By Matt Chaban 4/13/12 3:07pm

Kings of Queens

It's all around us. (Guggenheim)

A Priest, Das Racist and the Guggenheim Walk Into a Jackson Heights Coffee Shop: SO-IL Creates Latest stillspotting Installation

Queens has been kind to the architects at SO-IL. The small Brooklyn-based firm is run by husband and wife Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu (the name stands for Solid Objective-Idenburg Liu, though any Beastie Boys referents are not lost on them).

Their first major success, not counting Mr. Idenburg’s time designing the New Museum for Japanese firm Sanaa, was P.S. 1’s Pole Dance pavilion two summers ago, arguably the best installation in the Young Architecture Program’s dozen years. This     spring, another pavilion, this one for the Frieze Art Fair, will open on Randall’s Island (yes, technically part of Manhattan, but it certainly feels more like Queens with its big, open spaces and proximity to Astoria). And now, in their most ephemeral and ambitious effort yet, SO-IL is—very quietly—taking over Jackson Heights with the Guggenheim for four weekends starting tomorrow.

Welcome to Transhistoria, the latest installment in the Guggenheim’s stillspotting program.

“How can we look at cities without constantly begin accosted by them,” said David van der Leer, an assistant curator for architecture at the Guggenheim. Read More

By Lysandra Ohrstrom 2/20/08 6:12pm

Meet Mr. Pea–Er, Jack Heights

There are plenty of mascots representing various schools, universities, sports teams, restaurants, bands, and even roller derby teams across the five boroughs.

Scooter the Holy Cow represents Staten Island’s minor league baseball team the Yankees; the Brooklyn Cyclones have Sandy the Seagull and Pee Wee; Queens University has Boohoo the Bear; NYU’s mascot is Read More

By Staff 9/11/06 4:15pm

Just Making Sure

The Department of Justice will be in town tomorrow watching the polls during voting hours in Brooklyn, Queens and Westchester “to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act,” the agency announced today. They’ll also be monitoring results in Queens after hours. (They must have read about the bare-knuckled campaigning in Jackson Heights).

The Read More

By Staff 8/28/06 2:17pm

Campaigning in Corona

When is crime a campaign issue? Maybe when campaign aides have to file police reports.

“We don’t have polling numbers, we have Compstat,” said State Senator John Sabini of Jackson Heights after a third police report was filed by his campaign.

On August 14, computers from Sabini’s campaign office was stolen.
On August Read More

By Staff 8/16/06 8:13am

Campaigning, Jackson Heights Style

Jackson Heights has been the front lines in the fight between the Queens Democratic Party and ethnic-driven insurgent candidates. So when it comes time to campaign, there’s a mix of styles, which made this latest campaign filing between state Senator John Sabini and his challenger, Councilman Hiram Monserrate, so interesting.

Sabini, along with Councilwoman Helen Read More

By Staff 8/14/06 4:52pm

Sabini HQ Broken Into, Data Stolen

Senator John Sabini of Jackson Heights, who is in a hard-fought re-election campaign against Hiram Monserrate, has just had two computers stolen from his campaign office, according to a campaign spokesman.

“We’re going to have to be a lot more careful with how we store our data,” Sabini’s spokesman, Shams Tarek, told me.

According Read More

By Staff 4/24/06 6:09pm

Events for April 25, 2006

In the morning, Joe Crowley meets with local immigration advocates and service providers in Jackson Heights, just before New York University’s Center on Law & Security hosts a conference on presidential powers at the NYU School of Law, with keynote speaker John Dean.

In the evening, Libertarians meet up in Brooklyn, but Bill Read More