QUEENS
A block from The Chateau [in the Jackson Heights neighborhood in Queens], I wanted to point out Community United Methodist Church. There’s a street sign at the corner commemorating the invention of Scrabble, which was played in the church in 1938. It was the invention of a Jackson Heights resident (an unemployed architect) named Alfred Butts. Legions of Scrabble devotees now make pilgrimages to the church, which you will notice also advertises services in Punjabi, Urdu, Bahasa, Korean, Chinese and Spanish. I love that God is worshiped in so many languages in the house where Scrabble was invented. Brooklyn may be known as the Borough of Churches. But Jackson Heights is where, for example, the Jewish Center, on 77th Street, also hosts Pentecostal services, Hindu services and the annual Iftar celebration of Bangladeshi and other Muslims.
–Suketu Mehta (interviewed by Michael Kimmelman in the New York Times)
photo by Victor Llorente
another eye opens 