Queens #MusicMovesMe #AtoZChallenge

Today, you get two memes for the price of one.

First, Music Moves Me.

Who are the Music Moves Me bloggers?

We are a group of music loving bloggers who blog about music each Sunday or Monday (or even later in the week). If you have music to share with us, you are most welcome to join! (Music Posts Only-meaning at least one music video, please! Otherwise, your post link may be labeled "No Music" or even removed.)   We have occasional theme weeks, but you are welcome to ignore the theme and use music of your choice.  

Music Moves Me is brought to you by Cathy of Curious as a Cathy, Stacy of Stacy's Random Thoughts, Marie, and myself.  Why not join us?  Our theme for this week is You Pick and since this is Q day in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, I'm picking a couple of groups whose name began with Q.  

First up:  Quicksilver Messenger Service. 

Here is their 1970 hit Fresh Air. 

Next, Queen, and, from 1975, Bohemian Rhapsody.  This song is considered one of the top songs in rock history.

From 1981 their collaboration with David Bowie - Under Pressure. 

And now that you've enjoyed some music, I bring you, for Q day in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, some beauty I've found in the New York City borough of Queens.  I am a native of Queens although I only lived there for the first five months of my life.

If you think I'm going to post pictures of skyscrapers, well, I'm not, because Queens is not a borough of skyscrapers.  Although, in the neighborhood of Long Island City, there are several. No, instead, I will bring you these sights:

Alley Pond Recreation Area, Bayside, Queens.

There are several remnants of the 1964 World's Fair visible in Corona Park, another Queens neighborhood.(I have to explain here that if you address a letter to someone in Queens, you usually use a neighborhood name - not "Queens, NY" but Astoria, Flushing, Jamaica, Long Island City, Little Neck, and so forth.) 

Above are two of them visible from the highway.  I think the first picture is part of the New York State pavilion and I know the second was the Unisphere. I went to that fair several times as a preteen, once with my grade school class and the other times with my parents. These pictures were taken in 2018.

Queens Botanical Garden.  Welcome to the rose garden. The morning I was there, a lot of Asian families were out admiring the roses. 

More roses, Queens botanical gardens.

 Greenery.

Finally, the yellow structures, I'm guessing, are where the Queen bees live.
And that is a wrap!

Join me tomorrow for R day in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  And, I hope you'll join me again next week for more music at Music Moves Me.

 Q day in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  My theme:  Beauty of our Land 

Islands #AtoZChallenge #SkywatchFriday

Beauty can be found anywhere, especially on islands.

Let's start with a photo of an island in Halifax Harbor, Nova Scotia, Canada, July 2024, on a foggy afternoon.

As for other islands, some are places we don't think of as islands but they are.  For example, I grew up in a city composed mainly of islands-New York City.

The next two photos are from May, 2012.  Where do you think these were taken?

If you said "Manhattan Island", you would be right.  This is a picture of The Little Church Around the Corner, located on 1 East 29th Street, taken in 2012.  If you think "skyscrapers" when you think about Manhattan, you would be mistaken.  There is so much more. 

The tulips were in bloom nearby.

From the same visit to Manhattan, rooftop plants.  Yes, some New Yorkers have gardens on their rooftops.  The mural is a bonus.
 

Let's jump to Long Island, which contains the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, plus two other counties outside New York City, Nassau and Suffolk.  This picture was taken at the Queens Botanical Gardens in June of 2023. 

Next, a visit to Florida.  These next two pictures are from Treasure Island, a barrier island in Pinellas County (home of St. Petersburg and Clearwater).

My iPhone says these are ring billed gulls, but I am not 100% sure with the black heads.  The sky sure looks nice, though.
 

Art, and another beautiful sky.

Finally, it is time for sunset.  These pictures were taken in January, 2020 near Ward Island, also in Pinellas County.

 Sunset.

After sunset glow with birds.

Joining Yogi and other skywatchers for #SkywatchFriday.

I day for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  My theme: Beauty of our Land. 

Queens #SkywatchFriday #AtoZChallenge

 In June of 2023, my spouse and I made a short trip to Queens (one of the five boroughs of New York City) to attend a wedding.  Let me take you along for some pictures of the sky, and also a renowned botanical garden.

 Sky pictures for Skywatch Friday:  Welcome to Queens. 

Along the highway.  Many people who visit New York City only see the tall buildings of Manhattan. There's a lot more to the city.

For example, Queens neighborhoods. This one, according to my phone, is called Fresh Meadows-Utopia, which may lead me to a post another time.  Meanwhile, enjoy all these foods jammed in together on one block. So New York City.

Finally, a plane against the sky.  The Queens Botanical Gardens is along LaGuardia Airport's flight path, so it is noisy.  Quite noisy.

For the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, pictures from the Queens Botanical Gardens.

They are noted for their roses, which were in full bloom.

More roses.

Potted plants

"Q" day in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  My theme:  Gardens, History, Art and The Unexpected.

Also joining Yogi and other skywatching bloggers for #SkywatchFriday.

World's (Fair) #AtoZChallenge

Because I grew up in New York City, I was fortunate enough to be able to make several visits to the 1964 New York World's Fair.

If you want to see small snippets of the fair, you may want to check out portions of this 1964 NBC documentary (complete with the peacock at the beginning that indicated that, if you had a color TV, you would be seeing this in LIVING COLOR.

I can remember seeing the Mexican troupe performing at about 6 minutes into this video.

Or you can view some of this professionally made film.

So many marvels, such as the Bell Picturephone, are everyday now - just not in the form we envisioned them back then.

One of my visits to the Fair was with my 6th grade class.  I can remember standing on a long line, and listening to this song play on a transistor radio.

So, what about today?  This is one of the f w buildings left.

Queens (My First Home) #AtoZChallenge

I was born in Queens, a borough of New York City.  I moved to the Bronx when I was five months old, and have only been back to Queens a handful of times. 

From where I grew up in the Bronx, in a family without a car (common back then), it was a long ride on the subway.

Some of our visits were during the New York World's Fair in 1964, which I will blog about in my "W" post.

March 2014

I had one memory of my babyhood - the name of the housing project I lived in and the street it was on (from something my parents told me growing up).  So I decided I would do a search, traveling through time and space, for my first home.

Let's take a little virtual trip.

First, here are some pictures of my native borough (not where I lived).

There is a large Asian population in Queens.

Where the New York Times is printed.

Jacob Riis Park - one day I will visit it.  There is plenty of water recreation in New York City - New York City is so much more than skyscrapers and museums.  I am not sure, but this may not be that far away (as a bird would fly) from where I was born in the Rockaways.

And now, we arrive at our destination.  I am seeing this, with you, for the first time.

I was able to find pictures of the housing project where I lived the first five months of my life in the Library of Congress online.  There were no known restrictions on the rights, so I am taking a chance in posting it.  This picture was taken about five months before I was born.  Who knows, perhaps my pregnant mother was in one of those buildings at the time.

I was able to find, on You Tube, videos of what the housing development has become.  It is not a happy thing.  I can be grateful I escaped more than 60 years ago.

Again, some journeys do not end well, but all it did was confirm something I had suspected.

Once again, traveling through time and space for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

Arverne By the Sea

 I've talked about growing up in what became a slum neighborhood of the Bronx, but I am actually from Queens.

I have only a few childhood memories of tales of the place that was my home back when I was a little baby, from where my parents moved from when I was five months old.  I was never to return...at least so I thought.

Stories my Dad told me as a child, so distant in my memory, flooded back recently.

I was born in the Rockaways, an area of Queens (part of NYC).  We lived on Beach 56th Street, in a neighborhood called Arverne.  

Arverne had become a slum, too, by the time I was a teenager.  My two childhood homes, both slums.  No wonder I escaped New York City all together.

My Dad told me he would wheel my baby carriage on the Boardwalk.   I was a baby during the winter.  When it snowed, the snow would melt in the salt air.  I love the ocean, although I don't see it often. The ocean is in my blood.

The other day, I picked up an old New York magazine where I exercise.  People discard magazines and books.  Sometimes I find something interesting.  This magazine caught my eye.  I brought it home.

The magazine talked about various New York City neighborhoods.  One made me totally stop and gasp.

 Arverne by the Sea.  The magazine called it an "urbanist experiment".

It's urban renewal as you've never seen it. A social experiment.  To be blunt, a lot of the area is high crime, and the commute to Manhattan is quite long.  But on the bay side, Arverne by the Sea rises, challenging a hurricane to destroy it.

New York City does get hurricanes, you know.

I found something else online..the word Edgemere Houses.  It's not the housing project where my parents lived-I wish I could remember the name but I know Edgemere wasn't it.  But-  I looked Edgemere up on the Internet and found a treasure trove of photos....including that boardwalk where I was wheeled in a baby carriage. Part of it is called Ocean Promenade and all together it's the largest boardwalk on the East Coast.

But much of what it winds through is....vacant.  Abandoned.  Such sad photos. Arverne by the Sea seeks to change that.

Arverne by the Sea.  I will continue to follow the development with interest, and wish it much success. One day I will remember the name of the housing project where I lived as a baby, and perhaps the Internet will allow me to solve another puzzle of my childhood.  And maybe one day both Arverne and my Bronx neighborhood will rise again from their ashes.