Astoria Favorites
- Apr 27
- 3 min read
Last week my friend Joe Wengert's show Kevin debuted on Prime Video. It's a very funny animated show about a cat who breaks up with his owners and goes to live at a pet rescue in his neighborhood of Astoria, Queens. After a very brief stint in Williamsburg after graduating college, I lived in Astoria for the remainder of my tenure as a New Yorker. I loved the neighborhood, it was convenient to all the things we wanted to do in Manhattan, but moved at a slower pace and had/has incredible Greek food. It was also where we brought home Julius, our Jack Russel puppy, in 2004--
--the beginning of our identity as dog parents.
When Julius moved with us to Larchmont Village I could tell he really missed the plentiful chicken bones he used to grab from the sidewalks of Astoria. He also loved playing with dogs at Socrates Sculpture park, as we captured in his Olympics profile video we made back then:
Seeing the detailed renderings of Astoria as animated backgrounds in Kevin had me remembering some of my favorite things about the neighborhood. I also recently came across some old CD-R's (remember them) filled with early 2000's vintage digital photos. I think we used a little Canon Elph during that era.
This is what our apartment looked like, at 31-85 Crescent Street (an architepically confusing Queens street address)
And Anna on our roof at sunset, with both the Hellsgate and RFK Triboro bridges visible in the background. This is peak-Astoria folks!
My life in the early 2000's has a lot fewer digital photo documentation, but my Astoria memories are still strong, some of my favorite spots in the neighborhood were:
Pando Bakery (now defunct, but it made our apartment smell like strawberry shortcake in the morning)
Aliada, (a neighborhood Greek and Cypriot restaurant where I had my first taste of halloumi on a fresh baked pita, I can still summon the feeling and make my mouth water)
Uncle Louie G's Italian Ice (great for a hot summer day, just checked their website and they have gummy cones?!? which sounds disgusting but i also need to try one)
The Beer Garden where we had our going away party before moving to LA. (there were no citibikes back then)
Sac's Place (our closest pizza place which has since moved to Kaufman Astoria Studios, where I worked on several TV shows. I've been very fortunate in both NYC and LA to live close to my TV work)
A secret block that had no street cleaning, we would park there for several weeks at a time.
It might have been 30th road? I can't remember, it was a long time ago, but looked something like this.
All of this is to say, my Astoria era feels like another lifetime but I'm glad I can access some of those memories watching what I'm fairly sure is the first Astoria-centric cartoon ever on TV. Thank you, Joe!
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