✨ Business Spotlight: 🌍 The Secret on Steinway: Inside the ANSOB Center for Refugees & Immigrants

🔪 Two Teens Stabbed Near 31st Ave — Suspects Still Wanted

📉 Great News: Astoria Crime Is Down Nearly 10% in 2026

🚊 Queens Had Its Say on the IBX — What Happened at Last Night's Workshop

🤼 Queens Made Pro Wrestling History at Louis Armstrong Stadium

Friday, May 29

🎬 Astoria Film Festival — May 29–31 | All weekend | Zukor Theater, corner of 35th Ave & 35th St, Kaufman Astoria Studios. Youth festival, workshops, screenings, and the main event Sunday the 31st. Get tickets

🎞 By the People, For the People: Real American Tales | Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35th Ave, Astoria. 14-film series running through July 5 celebrating marginalized American voices for the 250th anniversary. Details

Saturday, May 30

🎉 LIC Springs! 2026 | 12pm–5pm | Vernon Blvd between 46th & 50th Avenues, LIC. Free annual street festival: live music, art, fitness classes, pop-ups, outdoor dining. Info

🧘 Mindfulness in the Galleries | 10am | The Noguchi Museum, 9-01 33rd Rd, LIC. Guided meditation and reflection inspired by the art. Free with admission. Info

Sunday, May 31

👜 Bachelorettes Handbag Comedy Competition | 8:30pm | QED Astoria, 27-16 23rd Ave. Stand-up, improv, talent show — the audience crowns the winner with a grocery-bagged rotisserie chicken. Very Astoria. Tickets

🌺 Hula Workshop & Performance | 11am | Queens Botanical Garden, 43-50 Main St, Flushing. Hawaiian dance, music, and cultural exchange. Details

Monday, June 1

🍽 College Point Restaurant Week — June 1–15 | 21 local restaurants offering 20% discounts on cuisines from Greece, Colombia, China, Italy, Mexico, and more.

🗓 Coming Up / Mark Your Calendar

Astoria Park Carnival — June 3–7 | Astoria Park, Hoyt Ave N & 19th St. Ferris wheel, roller coasters, bumper cars, games, food. Free admission; ride tickets from $1.50. Details

Governors Ball — June 5–7 | Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Lorde, A$AP Rocky, Stray Kids headline. 60+ artists in your backyard. Tickets

You might walk past 2819 Steinway Street a dozen times and never notice the door on the second floor. There's a fish store on the ground level now, and it's easy to miss what's above it. But walk up those stairs and something shifts. People are studying at tables, laughing in a language you might not recognize, waiting their turn with a folder of papers that represents years of hoping. It doesn't feel like a government office. It doesn't feel like a waiting room. According to the people who come here, it feels like home.

That's not an accident. The ANSOB Center for Refugees and Immigrants has been doing this work on Steinway Street since the year 2000. The name is a clue to its origins: ANSOB comes from the word "Bosnia" spelled backwards, because the center was founded specifically to help Bosnian refugees arriving during the war. Its founder, Cathleen Joyce, built it from nothing based on the belief that there are no boundaries to the human spirit. Iman Mehelba, who joined the ANSOB Center as an ESL teacher in 2004 while finishing her master's degree, worked alongside Cathleen for 17 years before Cathleen passed away in 2020. Today, Iman leads the center and she’s carried the torch to keep the legacy and the mission has expanded far beyond Bosnia. They now serve immigrants from over 126 countries across all five boroughs, anyone who lives in New York City is eligible. The Ansob Center has multilingual staff that speaks different languages including English, Arabic, Spanish, French, Hindi, Tibetan, Urdu and Russian. Every single service is free.

Read that again: Free. Free English classes, free citizenship classes, and free immigration legal services. That last one matters more than most people realize. The center employs an experienced immigration attorney and two DOJ accredited representatives, people with the legal training and USCIS authorization to actually handle immigration cases, not notarios, not document preparers, but people who can walk a client through citizenship application , a green card renewal, a work permit, a family-based petition, DACA, TPS, removal of conditions, and a re-entry permit, all the way to completion. 

The classes run both in-person and online, daytime and evening, because they know most of their students are working. The online ESL class alone runs 45 to 55 students at a time. The citizenship class online: 50 to 60. For context, that's a full college lecture hall, run by a staff of six people who are, by Iman's own description, stretching every penny to meet the community needs. The ANSOB Center serves about 100 clients/students per week and has provided services for more that 40,000 individuals since it started.

Here's the part that might stop you: this is the kind of quality that, at a private immigration attorney in Manhattan, would cost hundreds of dollars an hour. At ANSOB, it costs nothing. The center has won competitive federal grants that only 36 organizations in the entire country received. They were one of only two in New York City to make that cut. The ANSOB Center also receives City funding to provide immigration legal services for underserved low income communities. 

The ANSOB Center also earned a Certificate of Recognition from DYCD/NYC Commissioner in 2025 for “the dedication, impact and essential services that they provide to New Yorkers and for the commitment to help strengthen communities and uplift lives across the city.“ These are not small credentials for a second-floor walkup on Steinway.

Coming up soon, the ESL class graduation is being held at the Broadway Library, a celebration where students bring dishes from their home countries and the room turns into something that is equal parts potluck and ceremony. Past graduations have drawn elected officials and community partners. Also, coming up is the registration for the new session of classes for ESL and Citizenship that will start in July.

But for Iman, the real moment is simpler than any of that. It's the student who was convinced they were too old, or too far behind, or too scared to ever pass a citizenship interview, and then they do pass, and they come back to tell her. "I feel like I did something as I help my students reach their dream of becoming US Citizens and contributing to their communities," she says.”I feel very proud of my students as I had so many students from the ESL classes that continued their studies and became successful accountants, dentists, pharmacists, business owners, teachers, etc. and they are contributing positively to their communities,“ Iman added. “We also organize trips in different holidays so our community members celebrate different holidays with their families and friends and get to know and celebrate other cultures and traditions.“ 

Iman is also very involved in the daily operation of the center including teaching ESL and Citizenship classes. “I have a very strong passion for teaching and I work so hard to assure that every single student/client who comes to ANSOB Center, feels like a part of ANSOB Big Family and nothing makes me happier than when my students and clients pass their citizenship test and come back to share their experience and they feel very grateful to ANSOB Team .They also write positive reviews about their experience with ANSOB Center on Google and come back for help to apply for a US Passport,register to vote or petition for their family members.”

If you want to learn more, visit ansob.org or find them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANSOBCenter/, where their page is more current than their website and full of photos and videos from students who have shared their stories. You can also call (718) 278-4303 or email [email protected]. Walk-in hours are Monday through Thursday, 10am to 5:30pm, at 2819 Steinway Street, 2nd Floor, Astoria.

Places like ANSOB are the reason Steinway Street is worth paying attention to. It's not just the restaurants and the shops. It's what's happening on the second floor.

In Calendar Year 2025 alone:

It was a violent end to the Memorial Day holiday weekend in Astoria. On the night of Monday, May 25, two teenagers were stabbed in front of an apartment building at 44-11 31st Ave after a verbal dispute with a group of young men escalated quickly. NYPD says the argument broke out around 8:30 p.m. near 31st Avenue and 45th Street — and when one of the assailants pulled a knife, both teens paid dearly for it.

A 16-year-old was stabbed in the head, neck, and back. An 18-year-old was stabbed in the face. Both were taken to local hospitals and listed in stable condition. Three suspects — described as young males — fled the scene and remain at large as of Thursday evening. NYPD has not released descriptions but the investigation is active.

Anyone with information can contact the NYPD Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS (8477) or submit a tip online. If you were in the area that night and saw anything, please reach out.

👉 Read more: QNS  |  PIX11

Here's some genuinely good news to bring into the weekend. According to updated NYPD crime data, major crimes in the 114th Precinct — which covers Astoria, Long Island City, Woodside, and Jackson Heights — are down more than 9% compared to the same period last year. The declines span multiple categories and in some cases are dramatic: burglary fell 50%, felony assault dropped 35%, retail theft is down 34%, and housing crimes dropped 34%.

Through late May 2026, the numbers continue trending in the right direction. Felony assaults are down 22.6% year-over-year, transit crimes are down 27.8%, and grand larceny is also declining. Citywide, shooting incidents hit an all-time low in January and February — 83 incidents, a new record.

The one area of concern: sex crime reporting. Rape cases were up roughly 40% in early 2026. NYPD officials note that some of this increase may reflect improved reporting rather than a spike in incidents — but it's worth watching. The 114th Precinct's number is 718-626-9311.

👉 Read more: Astoria-LIC Patch

Last night, May 28, the MTA brought its Interborough Express roadshow to PS 88Q in Ridgewood for one of its final public workshops on the 14-mile light rail project that would connect Brooklyn and Queens without a single transfer through Manhattan. Residents showed up to weigh in on station design, train aesthetics, and what they want to see from the biggest transit expansion the MTA has attempted in over 50 years.

The IBX would run along the existing LIRR Bay Ridge Branch and CSX freight corridor — from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, all the way up to Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens. For western Queens residents, this is the kind of transit connectivity that's been a long time coming. When complete, the MTA estimates the route would eliminate 21.8 million vehicle miles of passenger car travel annually.

This was among the final major community input sessions before the project advances. If you missed last night, the MTA's project page is still accepting digital feedback. This one could genuinely change how Queens moves.

👉 Read more: amNY  |  MTA Project Page

You might not have caught this one — but history was made right here in Queens over the holiday weekend. At AEW's Double or Nothing pay-per-view, held at Louis Armstrong Stadium in Flushing, MJF defeated Darby Allin to capture the AEW World Championship. Queens hosted a championship crowning.

It's a fun reminder that this borough punches above its weight class as an entertainment destination. Louis Armstrong Stadium, typically home to the US Open's tennis action, has been serving up an increasingly diverse lineup of big events — from World Cup fan zones to pro wrestling title matches.

No word yet on whether MJF will be defending the title locally anytime soon - but if he does, you can bet Astoria neighbors will be in the seats.

👉 Read more: Queens Gazette

Astoria Insider is inviting local businesses and organizations to be featured in its growing community newsletter.

The platform highlights local news, events and community stories, providing businesses with an opportunity to reach a highly engaged local audience and showcase what they offer.

From restaurants and shops to services and community groups, all are encouraged to participate and share their story with readers across the Astoria and surrounding areas. Don’t own a business? That’s ok… Know of one that should be featured?

Those interested in being featured can reach out to learn more about available opportunities and upcoming editions. Click the button below to feature your business or send an email to [email protected] with your business details and we’ll reach out!