First Job: Gene Simmons

interviewed by Tom Van Riper for Forbes.com 05.23.06

What was your first job?

I delivered the Long Island Star Journal in Jackson Heights, Queens, known as the Long Island Press on Sundays. Later, I picked up a second route, since I could put those papers in the same shopping cart. I had discovered you could make almost twice the money without putting in twice the time.

Libraries To Close For 10 Week Renovation

by Jennifer Manley,for Queens Chronicle 05/18/2006

...The Jackson Heights Library will close first, on Friday May 19. When it reopens, it will be equipped with a new rapid self service checkout. Described as a sort of “EZ Pass for the library,” by spokeswoman Joanne King, the new system uses electronic chips embedded in each item, which will allow patrons to simply drop all their books, CDs and magazines on an electronic pad to check them out, without the help of a librarian...

...The Jackson Heights Library will also get aesthetic improvements and a new young adult area. King explained that teenagers—who tend to be noisier than typical library patrons—don’t want to be with the small children and don’t belong with the adults. A new young adult area will allow teenagers more freedom to socialize and talk. The branch will also get 4,400 items added to the book and multimedia collection as well as additional computers.
The planned spring improvements at the Jackson Heights Library are merely a temporary face lift for a branch that has four times the foot traffic of the bustling main library in Flushing. The Queens Library has already raised half the funds needed to construct a new Jackson Heights branch on the existing site in the next few years....

HP Awards More than $7 Million in Education Grants

May 15, 2006 (press release)
HP Awards More than $7 Million in Education Grants to 170 Schools Across the United States; HP Technology for Teaching Grant Promotes Student Interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

including New York, P.S. 212 Queens, Jackson Heights

It's Not a Tour. It's a Stroll With Your New 'Aunt Tilly.'

By JOSEPH P. FRIED for NY Times May 15, 2006

George van Uden and his daughter, Bregje, on a short visit to New York from the Netherlands, drank in the scene on 74th Street in Jackson Heights, Queens.
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Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

George van Uden taking a picture in Jackson Heights to use in his graphic design work in the Netherlands. He saw Queens through Big Apple Greeter, which has about 300 volunteers.

There were Shri Krishna Jewelers and the Sahil Sari Palace, Patel Brothers market and the Kababish II restaurant ("Pakistani-Indian-Bangladesh Cuisine"). There were men in turbans.

And there was Suzanne Paliotta, a retired New York City school teacher and Forest Hills resident who met them outside the Roosevelt Avenue-74th Street subway stop and proceeded to decode this spot of Queens...

...Sticking to no set script or route, Ms. Paliotta showed the van Udens not only the busy Latin American and Indian commercial districts but also quiet residential streets of architecturally rich apartment complexes with large courtyard gardens....

Solidarity in the streets

NICOLE COLSON for socialistworker.org May 5, 2006

...Across New York, thousands of protesters--including as many as 10,000 in Jackson Heights--linked hands across immigrant neighborhoods at 12:16 p.m.--to call attention to the date (December 16) that anti-immigrant legislation that would brand undocumented workers as criminals was passed by the U.S. House...

Mets team up with students in community to celebrate education

Mets players fan out across the city to visit students during School is Amazing Week

New York Mets players including Carlos Delgado, Tom Glavine, David Wright, José Reyes, Duaner Sánchez, Chad Bradford, Chris Woodward, Endy Chávez, and José Valentín will visit more than 1,000 middle school students across New York City May 2 - 4 during the Mets inaugural School is Amazing week...
...Delgado will start the week at I.S. 145 in Jackson Heights today at 12:30 P.M. to address the students on the importance of a good education and attendance.

Immigrants Plan to Protest Today

by Jen Chung for Gothamist, May 01, 2006

Today is "Day Without An Immigrant" day, as immigrants across the county will choose various ways to protest the country's possible immigration policy shift...

...You can see where the eight human chain sites are via this PDF. They include Sunset Park at Fifth Avenue between 46th and 60th Streets, Jackson Heights at 37th Avenue between 72nd and 82nd Streets, and Chinatown on East Broadway between Chatham Square and Allen Street...

Immigrant-Rights Rallies Planned Today Across U.S.

Nicholas Johnston & Kim Chipman for Bloomberg.com May 1

Supporters of immigrant rights will hold rallies, candlelight vigils, teach-ins and work boycotts across the U.S. today to demand legal status for millions of undocumented workers...

... ``We wanted to symbolize that we will never forget what happened on Dec. 16,'' Chung-Wa Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, said in an interview yesterday.

Hong said she expects hundreds of immigrant business owners and workers to form human chains in neighborhoods such as Jackson Heights, Queens, one of the most culturally diverse areas of the country, the Garment District in Manhattan and in Chinatown...

Walkout Is Planned to Show Solidarity With Immigrants

By FERNANDA SANTOS for the New York Times, Published: May 1, 2006

From behind a vending cart in Jackson Heights, Queens, Mohammad Ali, 58, minced some betel palm tree leaves and nuts in a plastic bowl — mouth freshener made to order for the man in a burgundy tunic who sells Islamic books from a nearby stand.

"Busy, busy, every day, but 15 minutes Monday, no work," Mr. Ali said yesterday, using the few English words he has managed to master since arriving in New York five years ago from Hyderabad, a city in India...

...In Jackson Heights, protesters will gather at 37th Avenue and 74th Street, just outside Pizza Boy, where Nick Lombardo, 53, has worked for the past 30 years, long before he became a United States citizen in 1998.

...Word of the demonstration spread quickly throughout Jackson Heights, where the language options at automated-teller machines — English, Spanish, Korean and Hindi — mirror the diversity of the neighborhood. There were mentions in the pages of ethnic newspapers and on Spanish-language television broadcasts...

Immigrant Boycott For U.S. Today

hardbeatnews.com May 1, 2006

Immigrant advocates across the U.S. are urging all migrants to stage a ‘Great American’ boycott today under the banner, ‘A Day Without Immigrants.’

“No Work, No School, No Sales And No Buying,” a flyer being handed out at the Roosevelt Avenue subway in Jackson Heights, Queens, NY touted on Saturday.

The planned protests today is being done to further push lawmakers to grant “immediate amnesty” to the millions of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. Promoted by the May 1 Coalition of Teamsters Local 808, the flyer calls also for the denouncement of HR 4437, a bill that was passed in congress last December that promotes the criminalization of immigrants. It also calls for an end to plans to push for border fences and for migrants to say “no” to increased enforcement but “yes” to family unity...