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Finding the hidden gems of NYC (so you don’t have to)

glendaleregstg on December 13, 2022

By Alicia Venter

aventer@queensledger.com

Zaire Stanislaus loves to keep herself busy. Nursing school and her full time job scheduling at Mount Sinai would be enough to ensure the 29-year-old has a full schedule.

However, beyond her 9-to-5 and labs, the Brooklyn-native is a restaurant marketer and restaurant influencer, managing the social media platforms of New York City restaurants and collaborating with businesses to produce content for more than 125,000 of her Instagram followers @drinklinknyc.

Her job includes staying on top of trends, constant video editing, late night collaborations with restaurants and keeping an eye on other content creators to ensure she stays unique and different. As a social media manager, she runs the accounts of restaurants, including Social Corner and Cove Caribbean Restaurant in Jamaica.

“People think you just go out to eat, and that’s it, but after creating 100 videos, it gets hard to stay creative, unique and different,” Stanislaus said. “You have to really think outside the box so your videos don’t all look the same.”
Stanislaus starts her job before she arrives at the restaurant, scouring their websites for what appears to be their most popular food, or what she feels her audience may like best. It’s not always what she wants to eat, she explained — it’s what she thinks her audience would want to eat.

“Once I get there, I’m trying to execute the idea in my head, not just a random recording,” she said.

Using this process, she explained, creating content is easier and creates a better product for her followers.

Stanislaus’ parents are Trinidadian, and she is very connected to Caribbean culture, so she often features Caribbean food on her page. However, as she grew up eating the food in her home, she acknowledges that her favorite type of restaurants are steakhouses and Thai restaurants.

“The idea of going out and paying more money for things my mom makes is a little weird,” she shared.

Trust, she emphasized, is an indispensable part of her product — without it, her followers are unable to rely on her content. As such, she refuses to post content at restaurants she did not truly enjoy.

“I feel like that is terrible for your brand, it messes up the trust that everyone that follows you has with you, because [they think] that you’re only posting things for you,” she said. She feels that if her followers are going to trust her to spend their money on restaurants she features, she has a burden to ensure that it isn’t money wasted.

Stanislaus also builds relationships with the owners, so if people do not have a good experience visiting the restaurant, she can help them reach out to the owners to find the root of the problem.

“Especially nowadays, restaurants are expensive. You can go out and randomly try restaurants and it’s horrible, and you’ll be so upset that you spent money. I think that with pages like mine we can rectify the situation,” Stanislaus said.

Stanislaus loves to discover hidden gems — stunning places that are not yet well-known or popular. Recently, she visited Room 100 in East New York, off the Jackie Robinson Parkway. Tucked away between car shops and mechanics, Stanislaus was happy to share her spectacular experience with her followers.

“When you walk in, it’s beautiful. It’s small, but it’s designed really well. The staff are friendly and the food is amazing — it’s truly a hidden gem,” she said.

Stanislaus’ day starts at 8:00 a.m., grabbing her i-Pad to make her to-do list. The morning is a balancing act between work for her remote job at Mount Sinai and her clients whose social media accounts she manages. She works on her own page starting around noon, and her afternoon usually involves a collaboration with a restaurant. On Saturday, Stanislaus usually does two or three collaborations.

“I feel like to stay driven or motivated, you have to actually enjoy what you are doing,” she said. “I don’t find it to be a tedious or hard task. Going to restaurants is fun, but creating content is what I truly enjoy…I feel like if you enjoy doing that part, it would never really feel like a job.”

Stanislaus grew up in East New York, and currently lives in Canarsie. She hopes to open a restaurant or lounge in the next five years. A self-described “serial-entrepreneur,” Stanislaus also hopes to grow her personal brand and to reopen her clothing boutique.

Stanislaus is always open to new clients looking for a social media manager, and encourages any restaurant or brand to reach out to her at drinklinknyc@gmail.comor on her Instagram.

Gonzalez runs for new Senate district

Matthew Fischetti on February 10, 2022

By Matthew Fischetti

mfischetti@queensledger.com

Kristen Gonzalez is running in the the Senate district that covers Greenpoint and parts of Queens

As a working-class girl from Elmhurst who commuted to middle school on the Upper East Side, Kristen Gonzalez developed an early political consciousness.

Even though she was in the same city, she realized she lived in two different worlds. At her Roosevelt Avenue station in Queens, she saw lines of immigrants waiting to get free breakfast from a Catholic charity. 

When she got off the subway at 86th Street in Manhattan, she saw lines of businessmen in fancy suits and coats grabbing their morning Starbucks. 

Even though Gonzalez is only 26 years old, she already has an impressive background in politics. At Columbia University, she was president of the local College Democrats chapter where she got involved in Get Out The Vote campaigns. 

From there she worked at the City Council writing policy recommendations through the Young Women’s Initiative, but felt like she didn’t see the needle moving. So during what would have been her senior year, she dropped out to work in Washington as a Latino Engagement intern for the Obama administration and then in Senator Chuck Schumer’s office. 

While she says the experience was informative, it also made her realize the change she wanted to make wouldn’t be found in the confines of City Hall or in the Capitol Rotunda, but rather, “it was in the working-class communities that raised me back in Queens.”

Less than 24 hours after the new State Senate district maps were released, Gonzalez declared as a candidate for District 17, which includes areas of Woodhaven, Maspeth, Long Island City, Glendale, Ridgewood and Greenpoint. 

She was first approached by the Democratic Socialists of America to run for office in December. Gonzalez thought it was a real opportunity to build a larger socialist movement in Albany.

“Next week, the strategy is to start down in southern parts of the district and, and really try to build on the movements we’ve seen with campaigns like Felicia Singh to turn up more folks in the Punjabi, Bangladeshi, and Guyanese communities,” she said. “Then coming back up to really engage and build a base of more Latino working-class families, as well.”

Gonzalez has assembled over 20 veteran progressive politicos who worked on campaigns for Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Councilwoman Tiffany Cabán.

Gonzalez’s top three priorities are passing single-payer health care, building publicly owned renewable energy, and passing good cause eviction and ending subsidies for luxury developments.

She first got involved with DSA in 2018, organizing their tech action working group, rallying support for privacy bills like the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology Act to force the NYPD to be more transparent about the types of surveillance technology the department uses.

When asked about Mayor Eric Adams’s push to make New York City a hub for cryptocurrency, Gonzalez rolled her eyes.

“It’s a replication of the issue where the city moves forward in a way that benefits the very wealthy who are invested in things like crypto, but without thinking about those who are behind who just don’t have basic access to the internet,” Gonzalez said. 

A recent report from the state comptroller’s office found that over one million New Yorkers lack access to quality broadband services. As a member of the tech action working group, Gonzalez helped create the Internet For All campaign, a 46-page blueprint on how to achieve municipal ownership of broadband utilities.

Gonzalez has already raised over $23,000, and her Twitter account had such a quick influx of support and followers, the social media service put her account under review for “suspicious activity”.

“I could not be more grateful and just humbled by the support that we saw in this last week,” Gonzalez said. “We believe this is the best campaign for the district because we are representative of it.”

QCC honors local business heroes

glendaleregstg on December 8, 2021

The Queens Chamber of Commerce hosted its first-ever Business Heroes of the Year Awards in front of about 400 people at Terrace on the Park last Wednesday night.
President and CEO Tom Grech took the time to introduce and honor the awardees, who come from various industries, such as hospitality and technology, and philanthropic organizations.
District Attorney Melinda Katz spoke at the event, expressing her gratitude for small businesses and all they’ve done for the borough during the height of COVID-19.
“At the end of the day, whether we were dealing with a worldwide pandemic, whether we were dealing with an overdue conversation on policing in the United States, whatever we were working on and dealing with, we had to count on our businesses to continue to thrive and survive,” said Katz.
She presented the first award of the evening to Melva Miller of ABNY, who was also Katz’s former deputy borough president when she served as bBorough president.
Charles Boyce of Boyce Technologies was another honoree, whom Grech commended for saving lives throughout New York State by mass producing ventilators during the depths of the pandemic.
While not everyone can be a frontline healthcare worker themselves, many people view food and hospitality as a way of symbolically healing.
This is especially true for honorees Rachel Kellner of Aigner Chocolates, Nupur Arora of Queens Curry Kitchen, Mark Boccia of Bourbon Street, Patrick Oropeza of Bolivian Llama Party, Frank Russo of Russo’s on the Bay and Declan Morrison of Stacked Sandwich Shop.
As for services and organizations who dedicate their time to help smaller businesses succeed, honorees Jonnel Doris of NYC Small Business Services, Larry Zogby of RDS Same Day Delivery Service, and Michael Peterson of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation fit the bill.
“It was a wonderful evening and it’s a great honor to be given this award by the Queens Chamber,” said Michael Peterson.
“We’ve worked very hard with them along with the other chambers of commerce across the city to help out small businesses,” he continued. “So to be here tonight in person to meet some of the other small business leaders in this community and to be a part of this is a great honor.”
In addition to the businesses being honored for their efforts to the borough, the Queens Chamber of Commerce held a toy drive for children in need that guests could donate to for a chance to win a raffle.

Concrete-less Jungle: medians to get green makeover

glendaleregstg on December 8, 2021

The concrete slabs that divide Hillside Avenue in Queens Village will soon be replaced with several new green drainage spaces, better protecting the eastern Queens neighborhood from flooding.
Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Vincent Sapienza says the seven new green spaces along Hillside Avenue will capture millions of gallons of stormwater, reducing local flooding and overflows of the sewer system.
In September, an overflowed sewer system was a main culprit behind the damage sustained during Hurricane Ida.
“Pavement is not our friend,” said Sapienza outside Martin Van Buren High School last week. “We want to try and get as many permeable surfaces in the city as we can and let the ground do its work and soak up stormwater rather than have it runoff and cause flooding.”
The project is anticipated to break ground in late 2022 and construction will continue for up to 12 months. The total cost of the project is approximately $2.5 million.
True to its name, the stretch of Hillside Avenue in the northern part of Queens Village is situated at the bottom of a hill, parallel to the Grand Central Parkway. DEP says a minimum of 5 million gallons will be captured in the new green spaces, which will also serve as habitat for pollinators and other threatened species in Jamaica Bay.
Councilman Barry Grodenchik described the current medians as “a sea of concrete.”
“The honey locust trees didn’t do well here” said Grodenchik. “This is going to change the environment here. It’s going to make the area literally cooler, because we won’t have the concrete soaking up all this heat.”
Incoming councilwoman Linda Lee vowed to see the project to its completion.
“Hopefully it can be a space the students and the community can utilize, because one thing that COVID has taught us is that outdoor spaces cannot be taken for granted,” said Lee. “I think this project will be a huge resource and benefit for the community.”
Kirby Lindell, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1958, is thrilled with the planned upgrades.
“I’ve been writing letters since before Barry was the councilman,” said Lindell. “In the summer, the only thing that survived was the weeds.”
Instead, Lindell and his neighbors will soon see the patches of concrete replaced with new trees and native plantings, with the addition of environmentally friendly green infrastructure
“I am so happy,” added Lindell. “I know how difficult it is even for the local council people to get projects like this done with all the bureaucratic stuff that goes with it. It’s going to be so important to people in our neighborhood.”

Queens Together distributes turkeys to families in need

glendaleregstg on November 24, 2021

From Astoria to Far Rockaway, 1,000 turkeys were distributed to families across the borough by Queens Together.
Jonathan Forgash, co-founder and executive director of Queens Together, said that matching grants from ten Queens-based groups made it possible to distribute the turkeys just in time for Thanksgiving.
“Since the start of COVID, we’ve been working with community groups from around the borough giving meals out to neighbors,” said Forgash. “The silver lining of COVID has been working with thousands of donors, volunteers, restaurants, community groups, churches, elected officials and business leaders to raise the money and do the work. It’s really kind of inspiring.”
Between restaurant meals, food pantries and grocery giveaways, Forgash estimates that Queens Together has fed 200,000 people since the beginning of the pandemic.
A chef of 25 years, Forgash said he was astonished at how food insecurity impacted his own stomping grounds of Astoria.
“I thought the food pantry here wouldn’t be as hard hit as Flushing, Corona and East Elmhurst,” he said in the parking lot of the Variety Boys and Girls Club (VBGC) in Astoria. “I was just wrong. We were handing out produce every Thursday to 500 families in Astoria. People were standing here for hours waiting for food.”
The 1,000 turkeys went to Astoria Houses, Sunnyside Community Services, VBGC, Louis Masonic Lodge in Marine Park, and the office of Assemblywoman Jessica Gonzales-Rojas.
“Queens Together has been a great partner,” said VBGC CEO Costa Constantinides. “They were feeding people here in our parking lot during the pandemic. So many families are still struggling from COVID. Being able to give at this time of year is special.”

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