The planes give it away. East Elmhurst sits right beside LaGuardia Airport in northern Queens, and jets come in low over the rooftops every couple of minutes, their wheels down, as they line up for the runways that jut out into Flushing Bay. It is a neighbourhood of brick row houses, small gardens and churches, historically one of the main centres of Black middle-class life in Queens, and it has a strong sense of community despite the noise.
History is close at hand. Malcolm X lived here with his family in the early 1960s, and his house was firebombed in February 1965, a week before he was assassinated in Manhattan. Louis Armstrong lived just to the south, in Corona, in a modest brick house that is now a museum, complete with his den, his trumpets and recordings of his voice. To the west, in Astoria, the Steinway piano factory has been building concert grands since the nineteenth century, and the area around it was once a company town called Steinway Village.
Food is the reason to linger. Jackson Heights, just south, is one of the most diverse neighbourhoods in the world, and along 74th Street and Roosevelt Avenue you can eat Indian, Nepali, Tibetan, Colombian, Ecuadorian, Mexican and Thai food within a few blocks, often from carts and tiny counters, under the rattle of the elevated subway. Momos, arepas, tacos and biryani: take your pick. It is a fitting end to a Hudson to Rhinebeck food ride, which takes you through farm country and old river towns.
Getting here means crossing into Queens on one of the big bridges, such as the Whitestone, the Throgs Neck or the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, all with tolls, and then threading through dense traffic on the Grand Central Parkway or the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The roads are often rough, with potholes and steel plates, and drivers are aggressive. Take your time, and watch for sudden lane changes.
Fuel, food and services are everywhere, and the subway lines on Roosevelt Avenue will take you anywhere in the city. Flushing Meadows Corona Park, a short ride east, with the giant steel Unisphere from the 1964 World's Fair and the tennis stadiums of the US Open, is a good place to sit and watch the planes go by.