Real Estate 38 lic courier • february 2013 • www.queenscourier.com SEEING SIGNS OF BLOOM With the recent passing of former by david dynak David Dynak is a real estate broker at First Pioneer Properties and an LIC resident. He’s lived in Western Queens since 1993. ARTS EVENTS Calendar Courtesy of Plaxall Long Island City 2013 MoMA PS1 Noguchi Museum 22-25 Jackson Ave., LIC, NY 11101 • 718.784.2084 MoMAPS1.org 9-01 33rd Road (at Vernon Boulevard) Long Island City, NY 11106 Telephone: 718.204.7088 www.noguchi.org Plaxall.com LICProperties.com Museum of the Moving Image 35 Avenue at 37 Street, Astoria, NY 11106 718.777.6800 • www.movingimage.us FEBRUARY Sculpture Center January 14 - March 25, 2013 In Practice: Double Life January 14 - March 25, 2013 Nairy Baghramian: RETAINER Winter Workshop: The Art of the Gift Saturday December 8, 12-2PM SculptureCenter is pleased to announce Winter Workshop: The Art of the Gift, the first in a series of activity-based family programs led by contemporary artists. Reverberations Presented through the In Practice program Saturday December 15, 1-6PM Schedule of performances: Woody Sullender: 1-6pm R. E. H. Gordon: 1:30, 3:30, and 4:30pm Paul Clipson and Joshua Churchill: 2:30 and 5:00pm 44-19 Purves St. LIC, NY 11101 718.937.0727 www.sculpture-center.org Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960–1980 On view October 2012— February 2013 Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960-1980 chronicles the vital legacy of the African American artistic community in Los Angeles, examining a pioneering group of black artists whose work, connections, and friendships with other artists of varied ethnic backgrounds influenced the creative community and artistic practices that developed in Los Angeles during this historic period. The exhibition presents well over 100 artworks by these artists and the friends who influenced and supported them during this period, in which the power of the black community strengthened nationwide as racial discrimination began to lessen as a result of new legislation and changing social norms. EXHIBIT• 3-D Lenticular Posters for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey October 27–March 31, 2013 In Behind the Screen Presented with support from Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Director Peter Jackson filmed The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in 3-D at 48 frames per second to invite the audience to enter Middle-earth for an immersive cinematic experience. Emblematic of this experience is a series of specially commissioned lenticular posters from designer Grayson Marshall, featuring seventeen of the main characters in the film, including Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf, Thorin Oakenshield, Gollum, and Galadriel. INSTALLATION • Pretty Loaded—Ongoing Pretty Loaded is composed of nearly 50 “preloaders,” animated graphics that show how much of a website has loaded. Big Spaceship, a Brooklyn-based creative agency, collected the preloaders on exhibit and created the application used to present them. These preloaders were originally produced by agencies (including Big Spaceship) and independent designers for websites primarily promoting films, television shows, and consumer products. Preloaders were initially intended to fill time while visitors waited for websites to load; in Pretty Loaded, they comprise the entire experience itself. Viewed one after another, they create a never-ending cycle, directing attention to the preloader as its own creative space and to the inventive ways in which designers communicate the simple idea of progress from 0 to 100 percent. Preloaders were pervasive in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when image- and video-heavy websites created in Macromedia Flash (now Adobe Flash) were delivered over home Internet connections with speeds limited to 56 kbps. Originally, preloaders were utilitarian, employing progress bars, pie charts, or text, but designers soon started working inside the form’s constraints to create playful, engaging, and even suspenseful graphics that hinted at what lay beyond the preloader. The wide availability of broadband Internet and the waning use of Flash have rendered the preloader largely an artifact of the past. The Pretty Loaded installation is made possible by Big Spaceship Hammer, Chisel, Drill: Noguchi’s Studio Practice Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - Sunday, April 28, 2013 This exhibition will explore Noguchi’s working process through a handful of studios that he kept beginning in the 1940s and continuing through the Long Island City and Mure Japan studios that he split his time between until his death. February First Friday Friday, February 1, 2013 - 5:00pm - 8:00pm The Noguchi Museum offers extended evening hours on the first Friday of each month, from 5:00 to 8:00PM. First Friday programming includes “Center of Attention,” an extended conversation around a single work of art at 6:00PM, followed by Art21 episodes featuring contemporary artists at 7:00PM. First Fridays also feature pay-what-you-wish admission and a cash bar with wine and beer. Artist in Residence Weekend | Paul Discoe Saturday, February 9, 2013 - 11:00am - Sunday, February 10, 2013 - 5:00pm In conjunction with the exhibition Hammer, Chisel, Drill: Noguchi’s Studio Practice, The Noguchi Museum will host three Artist-in-Residence Weekends. Each of these artists work with similar tools and materials as Noguchi did and will demonstrate their process. These residencies expand the Museum’s Second Sunday series, featuring demonstrations throughout the day on Saturday, and an artist talk on each of the Sundays at 3:00pm. Mayor, Ed Koch, the city said goodbye to one of its most iconic political and media figures of the past century. Koch embodied many things New Yorkers think of themselves — an oxymoronic combination that elsewhere in the country may seem impossible. He was a liberal-idealist turned conservative-realist, son of immigrants, successful power broker, outspoken-bold and intensely-private, original New Yorker. But one thing Ed Koch shared with most of us was his unrelenting, almost blind love and admiration for New York City. Reading about his life, I learned that he was a partner in the largest real estate law firm and was largely responsible for jump-starting the long-lasting revitalization of abandoned and condemned properties throughout the city, which along with restored credit and improved economy has led the city out of the bankruptcy in the 1970s and eventually paved the road for the Gulianis and Bloombergs to help lead NYC through 20 years of continued real estate boom, give or take a few short-lived dips. Like any city, the prosperity and growth of New York will always be partially dependent on safety, pro-business policies and sustaining quality of life for its people, all of which depend on government. With Mayor Bloomberg set to depart City Hall in less than 12 months, I, like many others involved in real estate to make a living, am nervous about change at the stern after three terms, sailing under captainship of a self-made Wall Street magnate and business visionary who, like Koch, genuinely loves NYC and its streets to the core. A NY Times article from August 2012 stated that Mr. Bloomberg’s strongest support comes residents of Manhattan and Queens and it was during his first tenure that rezoning in Long Island City, responsible for the new skyline along the East River, occurred. There is an obvious reason why one must care about the city’s leadership. Real estate values are often tied to perception of security and projections of sustained growth around it. If you buy or lease a building, you are stuck with it for a while. Fortunately, for condo owners in LIC, it appears we are out of the recession! No, the economy and unemployment are not out of the water, but prices of new construction condominiums in Hunters Point are now higher than at the peak in 2008 and approaching average of $800 per-square-foot fast! While right before the housing market collapse it was hard to find a new twobedroom condo west of Jackson Avenue under $650,000, it is now close to impossible to find one, new or a resale, under $800,000. Developers are back on the prowl and according to some sources a certain large landlord is either in negotiation or has already reached an agreement to sell a huge swath of waterfront to build more high-rises. 11th Street is the next major “avenue” to soon welcome several new residential and mixed-use buildings, bringing Hunters Point and Court Square closer together, and several properties have changed hands along 44th Drive just in the past 6 months. Whether any transformational developments or commercial tenants come to the neighborhood before we elect a new mayor remains to be seen but judging from slightly increased activity and new interest from more “upscale” commercial tenants (“Brooklyn is too expensive!” and “we can’t afford to renew in Manhattan”), we just may.
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