestigious pooch at the local ASPCA, and knew on the spot she was destined for Astoria greatness. We never could figure out why she spoke in that lofty British accent of hers...I always assumed it was the beagle in her, though she’ll never admit she’s anything but a bonafide connoisseur of life. Marble is the ultimate authority on what’s hot and what’s not. Watch out for her pawprints of approval, and her column “MARBLE SAYS…”

Hello folks. Willa K here -- welcome to my Backwoods Guide to NYC, a site devoted exclusively to my adventures in the glorious borough that is Queens and beyond. This all started the other day when we AstoriaGirls got to talking, and realized we spent pretty much all of last summer walking the streets of Queens. Not in the carnal, Spitzerly-loving way, but in the literal walking kind of way, trekking from Broadway to Ditmars Blvd., looping around to Steinway, meandering down to the River and back again. Because when you’re broke and you’re single, walking is pretty much the cheapest form of entertainment you have ‘round these parts. Not only are there troves of hidden cultural wonderment just begging to be discovered, but all kinds of crazy people and places, not to mention some hardcore window-shopping. Plus, it generally passes the time you could be spending clubbing or dining in swanky bistros, only you don’t have boyfriends or sugardaddies or governors willing to bust out their campaign funding. Walking around Astoria is really the next best thing.

You may find yourself asking, just who are these AstoriaGirls? The truth is you’ve probably seen us at one time or another, roaming the streets of our beloved borough, walking Marble the British Dog, championne of class and taste, and generally stopping traffic with our wily, wandering ways. We’re three chicks from three different states all starting with M, which generally implies we grew up in the sticks or the dirty south. Hence all this walking experience. It’s what we non-native New Yorkers know best. But being an AstoriaGirl is much more than that. It's a state of mind. An ethos, if you will. Our only requirements? Streetsmarts, curiosity, and an unrepentant love of Queens. Which may lead you to ask, Why Astoria? Why now? Honestly, Queens gets a bad rap. It’s widely regarded that in the pecking order of boroughs, mighty Manhattan trumps all, with trendytown Brooklyn coming in a close second, followed by the Bronx ‘cuz it’s home to the Yanks’ Evil Empire. Then there’s Staten Island, but let’s face it, no one really counts Staten Island as a borough, anyway. It’s like Long Island, only worse. That leaves us with lowly Queens. I see how you city people spit the word out with distaste: Queens. The ugliest borough of the NY Fivefecta. Queens. That desolate expanse of concrete and bodegas. Queens. The only thing at the end of the wretched 7 line. Queens. Home to that creepy metal globe and the flying saucers you only know exist because you saw “Men in Black.” Yeah, Queens. The place gives you automatic street cred. You can’t deny it.

But here I am rambling on and on about Q-town, when all I really want to talk about is Astoria, the most glorious neighborhood of all, for so many reasons and on so many levels. What other ‘hood has its own theme song? Many fail to realize that the “N-N-Notorious!” hook off the Born Again album has origins steeped in Queenslore. [Ass-TOHR- ee-ah!] Biggie may have grown up in Bed-Sty, but he left his heart in A-land. Urban legend has it he and Tupac live off of Ditmars somewhere. Not only that, but according to the US Census, Queens is the most ethnically diverse borough in existence, which I largely credit to hoodlette’s like ours. Greeks, South Americans, Czechs, Indians, Puerto Ricans, Koreans, Dutch, Mexicans, Laotians, Pakistanis, Central Americans, Russians, African Americans, Irishmen, Egyptians, Canadians, wannabe actors, starving artists, people from states that start with M – we got ‘em all here. And aside from a few pockets of cultural mono-conformity, we’re all mixed in together, eternally bound by small salaries and an affinity for wide open spaces.

I could go on and on extolling the virtues of this illustrious region, except then there’d be no reason for this site. Yes, you guessed it! Each week, the AstoriaGirls will explore another nook of this amazing city, for better or disastrously worse, and share our findings with all you sheltered, Manhattan types. I’d also like to point out that, while we may be unabashedly biased, the AstoriaGirls are NOT prejudiced. We realize that by presuming you'll go soooooo out of your way as to cross the East River, it would only be hypocritical to ignore the other four boroughs of this fine city. We assure you there will be plenty of “Excursions” and shout-outs to the outside establishments who truly deserve it. We are also not above calling out those that happen to suck monkeyballs. This weekend marks the advent of our travels, so stay tuned!!

- Willa K

P.S. Please feel free to send suggestions, queries or general musings. We’ll take it all, as long as its Queens-related or halfway entertaining.