Category Archives: Class Profiles

Neighborhood Profile: Lemon remains King in Corona, Queens

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The famous ice shop in Corona, Lemon Ice King,  has been around since 1964, a time when the area was pre-dominantly Italian. Pete Benfaremo and his father Nicola were its original owners and Vincent Barbaccia, a teenager, was employed behind the counter, serving customers in a traditional uniform: white tee-shirt draped over white pants and a white apron branded by the ice shop’s logo. Barbaccia assisted Benfaremo for some time before beginning to help manage the business and develop other assistants, most notably Michael Zampino.

“We were selling lemon, pistachio and orange. More typical in an Italian taste” said Barbaccia, co-owner of the shop since buying the business from the Benfaremo family in 1993 with Zampino.

Today in Corona, the population has nearly doubled since the 1960’s and race in the community has changed significantly. The area is recognized for being pre-dominantly Hispanic. Statistics from the 2010 census reveal that approximately 74 percent of the community identified themselves as Hispanic or Latino.

Local residents are no longer playing bocce at William F. Moore park on 108tth Street, across from the ice shop. Summers still host older residents on special occasions, gathering together the older Italian community with games of bocce and heated conversations about the Mets. These nights at park, nicknamed “Spaghetti”, bring peak business production for Lemon Ice King, but around the community, one will find more Colombian bakeries and Dominican diners than they will Italian cuisines.

Lemon Ice King

In the business for over 30 years, Vincent Barbaccia wants to keep the shop authentic to it’s “King” Pete Benfaremo. The gold plate is an original installation, lighting up Corona till 11pm.

The influx of immigrants has translated into a bevy of small businesses in Corona, Queens. Nail salons, wax and thread spas, pizzerias, and barbershops repeated for blocks by different owners yet no business is as specific to a season like that of Mr. Zampino and Mr. Barbaccia. Nonetheless, they offer their authentic Italian desert all year.

For $1.50, customers are granted a scoop of ice, blended with a choice of over 50 flavors, all blended with natural products. Numerous Corona natives admitted to having it as routine as their coffee in the morning.

It has become a landmark in Corona, whether customers are cluttered together after a Mets game on a Sunday evening or parked during the winter months when Barbaccia, Zampino and their team of teenagers dig a trail through the snow for customers to go and make orders at the stand.

Behind the counter, a crop of teenagers no longer dress in traditional apparel, wearing washed-out slim fitting jeans and a t-shirt with the Benfaremo logo, finished off with a baseball cap, sometimes flipped backwards. They still offer service with the same gratitude and are forbidden by the soul of Pete to mix any ice flavors. Nonetheless, customers around the neighborhood love their ices. Adriano Santos, a resident around the neighborhood and a regular at the shop admits that the people working anticipate he is going to order a small lime ice upon arrival. Swearing to Lemon Ice King’s consistent measures to know their clients, Santos said “There is no other place with gourmet ices like this. My grandmother’s flan is the only thing I know that is as good.”

Lemon Ice King is all about maintaining a classic tradition of preparation, routine and delivery; however, they are attuned to the community changes and continue to make different flavors to accommodate them.

Barbaccia and Zampino continue the tradition to hire teens within the community. While there are now a culmination of ethnicities living in the area, these business owners look for respect and good attitude from the teenagers they hire.

Understanding that not all households have parents supportive of the children living in them, Barabaccia likes parents who are actively involved in their child’s work schedule. “You can tell by the respect that these kids have and how they act, the kind of home they are coming from” said Barbaccia. It is a bias he carries from his own experience of being hired at the Lemon Ice King.

Barbaccia admits that the changing community affected his business for a small period of time. According to the city-data statistics, the median household income in Corona is $46,493, putting them below the average household income of New York city. Moreover, these statistics do not take into account the illegal immigrants living in these households. Many residents of the Sherwood apartment complexes know this situation too well. One resident, who wished to remain anonymous, admitted that she has three undocumented people living under her apartment. During bi-annual checkups, she has them stay elsewhere for a week to avoid suspicious activity and keep her rent under control.

Ice carts, often run by Hispanic immigrants who fill the streets of Corona, offer a similar product to Lemon Ice King for a cheaper price. They are famous for carving out ice from their cart and saturating it with concentrated flavors for a lesser price. Many local residents were intrigued by the price for a while.

“We see the change in the past years where they would patronize those carts because they were cheaper but now they realize the quality of our product. For that extra 50 cents or a quarter, they’re getting a choice of 50 flavors. For under 10 dollars you get something for you and the kids,” said Barbaccia.

Christmas King

During the Holiday season, Lemon Ice King stays open, offering their delights and getting into the spirit.

The product is unmatched indeed. All the ices are water-based and made with real fruit. In addition, the business always packs a surplus of ingredients they provide everything on their menu at all times. “We run out of nothing.” says Barbaccia.

In addition, the business continues to increase their menu to accommodate the taste of the community.

“The way the flavor of the neighborhood has changed reflects in the ices that we sell now. We’re selling more tropical flavors. More mango, coconut and piña colada” said Mr. Barbaccia.

Last year, the business introduced an Oreo-cookie and a root beer flavor. Mr. Barbaccia hints that a tropical delight and a tamarind flavored ice are in the works at the request of his customers.

The business has not experienced a drastic change in sales. The bigger challenge the business faces is maintaining the original recipe. Matching a color pigment that has been around for 70 years has proven more difficult for the business than losing any clientele.

The aesthetic of the store strikes the resemblance of the original stand. The pinstripe awning extends itself as shade for customers dripping ice on their hands in the peak of the summer. The gold plate hanging above the storefront is an original installation from when Lemon Ice King first planted themselves in the heart of Corona, shining the number of flavors that increases every couple of years and the Benfaremo logo. Instead of selling themselves short by fixing the crack on the floor or by maximizing their profits by using top line puree over their fruits, the business has stuck to Pete Benfaremo’s script: natural fruit in their ices that are never to be mixed.

“I don’t care if we sell pistachio or chocolate as long as someone is buying it,” said Mr. Barbaccia.

 

“Small Town Man, Big Time Job”

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The business has been around for 80 years and the building was recently renovated in 2012.

The building’s awning reads, “Buckley’s Drug Store and Compounding Center.” Customers enter an old-fashioned pharmacy owned by a man who greets them by name and asks about their day. Puzzled by the word compounding, they learn their medications are made from scratch to tailor their needs. The store, on the tree-lined streets of Englewood, New Jersey, reflects the charm of a family owned business and specialized medication.

A bell rings to signal your arrival when you open the door. Gil Dominguez can be seen filling patient’s prescriptions with sounds of pounding, conversation, and old school music filling the air.

For the last 30 years, 10 hours a day, Mr. Dominguez has successfully run Buckley’s, on Palisades Avenue, with his own personal touch despite the difficulties he faces.

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Dominguez is always seen in his white lab coat and smiling at customers.

From childhood, he has been surrounded by the world of medicine, following in the footsteps of his aunt and father-in-law who owned a pharmacy in Cuba. His father, struggling to pave the way for a prosperous life for his children, embarked on a journey to fulfill his family’s dreams.

“I grew up watching my aunt work and one day I started to ask questions,” he said. “I saw all the great things she could do for her patients and I knew I wanted to do something with a professional license in a business environment.”

With that dream, Dominguez worked in a number of pharmaceutical firms and hospitals until he acquired Buckley’s, where he works with his wife and son. Passing down family values, Dominguez said he hopes “we can be here for another 30 plus years.”

Mixing family with business has presented several challenges in his struggle to survive and remain current.

“My wife takes care of the gift shop and social media publicity while my son assists with compounding medications and patient care,” he said. “Families fight but we only get stronger.”

The key to Dominguez’s success is how he serves his customers in ways chain pharmacies such as Walgreens or the CVS down the street cannot. Although 41 percent of Americans buy their prescriptions at chain stores according to ConsumerReports.org, Dominguez builds his business by accommodating patient’s needs, schedules, and requests, creating an intimate atmosphere not possible among chain stores. In an age where humans are numbers on a computer, or voice-acted recordings, customers appreciate that Dominguez remembers their face and medical history.

“This industry has to be personalized,” he said. People don’t just come to your store because it’s a pharmacy, they come because they have a trust.”

A loyal customer and Englewood resident, Annette Amirian, has been going to Buckley’s for 12 years. She relies on Dominguez to provide her family with prescriptions in a timely fashion.

She said, “I go to Gil because I believe he monitors what types of medications I’m taking and truly cares for my well-being.”

This relationship between patient and pharmacist does not just exist within the Buckley’s building. Dominguez admits to seeing a lot of his customers at the local grocery store down the street.

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Dominguez crushing pills to compound medications.

“Englewood is a close community,” he said. “When I go pick up some milk, it will take me 15 minutes because I bump into patients and start talking.”

Dominguez’s goal is simple: to please patients and monitor their care. Buckley’s specializes in compounding medications to fit patient’s needs in the lab on the second floor. If a patient can’t take an oral medication, he looks for an alternative such as a cream or a suppository to be taken.

A highlight of his job is when Dominguez is able to help someone get a medication that the insurance company refuses to pay for. “Although it is not simple to override a medication that the insurance company didn’t cover,” he said. “When I can, I know I’ve done something good for my patient.”

Dominguez takes the good with the bad as he finds himself struggling with today’s technological advancements that have caused a decline in sales due to online mail orders. Certain prescriptions have a rider available through mail order for maintenance drugs such as blood pressure, asthma, or diabetes medications that can only be filled through a PBM, a pharmacy benefit manager. The idea is to get people to use lower cost mail order services instead of having prescriptions filled at their local drugstores.

“Over the last 15 years, I would say I lost a lot of customers because of this,” he said. “Let’s say a family of four uses mail orders, that’s four patients that I’ve lost.”

His problems all “come down to dollars and cents.” About 10-15 times a day, Dominguez calls insurance companies to make sure he was reimbursed when he was supposed to or calls to receive a prior authorization from a doctor to cover a prescription before he can refill it.

“A simple procedure that takes five minutes can take 30 minutes because of a constant back and forth between doctors and insurance companies,” he said.

Neighborhood Profile Draft

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An average day for Kyle Blidy consists of rising early at 5:00 A.M. and thrusting himself into the hustle and bustle that is New York. Kyle’s first task of the day is his commute from his neighborhood in Astoria to the the LoMA academy in lower manhattan.

Kyle’s primary occupation is as a teacher at the LoMA academy from 8AM-12PM daily, and additionally works as a teacher’s assistant and after-school tutor at the St. John’s Preparatory High School (which is only a few blocks from his apartment) every other afternoon.

“Teaching is something that I always had a passion for, ever since I had my first chemistry class in High School, and saw my first laboratory explosion. This explosion metaphorically sparked a revolution in my intellectual interests. I have taken on the career of education so that I can share my passion for chemistry with others Kyle is certified to teach chemistry and mathematics at any school in the state of New York, since his graduation from NYU Steinhardt’s prestigious teaching program (ranked third in the nation for pedagogy, according to the Princeton Review). “As much as I’ve made it my goal to try to help every student get an equal education, I must admit that it is easier to teach students at the elite St. John’s Preparatory High School versus the students at the under-served, predominantly-minority student, LoMA academy. It really just has to do with available resources, funding, and student motivation for success. Unfortunately, the school system in New York is greatly disparate in regards to the above, and the struggle I endure at LoMA is enough to drive me out of there. I plan on working to secure a tenured position at St. John’s Preparatory High School in the near future.”

In addition to Kyle’s all around superior experience at St. John’s Preparatory High School, it moreover takes the cake in terms of convenience. Kyle’s commute to St. John’s Preparatory High School is far less than that for LoMA. St. John’s is only a few blocks away from his apartment building, in the comfort of Astoria. In order to get to the LoMA, he must commute by subway, which as Kyle appropriately argues, isn’t exactly free.

“It’s something that’s convenient for me since taking the subway beats driving any day! ” He says when asked about his commute. “ Not only is it cheaper than driving, but I don’t need to engage in that crazy hassle of finding a parking, which by the way is virtually impossible. It really isn’t so bad managing without a car, since the subway is just a block from my house and the trains come like every five minutes. Commuting by trains, believe it or not, may even benefit me at times, since it gives me extra time to look over my notes for my lessons before I begin my day teaching.”

As positive as Kyle’s commuting story seems to be, he does admit that there are some drawbacks to living in Astoria. One of the challenging experiences he has faced is having to deal with large crowds during the prime-time of day. He explains that sometimes rush hour makes it hard for him to even score a tiny corner of space in the train for his travel to the city. Kyle also comments that due to Astoria being quite densely populated, you often smell unwanted scents from people around you, and this includes not only ethnic cuisines, but even lingering marijuana. Kyle complains that the marijuana problem in his building is so bad, that the smell seeps through the walls and ceilings. Fortunately, this is a problem Kyle explains will end soon, as those few tenants who break the illegal-substance laws are currently undergoing an eviction from premises.

Kyle Blidy has lived in Astoria for his entire life with his father, Peter Blidy. More recently, they expanded their nuclear family, and got a cat, Catherine “Cat” Blidy. Peter Blidy has owned his apartment building for roughly 25 years, and has been working to modernize and improve the estate since the day he inherited it. Peter and Kyle’s home is located conveniently off of Astoria’s very busy 30th Avenue, where the many bus lines, parks, bodegas, hair salons, and of course, the N and Q subway lines are located.

“I walk outside my door, and there’s all these different types of people, it’s almost as diverse as Manhattan. And food? I can eat a different type of food every day of the week. Mexican, Italian, Greek, Egyptian. . . you name it!” He adds that he’s grateful for the 24-hr Queenie’s Fried Chicken that’s on the same block as his apartment building. “This place is convenient for those late night ‘snack attacks’,” as he phrases it.

 

When asked if he would ever consider moving elsewhere, Kyle shakes his head and answers with a simple, “Never.”

Neighborhood Faces: Dave Carlson

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In the many times we walk around our specific neighborhoods, no matter how big the size of our luxurious and filthy metropolis is, we may continue to see the same familiar faces. Each face a life, and each life a story. Local “homeless” man Dave Carlson resides on the street corner of Third Avenue between Twenty-Sixth and Twenty-Seventh Street, right next to the Subway restaurant.

In his fifth year as a street resident, and that is meant to be taken literally, Dave is the face that everyone sees on their way to and from work, just as long as you’re a Kips Bay resident.

Starting his life as a soldier fighting wars overseas, he is greeted with cold shrugs of New York. “I had no more family and no more friends when I came back home,” Dave says as he is sitting down on his milk crate he carries with him, looking down at his hands. However, he has found friends from continuously living in his non-literal street address. He is greeted with warm hellos and offers of blankets, shirts, socks, scarves, mostly everything that the residents can give him.

“The winters are harsh, so I try to get as many clothes as I can. I have this suitcase with me, so i can store my clothes. I’ve been to all the homeless shelters, but my clothes and belongings always get stolen from me, so it’s better if I stay on the street.”

Regardless of fact or opinion, Dave Carlson has not even been threatened to move out of his residence, unlike many unfortunate New Yorkers in the past.

 

Neighborhood Faces

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For over 30 years, Gil Dominguez has served as owner and lead pharmacist at Buckley’s Drug Store and Compounding Center, found in Englewood’s downtown district. Buckley’s has been around for over 80 years, successfully helping Englewood residents as well as people from near towns. Dominguez has become a key figure in the community and that’s why I decided to profile him. His job is a family run business where he works with his wife and son. Dominguez was heavily influenced by his aunt who was a pharmacist and his father-in-law who owned a pharmacy in Cuba. He works everyday to help the welfare of society with their basic needs and prescriptions. I would like to know more about his business, what a day at the job consists of, and what problems he faces in his industry. Something unique about Dominguez is that he is able to get to know his customers on a personal level, recognizing each person by name. This personal relationship is only possible because of Englewood’s tight knit community and his small local business.

Dominguez has seen the city change and knows what issues it faces. On a business level, he finds the traffic and insufficient amount of parking on Palisades Avenue to be an issue for his customers. From our conversation, he told me he grew up in Manhattan, however after being in Englewood for so many years he can say that he likes the suburbs better. He enjoys the small town feel and the diversity it brings. For my media component, I thought it would be nice to have audio clips as well as pictures of him and the pharmacy.

Neighborhood Faces: Robert Pozarycki

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The person that I would like to profile is Robert Pozarycki, the editor-in-chief for the Queens Courier and the Courier Sun, two community newspapers which have their offices in Bayside. While I was an intern at the Queens Courier this summer, I worked for Robert—or Rob, as he’s known in the office—and I developed a professional and friendly relationship with him.

One thing that interested me about Rob is something he mentioned a few times during our chats, and that is the fact that he had gone to school to become a history teacher. I also recall him mentioning that he taught or worked in education for some time prior to becoming a reporter. The research I’ve done on him reveals that he’s been a journalist for more than a decade, and was promoted to editor-in-chief just earlier this year.

I think that Rob can provide interesting insight into the field of journalism. As someone who didn’t study for it in college and who originally had other career plans, I think Rob would be a good person to talk to in order to get an idea of what the challenges are of pursuing a career not related to one’s degree, and of what the challenges and rewards were for him when it came to journalism. What’s more, I believe he would be able to discuss how he’s seen Bayside evolve over the years, as he works in Bayside and has certainly been involved in reporting on it.

For a multimedia component, I can include clips of my interview with him, as I think that would give readers a better sense of what he’s like.

 

Neighborhood Profile Proposal

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Salvatore Feola has been a resident of Astoria, NY since the 1950s when he immigrated to Astoria from Naples, Italy at the age of 16. The oldest of thirteen children, he had dropped out of school eight years old to begin working, providing for his growing family. He left Italy for America in hopes of attaining the American Dream. Throughout his hometown, rumors swirled of the wonders New York City holds for immigrants. The streets were paved with gold. Salvatore was disappointed when New York was nothing like he had heard. He moved to Astoria where he lived with other Italian immigrants who taught him English and found employment.

He worked at pizzeria for a while and eventually opened his own pizzeria in the 1970s. His business was a booming success, and the neighborhood families recall his pizza being the best they’d ever had. He didn’t let the success of his business thwart his work ethic. Every day, he opened the store at 5am and closed at 10pm, even on holidays. After the death of his wife to breast cancer and a heart attack, Salvatore decided to close his business and retire in 1993.

I chose Salvatore for this article because his experiences tell the story of most immigrants from the 1950s who came to America for success. I would love to learn how he overcame the challenges he faced and how he became as successful as he was. I would also love to learn how Astoria has changed in the past 60 years from the perspective of someone who came here with a visions of gold and fortune.