30th Avenue Liquor License Map (using GIS)

Impact of 30th Avenue Clubs & Cafes on Community

Residents are experiencing brawls at 3am, fights in the streets, urination on private proberty, beer bottles, trash and drug packets on the sidewalk, recklessly speeding cars with souped up engines screeching and revving their way down residential streets. There have been a few accidents and numerous arrests.

It's PAR-Tay time on 30th Avenue and "Happy Hours" for the cafes but Happy Hour begins about 11:30 PM and goes all night long, especially on the weekends.

If you're want to see Quality of Life return, email us a sentence or two. NNA is sending The New York State Liquor Authority letters and comments from residents re clubs and cafes with liquor licenses.

Out of Context Development: NORWOOD WANTS A MORATORIUM!!!

Is it true that three 2 family homes will be torn down on 36th Street?

Workers were pounding in construction fence posts at 36-88 36th Street and a "Full Demolition" permit is nailed to the front door.

As the commercial overlay under current R6 zoning permits huge apartment buildings on this low rise street, our community will feel the pain.

Norwood Gardens demands introducing a "Moratorium Legislation Bill" to stop block busting developers from taking advantage of outmoded laws in neighborhoods whose zoning is under review.

It may be legal to build a 50 foot 8 unit apartment building and an 80 foot 10 unit apartment building with a community facility on 36th Street but it's WRONG!

A protest rally is being planned. Stay tuned!

ELECTED OFFICIALS!
CITY PLANNING!
DEPARTMENT OF BUILDINGS!
WILL YOU ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN?
NORWOOD GARDENS RESIDENTS DEMAND A MORATORIUM!

OVERSATURATION OF LIQUOR LICENSES ON 30TH AVENUE

Our neighborhood is great! 30th Avenue is a thriving and vital shopping street chock full of cafes and nightspots. 30th Avenue is so popular, people come from all over NYC to hang out, party and be seen. The new cafes and clubs have much to recommend them but there has also been a serious fall out, impacting the lives of those who live here.

Visitors to 30th Avenue cafes are not always very conscientious and show no respect towards the neighborhood or those who live here. Cars are emptied of fast food containers, beer bottles, cigarette butts and trash. Late night fighting and yelling wake people at 3 am, 4 am and 5 am - arrests have been made. Cars travel at dangerous high speeds, especially for our quiet residential streets. In the past year, 36th and 37th Streets have recently experienced a number of serious accidents involving cars and at least one involving alcohol.

Norwood residents seek a return to a more balanced and enjoyable quality of life. With that aim in mind, we invite cafe owners to recognize their responsibility to the community and pitch in. NNA hopes to initiate a "clean up" task force on 35th, 36th and 37th Streets, those hardest hit by litter and hope the cafes will participate in picking up after their patrons. In addition we ask that cafe owners abide by the law and close their club according to the hours stated on the liquor license. Above all, we ask that clubs not serve intoxicated and belligerent guests as many will be driving home in their car after a night out in Astoria.

NNA urges the NYSLA to investigate and open up its eyes to the effects of cafe and club overload in a residential neighborhood.

Fall Beautification

It's fall again! Come join Norwood neighbors for a September Spiff Up (date and time TBA soon). Let's hear your Quality of Life concerns and changes you would like to see in the community. Together we can make our streets safer and cleaner.


September's agenda includes:

1) Beautification. A neglected street encourages vandalism and litter. With NNA'S fall spiff up, our streets will look cared for and visitors will be more likely to respect our blocks. NNA made a start on 36th Street (see photos below) on cleaning up tree pits. Working together we can make a huge difference and feel proud of our neighborho0d.

• 2) Quality of life issues: with the influx of 30th Avenue nightlife, noise pollution (at 3, 4 and 5 AM), vandalism, reckless speeding and trash thrown on our streets have been on the rise. We need to work with our precinct and elected officials to address QOL issues. These problems will not go away and will only get worse until we have an action plan. Together we can do it!
  

A sad block

A happier tree!

Check out NNA's Spiff Up sneak preview: a little effort makes a huge difference! Weeds and trash were removed, dirt raked through to take out glass, old batteries and debris. Then the stones were swept up! Our trees are happier, our blocks look cared for and our neighborhood is a more welcoming place for all.

Norwood Gardens History

A Brief History of Norwood Gardens

Norwood Gardens, one of many planned communities built in Astoria, Queens in the late 1920's, was underwritten by Metropolitan Life Insurance Company during a period of expansion in New York CIty which provided access to Astoria via the Queensboro Bridge (then called Blackwell's Bridge) and a fast growing rapid transit system.

Norwood Gardens offered city dwellers a better quality of life than that which the city's apartment dwellers found in the small, crowded, dark apartments of Manhattan. Astoria had cleaner air, less congestion, more green space and offered middle and working class families what was described in the Norwood Gardens sales brochure from 1929 as "country living in the city". Homes in Astoria's planned communities had front (and sometimes back) gardens, often 25' deep. Interior space was well designed providing circulating, fresh air and sunlight.

Astoria's early population was comprised of teachers, craftsmen, merchants, laborers, doctors, lawyers and recent immigrants from Europe; the backbone of working-class, middle-class and professional New York City.

Rickert-Brown Realty Company built the homes, bathroom fixtures furnished by J. L. Mott Iron Works of Manhattan (J.L Mott for whom Mott Street in Chinatown was named after).

In 1929, Norwood Gardens homes sold for $15,000 (corner homes for $16,000) mortgages underwritten by Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. A copy of the original sales brochure will be online here soon.

Norwood GardensToday

Largely unspoiled by development, the planned community of Norwood Gardens, designed in the late 1920's, is a low rise residential neighborhood. The green city trees and front gardens of 35th, 36th and 37th Streets create a special district in Astoria. Neighborhoods such as Norwood Gardens have been rapidly disappearing in the recent development boom which hit Queens hard in the form of tear downs and block busting the 1980's.

A set of row houses; thirty attached terrace homes on 36th Street, 5 blocks East from the 30th Avenue stop on the N train in Astoria, were designed by Walter Hopkins of Warren & Wetmore, the prominent New York architectural firm responsible for Grand Central Station, The Biltmore Hotel, The Ritz Carlton Hotel and other important commissions. Residents of 36th Street have spent countless man hours in effort to save this unique block from the wrecking ball and out of character development.

Since 2002 Norwood Neighborhood Association has been working with core Queens civic organizations, preservationists, land use experts, City Planners, and Council Member Vallone on new zoning initiatives. A recently proposed Residential Streetscape Preservation Text Amendment is another important proposal aimed to protect and preserve not only Norwood Gardens but the other special low rise, residential neighborhoods in Queens, cherished by those who live in them and highly valued by Astoria residents and merchants who enjoy and benefit from the unique character of these communities that draw people from all over New York City.