Is LIC the new Park Slope?

No but Queen’s Long Island City has been the talk of the town this weekend since the NYTimes ran the article “Families Stake a Claim to Long Island City.” Everyone has been asking now if LIC is the new Park Slope.

Long Island City (LIC) has seen a tremendous turnaround over the last 10 years. Residents priced out of Manhattan learned about the community they had stared out onto for so many years but had rarely ever stepped foot in. Last year LIC was ranked the city’s 16th Most Livable Neighborhood by New York Magazine who wrote: “a discordant mishmash of artists and investment bankers—its twin totems are P.S. 1 and the Citigroup building—Long Island City has one foot planted in Queens (excellent diversity) and the other in Manhattan (very favorable commute times to midtown). Still, the seams sometimes show, as the neighborhood has a fairly high crime rate and poor public schools.”

What makes LIC so attractive?

Location – One of the neighborhoods main draws is it’s proximity to Manhattan. In NYC it’s all about location, location, location. The neighborhood is directly across the East River from Manhattan, and is reached by the the N, W, R, 7, E, F and G subway lines. The only drawback that the NY Times did not point out is that due to construction the MTA regularly shuts down weekend service between 42nd St/Times Square and Queensboro Plaza.

Safety - I did some research and the two precincts that cover LIC both saw drastic drops in crime between 2001 and 2011 according to the NYPD’s CompStat statistics. The 114th Precinct (LIC, Astoria, Jackson Heights, Woodside) saw a 42.17% drop in overall crime and the 108th Precinct (LIC, Sunnyside, Woodside) saw a 45.24% decrease in overall crime.

Education – Education is key to where parents move. Just look at all the parents that move to Park Slope to be in the zone of PS 321. Although LIC has a ways to go PS 78Q in the community is planning a new facility for K-5, Les Enfants Montessori School has expanded its space, there are also plans for a new high school, and a 22,000-square-foot waterfront library is scheduled to open in 2013.

LIC is yet another example of a community that our city can offer to families as an alternative to moving to the suburbs. All too often families are pushed out of urban areas because the city does not offer what families need. This happens to some extent in New York City because some families can no longer afford the skyrocketing cost of living.

For anyone who hasn’t ventured to LIC you should check it out. There are more than a dozen arts and cultural institutions and hundreds of individual artist studios, galleries, and theaters in the neighborhood. Definitely work the trek from Brooklyn (for the day that is).

However, I am going to have to agree with Dan Miner of the Long Island City Partnership who told the Times that “despite the presence of more strollers on the streets and expectant mothers in restaurants, Long Island City is no Park Slope. Park Slope has been a mature residential neighborhood for 100 years,” Mr. Miner said. “Long Island City is progressing along at its own course.”