With millions of people joining in the Women’s March worldwide, natural disasters like Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, and countless allegations of sexual abuse in Hollywood, 2017 was quite a year to remember for the world, and Queens is no exception.
Our website has reached incredible heights of its own this year, thanks in large part to your readership and support. QNS.com, which features content from The Queens Courier, The Courier Sun, the Ridgewood Times, the Times Newsweekly, the LIC Courier and BORO Magazine, achieved 6 million page views as of Nov. 16; as of Dec. 26, that number is closing in on 6.6 million.
Here’s a run-down of the top 10 most-viewed stories on QNS.com, which collectively gained nearly 350,000 page views this year.
- In August, public school teachers from across the borough were excited to see the return of a nonprofit’s warehouse where they could shop for school supplies for free in Long Island City. Materials for the Arts hosted a Back-to-School Shopping Spree from Aug. 29 to Sept. 30, but teachers can visit the warehouse — located at 33-00 Northern Blvd. — to pick up supplies all year round.
- Police busted a Queens-based credit card fraud ring in March that may have compromised the personal information of hundreds of thousands of people. Thirty people were charged with more than 600 criminal counts for their involvement.
- Television host, author and chef Anthony Bourdain highlighted the borough’s diverse cuisine options while talking to locals in an episode of his CNN show “Parts Unknown” this past May.
- It was announced in January that the Douglaston Plaza shopping center, located at 242-02 61st Ave., would be losing its Macy’s and MovieWorld movie theater in favor of a Lowe’s Home Improvement store. The community later started a petition to save the MovieWorld location from closing.
- Ronald Giallanzo, a reputed mob boss for the Bonnano crime family from Howard Beach, as well as nine of his associates were arrested by federal agents in March for racketeering, murder attempts, shootings, loansharking and other violent crimes.
- A report released by PropertyShark in January found that 12 neighborhoods in Queens were among the top 50 most expensive neighborhoods in New York City in 2016. The most expensive Queens neighborhood on the list was Forest Hills Gardens, which came in at number 10.
- A number of Queens neighborhoods underwent a series of spraying by the city’s Health Department to kill off virus-carrying mosquitoes.
- An early-morning motorcycle crash left a 28-year-old man dead on the Van Wyck Expressway on May 21.
- On June 26, police found 26-year-old Sharanjit Singh stabbed to death in his Richmond Hill home. Police later arrested Singh’s cousin and roommate, 24-year-old Lovedeep Singh, for his death.
- A report released in April found that a total of 22 Queens neighborhoods were among Niche’s top 100 “2017 Best Neighborhoods to Live in New York City.”
