Long Island City was once the center of Queens, an important transportation hub, and a proper city in its own right. Postwar deindustrialization and the growth of the suburbs turned this formerly vibrant area into a neglected neighborhood, but that newly created void eventually spurred Long Island City’s transformation. If you make the trek there now, you’ll find theaters and galleries on the vanguard of contemporary art, a diverse array of cuisines and cultures, and independent artisans who have carved out niches amid the newly built skyscrapers and apartment towers, all within a stone’s throw of Manhattan.
Here’s our guide to the neighborhood and what to see, eat and do while you’re there.
EXPLORE THE ARTS SCENE
The spirit of artistic growth amid the bricks and steel can be found throughout Long Island City and was perhaps best embodied by the iconic 5Pointz, a former water meter factory off of Jackson Avenue that, in the 1980s and ‘90s, became artist studios, with the entire building festooned in graffiti. While this mecca of street art was eventually demolished in 2014 to make way for residential units, you don’t have to go far to find more examples of the industrial being converted into the artistic. As a matter of fact, all you have to do is cross Jackson Avenue to MoMA PS1 (22-25 Jackson Ave), which showcases some of the world’s finest and most inventive contemporary art inside a former public school. Their permanent collection is literally embedded within the building, like James Turrell’s Meeting (1986), a hole in the ceiling created with a jackhammer so that visitors could see the sky from within the museum.
Straddling the border with Astoria is The Noguchi Museum (9-01 33rd Road), which was once a gas plant before the famed Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi bought it in the 1970s to house and display his extensive collection of sculptures, architectural models, drawings and designs. There, Noguchi’s smooth, clean curves of marble and granite, gleaming in pink and white, contrast sharply but smartly with the hard flat concrete and dull rough brick. Pieces that resemble chairs, benches and pillars alternate between blending into the scenery and popping out of it, while more avant-garde works like Ding Dong Bat (1968), which looks like a balloon animal carved out of white stone, break up the space with their shape and color.
Nearby, Socrates Sculpture Park (32-01 Vernon Blvd) went from abandoned landfill to outdoor museum, transforming the green space into an open-air gallery. It hosts rotating temporary contemporary art exhibitions, many of which are created on-site in their outdoor studio space. Though there is no permanent collection, visitors can count on three major shows every year: The Spring/Summer Exhibition, the Socrates Annual fellowship exhibition, and the Broadway Billboard series. For the 2024 Socrates Annual fellowship exhibition, nine artists displayed works that played on the theme of invasive species, with sculptures that rise out of the earth and grass like twisted trees or hide amid bushes and reeds.
The performing arts are well-represented in Long Island City, too, where they also rub elbows with the neighborhood’s grittier residents. Chocolate Factory Theater (3833 24th St), an independent space focused on dance and experimental theater, occupies what looks like a garage on a nondescript corner on 24th Street and 39th Avenue, a few blocks down from a metal fabricator. Inside, you can find monthly shows from visiting artists who push the boundaries of dance and theater. Closer to the waterfront, Culture Lab LIC (5-25 46th Ave) hosts art shows, indoor concerts, and theater while also providing arts education and artist residencies. And squashed between a welding company and an elevator company on 29th Street, Flux Factory (39-31 29th St), a grassroots art collective, hosts dozens of multidisciplinary events each year, all free to the public, and has a formal residency for artists to hone their craft.
Art can be found all around Long Island City, even where you least expect it. Near the Queensbridge Houses on 40th Avenue, between a deli and a hotel, is a mural dedicated to Nasir Jones, better known as the rapper Nas. Born in Brooklyn, he grew up in Queensbridge — one of a number of famous hip-hop artists who have called the sprawling project houses their home.
A short walk away on Vernon Boulevard, in the shadow of the Queensboro Bridge and next to a Con Edison substation sits a gorgeous piece of Tudor Revival architecture decked out with clay tiles in rust-colored brick: the former offices of the New York Architectural Terra-Cotta Company. Built in 1892, it was the headquarters of a firm that produced terra-cotta decorations for buildings like Carnegie Hall and the Ansonia, before the company dissolved in the mid-1940s. It’s abandoned but protected as a historic landmark, distinctive amid the auto chop shops and warehouses lining the road.
GRAB A BITE AND A BEER AND BUY SOMETHING UNIQUE
Long Island City specializes in vintage artifacts. You can peruse an eclectic curated assortment of second-hand art and trinkets at Underpenny (10-13A 50th Ave). Owned and maintained by Sung Park, a former deli owner who has spent decades amassing his collection, this narrow shop is both museum and antiques store, with an extensive array of cast-iron pieces on display and a vast mélange of used goods for purchase, ranging from old comic books to cash registers. Likewise, at Remix Market (5-38 46th Ave), you can browse a massive selection of used furniture covering a century’s worth of styles, plus a side room filled to the ceiling with art and home decor.
If your shopping tastes tend more toward the home-made, you can find one-of-a-kind pottery pieces at BrickHouse Ceramic Arts Center (10-34 44th Dr), where members can sculpt, fire and sell whatever they make in the shared studio space. (Classes are available, too, for those interested in creating their own pottery.) Equally unique offerings can be found at Slovak-Czech Varieties (10-59 Jackson Ave), a small store that exclusively sells products from Czechia and Slovakia. There, you’ll find everything from cured meats to candy bars to calendars to caps, all imported from Central Europe. Bookworms should make a stop at Book Culture (26-09 Jackson Ave), an independent seller that’s been a longtime fixture on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The Long Island City location is a short jaunt from the Court Square subway station.
After all that shopping, take a break at one of Long Island City’s premier watering holes. The Rockaway Brewing Company (46-01 5th St) taproom sits across the street from Culture Lab LIC and offers a wide range of funky craft beers on draft, like their tangy, funky Hawaiian Pizza IPA and their namesake extra-special bitter with notes of toffee and biscuit. Plus, you’ll get to hang out with Mr. Brownie, the chunky tabby cat who’s the unofficial owner of the joint. At The Gutter Bar L.I.C. (1022 46th Ave), your beer comes with access to eight hardwood lanes of ten-pin bowling, plus pinball, foosball and table games, making it a great choice for groups. And just a stone’s throw from the Queens Plaza station is the newest taproom of local brewer Finback (29-37 41st Ave), which offers its usual lineup of craft beers but also more fruit-forward mixed culture beers, plus natural wines and mezcal, along with a Chinese-focused food menu, letting you pair dumplings with double IPAs.
Hungry? Long Island City boasts a diverse cuisine scene, with its increasing Asian population expanding the neighborhood’s palate. Consider this a vote for Yumpling, a Taiwanese restaurant serving savory fried chicken, rice bowls, and dumplings. They’ve gone from operating a small stand at LIC Flea to a food truck in midtown Manhattan to their own brick-and-mortar shop in the heart of Long Island City along a stretch with no shortage of options. Yumpling (49-11 Vernon Blvd) stands out for their generous portions and excellent flavors, melding classic Taiwanese staples like beef noodle soup with the kind of fare you’d find at a night market on the streets of Taipei. For more LIC food recommendations, check out The Infatuation's list of the neighborhood's best restaurants.
ADMIRE THE SCENERY AND SKYLINES
When you’re done with your dumplings and draft beer, and after you’ve soaked in all the art you can handle, there’s one last stop to make in Long Island City: the waterfront. Once the site of the industry that made this part of Queens vitally important to the growth and economy of New York City, this space is now parkland – two separate parks, to be exact: Hunters Point South Park, and Gantry Plaza State Park. The former is a waterfront promenade near the Long Island City LIRR station, starting where Newtown Creek empties into the East River and winding north along the water’s edge.
Around 50th Avenue, that land becomes Gantry Plaza State Park, a former dockyard named for the two gantries prominently displayed within it. It was here that freight would be offloaded from LIRR rail cars onto ships and vice versa, and where a Pepsi-Cola bottling plant stood until 1999. The sign that once topped that plant still remains, now at ground level and part of the Long Island City skyline.
Today, skyscrapers dot the site where cranes and factories once stood; there, too, you’ll find the Queens Public Library (47-40 Center Blvd), an 82-foot-tall building with a roof terrace and windows that look like missing jigsaw pieces. It’s a standout piece of architecture and design work, as alluring to the eye as the endless Manhattan skyline across the East River.
Speaking of which: find yourself a bench along the water and settle down to watch the city. There’s no better vantage point in a neighborhood full of stunning sights.
HOW TO GET THERE
Multiple subway lines converge in Long Island City. Court Square is the last stop on Queens-bound G trains and the first stop in Queens for E and M trains coming from Manhattan. The 7 train makes three stops in Long Island City: Vernon Blvd-Jackson Ave, Hunters Point Ave, and Court Square. Long Island City is also where the N, R and W diverge upon leaving Manhattan, with the R stopping in Queens Plaza on its way to Forest Hills, while the N and W head to Queensboro Plaza on the way to Astoria. And the F stops near the border between Long Island City and Astoria at 21 St-Queensbridge.
There are also two Long Island Rail Road stations in Long Island City. At the Long Island City terminal, passengers can take the LIRR in the direction of Oyster Bay, Montauk or Port Jefferson during weekday rush hours. The Hunterspoint Avenue station is also served by the Oyster Bay, Montauk and Port Jefferson branches and offers connections to the 7 train and the Q67 bus.
Subway
Port Jefferson
Oyster Bay
Montauk
Multiple subway lines and LIRR branches can take you to points throughout Long Island City
