Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Five Possible Sites for a New Queens Tourism Center

By Nicole Levy | July 14, 2015 8:05am
 On Friday, the Redbird Tourist Information Center in Queens closed its subway car doors for the last time.
On Friday, the Redbird Tourist Information Center in Queens closed its subway car doors for the last time.
View Full Caption
DNAInfo/Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska

It was the tourism center that no one ever visited.

On Friday, the Redbird Tourist Information Center in Queens closed its subway car doors for the last time. The center, located inside a historic 1950s-era Redbird car stationed near the Queens Criminal Court in Kew Gardens, hadn't seen much foot traffic since it opened in 2008.

In fact, "it had on average 12 visitors a day, the majority of whom were not tourists but rather Queens residents on jury duty," according to a frank statement from a spokesperson for Queens Borough President Melinda Katz. 

Katz is open to ideas for a new site for the Queens tourism center, if that should ever to come to fruition. (And why not? Travel guide book publisher Lonely Planet did name Queens the number one U.S. travel destination for 2015.) We have some suggestions:

Long Island City: The neighborhood that welcomes 7 train riders to the borough has seen an influx of hotels in recent years. There are roughly 25 open now and two dozen others in the works.

The area is also home to such cultural institutions as MoMA P.S. 1, the Noguchi Museum and the SculptureCenter.

► John F. Kennedy International Airport: 49,291,765 passengers came through the airport in 2013. That's a lot of eyeballs that could be looking at pamphlets for the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona.

► LaGuardia Airport: The airport saw 26,722,183 passengers filter through its terminals in 2013, a little more than half that of JFK, but travelers on domestic flights could be more inclined to give the city's geographically largest borough a chance.

► Times Square: The crowded commercial intersection, known for its electronic billboards, cavernous chain stores and vexing costumed characters, is already overrun with tourists. We might as well save them the $200 they would have spent on tickets to "Matilda" and direct them to P.S. 1, where they can pay what they wish.

► Flushing Library: It took $1.3 million to renovate Queens' busiest library, so let's put it to good use. Flushing is easily accessible by the 7 train, and it's the best place to introduce the uninitiated to dim sum, Chinese pastries and the borough's cultural diversity.