While some look to re-brand south Queens, others say it’s fine as it is

The areas surrounding Jamaica, Queens are all conveniently located near major highways, subway lines, and John F. Kennedy International Airport but has been hurt by it’s reputation and limited shopping options.   Some politicians and community groups have been trying to re-brand the area to attract tourists and airport workers who would usually just pass through the area.

The plan for many is to to add a varied mix of stores and restaurants.  But some local business owners and politicians say the area is already a tourist destination, attracting a variety of people drawn to the neighborhood’s rich history and ethnic retail.

City Councilmember Leroy Comrie, who represents the area, said he started noticing large tour buses stopping on Jamaica and Hillside Avenues on the weekends a few years ago.

“It just happened on it’s own,” he said of the groups, many of whom had moved away from Queens and started coming back to shop, bringing more and more people each time.

“Once they relocated to other areas they came back, and they told their friends,” he said, “and the next thing you know there’s a whole mini movement.”

The shoppers are attracted to what Comrie called urban retail, especially clothing, movies, and music.  Many who flock to the area are immigrants looking for a taste of home, found in many of the ethnic food shops in the area.

“Not everybody likes Uncle Ben’s rice,” says Comrie.  “There’s a Guyanese rice and an Indian rice and there’s shops where here they have that in quantity.”

Tourists are also visiting the area to walk the streets where hip hop was partially formed but definitely refined (apologies to the Bronx).

“Tourists are their own breed of people”, says Orville Hall, who owns the Hollis Famous Burgers and the adjacent hip hop museum blocks away from the main Jamaica drag.  “And real tourists are explorers.”

Hall opened his restaurant–which also includes a small hip hop museum–in 2009 on the corner of Hollis Avenue, just walking distance from where legends like Run DMC and LL Cool J grew up.  Although he’s far from the heart of Jamaica, he says he gets tourists from all over the world who seek out or stumble upon his restaurant.

“Putting the hub in Jamaica it gives a lot of people the opportunity to not just go straight from Manhattan to the airport,” he said.  “That stop in between gets them curious.”

Hall says he’s had people visit from places like South Africa and Russia, hip hop fans interested in the mini-tour Hall offers, showing them the houses rap stars grew up in.  He’s been working with Rob Walsh, Commissioner of the City’s Small Business Services, to create a hip-hop Walk of Fame on Hollis Ave., a portion of which was renamed after the death of Run DMC’s own Jam Master Jay.

While he currently works with Hush Tours, which operates a bus tour geared towards hip hop and rap fans, Hall is hoping to create a new tour that begins at the adidas store in SoHo.  Hopefully, as the genre continue to become more global and fans start recognizing locations and streets, it will bring even more people to south Queens.

“Different cultures are meeting, talking, showing each other around,” he said.  “It’s the only street in the world named for rappers.”