The Astoria Park Alliance insists that new signs, bulletin boards and a playground fence would improve their beloved neighborhood park.

A woman gazes at East River while a teenager reads on the lawn, Oct. 20, 2009. Photo: John Ryan.

But the local environmental group cannot buy the equipment it says it needs unless the latest grant application is approved or its winter fundraising is successful. Money is tight for the small environmental non profit, particularly in the recession.

“After a while, paying out of your pocket really starts to hurt,” said Jules Corkey, co-chair of the group.

The Astoria Park Alliance is one of many neighborhood organizations that help to maintain New York City’s 1,500 green spaces. These groups devote time, manpower and money to clean up the parks and act as watchdogs over community areas. But with fewer and fewer resources, advocates worry that they will not be able to devote as much cash to keeping the parks beautiful and clean, nor do they believe that the city can handle the job on its own.

“There’s no way a large park organization can be the sole advocate,” said Nora Lanning, director of marketing at the City Parks Foundation. “It really takes these smaller organizations to be the voice.”

The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation did not return calls for comment.

Smaller organizations have been working in Astoria Park for the last six months. In September, the advocacy group Green Shores New York teamed up with Astoria Park Alliance to collect 70 bags of trash along the East River. This past summer, the groups also sponsored the Astoria Water Walk, which they said drew hundreds of residents out of their homes into Astoria Park.

Martha Gilpin, the other co-chair of the Astoria Park Alliance, called the two groups “the pool of passionate and energized people that make things happen in the volunteer community.”

Before the winter snow, another volunteer group will plant daffodils near the war memorial in the park. They will seed and mulch the Butterfly Garden, and they plan to host a vendor sale at the Steinway Reform Church to raise money.

“You see a lot of improvement,” said Abdel Berraha, a resident who has photographed community events in Astoria for the last 10 years. “The parks are hard to maintain.”

In addition to keeping up the gardens and planting trees, local environmental groups also want to call attention to the erosion that is pulling topsoil into the water and exposing tree roots on the shoreline of Astoria Park that slopes into the East River.

“Green space is fragile,” Gilpin said. “We have a lot of work to do.”

Last year, the Queens Economic Development Corporation placed ads on 1010 WINS and in The Daily News to advertise Queens Restaurant Week. But the recession kept diners eating in.

Foot traffic in front of Punta Dura Italian Restaurant, Nov. 18, 2009. Photo: John Ryan.

This year, it also recruited bloggers and freelancers and posted a profile on Facebook to attract food enthusiasts from around the tri-state area for the event, which runs from Oct. 5 to Oct. 15. The corporation asked participating restaurants to better market themselves.

“They are trying harder and being more creative,” said Michelle Stoddart, the director of marketing at the corporation, which focuses on developing local business and improving tourism in the borough. She said the restaurants integrated new marketing techniques in the first week of the promotional event

In Astoria, three restaurants adjusted their marketing plans to focus on their customers and on filling empty tables.

At Punta Dura, a northern Italian restaurant participating for the first time, Diana Radovic, its sales manager, decided to shift the prefixed menu to overlap on weekends. “We wanted people to know that we’re more than caterers,” Radovic said. And based on comment cards, she said, “We got all new customers. We’re going to be as hospitable as we can.”

Balu Café, which features American cuisine fused with Latin and Asian flavors, participated in Queens Restaurant Week to transform its business model. Katherine Xenos, the general manager, helped redesign the menu to make it more affordable. So far the promotion has brought in new business. It, too, is a new participant in the marketing event.

“Guests came that wouldn’t normally,” said Xenos. But, she added, “People are much more price conscious now. They tend to buy a glass before a bottle.”

So she told her staff to be more sympathetic and “Make customers feel welcome.” She advised her employees: “Don’t push side dishes as much or they may push back.”

Cavo, a reputable Mediterranean restaurant and lounge, combined Queens Restaurant Week with its own promotion, “Wine Down Wednesdays.” It was an opportunity for owner Tommy Demaras to showcase his new chef, Richard Farnabe.

Demaras said, “Chef Farnabe came up with a beautiful three-course meal.” He said customers have praised Franabe’s cooking since taking over Cavo’s kitchen. He added, “Some people have given him a standing ovation.”

He said the restaurant has “done more volume and seen more customers—more first timers.” Demaras added, “For two weeks, we give them a great experience. It’s not about money.”

But money drives the restaurant business. The corporation’s marketing strategy focused advertisements in local media like Queens Edible, a quarterly food magazine, to generate revenue for neighborhood restaurants.

Leah McLaughlin, the publisher of Queens Edible, said, “Restaurant Weeks are great if they are having trouble getting new people.” She added, “Restaurants that commit more money to advertising are more likely to be successful.”

The corporation also gained exposure without sinking cash by reaching out to local bloggers and freelance Web sites. Joey in Astoria, astorians.com, and whyleaveastoria.org all plugged the event.

Queensbuzz.com announced Restaurant Week on its home page and provided a couple of reviews as a “public service.” Cavo, one of the restaurants featured, was a beneficiary of the free press.

With a new marketing strategy that focused on local media and customer service, Queens Restaurant Week filled seats and stomachs.

John Simeonidis Jr., one of six owners of Bareburger, an organic restaurant in Astoria, Queens, slammed his hand down and rattled his recycled silverware.

“Astoria needs a good cleaning,” he said. “Two nights ago the wind picked up and there was nothing but garbage blowing down the street.”

A growing movement of environmentally conscious or “green” consumers has quietly rearranged Astoria at an increasing rate, with additions like organic restaurants, a community garden and bike lanes.

Two Coves Community Garden on Friday, July 10, 2009. Photo: Melissa Kondak

These consumers now have a ringleader in Lynne Serpe, 37, Green Party candidate for City Council’s District 22 who started her campaign on July 17th and is the only challenger against incumbent Peter F. Vallone Jr., 48.

When Serpe moved to Astoria 15 years ago, Peter F. Vallone Sr. was two years into his City Council term, which he served from 1992 to 2001. His son Peter F. Vallone Jr. was elected in 2002 and has held the position ever since.

“We need changes,” Serpe said.

Changes are not new to Serpe. She co-founded a recycling program called Triple R Events: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and she serves on the steering committee of Two Coves Community Garden. She is also active with Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group for public transportation.

People have noticed and today her campaign posters are in storefronts across Astoria.

Serpe’s supporters say Vallone has neglected green initiatives.

“Vallone doesn’t do anything,” said Bryce Engen, a member of Transportation Alternatives. “Unchallenged leadership goes down one path and you don’t see changes.”

However, Vallone said the environment is a priority.

As pro bono counsel of C.H.O.K.E., the Coalition Helping Organize a Kleaner Environment, he led a lawsuit that will close the Poletti Power Plant in 2010.

“Green is a huge part of my lifestyle,” said Vallone. “I even wrote the trans fat bill here in New York City.”

Serpe disagrees.  Her Web site states she wants to give voters a choice between “the 35-year family dynasty and a vibrant green future.”

The issue is where to begin.

“How do you compete against somebody whose grandfather has a school named after him?” asked Stacey Ornstein, president of Astoria Community Support Agriculture, an organization for organic farming.

Vallone and Serpe disagree over the fate of the Two Coves Community Garden. He is moving forward with a park by Goodwill Industries, a nonprofit organization that provides training for disadvantaged individuals, to replace the garden.

The plan was proposed 10 years ago, but by 2006 there was no progress on the vacant lot.

Goodwill volunteers started a garden instead, and today there are 104 plots tended by more than 200 members.

Vallone still plans to build the park.

“The community garden is across from Astoria Houses and that entire area is considered a food desert,” said Serpe. “There is no access to safe, healthy food.”

The deal was never permanent, according to Vallone.

“It was unused space and we had no way of developing it,” said Vallone. “We said you can use it until we get money to make it a park.”

In light of community complaints, Vallone said he might allow a small number of plots to remain, but the rest will be destroyed.

Serpe has a long road ahead to take on this kind of power.

But even if she does not defeat Vallone, Astoria’s green consumers identify Serpe as the face of their movement.

On a recent summer afternoon, a heavy layer of air weighed on the Astoria Houses housing project like a down comforter. The only thing that seemed to cut through its thickness were the sounds of children playing, and intermittent coughing, in the distance.

“My grandson and I were walking and talking, and then he started spitting,” said Carmen Ocasio, a longtime resident of Astoria Houses and caretaker of her grandson.

“And suddenly it’s ‘Grandma I can’t breathe.’”

As the season changes from summer to fall, families of asthmatic children in low-income areas of Astoria once again struggle with in-home allergens, inconsistent treatment, and the inability to afford medications. These children strain the already overcrowd hospitals throughout Queens, and they continue to suffer because there are no support groups to address the issue.

“Asthma taxes our emergency room, doctors office, and unfortunately is something people often don’t address,” said Michael Gianaris, assembyman for District 36, which includes Astoria.

Astoria and its multiple public housing projects, Astoria Houses, Ravenswood, and the largest one in North American, Queensbridge Housing, are part of “asthma alley,” a stretch of New York City that starts in the South Bronx , goes through western Queens, and into Brooklyn.

Asthma alley contains six power plants like the old Poletti Plant and the Ravenswood Plant with its 400-foot high smoke stack that roars alive with hot greasy film every couple hours.

It contains LaGuardia airport with airplane engines that pour out exhaust, the Queensboro Bridge littered with diesel trucks spewing out black soot filled with nitrous oxide, and barges slogging through the East River.

Not only are these transportation hubs loud and disruptive, their exhaust creates the thick air in asthma alley that sometimes makes it tough to breathe, especially on hot days in the summer.

Research studies and asthma prevention programs pay a lot of attention to areas like the South Bronx, but Astoria is often forgotten according to Queens officials.

“We are separated by a few hundred feet, and the air in both locations has been deemed some of the worst in the nation,” said Peter Vallone Jr., city council member for Astoria and honorary chairman of C.H.O.K.E., the “Coalition Helping Organize a Kleaner Environment.”

In the Community Health Profiles put out by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, childhood asthma is considered one of the top three issues in the South Bronx because asthma prevalence is measured by hospitalization rate.

Although hospitalization rates are one indicator of the burden of asthma in a neighborhood, these rates alone do not reflect the level of disparities that exist among communities with different socioeconomic backgrounds, according to the study of “Prevalence of Childhood Asthma in Urban Communities: The Impact of Ethnicity and Income” conducted by the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Because a large portion of Astoria is middle class and more likely to address the daily issues of asthma, families with low income are averaged into this group and are often overlooked.

“The south Bronx and East Harlem are less well-to-do than Astoria, which is why they get more attention,” said Gianaris.

Asthma is not just in asthma alley, it is all over New York City. Over 180,000 children suffer from asthma and nearly 28,000 were hospitalized overnight between 2005 and 2007, according to a report from U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s office released in August.

Children in New York City were almost twice as likely to be hospitalized for asthma as children in the United States as a whole in 2000, according to the New York City Department of Mental Health and Hygiene Asthma Initiative Facts.

“Asthma is the leading diagnosis that brings children into the emergency rooms,” said Dr. Adriana Matiz, who has a medical degree in pediatric care and is director of the Win For Asthma or the Washington-Heights Inwood Network program, a hospital-community partnership designed to improve outcomes for children uncontrolled asthma at the New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital.

But within the highly polluted region of New York City, asthma alley is at the core.

Many people have adapted to the air pollution. But others, like residents in Astoria Houses, have issues right in their homes that make dealing with asthma incredibly difficult.

“There’s never been a real study on our area to my knowledge,” said Claudia Coger, 75, a lifelong resident of Astoria Houses and President of the Astoria Houses Tenants Association.

Basic issues like mold, cockroaches and rodents, coupled with a lack of day-to-day care throw many children from Astoria Houses into severe asthma attacks. As a result they are constantly rotated though emergency rooms all over Queens like Jamaica Hospital, Mount Sinai Queens, and East Elmhurst Hospital.

“One time my grandson got real sick and was admitted to the ICU,” said Ocasio, a longtime resident of Astoria Houses and caretaker of her grandson.

“The doctor and I had a long talk, and she told me to go back and look at my home. And do you know what it was? Mouse droppings.”

It is commonly accepted that asthma is a disease that can be inherited, however the genes that are involved have not been scientifically identified, according to “Asthma: Causes” from National Jewish Health, the number one respiratory hospital in the U.S. according to U.S. News and World Report.

There is a large amount of evidence that supports environmental exposure as a primary cause of asthma. A large proportion of the racial/ethnic differences in asthma prevalence is caused by income, area of residence, and level of education, according to the article “Race, Socioeconomic Factors, and Area of Residence are Associated with Asthma Prevalence,” by researchers at the Channing Laboratory at Brigham and Woman’s Hospital in Boston.

“The best thing people can do is educate themselves about all the risk factors and try to avoid them, both for themselves and for any children they may have or be thinking of having,” said Amy Anaruk, creator of theasthmamom.com, a website that provides extensive information on asthma, and mother to an asthmatic child.

In other areas of New York City there are asthma programs that seek to make life easier for children and reduce asthma triggers in homes, educate parents, teachers and doctors to be more aware of asthma sensitivity.

In the South Bronx in particular, the high number of emergency room visits raised a red flag to doctors at New York-Presbyterian hospital. These doctors recognized that gaps in appropriate asthma care and support systems perpetuate health risks for asthmatic children and put stress on their families.

The hospital addressed the problem at the very core: inside the homes. In May 2006, NewYork-Presbyterian hospital, led by Dr. Matiz, initiated the Washington-Heights Inwood Network or WIN for Asthma program.

The program has community health workers work directly with families on a personal level, and help them with asthma education and referrals for services like housing and mental health.

“There was a genuine need to service the families of asthmatic children in northern Manhattan,” said Matiz. “There is nothing in place in Astoria at the moment but I would not hesitate to put support in place.”

The strength of the network is that it enables hospitals, clinics and doctors to engage families in the education process. In the long run everyone will be better equipped to deal with this disease on a daily basis.

Another resource is a manual on the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene website that gives guidance to clinics to prepare for the adoption and implementation of the Creating a Medical Home for Asthma program, or CMHA, in the health care setting.

Like the WIN for Asthma program, this manual also encourages clinics to engage families in the education process.

Asthma education is hopeful because at the end of the day, asthma management programs will enable people to care for themselves. This care will not only improve the health of low-income children, it will alleviate the strain on Queens hospitals for all residents.

Now the help needs to come to Astoria.

“Around here it would be nice if there was a support group,” said Ocasio. “There’s a lot of parents with kids who get sick, and they don’t know what to do about it.”

April Rose Lucas, an Astoria resident, sipped her ice-cold stein of Pilsner Urquell and surveyed the sea of people before her at the Studio Square beer garden.

Studio Square beer Garden on Friday, June 19, 2009. Photo: Melissa Kondak

“They didn’t cut any corners,” she said. “It’s as if they studied the shortcomings of the other beer garden and made sure they didn’t make those mistakes.”

The Studio Square beer garden in Long Island City, Queens was open for one month before it was featured as June’s “Watering Hole of the Month” on AOL’s Digital City Web site. Many feared the old Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden in Astoria would suffer because of Studio Square’s sudden popularity. But both gardens continue to thrive because they play different roles. One is a beer garden redefined with a modern edge, while the other is a living relic of beer gardens past.

Studio Square has 180 tons of new jumbo cobblestones and crisp white umbrellas for shade in the courtyard. The scent of beer from 60 taps permeates the air as they pump out 19 different beers from a refrigerated room filled with 300 kegs.

It seems like unfair competition.

However, much of Studio Square’s buzz has been driven by online reviews. Web sites like AOL’s Digital City, an online guide for dining, receive about 57,000 page views on an average day. It is one of many reviews from sites like Time Out New York’s newyork.timeout.com or gothamist, that continue to multiply today.

In its fourth weekend open, there were almost 25,000 patrons.

The number shocked its four owners, including Larry Cerullo. “We went in and built 11 more bathrooms in three days,” he said.

Although it seems like a novelty, there was a thirst for beer gardens in Astoria long before Studio Square existed. In the early 20th century there were 300 beer gardens in Queens alone.

The gardens “afforded an opportunity for good beer and conversation with fellow immigrants from the homeland,” said Debbie Van Cura, a trustee at the Greater Astoria Historical Society.

The Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden in Astoria started with that purpose. It is the last original beer garden in New York City, and one of three left in the U.S. Bohemian Hall is like a medieval courtyard with a rectangular stone wall and dark wooden tables, and the smells of 15 different types of fresh beer and sausages wafting throughout the establishment.

There is a stage reminiscent of a Shakespearean outdoor theater where music from Czech and Slovak festivals reaches all the way down to Astoria Park. It was built in the early 1900’s and has survived prohibition in 1919 and both World Wars.

“Czech’s don’t give up,” said Peter Bisek, former President of the Bohemian Citizens Benevolent Society. “And 5 or 6 years ago, young Americans rediscovered our garden.”

Bohemian Hall was caught off guard by the resurgence. Today, Fridays and Saturdays are marked by half-hour long lines.

“The Studio Square beer garden came out of necessity because the other one was so crowded,” said April Rose Lucas, an Astoria resident.

The popularity of beer gardens flows with the changing landscape of New York City, and today residents are hooked. “Nobody has a backyard here,” said Katherine Xenos, Manager of the Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden. “That’s the thing everyone is missing.”

As different as Studio Square and Bohemian Hall look and feel, they both represent enjoyment, and their only real difference is atmosphere.

“Bohemian Hall is an oasis, it’s a novelty,” said April Rose Lucas.

“At Studio Square, you know you’re in New York City. There’s the same relaxed vibe, but in here you still feel like you’re out on the town.”