✨ Business Spotlight: 💪 Gym-azing: 15 years of Tina, a wall of trophies, and 20 kids beating teams of 200

🏗️ Astoria–LIC: a neighborhood-wide rezoning study is finally on the table

🚇 Western Queens officials to the MTA: clean up your mess in Woodside & Sunnyside

⚽ Astoria's Honey Fitz becomes a Cape Verde supporters bar for the World Cup

🎓 LaGuardia Community College Way is now on the LIC map

Tuesday, June 9

7:00 PM — Halsey's Astoria (22-09 31st St). Mixtape Bingo — music-based bingo every Tuesday, prizes, free to play. Details

Wednesday, June 10

5:00 – 8:00 PM — Lockwood Astoria (32-15 33rd St). Queens Perennial flower CSA pickup — local bouquets, week one of the season. Details

Thursday, June 11

1:30 – 6:00 PM — Louis Armstrong Stadium, Flushing. FIFA World Cup 26™ NYNJ Fan Zone Queens — opening day. Free with RSVP. Details

8:00 PM — Q.E.D. Astoria (27-16 23rd Ave). Check out the weekly comedy lineup on the QED calendar. Details

Friday, June 12

5:00 PM – Midnight — Louis Armstrong Stadium, Flushing. World Cup Fan Zone Queens — live screenings, performances, free entry. Details

All night — Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden (29-19 24th Ave). Beer garden patio season is in full swing — check the calendar for weekend live music. Details

Saturday, June 13

12:00 – 8:00 PM — 31st Avenue Open Street (33rd–35th Sts). Astoria's volunteer-run weekend block party — vendors, music, kid stuff. Details

1:30 – 9:00 PM — Louis Armstrong Stadium, Flushing. World Cup Fan Zone — match screenings continue. Details

Evening — Q.E.D. Astoria (27-16 23rd Ave). Pride weekend at QED — see the calendar for the full lineup. Details

Sunday, June 14

12:00 – 8:00 PM — 31st Avenue Open Street (33rd–35th Sts). Open Street Sunday — and grab fresh produce at the Astoria Farmers Market on 34th St. Details

11:30 AM – 10:00 PM — Louis Armstrong Stadium, Flushing. World Cup Fan Zone — first full weekend. Details

Monday, June 15

Watch party (TBD) — Honey Fitz (30-09 Broadway). Cape Verde's World Cup debut — Astoria's unofficial Cape Verde supporters pub. Check their Insta for kick-off times. Details

1:30 – 9:00 PM — Louis Armstrong Stadium, Flushing. World Cup Fan Zone — Belgium v Egypt (3PM), Saudi Arabia v Uruguay (6PM). Details

Walk into Gym-azing on a Thursday evening and you'll hear it before you see it: music, sneakers on the floor, kids counting out a hip-hop routine. Look up and there's a wall of trophies. Not a shelf. A wall. This is the kind of neighborhood studio where the same family has been coming for so long that a kid who started at seven is now home from college and still drops in. That sort of loyalty doesn't happen by accident.

The woman behind it is Tina, and her story is pure Astoria. Born in Greece, she came here when she was one year old, which means she's been part of this neighborhood for 57 years. When her youngest was three, there was nothing local that offered the kind of classes she wanted for him, so she was driving out to Bayside and Whitestone just to find them. In 2010 she decided to stop driving and build it herself. More than fifteen years later, that gap she spotted is a full studio.

And it is full. The schedule runs the gamut: Messy Art and story time for the little ones, Petite Ballroom and other Mommy and Me classes, ballet, jujitsu, hip hop, a yoga-Pilates class, and a breakdancing crew that works out of the studio. Tina trains adults too, including women she's been working with for over sixteen years and a few clients in their seventies who keep showing up. Weekends bring birthday parties. It's a lot of programming for one person to hold together, and she does it while answering her own phone, because, as she puts it, she's old school. You call, she picks up.

Here's the number that tells you everything. Tina's hip-hop team has taken first place at competitions against studios fielding 100 and 200 dancers, and she does it with 20 students. Twenty. That's not a budget or a marketing engine winning those trophies. That's coaching, attention, and kids who get seen as individuals instead of names on a roster. Her instructors stick around the same way her students do. Her hip-hop teacher has been with her for over twelve years.

There's more coming this summer. The studio's breakdancing crew, Dynasty Breaking NYC, is running camps for two weeks in July and two weeks in August, a great option for the slower summer stretch before classes ramp back up in September.

To see the full schedule, find a class for your kid, or sign yourself up, reach Gym-azing on Facebook and Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/gymazingg/ and https://www.facebook.com/gymazingastoria/, or visit https://gym-azing.com/. Better yet, just call. You already know who's going to answer.

Join us in celebrating Gym-azing and more than fifteen years of Tina giving this neighborhood's kids and grown-ups a place to move, compete, and belong. That's what makes Astoria feel like home.

After more than a decade of advocacy by the Old Astoria Neighborhood Association and others, Queens Community Board 1 has officially launched outreach and a study of the current zoning framework across Astoria and Long Island City. Translation: the patchwork rulebook that governs what can and can't get built here is finally getting a real, public-facing look.

The argument from supporters is that the current zoning is a mess of inconsistencies — adjacent properties operating under dramatically different rules, key corridors like Steinway and Astoria Heights stuck with frameworks written for a different era. CB1 is gathering community input first, then bringing in the technical work on a separate committee. OANA's Richard Khuzami, a 26-year board veteran, is in the room.

Why it matters: a neighborhood-wide rezoning is the difference between fighting one parcel at a time and shaping where Astoria goes next as a whole. Expect this to be one of the slowest-burning, biggest-impact local stories of the next two years — and a lot more community meetings to put on your calendar.

👉 Read more: Queens Chronicle • Also covered: The National Herald

Assemblymember Steven Raga, Councilmember Julie Won, Rep. Grace Meng, and State Senator Michael Gianaris sent the MTA a joint letter last week calling out the agency's neglected properties across Western Queens. The list is bleak: years-behind station construction, chipping paint that may contain lead at the 58th Street and 39th Avenue underpasses in Woodside, and full-on illegally dumped piles of garbage at the MTA-owned site on Barnett Avenue in Sunnyside.

Locals along Barnett between 56th Street and 38th Avenue have been documenting the dumping for months — and yes, the pigeons that come with it. The 61st and 69th Street station construction projects are reportedly running two years behind schedule. The officials want a timeline and a plan, not a press release.

It's a small win that the letter exists, but a familiar story for anyone who's walked under the elevated and wondered who's responsible for what they're seeing. Eyes on the MTA's response over the next couple of weeks.

👉 Read more: Queens Daily Eagle

Sean Doran, the Irish-born owner of Honey Fitz at 30-09 Broadway, was looking for a national team to adopt for the World Cup. He found one through a wonderfully Astoria-shaped connection: Roberto "Pico" Lopes, the captain of Dublin's Shamrock Rovers, qualifies for Cape Verde through his father — and the African archipelago is making its World Cup debut this summer.

That's how a quiet Irish bar in Astoria became, more or less overnight, the unofficial Cape Verde supporters pub. Doran tells QNS he's already heard from Cape Verdeans driving in from Rhode Island for the games. Cape Verde makes its World Cup debut later this month — follow Honey Fitz on Instagram for match-day plans.

It's the kind of thing that only happens in a neighborhood like ours — Greek diners next to halal carts next to Irish bars next to Bengali coffee shops, all of us about to spend a month yelling at TVs together. Bring it on.

👉 Read more: QNS

On June 1, LaGuardia Community College officially co-named the block of 29th Street between Skillman Avenue and 47th Avenue "LaGuardia Community College Way." Council Member Julie Won and Queens Borough President Donovan Richards joined the ceremony, and the LaGuardia Jazz Ensemble — student musicians led by Professor Thomas Dempsey — opened the event.

The block isn't a random pick. It's home to the LaGuardia Community College Greenway, the 17,000-square-foot pedestrian plaza with the giant block-long street mural out front. The Greenway started as a student-led Open Street in 2022 and was made permanent by DOT in 2025 — meaning students fought for it, won, and now have it written into the street grid.

Quiet, but important: a CUNY community college serving over 30,000 students gets the kind of public recognition usually reserved for monuments and millionaires. Worth a walk past.

👉 Read more: QNS

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

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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!