The Town of Jamaica is now part of Queens County, but a study of it offers a rich opportunity for an urban experience in a place that is dynamic yet underexplored. The one time center of a trading network that extended to the Ohio Valley, the colonial county seat of Queens, and more recently a transit and commercial center, it is now home to a diverse mix of people. Our tour guide, Bob Singleton of the Greater Astoria Historical Society, will examine its rich past and present.

Bonus presentation by Adolfo Steve Vazquez of Queenscapes.

STILLHERE: Stand Up For Our Seniors is an event designed for Neirs Tavern’s 190th Anniversary.

The theme of this program is Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow in Woodhaven. We will highlight  the images, stories & people that have lived in or around the immediate vicinity of Neirs Tavern in Woodhaven as well as link local seniors to services available to them in area.

Join us this Thursday evening at August 15th at Katch Astoria as we collaborate with @QofAstoria for an awesome night of fun that will also benefit the young participants of Queens Community House @QCHNYC.

Suggested Donations: Pens, Pencils, Highlighters, Calculators, 3-Ring Binders, Folders, Loose Leaf Paper. In lieu of school supplies, a monetary $5 donation is suggested. If you cannot attend, donations will be accepted until tomorrow Wednesday August 13th at Mount Sinai Queens locations.

Music by DJ Ray BLK

Description

Join guides Cody Herrmann of FlushingBayandCreep, and Steve Vazquez of Queenscapes for a casual photography workshop that focuses on documenting the rapidly changing landscape, and the relationship between Flushing Creek and quality of life in surrounding neighborhoods.

This walk takes place in 'the valley of ashes,' as referenced in the novel 'The Great Gatsby,' and will trace City owned property under the Van Wyck Expressway. We will discuss water quality, local history, and plans for new development in Willets Point and downtown Flushing. We will also demystify parts of Willets Point and Flushing Creek. 

Portions of the walk will include sandy or uneven ground. Close-toed shoes are required.

Cody Ann Herrmann is an artist and community organizer with an interest in participatory design methods, public space, and urban resiliency. Since 2015 Cody's work has revolved around her hometown of Flushing, Queens, creating a series of projects critiquing policy related to land-use and environmental planning in areas surrounding Flushing Bay and Creek. She is the founder/creator of FlushingBayandCreep

Description

Join guides Cody Herrmann of FlushingBayandCreep, and Steve Vazquez of Queenscapes for a casual photography workshop that focuses on documenting the rapidly changing landscape, and the relationship between Flushing Creek and quality of life in surrounding neighborhoods.

This walk takes place in 'the valley of ashes,' as referenced in the novel 'The Great Gatsby,' and will trace City owned property under the Van Wyck Expressway. We will discuss water quality, local history, and plans for new development in Willets Point and downtown Flushing. We will also demystify parts of Willets Point and Flushing Creek. 

Portions of the walk will include sandy or uneven ground. Close-toed shoes are required.

Cody Ann Herrmann is an artist and community organizer with an interest in participatory design methods, public space, and urban resiliency. Since 2015 Cody's work has revolved around her hometown of Flushing, Queens, creating a series of projects critiquing policy related to land-use and environmental planning in areas surrounding Flushing Bay and Creek. She is the founder/creator of FlushingBayandCreep

Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer and over 150 members of the Queens community celebrated the Council member’s 9th Annual Hispanic & Latinx Leadership Awards at Thalia Spanish Theatre in Sunnyside on October 15. The awards ceremony, held every year during Hispanic Heritage Month, recognizes outstanding Hispanic and Latinx community leaders for their service to Queens.

This year, Van Bramer presented the Distinguished Public Service Award to Jessica Ramos, a lifelong community organizer who won the Democratic primary for New York’s 13th State Senate District on September 13. He also honored the following leaders for their tireless work on behalf of the community:

Janice Quiles-Reyes, PS 150 Parent Coordinator

Janneth Calle, Girl Scout Troop 4079 Co-Leader

Eleazar Rubi, Girl Scout Troop 4079 Co-Leader

Oscar Escobar, LGBTQ Community Activist and Founding Member of Out Rockaway

Nora Gomez-Strauss, Director of Digital Strategies at Public Art Fund

Ruben Ramales, Managing Director at American Institute of Architects (AIA), Queens

Adolfo Steve Vazquez, Founder of Queenscapes

Claudia Corcino, Founder of Ciclistas Latinoamericanos de New York

Felix Figueroa, Shop Steward, Local 32BJ, SEIU – Social Justice Leadership Academy

On Saturday, Aug 11th 2018 at Flushing Meadows Park: 

Join us as we are honored by the fine folks over at Queens Distance Runners as a "Community Champions" for our work in Corona, Queens and abroad. Not only are we being honored, but we will ALSO be running the race! Race starts at Unisphere at Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

Throughout the course of the morning, you’ll have the chance to watch our runners give it their best on this USATF Certified 1 Mile Route. Thousands of Queens residents and tourists come to Flushing Meadows Park to enjoy the 3rd largest park in New York City.

Run of Show:

• 8:30AM- Open Women (Limited to 150 Women)
• 8:50AM- Open Men (Limited to 150 Men)
• 9:10AM- Corona Community Champions Mile (A heat commemorating the Leaders & Advocates of Corona & Beyond)
• 9:30AM- Elite Women’s Mile
• 9:45AM- Elite Men’s Mile
• 10:00- The Kids of Queens

The Course: 

Scenic, Fast, and all yours! This 1 Loop course starts and finishes within meters of arguably the Poster-Image for Queens, the Unisphere. You will only have two minimal bumps of inclines a half mile apart and are immediately met by a soft downhill that you can use to your advantage. You will race towards the Queens Zoo and return on the overpass where you will see the Finish Line to your Corona Mile.

Post Race: 

Stick around! We plan to have a fun post-race party to celebrate your Mile and will have the Lemon Ice King on desk providing free ices!

Presented by Ralph McDaniels. Produced in collaboration with LionFox Events, Post No Bills, and Reality House NY.

Socrates Sculpture Park partners with legendary VJ, producer, and hip hop pioneer Ralph McDaniels to present Hip Hop in the Park, a family-friendly festival celebrating the four elements of hip hop – emcees, DJs, dance troupes, and graffiti art – and 35 years of McDaniels’ groundbreaking music video program, Video Music Box.

Join us for this exciting afternoon of FREE entertainment including:

-A hip hop jam featuring Queens’ own Disco Twins, Large Professor and more!

-Youth performances from 696 Build Queensbridge and artists selected by the Queens Hip Hop Festival

-Family art-making activities with Socrates artists Pam Reyes & Devin Garcia as well as The Blue Bus Project

-Photographer Queenscapes will be on-site capturing community portraits

-Sherwin Banfield – one of our 2018 Artist Fellows – will be sharing his upcoming hip hop inspired project ‘A Cypher in Queens’ for The Socrates Annual exhibition opening October 7th.

-Delicious food offerings from Forward Roots and Terry & Yaki

#FMCoronaPark18 is a photo walk geared towards Queens residents of all ages with an appreciation of Queens and its neighborhoods. #FMCoronaPark18 that highlights the very underrated and underappreciated section of Flushing Meadows Park. We will offer prizes to participants who correctly answer as well as an Instagram photo contest for participants who upload photos taken within the southern section of Flushing-Meadows Corona Park on Instagram. Along with the winners of photos in these 4 categories, we will also select an additional 30 photos hashtagged #FMCoronaPark18 to be featured at the Queens Museum for a pop-up exhibit. 

#FMCoronaPark18 will take place on Saturday, June 30th 2018on Saturday afternoon at 12:00noon.

Deadline to enter photo contest will be Saturday, July 7th. Winners to be announced on Monday on July 9th 2018.
Photo walk presented by Flushing Meadows-Corona Park Community Advisory Board and NYC Parks with support from the Parks Build Healthy Communities Grant, led by Partnerships for Parks and made possible by Building Healthy Communities, an initiative of the Mayor's Office and the Fund for Public Health NYC.

Queens Community House is holding its annual Spring event, "Celebrating Local Champions Reception", to help support the organization’s mission of providing individuals and families with the tools to enrich their lives and build healthy, inclusive communities. Guests can socialize with fellow community members and enjoy delicious hors d’oeuvres, wine, beer and desserts. Event will honor St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Forest Hills, as well as Adolfo Steve Vazquez, founder of Queenscapes.nyc. Event takes place on Wednesday, May 2nd 2018 from 6:00pm until 8:00pm at the West Side Tennis Club located at One Tennis Place, Forest Hills, NY 11375. Tickets must be purchased in advance. Individual tickets start at $100 and sponsorship packages range from $1,500 to $5,000. Contact Jennifer Weil, Communications Coordinator at Queens Community House at either (718) 592-5757 Ext. 249 or email: jweil@qchnyc.org. 

"HOW WE CREATE & HOW WE COPE: intersections of art & mental health/mental illness" is a program created by Queens native Audrey Dimola, is an artist and a crusader for culture in her hometown borough for over a decade. This program pieces together a group of artists and performers viscerally experiencing their personal realities of mental health. The event consists of an open and honest evening of of multidisciplinary performance and presentations about the too-often stigmatized topic of mental illness, particularly in connection to creativity as an outlet, outcome or survival. Steve Vazquez of Queenscapes will be on hand taking portraits of ALL attendees and participants for a special version of their #CapturedInQueens series designed to help build awareness and attention to art & mental illness. Event will take place at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center located at 31-10 Thomson Ave, Long Island City. If you have any questions please send an e-mail to audrey.dimola@gmail.com.

Due to an overwhelming outpouring of support from the Queens community for our first Queens for Puerto Rico fundraiser we will be hosting a second fundraiser Vintage Wine Bar located at 23-14 Ditmars Blvd, in Astoria on Thursday, November 30th from 6:00pm - 9:00pm. Along with The Visual Vandal Christian San Martin, we are also partnering with Bridget Bartollini of the FiveBoroStoryProject and Wendy Angulo of Wendy Ang Productions for a photograph and artwork exhibition with the dual theme of Queens community and Puerto Rican culture that will also feature live storytelling, and spoken word performances We’ll also have a bunch of raffle prizes in store, as well as FREE pizza, courtesy of Sac's Place Pizza. Suggested minimum donation for entry is $10.00. 100% of all monetary proceeds for the event will go to the Puerto Rican grassroots non-profit charity ConPRmetidos.org.  #QU4PR

While major improvements have already been made in Puerto Rico, the island is still lacking resources and access to get items dispersed. So in an effort to help our neighbors abroad the Queenscapes team has partnered with Christian San Martin TheVisualVandal to create "Queens for Puerto Rico" #QU4PR a relief benefit for the victims of Hurricane Maria. 

Come out at 6:00pm Wednesday night, November 8th to LaGloria Restaurant and Lounge located at 86-13 Northern Boulevard in Jackson Heights, Queens for an event that will feature photographs and artwork from a multitude of Queens based artists, raffle giveaways donated by Queens owned businesses and live music from D.J. Dubbcity and D.J. Steph Cakes.

100% money and items donated for the event will go to Puerto Rican charities, @ConPRmetidos & The Puerto Rican Family Institute.

Minimum donation for entry to event is $10.00. You can make a donation directly on http://www.conprmetidos.org or pay at the door on day of event. 

La Gloria will accept the following relief items, toiletries, first aid kits, cleaning supplies, work gloves, hand sanitizer and canned goods, but will not accept clothes of any kind.

Any other questions or inquiries please feel free to e-mail us queenscapes@gmail.com. or Christian @ bookthevisualvandal@gmail.com

"Queens (as the world's) Village: Know your Neighbor" is a socially interactive photography project detailing the neighborhood of Queens Village. It addresses the issue of cultural indifference by educating and uniting the diverse business owners and residents of one of Queens' largest and most diverse neighborhoods.

Exhibit is Saturday April 8th 2017 at the Queens Village Library, located at 94-11 217th Street, Queens Village, NY will feature photography by Adolfo Steve Vazquez as well as photos culled from the hashtag #QueensWorldsVillage on Instagram over a period of one full year. There will be live performances from local Queens Village residents, a live DJ, and healthy treats and snacks for all attendees. Event is FREE and registration is NOT required. This is a family event.

This exhibit was awarded a 2016 Neighborhood Project Grant by the Citizens Committe of NYC and all proceeds will go directly to QSAC - Quality Services for the Autism Community.

Exhibit starts at 5:30pm and runs until 8:00pm.

Any questions please e-mail queenscapes@gmail.com

#HikeToHellGate17 is a photo walk to commemorate the 100th Anniversary Celebration of the Hells Gate Bridge. Meet will start at Socrates Sculpture Park, 32-01 Vernon Boulevard, in Long Island City for a 12noon start on Saturday March 25th 2017. Meet in conjunction with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, and A Story of Astoria. Hosted by photographer Tarif Anzum, historians Dave Frieder & Richard Melnick.

Join us at the @Queens_Historical_Society on Saturday on March 12th 2017 at 2:30pm. as Founder Adolfo Steve Vazquez talks about #Queenscapes, their latest neighborhood photo project, "Queens (as the world's) Village," the constant search of identity in a multi-cultural landscape,  and also meet more of the @Queenscapes team.

The Queens Historical Society is located at the Kingsland Homestead, 143-35 37th Ave, Flushing, N.Y.

(There is a $5.00 entrance fee for adults and $3.00 for seniors and students. Tour of the historical society is included in price. The proceeds from the tickets are to support QHS as a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the past and present.

#QueensWorldsVillage

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"Queens (as the world's) Village: Know your Neighbor" are a series of photo and social media workshops that are a part of an interactive photography exhibit detailing the neighborhood of Queens Village.

This project will address the issue of cultural intolerance and indifference of Queens Village by educating its residents young and old of each cultures positive attributes and also help unify a diverse neighborhood.

We have come together with the Queens Library to bring two workshops for this project to the Queens Library branch this Fall. Located at 94-11 217th Street, Queens Village, N.Y. 11428, The Queens Village Library will hold both workshops in October.

1st workshop titled, "Discover Queens Village 1" scheduled for Saturday, October 1st, 2016, from 2:30pm until 4:30pm and the 2nd workshop, "Discover Queens Village 2" is scheduled on Saturday, October 22nd, 2016 from 2:30pm until 4:30pm.

10/1/2016

Workshop 1: Discover Queens Village 1

10/22/2016

Workshop 2: Discover Queens Village 2

Link for Queens Library workshops: http://www.queenslibrary.org/event/queens-as-the-world%E2%80%99s-village-know-your-neighbor

All volunteers and participants are encouraged to use the project's hashtag, #QueensWorldsVillage on all photos taken and uploaded on Instagram. We will measure participation and overall feedback via use of this hashtag.

On Saturday May 28th Street come out to western Queens and explore the borough with myself, @tarif_nyc @tristanleyco @ericxsg & @opoline for a day full of photo challenges, raffles and prizes on a walk designed by Queens kids to help sustain and support extracurricular activities for the youth in Queens.

Meet will culminate at the rooftop of the Vista Sky Lounge on the grounds of the @FourPoints Sheraton of Long Island City. Space is limited to 120 people so register now to secure admission!

With over 16 sponsors participating, we'll be raffling tickets for all their amazing goodies. Tickets will raffle for $1 per person (you get a free ticket for every 5 purchases). All proceeds go to the Road to Greatness @r2gnyc after-school program which currently serves the students of P.S. 199 in Sunnyside.

#StreetsofQueens2016 #VistaSkySummer16

On Friday May 7, Queenscapes, a fledgling community ­based organization that develops photography programs, collaborates with Riis Academy, the largest youth services provider in western Queens, to present their program, “Rediscovering Ravenswood,” t The Greater Astoria Historical Society (GAHS).

“Rediscovering Ravenswood” is specifically geared to the youth of Ravenswood Houses with the goals of: providing them with a positive perspective of their neighborhood from photographers that are from their neighborhood and its immediate environs, educating them on little known historical facts about the area, and lastly, presenting them with their own local photo challenge.

Join us this Saturday afternoon along with @AutismSpeaks ambassador & Washington, D.C. native @Phil.Martin as he comes to New York for an autism photo walk to commemorate Autism Awareness Day.

Walk starts at Hunters Point South Park, in L.I.C. Queens and finishes at Macy's Herald Square where the facade will light up blue in honor of autism awareness.

Photo walk to benefit the Autism Speaks foundation, the world's leading autism science and advocacy agency. Make sure to wear something blue.

Partnering with Syreeta Gates of the Future Project and the Dream Director of the Benjamin Franklin High School for Finance & Information Technology in Cambria Heights, Queens for a campaign titled "Big City of Dreams." On Decemeber 15th, 2015, during advisory, I along with a group of photographers will take a portrait of EVERY person in Benjamin Franklin H.S., students and faculty alike, as they hold up a dream they have articulated and are committed to, and written on a personal dry erase board.

Join us Saturday, October 17th for a benefit for the Road to Greatness Foundation, an organization that works to serve Queens youth. Queens natives Adolfo Steve Vazquez (queenscapes.nyc) and Salvador Espinoza (salvadorespinoza.com) will exhibit photos of the Road to Greatness Foundation. Beer and wine will be available for purchase, with part of the proceeds going to benefit the foundation. This exhibition will launch simultaneously with R2G's online fundraising campaign