Author Archives: Patrick Chiang

About Patrick Chiang

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Flushing Parking Conflict Story by Patrick Chiang

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The thumping of the bass could be heard outside the car as a man in his early twenties came to a stop at a red light. After a short drag he cracked open his window a little bit more and blew out the smoke from his cigarette, letting out a sigh. It was your average two in the afternoon weekday and the packed traffic was already coming to a halt.

A current construction project in Flushing Queens has claimed a quarter of a large parking lot for a commercial and residential building. With the diminishing parking spaces available, more and more traffic has piled up on the streets, leading to additional congestion of pedestrians on the sidewalks. There are those who favor the new establishment and others whom resent it but, whatever side you are on, the lack of parking space has become a big issue in Flushing.

“I’m just here to buy some groceries and having to wait through this traffic and finding a parking space makes me want to bang my head against a wall,” said Kevin, the twenty or so year-old in his car.

Aside from the current construction going on, another commercial building, completed a while back,  now houses stores such as BJ’s, AppleBees, Best Buy, Target, and even a Chuck E Cheese’s. This new building has attracted customers from all over Queens and even other places due to the ease of accessibility through the Number 7 train. While this mall has its own parking spaces available, it is located a bit further out from Main Street Flushing but that doesn’t stop the shoppers.

“It used to be fine driving to Flushing and finding a parking space. With all these new buildings, shops, people, and traffic signs, it’s much easier and time efficient to take the bus or even walk,” said Ling, an elderly woman who sat next to me on the bus.

The streets, sidewalks, trains, and even buses are crowded. A few years back, Flushing was never this popular and finding an empty seat on public transportation was easy. John,a local resident who doesn’t own a car calls the Golden Horse Taxi Service when he needs a ride, even if it’s to buy groceries. A recent interview with a dispatcher at the Golden Horse Taxi service revealed that there has been an influx of customers within the Flushing area. The dispatcher agreed that part of the increase is due to the decrease of parking spaces.

Other residents, ess concerned about the parking dilemma, welcome the new commercial buildings. Jackie a student attending NYU who currently lives in Flushing said, “I don’t mind these new buildings. Eventually Flushing may become like a small Manhattan and I’d be happy to be in my natural habitat again.”

The current construction project that will replace 100 or so parking spaces is slowly making progress with an estimated completion date of 2014. Whether or not there will ultimately be parking spaces provided within the establishment is still unknown, but right now many residents and commuters see it as an inconvenience.

Extra Credit – Source

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I think that one of the hardest things that I’ve run into when writing and researching my topics would be contacting people. More specifically, contacting people from a big organization who do not want to speak to someone who’s just an undergrad student. It was definitely harder to get information from establishments once they asked who I was writing for. If it wasn’t the NY Times or some other large entity, they would just give me a poor response to just get me to leave them alone. Other than that, it was definitely hard to find a mutually convenient time for both parties to meet or talk. Most of the times they were available I had class, and when I was available they were closed which was a tad infuriating. There’s nothing I could do but continue trying.

I write for an online tech magazine so I constantly have to contact large companies for information or review units. They tend to ignore my emails and calls but I still contact them weekly until I get a human response. Its not easy but once I have established a PR contact, things tend to go more smoothly. I think this is relavant to finding sources to talk to for our articles since perseverance goes a long way. But then again they can always decline.

Frank Huang – Flushing Neighborhood Profile/Face by Patrick Chiang

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Frank taking care of kids.

Standing at the edge of the three pointer line, he takes a quick breath and shoots. The team cheers as Frank Huang makes another three and they run to their defensive positions. Suddenly a quick pass interception turns the ball over. Eyes focused and ignoring the beading sweat on his forehead, Frank lets out a chuckle as he lets the ball fly.

“Haha come on guys, you’re making it too easy.” laughing as the ball fell through the hoop. Frank is a frequent visitor of this ball court because it’s directly across the street from his employment at Queens Herald Community Corporation. As a pastor and director of the after school  Frank is busy but he always finds time to play some ball.

Why basketball specifically? Well Frank is a big sports fan and mostly because of an outreach program at his job.  “We have a few basketball teams for the summer and winter where we get the kids from the streets and put them on teams and try to teach them about teamwork.” This year, Frank has already attended multiple games with his teammates in his age bracket.

As we walked to the nearby deli to buy some drinks he told me a bit about himself. He came here from Taiwan when he was nine has lived in Flushing for fifteen years now. Frank thinks of himself to be quite ‘Americanized’ but with the bonus of being able to speak Chinese which works very well in the neighborhood he lives in. “Immigrant life is tough and I know what they have to go through. It’s not easy.” he said.

Frank has always liked children and thinks that our society currently lacks supervision for them. At the same time we have a whole lot of immigrant parents who don’t know the system here so they really have the disadvantage in terms of the education their children gets, and their rights.

“So my heart is to really show those parents and kids that they don’t have to be stuck in that kind of situation and that they can have the same thing as Americans.” He commented after a gulp of water and a sigh.

One thing Frank noted after the basketball game was that many of the immigrants stick to their original language without trying to learn a new language and culture. “I’m kind of disappointed to see many of the immigrants coming here for a brighter future not trying to learn and adapt. When I grew up it was the same thing. The Chinese would speak Chinese in school because they could get by with just Chinese.” Frank mentioned his distaste for inequality and how sometimes people are limiting themselves and not realizing it.

Frank believes in helping others and there are a few families that because of their financial situation couldn’t afford the after school care for their children so Frank with the help of others helped them apply for different kinds of funding and assistance. Even the church has an assistance program that people can apply for.

He earned his BBA in financial marketing with a minor in marketing from City University of New York Baruch College and expected the businessman’s life. But because of how God has affected his life he now views things differently. From there he attended seminary where he learned the beginnings of how to start social work, the biblical principal of doing social work, and god’s teachings. “Social work should go hand in hand with everything that we do so we can show what love and grace is like.”

Liebling by Patrick Chiang

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Apology For Breathing was great because of the unique writing style and content. At first it was a bit hard to understand because there were often references to people whom I don’t know, but I ended up liking the listing. It seemed like he could continue on forever so I thought the title was cleverly named. The story about his father was funny and transitioned very well to the next paragraph.

Getting By was a nice piece as well because it contrasted two opposing title holders. One side we have the faster, and on the other side, the eater. The story was very well written and I especially liked his use of quotes in this piece.

Beginning With the Undertaker was a fantastic story and was very well written. I really liked his sense of humor as well as the paradox of undertakers being sociable men. Society and television have always portrayed undertakers as introverts or psychopaths so writing about a sociable undertaker and his stories was very comical. This would have to be my favorite story from what we’ve read of his works.