TACOS AND TATS ON ROOSEVELT AVE.
By Maury Englander

I am a hopeless foodie. I love to eat. I love to find new restaurants, especially ethnic ones. New York City is the perfect place to satisfy this passion. Food wise, you could visit a different country every day within the five boroughs of the city and never repeat for months. Which in part explains why I happened to be downing a couple of tacos stuffed with homemade chorizo sausage at a sidewalk stand on Roosevelt Avenue on a spring afternoon.

A bit of New York geography here: Roosevelt Avenue is one of the stops on the Number Seven subway train. This train starts at Forty-second Street in Manhattan, heads east and ends up, a couple of dozen stops later, in the middle of Queens. Many New Yorkers only know this subway line as the one that takes them to the baseball games at Shea Stadium. For others, it is their daily commuter line. For me, it is a twenty-minute ride from my apartment in Greenwich Village to a village in Mexico?or Turkey, the Philippines, Poland or half a dozen other countries.

Manhattan used to boast dozens of ethnic enclaves like this one, remnants of immigrant groups that arrived, settled, assimilated and moved on. Zooming real estate prices, gentrification and changing times have destroyed many older neighborhoods, but new immigrant communities have sprung up all over the outer boroughs.

The Borough of Queens is a perfect example. It is different from the rest of the city. People think differently there. I grew up in the Bronx, so I can tell. Like, if you live in the Bronx and are going to Manhattan, you say you are going "downtown." Travelers from Queens say they are "Going into the city." They address their mail differently. Instead of reading "Queens, N.Y.," most use neighborhood names like "Rego Park, N.Y." or "Forest Hills, N.Y." If you are not aware of this foible, you might think the place is in another city. We don't do that in other parts of New York. We don't understand why they do it here. So it goes.

Anyway, hop that Number Seven subway at Times Square and, if you know the right stops, within a few minutes you could be enjoying a traditional Turkish maze or Chinese dim sum, Polish kielbasa from a neighborhood smoke house or?today?the best tacos this side of the Yucatan, dished up at a stand that is opened until four a.m.

I first "found" this neighborhood years ago when I was planning a trip to Latin America. I was advised that good buys on airfares could be found at the local, "bucket shop" travel agents here. The advice was right.

Nobody knows for sure just how Jackson Heights acquired its current population. The usual demographic change begins with one or two immigrant families moving into a low-rent area. Friends and relatives follow, new businesses are opened and suddenly we have a new community. In this case, I am told, the first Latin "settlers" were Columbian. Mexicans followed, and they are now the largest single group. But there is also a sizable population of Ecuadorians and Hondurans, along with folks from all over Latin America.

On most evenings the sidewalks along Roosevelt Avenue are packed with families and groups of teens. Surprisingly well-behaved teens, too. The subway here rumbles overhead on elevated tracks. Spanish is the language. You are never out of earshot of Spanish music. Most shopkeepers speak English, but you can expect to be greeted in Spanish, so I get to exercise my gringo Spanish?often with amusing results. The spoken Spanish here is softer than the inner city "Spanglish" (a unique blending of Carib Spanish and English) that you hear in Manhattan's Puerto Rican and Dominican neighborhoods. Listen closely and you might also pick up bits of Mayan and Aztec dialect mixed in.

People are disarmingly friendly. It is easy to forget you are still within the city limits. Walk along the avenue and you'll be handed cards touting the services of local doctors, lawyers and assorted other local businesses. You will be invited into shops. Sidewalk vendors abound, selling everything from bibles to—you guessed it—more food.

And there are tattoo shops, lots of 'em. When I last visited, I count a dozen in as many blocks. Why so many? Well, first off, as I discover, this is not that small a community. No one knows for sure, but population estimates run as high as several hundred thousand. That's a lot of potential customers. And, as one artist put it, "Mexican people like tattoos."

Facades of these shops often offer no indication of what lurks within. I discover some amazing places hidden up rickety flights of stairs or behind basement doors. There are also some sites that were downright scary.

Despite being only a short subway ride away, visitors from the city are rare and most artists are eager to show me their shops and work and to chat about the local scene. Several referred to a style of tattooing they call "arte callejero," which roughly translates as "art of the street artist." It is usually done in black-and-gray, often as a collage of subjects. It has its roots in southern California where, I am told, Mexican immigrants wanted something to show folks back home where they had been.

"Lots of my customers come from small towns in Mexico," explained one artist. "They come here and want a tattoo that shows they have been to New York City. You know, big buildings, something that says 'money' and 'beautiful women.' Maybe a subway car and the letters 'NY.' If they were in Los Angeles, they'd want something with the letters 'LA.'

"I also get kids in here. They want to look cholo, you know? Like gang bangers. They want a tear drop tattooed on their face. So I ask them, 'Do you know what that means?' Of course they don't. Then I tell them, 'It means you killed somebody! You want that shit on your face?' I ask them, figure how that's gonna look when they apply for a job or when a cop sees them on the street.

"I tell them, 'Better you get the Virgin of Guadeloupe on your arm.'"

A practical suggestion too, since spiritual subjects are probably the most popular in this deeply religious community. It is common to see large renditions of Christ's head, praying hands and similar classics.

Just about every tattoo shop here has a shrine to Sante Muerte, the "Saint of Death." While these are quite common in Mexico, the image is not your usual saint. She (Sante Muerte is female) is usually portrayed as the Grim Reaper. Her image and iconography have a strong visceral appeal. In traditions that predate Christianity, devotees leave her offerings of corn, tobacco, alcohol and money. In one shop that displayed a life-sized figurine, the owner showed me a miniature, coffin-shaped box, topped with an antique pistol and placed at her feet. In the box were prayers, Mass cards and photos of dead friends and relatives placed there by followers. In another shop, I was told in passing that some who pray to her might also be involved in ventures of dubious legality. Another artist was more to the point: "You can ask her for things you can't ask of the other saints."

Despite being condemned by the Catholic Church, worship of Sante Muerte is quite common in Mexico and in ex-pat Mexican communities like this one. Street vendors and shops sell statues, cards and medals with her image. Old ways die hard in this neighborhood.

I finished my tacos and wandered along the Avenue. At a sidewalk stand, I bought a T-shirt with a rendering of Sante Muerte. Perhaps on another visit I would talk to one of my new friends here about having her image added to my tattoo collection. But for now, my biggest decision was which of the local bakeries to drop into for desert?some fresh-baked pastry stuffed with sweet tropical fruit and washed down with a cup of café con leche.

Life is good.

P.S. A few notes if you are planning a visit:

1. Pick up the number seven Subway train at Times Square or Grand Central Station and get off at the Roosevelt Avenue stop. Follow the elevated subway tracks (and walk in the direction where the street numbers go up or you will suddenly be in an Indian neighborhood and totally confused).

2. There are dozens of places to eat, ranging from sidewalk stands to fancier sit-down places. All are remarkably inexpensive, especially by NYC standards. Restaurants tend to close earlier here, usually by nine-thirty or ten, even on weekends, so plan accordingly.

3. Many "family" restaurants do not serve alcohol. If you choose to wash down your meal with a cerveza or something stronger, best to ask. Speaking of alcohol, there are lots of drinking establishments here, some featuring "dancers." These are really the province of the locals, and unless you are with someone from the neighborhood, best avoided. This particularly applies to single women.