Astoria - It Might As Well Be in Oregon

Astoria residents gaze across the East River to freedom and really expensive bars

Astoria is a quiet neighborhood at the northern tip of Queens, replete with many a Greek restaurant, Beer Garden, Hookah bar, and pizza place that also sells hamburgers. It was named for John Jacob Astor, who was the richest man in America in the early 1800s. In fact, the name was chosen with the hope that Astor would donate money to the neighborhood. Though he was worth roughly 40 million dollars at the time, Astor (the patron saint of "one percenters") only donated $500 to the fledgling village, and never actually set foot in it despite living roughly one mile away.

Astor: Fuck Haircuts, Get Money.

Thanks to Astor, the tradition of living really close to Queens but never actually going there became common practice among New Yorkers in other boroughs, and the phrase "Why don't you just come to Brooklyn instead?" was carved into an ornate granite archway that had been meant to decorate the northern side of the Pulaski Bridge, but was never installed because nobody in Brooklyn has a real job. As usual, the deficit of "white people" in Astoria lends it a certain air of authenticity that can only be achieved by lacking both Whole Foods and Urban Outfitters. A veritable Wild West for the "Urban Homesteader," Astoria is a harsh mistress who demands you go to three stores instead of two when you need to find grass-fed beef, outdated camera equipment, and "loft art" all in the same shopping trip.

Climbing a mountain of produce for a box of Kleenex really makes you feel like you earned the right to blow your nose.

Despite all the "scary" ethnic people in Long Island City, Brooklynites from such bastions of youth "culture" as Williamsburg and Bushwick are slowly being scooted up and out of the honky paradise they've created to make way for actual rich people. This means that in roughly five years, the lower half of Queens will be festooned with cleverly named coffee shops, vegan delis, artisanal suspender factories, and whatever personal transportation fad replaces fixies by then (my bet's on "analog" Segways, which are just push mowers with pedals where the blades normally go.) It's only a matter of time before Camel makes a "Hunters Point" cigarette and the cycle begins anew. Will Astoria remain safe from the ravages of gentrification? With a little luck, and a lot of spanakopita, It's got at least another decade.