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Five Iron Golf opens in LIC

Indoor golf venue brings unique fun to locals

 

By Alicia Venter

aventer@queensledger.com

As temperatures continue to plummet, avid golf players — as well as interested novices — no longer need to bundle up to enjoy the fun of the course. Instead, they can head to Five Iron Golf in Long Island City, the newest addition to a continually growing neighborhood.

Five Iron Golf, located a block from MoMA PS1 at 24-22 Jackson Ave, features seven custom-built TrackMan golf simulators. This technology can track the movement on the ball and where it would go in a real-life course. The projectors display an animated graphic of the ball traveling, capturing back spin, side spin and more.

For the intense golfer,  TrackMan provides analytics to help improve their game: the distance the ball traveled in yards, the angle the club was facing on contact and more. There are also trainers who provide lessons.

“We are a new space that can provide a lot for the neighborhood, and we want to be there for the neighborhood,” Jonathan Cruz, the general manager of Five Iron Golf Long Island City, said in an interview. “We want to be the place where businesses can entertain clients or host public events, or the birthday party that the family has been trying to figure out where to set it up. Now you have this space.”

“A fan from a distance,” Cruz is a Brooklyn native who has managed events across the city, from the “Stranger Things Experience” to New York Fashion Week. This is his first experience as part of the Five Iron Golf corporation, and he looks forward to bringing his expertise to Long Island City.

“I quickly learned how much of a community Long Island City is. Every day, new folks stop by asking us questions and telling us they live right down the block,” Cruz said. “They are supportive. They are intrigued. There is this sense of community that you can’t just find anywhere.”

The location has league nights, where a team can take on other groups in “friendly competitions.” Those who do not have a team can enter as free agents to be chosen by groups. 

The location also features a bar, a restaurant and shuffleboard. Cruz explained that Five Iron Golf is not exclusively catered towards golfers, and will happily “watch a sitcom” with customers at the bar. 

Simulators can be booked hourly, with weekday off-peak hours (from 6:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.) priced at $70. After 4:00 p.m. on weekdays and on the weekends, a simulator can be booked for $85 an hour. 

To visit Five Iron Golf, take the subway to the Court Square subway station, as the venue sits adjacent to the station.

Tickets and more information can be found at www.fiveirongolf.com/lic/

“We want this to be the place where you take the risk and try golf,” said Cruz. “You never know until you try it.”


Any tips about whats happening in Long Island City, Astoria, Woodside, Sunnyside or Northwest Queens? Email me at aventer@queensledger.com!

LIC Partnership looks to expand

By Alicia Venter

aventer@queensledger.com

As Long Island City expands, the Long Island City Partnership President Laura Rothrock has her hands full. Beginning in September, Rothrock has taken the mantle of an organization unlike any other in Queens, offering aid to local businesses, members and stakeholders to Long Island City.

The mission of the partnership, which is the neighborhood development organization for Long Island City, is to advocate for the economic development of the community. The partnership is a member and sponsor-based organization.

The partnership, which also manages a business improvement district (BID), which began in 2005, has shown its strength in the past year. In the 2022 fiscal year, which runs from July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022, there were 30 new businesses opened in the BID’s boundaries. That is a record number, which Rothrock noted is interesting given the residual effects of the pandemic.

“It’s been a tricky time economically, but people have long-term confidence in Long Island City, which is great,” Rothrock said.

The BID’s core services include marketing, sanitation, beautification and public safety.

Through their services, 204 businesses were assisted with permit approval, access to financial and payment plans set up with Con Edison within the fiscal year.

“A BID is only a piece of what we do,” Rothrock said. ”We do a lot with a limited budget.”

The LIC BID has a texting service to directly connect with the community regarding their services. Rext LICBID to (929) 269-8848 for more information.

The organization provides business services to six different zip codes, helps community members navigate the city agencies, manages a marketing team and holds events. A key initiative for the partnership is marketing for stakeholders and so locals can see the services offered nearby.

“We’re really unique because we are the most mixed use community in the country,” Rothrock said. “We want to be able to promote that more.”

The partnership has their marquee event soon — the LIC summit is on Tuesday, Nov. 15.

The event will be a panel discussion — with speakers including Councilwoman Julie Won and Queen Borough President Donovan Richards — on how being a mixed-use neighborhood has contributed to the resiliency of the community, as well as Long Island City’s future.

The LIC Summit will be held at the Museum of the Moving Image, beginning at 8:30 a.m. Tickets can be purchased through the LIC Partnership website, licqns.com.

There are typically four major events held by the partnership, such as the Real Estate Breakfast held in March. These events, Rothrock said, bring a “signature program” for the partnership.

Working with elected officials such as Won — who is on the board of the partnership automatically as the councilwoman for the area — and the Borough President’s office, the partnership is able to connect with the local residents in the community as well as the businesses it serves.

“Even though we are a business organization, we also want to collaborate with the residents and that we’re promoting the local retail business to the residents,” Rothrock said.

Her last job was as a consultant at Nicholas and Lence Communications. Prior to this, during the Bloomberg Administration, she worked at the Department of Small Businesses Services and managed the BID Program. As such, she has experience both as a private consultant and within the government.

The organization is working on two BID expansions, one towards the west and one to the east, past Sunnyside Gardens. Stakeholders outside of the Long Island City BID boundaries expressed the need for supplemental services, the partnership website stated, to address the changing needs of the neighborhood. If all goes through, the BID assessment budget will double through this growth.

It will be under “the BID umbrella,” Rothrock said, but given the difference in the neighborhoods, each sub-district needs its own budget and planning to meet its needs.

The expansion to the east is in the industrial area of Long Island City, and it has no residents.

“For all intents and purposes, we’re one BID, but [the east expansion] will have its own budget and slightly different services, because the services needed in the industrial area are different,” Rothrock said.

It is a very lengthy process to expand the BID, Rothrock said, beginning with a planning phase that took the partnership approximately two years to complete.

The outreach phase has begun, which included four public forums, and soon the planning will enter the legislative phase.

Rothrock’s experience prior to becoming President allowed her to transition easily into the role.

The biggest controversy in Long Island City is Innovation QNS, which the partnership has expressed support of through testifying at the city council meetings.

“We’re hoping that they reach an agreement, because it really would be a missed opportunity if the project didn’t go through,” Rothrock said.

However, Rothrock expressed how the organization is apolitical and non-partisan — Innovation QNS does not fall within the boundaries of the BID, and they purely look at the project as a way for the community to grow economically, as well as gain quality of life improvements such as new open space.

More information about the LIC Partnership can be found at www.licqns.com

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