Take a walk around Forest Hills between Grand Central and 108th Street. There are three or four mansions being constructed or renovated on every street. No exaggeration. They put the mafia mansions of Middle Village and Howard Beach to shame.
You ain't kidding.
I was a business agent (Teamsters Local 813) for the funeral directors and hearse drivers at Parkside Chapel and Schwartz Brothers (among others), which are both on Queens Boulevard, so I spent quite a bit of time in that area. There are tons of moneyed Russian and Bukharian Jews in that neighborhood. Now I'm not implying that they're all crooks, but they can't
all be barbers
.
I was out there just last week to have lunch with a friend on Austin Street. On my way back to Throggs Neck, I took the side streets to the Grand Central. You have to see some of the houses going up by the old Parkway hospital on 113th Street. They're beyond belief. They kind of remind me of the houses that went up on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn a few years back. They were
knocking down million dollar homes just for the sake of putting up new ones.
