There's a street in Queens called Roosevelt Avenue that runs through one of the world's most ethnically diverse neighborhoods.
Spanish, Bengali, Punjabi, Mixtec, Seke, and Kuranko are among the hundreds of languages spoken here. Nepalese dumplings and Korean noodles, Mexican tortas and Colombian empanadas, Thai curries and spicy South Indian vindaloos are just some of the many food choices. It's hardly surprising that Queens is known as “The World’s Borough.”
Roosevelt Avenue is a veritable pulsing artery of commerce and life, says NatGeo. The road itself is chaotic, dark, and loud. You know you’re on Roosevelt because the elevated 7 train runs overhead.
Passing from one block to the next can feel like traveling around the globe, hopping from country to country. Plazas and parks are crowded with vendors selling tamales, atole, and large-kernel corn. Tibetan Buddhists, fluent in the Indigenous languages of the Himalayas, walk to worship in their red-and-orange robes. The street is even home to the United Sherpa Association, a former Lutheran Church that was converted into a Tibetan Buddhist temple and community center and now serves more than 12,000 Himalayan Sherpas, the largest population living outside Nepal.
Further along, Bangladeshi curbside markets teem with overflowing crates of ginger, garlic and humongous jackfruits, picked out by people wearing saris and shalwar kameez. Down the road, the sound of spoken Spanish envelops either side of what’s known as ‘La Roosevelt.’
As Roosevelt Avenue nears the end of its eastward course (it's only 4.5 miles long, says The Guardian), it’s fitting that it passes by the famous Unisphere, the Queens Globe built for the 1964 World’s Fair, that has since become a symbol of this area’s epic cultural diversity. Here in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, the hustling chaos of Roosevelt Avenue abates.
Road signs welcome visitors entering Queens to “The World’s Borough.” But there is another phrase that might be more apt: “Queens, Center of the World.”
So, the next time you're in the city, take a long walk in the real New York: Queens.
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