Queensbridge is a large public housing complex that is located in Long Island City in Queens area (New York). The complex was opened in 1939 and has 3,142 units accomadating about 7,000 people. It comes under Community Board 1 and is the property of New York Housing Authority. The complex is seperated as the North Houses, which lie on the 40th Avenue and the South Houses, which lie on the 41st Avenue. Because the complex is located just north of the Queensboro Bridge, it has derived the name Queensbridge. The 21st street-Queensbridge station lies on the eastern side of the complex and people residing and travelling by subway find it extremely convenient. The entire complex consists of individual 96-unit six-storey buildings. Every two such buildings form the shape of two Ys, which are connected at the base. This design was chosen to provide more sunlight and also to reduce the cost of construction. In the early stage, the elevators were designed to stop at odd numbered floors like 1,3 and 5. But later this system has been altered and now the elevators can be stopped at all floors. Most of the kitchens and bathrooms have been renovated with new lights, tubs, vanities and floor tiles in 2000. As this complex houses mostly people in the low to middle income groups, a majority of them are African-Americans and Latino families. The buildings are seperated by small lawns. There are several basketball courts within the complex and just across lies the Queensbridge Park, which has running tracks and lawns which are ideal picnic spots. This complex gained much popularity because of the number of talented hip hop musicians, like rapper Nas, Cormega, Nature, Screwball and Big Noyd. Queensbridge has historically proved to be a hotbed of hip hop musical talent. Famed producer Marlon “Marley Marl” Williams was the first in a long succession of acclaimed artists from “The Bridge”, which became one of the most prolific hip hop-producing neighborhoods in the country. Marley's Juice Crew collective, hugely influential in the 1980s, featured among its members Queensbridge rappers MC Shan, Roxanne Shanté, and Craig G, each noted names in their own right. Most notable of today's Queensbridge hip hop artists is the well acclaimed rapper Nas, who has since the 1990s frequently used his music and lyricism to reference Queensbridge and its hip hop history. Other noted artists associated with Queensbridge include Prodigy and Havoc of Mobb Deep, Cormega, Tragedy Khadafi, Nature, Screwball, Capone-N-Noreaga and Big Noyd. Bars N Hooks, Lakey the Kidd, Infamous Mobb (Ty Nitty, Godfather Part 3,Twin Gambino aka. Big Twinz) In regards to the Queensbridge music scene, XXL columnist Brend.
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