If you’ve been keeping a keen eye pegged on our Neighborhood Watch series (Lifestyler’s guide to the various residential areas of the city), you’ve no doubt noticed a trend. The first three installments–Bed-Stuy, Ditmas Park, Midwood–are all Brooklyn neighborhoods, which should come as no surprise as 3/4 of the staff hail from the county of Kings.

But we’re an open-minded lot, so we’ve decided to take a gander at our sister borough, Queens–Astoria in particular. Keeping tradition, we’ve tapped the mind of a fellow New York City-based blogger–Brian Heater, the mastermind behind the The Daily Cross Hatch, a wonderful indie comics blog–for the ins and outs of the place he calls home.

For many, the face of Queens will always be associated with Carol O’Connor and Kevin James–loud, blue collar schlubs. But what’s the reality of Queens, particularly Astoria?

Well, there’s certainly that element to it. Astoria is easily one of the most family-friendly burgs in the five boroughs (Christ, they film Sesame Street here), for two important reasons: affordability and safety—an increasingly rare combination in this fine city of ours. It’s a mixed blessing, of course—there is a certain quiet satisfaction to knowing that you probably won’t be struck in the head with a blunt object or offered crack whilst walking down the bustling Steinway St. Though I suppose that’s a decided downside when you are, in fact in the market for crack. It also means that, while there are certainly any number of local attractions, socializing often *gasp* requires traveling to another borough, like say, Manhattan, or G-train forbid, Brooklyn. But that, I suppose, is the price I pay for having my very own backyard.

A friend of a friend once stated that Astoria is the “Park Slope of Queens.” Naturally, I cried shenanigans due to the lack of double decker baby carriages. What’s your take?

Collapse of the western world aside, we’re certainly getting there, in places, for better or worse. It’s yuppifing quickly without the frontier spirit that gentrification often entails. The neighborhood’s already pretty damned nice, so no one really blinks an eye when a new bistro opens up on Crescent St.

I want to party in Astoria. Where do I go?

My place, duh. No, seriously, the Beer Gardens, duh. And when the weather warms up, Water Taxi Beach in LIC (officially annexed by the fine people of Astoria) is nice place to spend a Sunday.

If an apartment-hunter is scoping out your hood for a place to rest their head, how much would they expect to pay for a 1BR? Has the economic downturn produced more affordable rents?

I’d say anywhere from $700 to the low $1,000. I honestly haven’t checked the Craigslist postings in a while, but I imagine things are coming down slowly.

Which subway lines take riders to Astoria? Are they fairly on time?

Depends on where you’re going—my area, which is on the east side of the neighborhood is the R, V (careful, the V doesn’t run on weekends) during the day, and E late nights. The rest of Astoria is serviced by the N and W. Fine trains, all of them, save for the sometimes flaky V. Oh yeah, and the G train comes up here, too….sometimes…

Every neighborhood has its secret gems that outsiders aren’t hip to–what’s Astoria’s?

There’s a lot wonderful weirdness in this neighborhood. Take the Sculpture Park, built on a landfill and Steinway Mansion on 41st st. The Waltz-Astoria off of Ditmars is a cool little café with open mic nights (and great fucking chai tea). There’s also a comic shop inside the Ditmars subway station, one of the first things that made me fall in love with this neighborhood. There’s a surprising number of hookah bars, particularly at the end of Steinway, a handful of great thrift stores, Irish pubs on every corner, awesome diners, and gigantic Jersey-sized supermarkets on the other side of Northern Boulevard. St. Michael’s cemetery is cool and old and on the border of Astoria and Elmhurst, if that’s your thing. There’s a batting cage by the Kaufman-Astoria Theater—can’t go wrong with that. Most folks probably already know about the Museum of the Moving Image (currently under renovation), but that certainly deserves a mention. Speaking of renovated museums, the Noguchi Sculpture museum is also worth checking out.

What’s the deal with the dashes in the addresses? Just daring to be different or is there some logic behind it?

You wouldn’t understand. It’s a Queens thing.

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