New York City is bursting with creativity. But for Queens, the issue isn’t a lack of talent, but rather a lack of connection. One institution, the Flushing Town Hall, works to provide a remedy for the entire borough and create relationships between cultural institutions. 

“Queens is so amazing. I’ve lived here for a really long time, but what it is missing that other boroughs have, and I’m thinking mostly of Manhattan and Brooklyn, is a really robust network where we have a lot of talent, but not necessarily the network,” said KC Trommer, the director of marketing and community engagement. “So what Flushing Town Hall does as an arts council is really trying to connect the artists to each other and to the resources that are available.”

The FTH is a multidisciplinary arts center and hosts an array of programming and events, but its mission is more than just working for itself; rather, it aims to build and uplift Queens. 

“FTH is so many things: an arts council for Queens that supports the borough’s many talented artists, an education center with a range of school shows and cultural opportunities for kids and their families, a world-class performance space with amazing programming, and a cultural hub for Queens and greater NYC,” said Trommer. 

This cultural hub seeks to unite the borough and build its own network that benefits both organizations and community members. The Queens Cultural Mapping Initiative is a project started by FTH that connects other art facilities within the borough to one another and hosts all of their information in a digital database for the public to view and utilize. 

“The project was inspired by a desire to better understand who is doing cultural work in Queens, what they need, and how we as an institution can better support them,” said Natalie Bedon, the project manager for the Queens Cultural Mapping Initiative. “Queens is one of the most diverse places in the world, yet many artists and organizations operate independently, with little visibility or connection to each other.” 

The initiatives promote collaboration between the organizations represented, as well as addressing the needs of the community. One-on-one interviews, town halls, and artist interviews were used to help inform the project. 

According to the initiative’s executive summary, a benefit of these organizations is how much they showcase culture and heritage in their respective communities. However, these groups are hindered by the geographical makeup of Queens, with inconsistent transportation throughout the borough, and the lack of guidance from a borough-wide arts council, as the Queens Council on the Arts has quietly “transitioned from its traditional role in 2022.” This has resulted in smaller groups working harder to support the entire borough. 

“Collaborating with organizations has been incredibly rewarding. Many groups serve as cultural hubs for their communities,” said Bedon. “Spotlighting their work and giving them a platform has strengthened relationships across the borough and shown just how vibrant and interconnected Queens culture truly is.”

Before its current role as a cultural and artistic space, FTH held a long history that had deviated from the arts. The building opened in January of 1864 as a town hall, but after Queens became part of New York City in 1898, the city took over the building, and it functioned as a courthouse and jail until 1960. Then the building was abandoned. As part of an effort to restore it, the National Park Service deemed it a historic site in 1972. The building reopened as FTH in 1990. As an arts institution, FTH earned many honors, including becoming a member of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs’ (DCLA) Cultural Institutions Group (CIG) in the late 1990s, as well as a Smithsonian Institute affiliate in 2004. 

Today, FTH covers a variety of arts experiences for visitors, including live performances like Monthly Jazz Jam and exhibitions, along with partnering with DOE schools to provide workshops for students. 

But beyond being an arts institution, FTH gives back to the community through providing grants to enhance the neighborhood’s cultural climate, including the Queens Community Arts Grant and the GO Queens Grant for non-profit organizations, and the Artists in Queens Grant. 

The FTH also provides space grants for artists to use the facility and opportunities to connect and receive guidance from FTH staff in Artist Professional Development Conversations and Friday Zoom Artist Hang events. 

Trommer has received a city grant to fund her work on the literary project QUEENSBOUND and understands the impact a grant can have on an artist.

“Getting that grant money was for my own personal writing and then for my project, really important to feel not only supported, but to make it possible for me to do programming that brought in people,” said Trommer.

    Flushing residents, like the members of the Flushing Workers Center, are enraged by the recent approval of the building of casinos in their hometown of Flushing and are demanding answers. 

   “We are outraged by the Gaming Facility Location Board’s decision to give billionaire Steve Cohen, who was at the head of the largest insider trading scandal in American history, a license to build a casino on public land in our community. To be clear, this is a racist attack on our communities,” the center stated in their press release immediately following the approval of the casinos. 

   The New York Gaming Facility Location Board approved the licensing for the final three casino candidates on Dec. 1st. The approved licenses are for the building of casinos in the Bronx and Queens, leaving residents within these communities furious with the agreed-upon outcomes. 

   This licensing approval allows Bally’s Corporation in the Bronx, and Metropolitan Park and Resorts World in Queens to advance to the next round of approvals, which will allow the building of the casinos in these areas. 

   Though community members are mourning the approval, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul and some Flushing organizations welcomed the news. 

    In a statement, Gov. Hochul said, “The three projects approved today [Dec 1st] promise to unlock billions in funding for the MTA and create tens of thousands of jobs. It is critical that they keep those promises. I look forward to the Gaming Commission’s review of the Board’s recommendations in the weeks ahead.”

   The Alliance for Flushing Meadows Corona Park, the area where the Metropolitan Park casino is set to be built, maintained its favorable opinion when it comes to the building of the casino in its park. 

   Rob Carson, the media contact of The Alliance for FMCP, stated, “The Alliance for Flushing Meadows Corona Park supports the Metropolitan Park development that will bring thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investment to Queens. However, the Alliance wants to see more investment go directly into the park, from both public and private sources. Our concern is that the influx of visitors to the new development will not be met with adequate maintenance support for the parkland outside of its footprint.”

   A representative of Metropolitan Park spoke about the positive impact this casino will provide to the Queens community, in an article by The City.

   “After years of community engagement and support, Metropolitan Park is one step closer to becoming a reality,” said spokesperson Karl Rickett. “Following a fair, transparent, and rigorous process, the Gaming Facility Location Board has validated the positive economic impact this project will have with billions of dollars in tax revenue, 23,000 union jobs, and over $1 billion in community benefits.”

   Queens residents have been rallying against the casino for months, hosting protests, meetings, and fundraisers to abolish the casino from their neighborhood.

   Graciela Quispe, a lifelong resident of New York City and member of the Flushing anti-casino group, explained, “Not only is a casino in the neighborhood obviously going to bring gambling addictions, but it will also make my entire neighborhood a casino town, where we all work for the casino, live for the casino.”

   Quispe followed this statement by stating, “We deserve to not be bound to work at a casino for the rest of our generations. We deserve to dream bigger. The Flushing Anti-Casino Group demands the release of all communications between Steve Cohen, Assembly member Larenda Hooks, State Senator John Liu, and any private gaming facility location board meetings. We demand the release of all redacted information on the Metropolitan Park applicant.”

   Queens Community Board 1, which covers Astoria, Woodside, and some parts of Long Island City, congregated on Nov. 19 to speak about the fiscal year budgets of 2025 and 2026. This meeting was held one day after the committee held its monthly public hearing, during which the public was able to share their concerns, from infrastructure to vandalism.  

    Community Board 1 Chairperson is Evie Hantzopoulous, who was elected in February, and led the meeting around the budget that has been finalized since June 30th. Hantzopoulous explained that the budget included personnel services (PS) and other than personnel services (OTPS). 

   Personnel services are given to community boards from the city’s overall expense budget, meant to cover the costs of staff, including salaries and benefits. Other than personnel services are for operating expenses, like supplies and equipment.  

   “A percentage of variance is 87% [for personnel services], which means that we spent 87% of what was budgeted, and if it is 150% [for other than personnel services], it means we spent 150% more than what was budgeted,” Hantzopoulous told the audience. 

   These were the final budget numbers for the fiscal year of 2025, but the board did earn revenue from one thing within the 2025 year: street festivals. The revenue earned from street festivals within the western Queens area during the year allows for “When there is a budget cut, so that the employees of the office do not have to be fired,” said Florence Koulouis, the District Manager of Community Board 1. 

   The street festival revenue is seen as a “security blanket for the community board,” said Koulouis. 

   Community Board 1 is one of the “lowest boards” in the Queens community to return money to save for possible budget cuts. “Other [Queens] boards return much more money than we do. We’re very low compared to other boards. You can’t get dangerously low because if anything falls through, you don’t have the funds,” said Koulouis. 

   After a rough ending to the 2025 season, the board looks to 2026 to build its funds and the attention given to its OTPS needs. OTPS needs for the 2026 season include: Queens Gazette Facebook, Belaire Printing, 4imprint, and Schneps Media, to name a few. The discussion on OTPS quickly moved on when no one raised any concerns.

    Community Board 11, which represents areas of Northeast Queens, convened on Nov. 5 to consider the history of flooding at Crocheron Park, located in Bayside, just a few feet from the Cross Island Parkway, and review a plan to preserve the pond within the parkland. 

    Reporting on the history of flooding in Crocheron Park, Emi McKinney, a senior at Bronx High School for the Sciences, worked with a retired Department of Environmental Protection and a retired Parks employee, to not only test the pond but also survey the rising water levels due to increased rainfall over seven weeks in the summer of 2025. 

  McKinney tested the water within the park and found that the water quality was inadequate, leaving the pond at risk of being filled with damaging substances. “Harmful algae blooms thrive in warm temperatures and low turbidity levels that allow more sunlight to penetrate the water and excess nutrients,” said McKinney. McKinney found that the pond will produce harmful algae blooms if it is not fixed in the near future. 

   Crocheron Park is surrounded by hills and slopes, which lead to flooding and higher water levels in the pond. “The pond just kind of floods every time there’s heavy rain,” said McKinney. 

   Dana Gumb, a retired Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) employee with over 33 years’ experience, explained that the flooding of the parkland has gotten to a point that is not normal for the area. 

  “There are flows of water coming from 35th Avenue like we have never seen before. I’ve lived in Bayside for 34 years,” he said. “I’ve never seen water flowing here like it now routinely flows.”

   Gumb continued, “We’re getting like half a month’s worth of rainfall in several hours. I think it’s a new condition, you know, within the last several years.” 

   Due to flooding, the pond has filled with sediments from mudslides in addition to the routine rainfall in the northeast Queens parkland. 

   “The sediment has accumulated over many years, since 1969,” said Mike Feller, retired chief naturalist at NYC Parks. “This is typically what happens to ponds. They fill up, and they become a wet meadow, and then they become some kind of wetland. There’s no pond anymore if somebody doesn’t intervene and dredge them out.” 

   The pond within the park is an important part of the flooding mitigation system for the Cross Island Parkway; however, the flooding is causing it to be “a less effective part of the system, which basically creates an overflow,” McKinney said, which will cause flooding on the Parkway. 

   McKinney then explained that the pond’s future could be preserved in multiple ways, like “stabilizing and loosening sediment on the surrounding slope to stop the mudslides,” she said.

   Committee members followed McKinney’s recommendation by suggesting that the Queens state legislators could help. “[Edward C.] Braunstein and John Liu, could offer some suggestions for help on this particular issue,” said Henry Euler, the first Vice Chair of the Environmental Committee, as an earlier discussion with DEP was not looking promising. 

   Joseph Marzilliano, the District Manager of Community Board 11, spoke with DEP early in the day about the flooding that occurred on July 31, 2025, on Little Neck Parkway, Bell Boulevard, Cross Island Parkway, and Clearview Expressway, as well as the weeks that followed, weeks marked by torrential rainstorms. Marzilliano wanted to speak with the DEP on August 4, 2025, but only met with the DEP on November 5, 2025. 

   “They [DEP] gave us a short and frankly not impressive presentation considering it’s been months and months and months,” he said. “What they’ve done in our district it’s a big fat nothing, frankly.”

    DEP addressed the flooding that has occurred in the northeast areas, but they have only focused on the Little Neck Parkway, leaving the Cross Island Parkway and other areas of Queens to fend for themselves. 

   “It was a very underwhelming presentation from them [DEP],” Marzilliano said. The meeting was called back in August, as that was the budgeting month for the District; however, DEP took too long, and the budget season ended. “They never told us what forms of infrastructure we should be advocating for in the capital projects. So now that gets put off by a year,” he said.

   Within that year, DEP will create a 10-year capital project plan to solve this flooding issue and provide capital investments on comprehensive infrastructure planning efforts across all neighborhoods. 

    Community Board 11, which represents areas of Northeast Queens, convened on Nov. 5 to consider the history of flooding at Crocheron Park, located in Bayside, just a few feet from the Cross Island Parkway, and review a plan to preserve the pond within the parkland. 

    Reporting on the history of flooding in Crocheron Park, Emi McKinney, a senior at Bronx High School for the Sciences, worked with a retired Department of Environmental Protection and a retired Parks employee, to not only test the pond but also survey the rising water levels due to increased rainfall over seven weeks in the summer of 2025. 

  McKinney tested the water within the park and found that the water quality was inadequate, leaving the pond at risk of being filled with damaging substances. “Harmful algae blooms thrive in warm temperatures and low turbidity levels that allow more sunlight to penetrate the water and excess nutrients,” said McKinney. McKinney found that the pond will produce harmful algae blooms if it is not fixed in the near future. 

   Crocheron Park is surrounded by hills and slopes, which lead to flooding and higher water levels in the pond. “The pond just kind of floods every time there’s heavy rain,” said McKinney. 

   Dana Gumb, a retired Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) employee with over 33 years’ experience, explained that the flooding of the parkland has gotten to a point that is not normal for the area. 

  “There are flows of water coming from 35th Avenue like we have never seen before. I’ve lived in Bayside for 34 years,” he said. “I’ve never seen water flowing here like it now routinely flows.”

   Gumb continued, “We’re getting like half a month’s worth of rainfall in several hours. I think it’s a new condition, you know, within the last several years.” 

   Due to flooding, the pond has filled with sediments from mudslides in addition to the routine rainfall in the northeast Queens parkland. 

   “The sediment has accumulated over many years, since 1969,” said Mike Feller, retired chief naturalist at NYC Parks. “This is typically what happens to ponds. They fill up, and they become a wet meadow, and then they become some kind of wetland. There’s no pond anymore if somebody doesn’t intervene and dredge them out.” 

   The pond within the park is an important part of the flooding mitigation system for the Cross Island Parkway; however, the flooding is causing it to be “a less effective part of the system, which basically creates an overflow,” McKinney said, which will cause flooding on the Parkway. 

   McKinney then explained that the pond’s future could be preserved in multiple ways, like “stabilizing and loosening sediment on the surrounding slope to stop the mudslides,” she said.

   Committee members followed McKinney’s recommendation by suggesting that the Queens state legislators could help. “[Edward C.] Braunstein and John Liu, could offer some suggestions for help on this particular issue,” said Henry Euler, the first Vice Chair of the Environmental Committee, as an earlier discussion with DEP was not looking promising. 

   Joseph Marzilliano, the District Manager of Community Board 11, spoke with DEP early in the day about the flooding that occurred on July 31, 2025, on Little Neck Parkway, Bell Boulevard, Cross Island Parkway, and Clearview Expressway, as well as the weeks that followed, weeks marked by torrential rainstorms. Marzilliano wanted to speak with the DEP on August 4, 2025, but only met with the DEP on November 5, 2025. 

   “They [DEP] gave us a short and frankly not impressive presentation considering it’s been months and months and months,” he said. “What they’ve done in our district it’s a big fat nothing, frankly.”

    DEP addressed the flooding that has occurred in the northeast areas, but they have only focused on the Little Neck Parkway, leaving the Cross Island Parkway and other areas of Queens to fend for themselves. 

   “It was a very underwhelming presentation from them [DEP],” Marzilliano said. The meeting was called back in August, as that was the budgeting month for the District; however, DEP took too long, and the budget season ended. “They never told us what forms of infrastructure we should be advocating for in the capital projects. So now that gets put off by a year,” he said.

   Within that year, DEP will create a 10-year capital project plan to solve this flooding issue and provide capital investments on comprehensive infrastructure planning efforts across all neighborhoods. 

Where New York City public schools are lagging on providing a proper arts curriculum, one organization in Queens helps fill the gap that students are missing throughout the day. 

Art House Astoria Conservatory for Art and Music is a non-profit organization founded in 2009 by Executive Director Micah Burgess and his wife, Jane Burgess, the Director of Marketing. The organization provides a range of programming, including theater, fine arts, and music lessons. The mission of Art House Astoria emphasizes inclusion for all within the arts, and makes this possible through hosting classes at its own facility and partnering with other Queens schools. 

“Our goal is to provide affordable arts education for the community. We believe that arts education should be accessible for anyone, regardless of income, ability, or age,” said Burgess.“We’re not a great substitute for having a full-time music teacher, art teacher, theater teacher. We’re doing the absolute best we can with budgets that PTAs can afford or with grant money that comes in. It’s very limited,” said Burgess. “I don’t want to downplay what we’re doing because I think it’s really important, but I think the best thing for the kids would be if they had a full-time faculty.”

While  New York City bleeds arts and entertainment, many public schools are failing to meet  All NYC Public Schools are expected to meet the required number of hours/units of arts for each student, which differs by grade as well. Students in grades four to six are required to have 10 percent of their weekly time, about 93 hours throughout the school year, allocated for the arts, where students in grades seven to eight should complete 110 hours of arts instruction through two of four different media  (visual art, dance, music, or theater). 

Many schools provide at least one form of arts education, but each school’s curriculum varies based on how many certified teachers they have.  “From 2020-2023, public schools lost 425 full-time certified arts teachers, and only 31% of eighth-grade students meet state requirements for arts education,” according to an article by the BK Reader. 

In April of this year, the City Council’s Committee on Education and Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries, and International Intergroup Relations held a hearing to discuss these inequities in arts education at public schools. Brooklyn Councilmember Rita Joseph opened the hearing, sharing her sentiments towards arts education. 

“Arts education is a key component of a well-rounded education that fosters creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills,” said Joseph. “For students from historically marginalized communities, exposure to arts education provides an essential avenue for self-instruction, cultural affirmation, and access to potential career pathways in creative industries.”

While it can’t substitute for what schools fail to provide, Art House Astoria has a mission rooted in arts for all and finds a way for students to participate regardless of financial or physical restraints. The organization operates as a tuition-based program, but it does provide financial assistance for its students based on income, recognizing the federal poverty line. In 2023, the Queens poverty rate was 13.7 percent compared to the citywide 18.2 percent, according to data from the NYU Furman Center. 

“Somebody could be making a lot more over the federal poverty line and still need assistance here, because the cost of living is so much higher,” Burgess said. “So people can fill out the application, like I said, family size, and then we just apply that formula as long as we have funding available, then they’ll get whatever is sort of recommended.”

When it comes to students with special needs or disabilities, Art House Astoria doesn’t see a need for separation, but rather integration. All students participate in the same classes with accommodations as needed. This topic rings home for Burgess, as his son has special needs and is still able to participate in the programming offered. 

“He’s not taking the special needs theater class. He’s taking [the] theater class,” Burgess said. “Does he wander off sometimes and do his own thing? Yes, but we want to make sure that kids, him, and kids like him are accommodated in our programs in a way that they feel included.” 

Administrative Coordinator Brooke Vahos echoed the same message. “It’s so important that everybody has the opportunity to make art, right?” said Vahos. “It should be, like, just something that we’re all able to do and empowered to do. I think that’s important that it’s part of our mission, because we make it a welcoming space for kids, and we kind of, like, redefine, I think, in a lot of ways, what our programming can be and who can participate in that, if that makes sense.” 

Art House Astoria aims to create spaces geared towards every type of person and student. “Having it integrated, I think, is a testament to how normal it is,” Vahos said. “That these people are amongst us, are us, like, are in our families, are in our schools. It’s spectacular, and it’s a hard thing to do, which is to navigate this world with a disability or to have a child that’s navigating this world with a disability, but they have the same, like, hopes and dreams and hobbies as all of us.” 

Though public schools have a long way to go in providing well-rounded arts education for students, Art House Astoria offers a space for students’ self-expression and creativity. 

“We want to make sure that anyone who comes in here feels like it’s a safe space,” said Burgess. “We want those kids who don’t feel like they have a place in their school or whatever community that they live in most of the time, if they feel like they’re sort of at odds with that, and they feel like sort of the odd duck, we want them to know that this is a place that they can come and feel comfortable.” 

   Flushing Meadows Corona Park is the fourth biggest park in New York City, filled with soccer fields, an aquatic center, and green spaces that welcome over nine million people every year. But residents see a decline in the park’s condition. So the Alliance for Flushing Meadows Corona Park (FMCP) rallied local residents, parks workers, and elected officials on October 27  to demand greater public investment in the park.

. Flushing Meadows Corona Park is a Queens landmark. The park boasts over 898 acres of land, but the Alliance says the park is being neglected. “As stewards of the park, we want to see greater public investment into the infrastructure and maintenance challenges facing this borough’s flagship open space. It has been over 20 years since the last strategic plan was initiated, and Flushing Meadows Corona Park is long overdue for a new coordinated planning effort,” said Rob Carson, media contact at Alliance for FMCP. 

   But some questioned the Alliance’s loyalty to the park. “I find it ironic,” said lifelong Queens resident Margaret Flanagan. “To give away 25 acres of this park for the Metropolitan Casino, which is being built in a floodplain that maxes out our stormwater infrastructure and sewer infrastructure, and does nothing to add resilience to the waterfront.”

   Carson says the Alliance supports the Metropolitan Park development because it will “bring thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investment to Queens.”

   The Alliance wants more public and private funding for the park. “Our concern is that the influx of visitors to the new development will not be met with adequate maintenance support for the parkland outside of its footprint,” said Carson.

   The Alliance for FMCP wants the next mayor to build a ”stronger, fairer, and more sustainable future for this park and Queens as a whole,” said Anthony Sama, the Executive Director of the Alliance. 

   Advocates for New York City Parks explained that Flushing Meadows is one of the most overlooked parks within the city.   “Chronic flooding, deferred maintenance, and outdated infrastructure are the result of decades of underinvestment,” said Kathy Park Price, leader of New Yorkers for Parks Advocacy and Policy work. “As the Center for an Urban Future found, even a quarter inch of rain can shut down large areas of the park for days, and most of the funding over the past decade hasn’t gone to the unglamorous systems that actually keep the park functioning.”

   Shekar Krishnan, the council member for Jackson Heights, shared insights on the unequal treatment of  Flushing Meadows compared with other major NYC parks, based on a recent report from The Center for an Urban Future. “I think it’s 277 times more private investment per acre of Central Park than here in Flushing Meadows Corner Park,” Krishnan said. 

   Krishnan emphasized the lack of green space in Jackson Heights and in Queens as a whole: “In my neighborhood in Jackson Heights, we have the least amount of green space in all of New York City,” he said. “That’s why it’s important when they come here and use the different facilities and play here on the fields, that they feel that our city is treating it as the backyard that it is for millions of New Yorkers.”

   Queens Borough President Donovan Richards called for the city to do more to make “sure that we’re supporting this oasis, Flushing Meadows Corona Park.” With federal support for the city declining, Richares called for greater city investment to send “a clear message to those that seek to divide us. That this is a country and a borough, and a city that will be open to everyone.” He added, “There is no cavalry coming to save us.” 

   The Muslim Center of New York in Flushing opened its doors on October 19 to Queens residents protesting the possible construction of a casino at Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Earlier this year, Queens state Senator John Liu explained that he would introduce the bill to the Legislature about the casino, which would take over 50 acres of land from Flushing Meadows Corona Park, leaving locals furious.

   “We at the Muslim Center are completely against this regime; it will hurt us, our families, our children, our friends, and our faith,” said Abdel Ghani, a member of the Muslim Center’s board. 

   Over 250 individuals came to the protest, many hailing from Flushing, Bayside, Jackson Heights, and Jamaica.

   “Left and right, communities across New York City are rejecting a casino in their neighborhood. All three casino proposals in Manhattan were the first to reject theirs. Coney Island as well, and shockingly, last week, even Yonkers, pulled their casino project,” said Sarah Ahn, organizer with Flushing Workers Center.

   Ahn explained that there are three more proposed casinos all within “a 14-mile radius of each other. Even the Bronx Casino is actually extremely close to Flushing. And the other proposal is in Jamaica, where they already have the Resource World,” a casino opened in 2011. 

   Baojin Qiu, a Flushing resident and home attendant, said, “My husband, my son are both gamblers. Our family is broken because of this. We sold our house, we sold our business, and now a casino in our own home. John Liu, you are breaking my family, shame on you!” 

    Lifelong Flushingite Jack Hu explained to the audience that before John Liu spoke with Steve Cohen, the billionaire Mets owner hoping to build the casino, Liu was against it. Then, in March, Liu met with Cohen and decided to support the Flushing casino. 

   “He drafted a bill to alienate the parkland and pushed it through the New York State Legislature in a record speed of three months,” Hu said. “Senator John Liu works harder and faster for a billionaire’s predatory casino than he has ever worked for you.” 

    Hu added, “We plan to turn out over 2,000 people at Flushing Library, and we’re going to demand that Senator John Liu, Governor Kathy Hochul, and the gaming facility location board strike down this casino.”

  Former Queens state senator Tony Avella also expressed disagreement with the casino plan. “Unfortunately, this has not come up enough in the media,” he said. “Once you lose parkland, you never get it back. Parkland is here. And in my opinion, shame on any elected official who’s allowing parkland to be lost.”

   The state is planning to award three downstate casino licenses. The Gaming Facility Location Board will evaluate each application and base its approval on the projected revenues, number of jobs, variety of amenities, and the development of the financial aspect of the gaming facility. 

   If approved, the casino will be built near Citi-Field with a casino, hotel, a theater, over 100,000 square feet of conference space, and other amenities. The lawmakers within Albany have already approved the use of the land within the Flushing area.

The new “Shifting Seasons” exhibit at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning (JCAL) explores themes of transformation and reflection in a time of constant change. Curated by 

Alex Z., the founder and creative director of the Brooklyn Art Cave (BAC), the exhibition opened on Oct. 17 and showcases a diverse group of artists and media. 

“Curating ‘Shifting Seasons’ was both a creative and emotional process. The concept came from reflecting on change — how artists, spaces, and communities evolve, just like the seasons,” said Z. 

Founded in 1972, JCAL is a multidisciplinary arts center in the heart of southeastern Queens. It offers programming and events focused on visual arts, performing arts, and arts education. The organization serves as a space of community and celebrates the borough’s diversity. 

“JCAL’s mission as an organization is really centered around its role as a pivotal creative and cultural anchor in Queens,” said Njari Anderson, Visual Arts Programming Associate at JCAL. 

JCAL aims to be an accessible institution. Along with a rotation of exhibitions and performances at the Jamaica Performing Arts Center (JPAC), JCAL’s secondary location, JCAL also offers several dance and visual art classes, including a program called CASA/SU-CASA, which brings JCAL’s resources to schools and senior centers in Queens, including Zumba workshops and acting classes.

“This diversity in our programming wasn’t accidental: we wear our pride in Queen’s diversity on our sleeves,” said Anderson. “When we consider programming, we have to think from the perspectives of the incredibly diverse community we serve. This diversity isn’t only reflected culturally, it’s also reflected across age groups and various states of able-bodiedness, and our acknowledgement of that allows us to intrinsically operate from a place where accessibility is not an afterthought; it is the core of what we do and how we program.”

“Shifting Seasons,” as an exhibition, promotes reflection in both the artist involved and the community viewing it. The exhibit is a collaboration between JCAL and BAC. 

“It bridges two creative communities — Brooklyn and Queens — and highlights the importance of collaboration, continuity, and cultural exchange,” Z. said. Shifting Seasons feels like both a celebration of what we’ve built and a preview of what’s next.”

Above all, the exhibition showcases the artistry and community present in both BAC and JCAL. Z was able to find artists from the show through open calls, personal recommendations, and even sought out artists who previously collaborated with BAC and JCAL. The inspiration for the project came as BAC is going through its own time of change, with its current location in Bedford-Stuyvesant closing. 

The show featured artists from several different backgrounds, like Elainne Diaz from the Dominican Republic, who uses clay to explore “organic forms inspired by nature and womanhood.” Her piece, “Alma Sconce,” is a ceramic flower with a ball of light directly in the center. It heavily resembles a clam with a pearl inside, creating a comparison between different forms of nature, but showcasing that there is a light that resides at the center of it all. Another work of hers, “Protector of Light,” also exemplifies this idea, as a dark glass flower that can double as a lamp, with the purpose of holding a showcasing the light despite the dark exterior. 

“ ‘Shifting Seasons’ to me symbolizes the continual cycle of change, renewal, and growth. Just like nature, we experience phases of stillness and bloom, endings and beginnings. My work reflects this rhythm of transformation, illustrating how, like flowers and plants, we too adapt, shed, and evolve into new forms of being,” said Diaz. 

Christopher M. Liatsis, a Brooklyn-based painter and illustrator, also pulled from nature as a source of inspiration. “Flower of Time” employs a combination of pink, purple, and orange to create a valley of trees that look like they’re floating in the air. The piece is an almost intergalactic perspective of nature that could be slipping away, forcing us to reconsider what is important and worth holding onto. 

“Shifting Seasons feels like a meditation on transition and awareness—the delicate balance between what we hold onto and what we must release,” said Liatsis. “My work speaks to that through contrasts in color, texture, and light, reflecting both the turbulence and beauty of change. Each piece captures a moment between stillness and motion, much like how the natural world transforms without losing its essence.” 

Along with all the pieces on display, the gallery featured a literal reflective wall, with a sign stating, “Take a breath. What are you ready to release? Release it onto the reflection.” The wall allowed visitors to write down emotions, habits, and situations they were ready to release themselves from. The display makes the exhibit all the more introspective, prompting viewers to interact with the change in the artwork presented, while creating change in themselves. 

“The layout was designed to guide visitors through two distinct yet connected experiences: Transformation, filled with bold color and expressive movement, and Reflection, a serene space that invites calm and contemplation,” said Z. 

“Shifting Seasons” is informative, interactive, and inspirational. It allows for a deep reflection of what transformation looks like through the eyes of others, while exploring how change can look within ourselves. The exhibition also showcases JCAL’s ability to bring artistry to a community bursting with creativity without limits or restrictions. 

“We are here and we listen, but most importantly, we are here for you,” said Anderson. “We’re constantly working towards being a better organization, a better team, a better community, cultural, and creative anchor, and that’s because everyone here has an immense belief in what we do and the impact and importance it is in being Queens’s creative hub.” 

   Flushing Meadows Corona Park promoted climate week with a new Hackberry tree planted on Sept 21st. Standing high in the depths of the park it sparked a new focus on the perennial plants that are never truly taken care of: Our Trees. 

   Alliance For Flushing Meadows Corona Park, which supports New York City Parks and Recreation Department’s maintenance and operations team, partnered with a Minneapolis based artist to bring a new life to the scenic park. The effect was to draw more attention to the need for trees not only in Queens but New York City and the tristate area. 

   “If we can cheer for the US Open, if we can cheer for a tennis player, why can’t we cheer for a tree?” said the artist, Amanda Lovelee. 

   She brought her two loves, art and community together by making this event not only educational but into a parade that she named ‘Homecoming’.  

   “It’s really just bringing up environmental issues in a playful way,” said Lovelee. “A tree is a tree and we all love trees,” she said. Lovelee uses trees as a tool to speak about climate and “to talk about the environment, again, in a non-threatening, joyful way.”

   This tree planting was a combination of informing families about the importance of trees and having activities that brought children of all ages closer to understanding what trees do for them and their climate. Children participated in press planting and writing encouraging messages for the trees that surrounded them. 

   “The trees are important because they give us life, and in a concrete jungle, it’s nice to have a little bit of nature by us,” said Gabriel Marin, a climber pruner with New York Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks). “These trees also provide oxygen for us and not just oxygen, they enrich us. They bring beauty into our communities.”

   This event was filled with children learning the different types of trees within the park, such as: London Plane trees, Hackberry trees, and Okame Cherry trees, to name a few. Hackberry trees are deciduous trees that provide food for wildlife and is a host plant for caterpillars making it a mandatory tree for the local food chain. 

   Jennifer Graeff, the Director of Strategic Planning and Engagement at NYC Parks, had a message for the children who participated in the event. “We’re hoping that these are our future stewards and that they come back and they care for the trees,” she said. “We hope they come out and care for other parts of the park. There’s so much that this park offers. I was so thrilled to see so many little ones here getting excited.” 

   Graeff wasn’t the only one with a testament to the importance of children learning about climate safety at a young age, Marin had his own knowledge to share: “It’s important that we educate our kids on what trees do for us. I think it’s great and important. 100%.

Gathering at the edge of the Amazon property line in Maspeth, Queens, Teamsters and community members rallied on September 8th to demand justice after 105 unionized drivers were fired. The union is also pressuring Amazon to negotiate a contract that would include higher wages and workplace safety protections. 

“At night, we came to drop off the truck, and they told us, do not come. No reason for why Amazon cut the contract. No nothing. Just go home,” said Kalid, who declined to give his last name, a terminated driver who had been with Amazon since December. “They do not even wish us luck.” 

Amazon maintains that because the drivers had been subcontracted under the Delivery Service Provider (DSP) Cornucopia, they were not officially employed by Amazon and therefore were not fired by the megacorporation when the contract was abruptly cut – a “scam” tactic that the Teamsters say Amazon employs to deny culpability for the firings. 

In 2024, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that Amazon is a joint employer of DSP drivers, and has a legal obligation to recognize and bargain with the union. An Amazon spokesperson refuted the claims in a statement to Mashable, saying that the Teamsters were using misinformation to spread their agenda and that the NLRB had never told them they must bargain with the union. In an attempt to block a case alleging the company unfairly retaliated against workers who voted to unionize, Amazon has claimed that NLRB proceedings deny the company a trial by jury, violating its Fifth Amendment rights to due process. Amazon asked for a temporary restraining order until its claims could be reviewed, which was denied. 

After President Trump took office in January 2025, he fired NLRB Board Chair Gwynne Wilcox, leaving the board without the three-member quorum needed to make rulings on cases regarding unlawful labor practices or union representation. “Unless an employer is willing to go along with what the board says, the employer can stall a case indefinitely right now,” Lauren McFerran, who served as chair of the board during the Biden administration, told The Guardian. 

In 2024, workers at the Maspeth facility voted to join  the Teamsters union, which represents almost 10,000 Amazon employees across the country. The union gave Amazon a deadline of December 15, 2024, to begin the collective bargaining process nationwide. Amazon failed to do so, triggering strikes at multiple facilities across the country, including Maspeth. Amazon still refuses to come to the bargaining table, instead using scare tactics and misinformation to dissuade workers from joining the union, according to warehouse employee Tristan Martinez. 

“For seven years, all I’ve seen is Amazon care less and less and get away with more, and more and more. There is no reason somebody working 40 hours a week should not be able to make their rent. There is no reason why 105 people should be fired, and then people should say, oh, you don’t want to work,” said Martinez. He added that while the terminated drivers would be happy to have their jobs back, they would “not work for scraps. We will not work for the bare minimum. We will not work for a company that will step right over us if we fall.” 

While passing drivers honked in solidarity, several politicians stood to support the Teamsters and their struggle for labor rights amidst the Trump administration’s continued attacks on workers. We must “remind the corporations and the billionaires that they did not get there alone. That they became rich off the blood, sweat, and tears of your neighbors,” said Brooklyn Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes. “And while the 1% feels emboldened with this administration, we’re here to say we are standing with our union brothers and sisters and remind you that we are the 99%.” Other politicians present included Queens Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas and City Council Members Sandy Nurse and Amanda Farías. 

The Teamsters’ demands have yet to be recognized. But union leaders assured members that the fight was not over, chanting, “Because when we fight – WE WIN!” 

   The Eastern Queens Alliance (EQA), a coalition that addresses conflicts around community sustainability, partnered with Con Edison over the summer to make a street lot into a maintained garden for the Laurelton community. 

    Community gardens have been in distress over the past few months, according to NBC New York and other news organizations, as they have been on the brink of shutting down due to the city government’s plans to sell the land to developers. However, this Queens community garden is here to stay, as it is now owned by EQA. 

   “The location was an unused street bed. It has for years been a blight on the community,” said Barbara E. Brown, Chairperson at EQA. 

   The lot was used as an illegal car and dump site. This was bad news for the community as the lot sits beside the Idelwild Environmental Center and the Blue Belt system of Idelwild wetlands. 

   EQA was able to get possession of the vacant land by obtaining permission from the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) to make the abandoned lot into a community peace garden. 

   “Just preparing the land for a viable garden has been difficult because of prior misuse,” said Brown. 

   Volunteers have been floating in and out of the garden weekly since August 2025, with some days being more hands-on than others. This community garden is set to be completed later this year.  

   “During the summer, we’ll probably get maybe two corporate volunteer groups of about 20 people coming in for a day to do major projects,” said Harold Joseph, the gardener designated to this garden. “Consistently, we usually get around five people during spring and summer.”

   Many Laurelton residents are not new to volunteering, as they have been advocates for the revival of their Queens community. Gardener and Laurelton resident, Diana Alleyson-Wilson, is no different: “It [community gardens] brings people together. We get to know our neighbors because we don’t know our neighbors, we don’t know people, we see people in passing, but these community gardens get us communicating.”

   The Laurelton community is a wetlands area, making the community garden compatible with environmental and ecological lifestyles. 

   “Aesthetically, it [the community garden] will serve to beautify the area,” Brown said. The community garden not only provides a serene space, but it also gives opportunities for people in the community to get involved and volunteer their time and passion to gardening projects.

   “It offers opportunities for fostering biodiversity, mindfulness through walking of the labyrinth, and a variety of possible community-wide activities offered by EQA and the center,” Brown said. 

   EQA prides itself on being an organization focused on supporting sustainable practices. The making of the garden will also follow this clause. “We are trying to use more native low-maintenance plantings here,” Joseph said, which will require a smaller amount of water. 

   “We are also trying to cut down on the space so we wouldn’t have to rely on mowing the space itself,” he said. 

   Householders within this community are trusting of community gardens as they allow more people to be attuned with each other and their environment. “It [Community Gardens] is about the coexistence of us all and recognizing that we all need to coexist with each other,” Alleyson-Wilson said. 

New York City has not had a single mayor– at least since consolidation in 1898– to come from Queens. For over 135 years, NYC has had mayors from other states and even other countries, but none from our largest borough. This doesn’t mean that Queensites don’t run for mayor. In fact, there are two Queens politicians that have thrown their hats in the ring for next year’s mayoral race, and they might have a real shot to make history.

Zohran Mamdani and Jessica Ramos are two progressive candidates based in Astoria and Jackson Heights, respectively. They’re both a part of a new breed of Democrat that has only risen in popularity in the past few years: staunchly progressive local politicians in their 30s and 40s, often finding themselves brushing against the ideals of the party establishment but still capturing a mostly young, racially diverse coalition of support. Ramos and Mamdani have not yet achieved the status of members of “The Squad” (a group of progressive Congress members including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Jamaal Bowman) but they’ve still been able to carve out names for themselves in their communities and are both aiming to take Mayor Eric Adams’ seat next year. However, recent New York voting trends may prove this difficult for both mayoral hopefuls.

Zohran Mamdani was born in Uganda but has lived in NYC since he was seven years old and has served two terms as the representative of the New York State Assembly’s 36th District. He first rose on the scene with his campaign for State Assembly in 2019 as a challenger to a four-term incumbent. He advocated for statewide rent control, fare-free transit, and single-payer healthcare — proposals that he still holds onto in his current mayoral campaign—and was able to achieve a narrow victory. Mamdani has used his platform to be somewhat of an activist in his community, taking part in one hunger strike which achieved more than $450 million in debt relief for taxi drivers, and another hunger strike for a ceasefire in Gaza. He also played a key role in winning over $100 million in the state budget for increased subway service and a successful fare-free bus pilot which went into effect on five bus routes from September of 2023 to August of this year. Mamdani has already received endorsements from organizations like the NYC Democratic Socialists of America, New York Communities For Change, and Jewish Voice For Peace. 

Jessica Ramos was born and raised in Queens and now serves as a State Senator for District 13. Her star rose just a year prior to Mamdani’s. In 2018, she announced her candidacy for State Senate, also going against a four-term incumbent and running on proposals to decriminalize sex work and reform the criminal justice system. She was able to secure endorsements from then-mayor Bill de Blasio and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, pushing her across the finish line. In her tenure as chair of the Senate Labor Committee, Ramos was able to pass 19 bills, most of which expanded labor protections for immigrant workers. For next year’s election, Ramos has been endorsed by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. United Auto Workers Region 9A has endorsed both Ramos and Mamdani, along with fellow candidate and current NYC Comptroller Brad Lander. Mamdani and Ramos’ political leanings don’t seem out of place for a city that’s often thought of as one of the most progressive places in the country. However, recent elections show that this historically deep blue stronghold may be turning more purple, as Republicans have slowly gained vote share.

Although some skeptics question whether there is a “red shift,” Ben Max, executive editor at New York Law School’s Center for New York City and State Law, says numbers bear it out. “Elections come down to the vote, tally and the percentages of the turnout that each candidate wins. So while Democrats can rightly point to a big drop off in voter turnout, that is also reflective of the overall political atmosphere that shows Republican momentum, which also includes the fact that some voters did clearly move from Democratic support to Republican support.”

The 2024 presidential election saw an unexpected, substantial shift to the right in the majority of New York City. In Ramos’ own neighborhood of Jackson Heights, Donald Trump picked up 13% more of the vote than he did in 2020. Trump also improved his share of the vote in Mamdani’s district, which includes North Astoria, garnering 7% more of the vote than four years earlier. “The City’s” election map draws up over 200 individual neighborhoods across NYC, and Kamala Harris was only able to improve on Biden’s 2020 share of the vote in seven. This also tracks with the 2022 gubernatorial election. Governor Kathy Hochul did end up winning, but her Republican challenger, Lee Zeldin, still managed to capture 47% percent of the vote, a significantly higher percentage than any other Republican candidate in the last 20 years. In next year’s mayoral election, the Democratic party will have to decide the best way to navigate. 

“The battle for supremacy within the Democratic Party is ongoing,” said Max, but it is still in the lead in New York city and state. “There are results in New York City and beyond that point to more centrism among voters, but when you are talking about a primary for a nominee of the party, that is going to be battled out among Democrats,” he said, “and therefore you have a number of more progressive candidates in the race, taking on a more centrist and moderate incumbent mayor so that makes a lot of sense that the field would shape up that way.” 

Max noted that New York voters may not fit into neat categories, like “progressive,” or “moderate.” “We see a lot of candidates for mayor who are trying to offer a broad platform or vision that is not necessarily about being progressive or moderate but it’s about trying to speak to voters’ needs and wants,” he said.

For next year’s mayoral election, Max sees the possibility of not only a progressive, but also a Queens politician. 

“Many political leaders wind up coming from Manhattan or Brooklyn and Queens, despite its size, doesn’t always have the same political heft as those two other boroughs,” said Max, “and it’s very interesting that you have two mayoral candidates in the Democratic primary from Queens. But the idea of a mayor from Queens is a very interesting one in part because of Queen’s size and importance and also because it is such an incredibly diverse borough in many ways and such a symbol of the broader city.” 

For some New York City residents, new murals popping up are simply fresh new pieces of art to brighten a neighborhood, but to others, they represent a deeper, troubling trend, gentrification. High-income neighborhoods like Cobble Hill, Dumbo, and Williamsburg all have rent prices higher than median rent prices in Brooklyn, and New York City as a whole, according to 2023 data from the Furman Center. And The New York City Parks Department Public Art Map shows that these neighborhoods have higher concentrations of public art, including murals, statues, temporary and permanent installations,  than their more affordable counterparts, like East Brooklyn and Canarsie. 

Meres Ones, a graffiti artist born in the South Bronx and raised in Queens is no stranger to how the street art and graffiti scenes in New York have evolved. “ I started in ‘87 as a graffiti artist, which is pretty much all the lettering,” Meres shared. “There really wasn’t a street art movement back then.” 

Meres went on to found and curate 5 Pointz, a collection of graffiti projects created by different artists along the exterior walls of an abandoned factory on Jackson Avenue in Long Island City, Queens. Despite 5 Pointz’s notoriety in the art world, it was demolished In 2013 amidst the rapid gentrification and industrialization of Long Island City. Now, a high-rise luxury apartment building sits in its place. 

“There have been cases where real estate people, or people that have buildings, didn’t necessarily care and would give legal permission to have artists do lettering. It was easy to get walls at the time.” Meres continued, “In real estate now they’re realizing that you can hire artists to paint, and then those walls that were available to us are now taken away for ads.” 

But graffiti artists aren’t the only ones to notice the link between a rise in corporate street art and changing neighborhoods. In recent years, Bushwick has become prime real estate for artists, but their presence has had negative impacts on longtime residents. According to rental market trends, rent prices in Bushwick have increased by 5% in the last month. 

Among those noticing this trend is Wendy Martinez, a lifelong Bushwick resident, who can still recall a Bushwick before the murals, galleries, and cafes. “The walls that were once covered in graffiti, or were blank, are now covered by “acceptable” graffiti and artwork.”  She noted how Black and Latinx community members were persecuted for graffiti. “I remember police chases happening at night when I was younger because of teens and adults tagging on walls in the neighborhood or spray painting artwork on vacant walls.” 

Now, Martinez says the art that surrounds her neighborhood reflects, and draws, a different crowd, “it was mostly young, white, affluent people that were moving in.” According to Martinez, landlords in the area have taken advantage of these shifting demographics. Her own rent has increased by 58% in the last three years. 

“To see my own community being forced out of their homes while local organizations fight to keep generational families from leaving is really disheartening,” Martinez said. 

For Meres, preventing street art from becoming a force of gentrification is all about creating a balanced relationship between artists and the real estate industry. “You know you want to paint the murals, you want to try to get paid and balance it. But you also don’t want to overly gentrify a neighborhood where coffees are like 12 bucks.” 

New York City transportation is in a painful period. Since the end of the Cuomo-De Blasio era, there’s been no shortage of ambitious ideas from Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams to greatly reimagine the city’s infrastructure and economy. But these ideas are prone to roadblocks and resistance, as with Adams’s City Of Yes proposal. The Interborough Express could be just another victim of the friction that comes with trying to transform one Earth’s largest, most complex cities. But public officials are determined to move the project ahead.

The Interborough Express, also known as the IBX, has been a long-time goal for Governor Kathy Hochul dating to her 2022 State of the State address. In January 2023, she announced that the project would run on a light-rail line, intending for the tram to run along Metropolitan Ave and 69th Street. 

 Although light-rail isn’t a new or unusual form of transportation in other cities, it is for New York. The IBX would be the first of its kind in NYC, and that’s something that some critics fear the city may not be prepared for. 

Skeptics voiced concerns about a train line segment in the middle of a busy street.

it seems as if the MTA and New York government heard these concerns loud and clear.

On October 29th, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards hosted a press conference with MTA higher ups to give updates on the development of the IBX. The controversial concept to have the IBX run through the streets of Queens and Brooklyn has been scrapped, with the MTA instead deciding to have the light-rail line run through a proposed tunnel underneath a Middle Village cemetery. 

This is an interesting turn of events, as the MTA’s previous plan to have the line run along the street was in part to avoid interfering with this cemetery and disrupting the site of over 500,000 burials. MTA Chairman Janno Lieber was asked how the agency was able to find a solution to interfering with the graves. Lieber avoided providing a direct answer, instead shifting to tout how this new plan will reduce travel time and avoid conflicting with automobiles on the street.

“We’re looking at a tunnel at Metropolitan Avenue that will allow us to avoid street running to make the IBX faster and more reliable,” Jamie Torres-Springer, MTA President of Construction and Development said earlier in the conference. “This will save every rider a few minutes and enable us to run in a dedicated right of way the whole 14 miles which brings us a whole lot of efficiency.” Chairman Lieber later clarified that the new concept would cut “five minutes or more” off the previously estimated 40 minute ride.

“We’re taking an underutilized freight train line -– basically only gets one freight train a day — and we’re turning into something that’s transformative for many New Yorkers,” said Lieber. “It makes no sense that the 5 million people who live in Brooklyn and Queens have to go to Manhattan on the subway to reach the other borough. Makes no sense.” 

“We’re all mindful of the fact that the congestion pricing pause is in effect, but we were able to get some money from the state of New York to keep this project moving forward at least at the design stage and, too, we got some funding from our federal partners,” Leiber said. He made sure to give a shout out to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (who he called New York’s “guardian angel in Washington”) and President Joe Biden.

A core justification for congestion pricing was to rake in an extra $1 billion per year, which would serve as the largest source of funding for the MTA. This money would have been used to expand, improve, and maintain public transportation, including proposals such as the IBX. 

The IBX has had to rely instead on a $68 billion capital plan that was approved by the MTA Board last month. In lieu of congestion pricing, this extra burst in funding was desperately needed by the MTA in order to keep the dream of the IBX afloat.

As of now, the MTA is still yet to begin the preliminary design process, with part of the press conference earlier this week being a call for bidders and contractors. The designing and engineering process alone is estimated to take two years.