2015-02-08 40 -73

Location

In front of a small apartment building in Astoria (or Woodside?), Queens.

Participants

Plans

Take either the M60 express bus to Astoria Blvd and Steinway St (direct, but farther walk) or the subway to 46th St. Maybe I'll do one option going there and one returning, to see which is faster. Note, the M train doesn't run in Manhattan/Queens on weekends, so it has to be the R train. Arrival time flexible!

As for how to actually reach the point... I guess try to see if anyone wants to give us roof access? Or just get close. I've never been to Queens, so it'll be a new experience no matter what.

-- OtherJack (talk) 21:22, 6 February 2015 (EST)

I'll be taking the subway for sure - not a bus person. The entrance to the building may be good enough - we'll probably just have to see when we get there. Worse comes to worse, it's a "No Trespassing" achievement.

-- sempaispellcheck

After some discussion on the facebook page we've decided to meet there at 3pm! -- OtherJack (talk) 21:53, 6 February 2015 (EST)

Expedition

It was a rather nice afternoon by the standards of the frigid February that 2015 had brought to New York. Something like 35F (2C) and overcast, not much wind, not much rain either. I set out from Morningside Heights on the M60 select bus to Astoria (Sempai explained to me that "express bus" refers to something else here, bigger/more expensive.) The bus crawled through Harlem because of people double-parking in the bus lane, but once it got on the expressway over the Triboro Bridge it moved way faster. I got an awesome view of this huge intimidating 100-year-old train edifice that Eli would later tell me was the Hell Gate Bridge, and soon I was off the bus at Steinway St.

I proceeded south through Astoria's "Little Egypt" with shisha lounges, etc. and then east through kinda more regular Astoria to the hash. I really liked the feel of the area, it was the first time I'd been in Queens except for passing through to/from JFK Airport. Yay for geohashing! The neighborhood reminded me a lot of my favorite parts of 41,-87, with its practical and optimistic feeling, brick 3-story buildings, abundant cheap food and drink, and disorganized mix of immigrants from far-flung places.

At the hash building down a side street, my GPS managed to get within the error-circle as it sat on the wooden fence of the front yard... happily I didn't even have to go through the gate. I tried to post using geohash droid, had technical problems but it didn't matter since Sempaispellcheck and then Elipongo showed up within a few minutes anyway. We were all pleasantly surprised that a geohash meetup was actually occuring in New York.

They both turned out to be really cool people and the three of us retired to a neighborhood coffee/deli joint (the old grimy cheap kind, not the artisan locally roasted whatever... I like this neighborhood!) We had some excellent conversations about New York, history, going places, geohashing, xkcd, etc. and then all got the bus together back to Manhattan, since subway service was cut back for construction (very common here on weekends.) On the bus I found out that Eli actually knows quite a lot about my rather specialized field of science, which made for excellent conversation though I hope we didn't bore Sempai. This is also when we found out more of the history of the Hell Gate and Triboro bridges which we passed over. See photo below.

Many days later someone told me Steinway Grand Pianos are actually named after Steinway St... the factory is right there! Wish I'd known at the time, I'd have taken a tour since I play the piano. But just now Wikipedia says it's the other way around... the street is named after the piano company. Pretty cool either way.

-- OtherJack (talk) 01:04, 18 February 2015 (EST) (better late than never)