Queens Noir

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Queens is New York City’s biggest borough, with the most parks and cemeteries, both major airports, Shea Stadium, the city’s only racetrack, and 150 languages spoken by more foreign-born residents than live anywhere else in the U.S. No wonder Queens has attitude. And plenty of noir to go around. That’s the premise of Queens Noir. I chose these nineteen authors for their solid connections to the borough, not to mention their skewed worldviews. This introduction is organized as a tour of the neighborhoods. It begins at the point where a traveler from Manhattan touches down in Queens.

Leave Manhattan (a.k.a., New York City to Outlanders) and drive over the Queensboro Bridge (a.k.a., the 59th Street Bridge) that spans the East River. Take the outer roadbed; on your descent, mark the Citicorp Building (Queens’ only skyscraper) looming on your right; then, close in, the Silvercup Studios sign big and in your face as you touch down in Long Island City. Overhead is the rotting steel skeleton of beams and girders that support the elevated tracks for the N, W, and 7 subway lines, all converging at the Queensboro Plaza station. The 7 line is sometimes called the Orient Express: Of the 2.2 million souls in Queens, forty-eight percent are foreign-born, the majority Asian.

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