A Flushing-bound 7 train at 6:55 p.m. The crowd at Court Square was a couple people deep. That guy knew I was taking a picture.

NEWS

- A 9-year-old girl was allegedly stabbed by her mom Tuesday morning in Springfield Gardens. 

- A 65-year-old woman was stabbed to death in Queens Village.

- How was your commute home last night? The LIRR experienced delays from a stalled Amtrak train, and then after a man was struck and killed on the tracks in Forest Hills. Those waiting at Penn Station were treated to a broken AC. And SOMETHING was up with the 7 train.

- A NIMBY response to the idea of re-opening the Rockaway Beach branch of the LIRR

- The NYPD is looking for a man who a 19-year-old woman says raped her in Richmond Hill. He was last seen wearing a Family Guy tank top.

- HOW ABOUT THIS FREAKIN’ WEATHA? 

- Rep. Gary Ackerman endorsed Grace Meng, and City and State reports Wednesday morning that the retiring Congressman has financial ties to her campaign. Mark Green endorsed one of her opponents, Rory Lancman. Both are running for the Congress in the new 6th District. 

- Jamaica is filled with garbage, according to Mr. Bullshit Exposer.

FUN

- Coming soon from The 7 Line: Shirts honoring that kid from Queens, Mike Baxter.

- Congrats to the St. John’s baseball team, kings of the Big East. They face Eastern Carolina next.

- Speaking of the Johnnies, the boys on the hardwood are back in the race for hot-shot shot-blocker Chris Obekpa. 

- Mets win. 

- For the 1939 World’s Fair, various city agencies were asked to create an art exhibit. The Board of Water Supply created an intricate map of NYC’s watershed, which was never fully displayed. It’s been restored and you can now check it out at the Queens Museum of Art! 

(I love Queens. I love news roundups. Here’s my attempt, look out for it.)

Banner Day was back for the Mets! (Ben Solomon/NYTimes)

NEWS

- Two World War II vets were honored at Maspeth’s Memorial Day Parade.

- The 11377 zip code — Woodside — lost more people during the Vietnam War than any other postal code in the nation. Dennis Hammil remembers two who went off to war.

- The Greenpoint Ave. and Sunnyside Gardens Memorial Park fairs kicked off Saturday.

- The Peninsula Prep charter school, housed in the former Stella Maris High School, will remain open. It was slated to close at the end of the year.

- Rep. Bob Turner received an endorsement in his US Senate race from the Allegany County GOP.

- Lots of people marched in Monday’s Memorial Day Parade in Little Neck/Douglaston.

- The beaches are open! The beaches are open! And somebody forgot to fix the boardwalk in Rockaway.

GOING OUT

- An Outlaw’s Tale: Carl Labove at the Laughing Devil, LIC on Tuesday

- Chest Hair at the Creek and the Cave, Tuesday

EATING/DRINKING

-Here’s a list of the greenmarkets around the borough.

- Stuff your face at the new stands on the Rockaway boardwalk (My fav of the new spots, Steve’s Ice Cream on Beach 106 has pretzel cones & dairy-free ice cream!)

- Go hang out in Molly Blooms on Queens Boulevard in Sunnyside. Their fish and chips are amazing and the backyard space is the perfect place when the weather gets nice.

going fast, going slow.

I’ll blame this all on growing up in a beach town, in the middle of a pinky jutting off a bigger hand surrounded — almost — by water. But summers have always been something special. Any sadness, disappointment, depression, fights, ennui, feelings of doubt or uncertainty can be fixed after one full day on the beach, in which your pale skin begins to turn just like your mood.

For the last 7 years or so, I’ve been declaring the summer ahead of me the “best summer ever.” By August I forget all about this. I still manage to have fun, but the summers don’t give me that “bestness” that I thought would come. Yet every May I make the same declaration, to anyone who will listen.

“Best summer ever?”

It’s hopeful. It’s light. It’s summer.

And what would it take to make it the best? The beach, of course, and lots of it. Barbecues. A couple after-parties at the secret Tiki Bar, after a long night out at my favorite bars. A volleyball championship (PLEASE GOD.) Sunrises at The Compound. Camping. An early-morning road trip (perhaps on the way to camping.) One long weekday off, where I start and end the day on my bicycle.

This summer I’m also working with two friends on a web series, writing about working for 5 and living for 2 — the weekend warriors we’re forced to become as adults. It’s fun. It’s creative. It’s hard. It might be what pushes this summer into official “best” territory — by trying something new that I’ve always wanted to. 

And as long as I get a tan I’ll be happy with whatever the outcome.

look at this f’ing jerk. last night on the 7 train.

#queens #franfine (Taken with instagram)

Yes.

Sunrise is the best light but I love sleep too much to usually notice.

memorial day weekend.

Maybe it’s just me, but does Rockaway need to become the next gastronerd paradise?

Do we need an A Train that is more crowded and beardy this summer?

Do we need $10 fish tacos, “après surf” options like pork rinds from Meat Hook, a fish sandwich from Roberta’s, arepas and empanadas from Caracas, Gloucester lobsters and clams from Sam Buffa sold in our boardwalk food shops?

Do we need to sit in front of the food shack on Beach 106 Street and sip a frozen drink while we watch dog walkers defile the Rockaway Rockies hockey rink?

Perhaps we do, but I am as confused as hell.

The rumor on the street – and in the Village Voice, New York magazine and the New York Times – is that the Department of Parks has decided to give its concession for several boardwalk stands and up to 20 food carts to Andrew Field and David Selig. For the past two years or so, they have run the Rockaway Taco Shack on Rockaway Beach Boulevard and Beach 96 Street.

The two men have received lots of hype from the daily papers and the glossy magazines over that time for being “hip” and drawing the surfing crowd to Rockaway.

I tried their overpriced fish taco and gave up, but that’s just me.

I really don’t like “hip.”

I’m more like Lou Grant, the old newspaper man who tells new hire Mary Richards that she’s Perky and then blows up her bubble by saying, “I hate perky.”

I hate hip because I find it pretentious and overblown; that it makes more of nothing than anything else I have ever experienced in my 71 years on this planet.

Now comes the expansion of hip to the boardwalk.

From the Village Voice blog:

“Grub Street has heard that Rockaway Taco’s Andrew Field and David Selig have been talking to the Meat Hook, Vinegar Hill House, Roberta’s and Caracas Arepa Bar about contributing food to the boardwalk concession stands. There may also be 20 or so mobile vendors roaming the beach, all chosen by Rockaway Taco. Should it come to pass, expect the A Train to get a lot more crowded and beardy this summer.”

Actually, one of my younger colleagues had to explain to me that “beardy” really means hip.

From New York magazine:

“Rockaway Taco still hasn’t announced that it’ll be taking over the Rockaway Beach boardwalk concessions at Beach 86, 97, and 106 Streets, but we hear that a contract with the Parks Department is in the works – and that’s not the only thing we’ve discovered from sources close to the deal. Not only are Andrew Field and David Selig said to be planning a boardwalk satellite at Beach 97 Street that will specialize in seviche and Mexican sandwiches, they’re also talking to folks at Roberta’s, The Meat Hook, Caracas and Sam Buffa of Vinegar Hill house about contributing to the menus in the concession stands. And, Bowery Beef has been eyeing the Beach 106 Street stand in hopes of serving roast beef sandwiches as well as shellfish, including Gloucester lobsters.”

Here’s what confuses me.

The original request for proposal put out by the Parks Department made it clear that no food item could sell for more than $3.00 without the express permission of the department, and it was made clear that permission to go above that amount would not be given lightly.

After all, this is boardwalk and beach food, traditionally limited to hamburgers and hot dogs, pizza and cold drinks.

Are they saying that you can get a shell fish or lobster meal for $3.00? I don’t think so.

While I was surfing the web looking for information on the two men who are apparently getting a concession from the city to serve Rockaway, I decided to take a look at some of the restaurants they were inviting to add menu items. They didn’t sound cheap, and I found that they are not.

For example, a typical meal at Roberta’s Pizza runs $20 to $25 a person.

A Caracas arepas sells for $6.75 and up and a simple plate costs north of $11.00.

If the new concessionaire wants to use meat from The Meat Hook for their hamburgers, they are going to be costly. The cheapest ground beef goes for more than $6 a pound.

At the Vinegar Hill House, a small salad goes for $10 and a cast-iron chicken dinner goes for $17.

You have to wonder what the Parks Department has wrought.

Can you see a Rockaway family of four from one of the Mitchell Lama housing complexes hard on the boardwalk spending $50 or $60 for lunch? I can’t. The food is obviously not aimed at our residents, but at drawing hipsters from Manhattan to surf and eat.

Sure!

While I was surfing the web, I ran into a posting about Selig, who owned a chain of Rice restaurants in Brooklyn.

Seems that he was sued in 2009 by six former employees at various Rice locations, alleging overtime pay violations and improper record-keeping.

The plaintiffs, whose job it was to prepare the food, wash dishes and clean said that they were not paid the legal minimum wage or appropriate overtime compensation. The federal suit describes a work environment where employees were paid with envelopes of cash and routinely worked 60 to 78 hour weeks.

The restaurant reportedly settled the 2009 suit for $90,000.

We have to wonder if the Parks Department knew about the lawsuit before granting the concession to Selig, or perhaps they were too hip to worry about such a small problem.

Howie Schwach is the editor of my neighborhood newspaper, The Wave. I like the Taco stand, like Veggie Island, and will probably eat a bunch of pizzas when Roberta’s has a stand by me. But he also appeals to my anti-hip heart, and recognizes that these stands are not for the Rockaway residents so much as the people who visit. Is that a bad thing? I’m not sure.

That’s one Queens resident, at a protest in front of City Hall, speaking out against the accidental rise in taxes on properties in her borough. The middle-aged “rebels” first spoke out against the increase in January, when it was revealed that the city’s Finance Department “appeared to have made a mistake in assessing some properties in Queens and had accidentally inflated market values on some co-ops by as much as 147 percent.” This greatly increased property taxes, and greatly angered those living in co-ops all across Queens.

-KH

[NYT]