Call it blitzkrieg marketing or whatever you will but with the intention of re-establishing Bayside and The Bell Boulevard Business Corridor as “THE” destination point everyone thinks of first this season when going out to shop or dine, The Bayside Village Business Improvement District’s (BID) three consecutive weekends of socially conscious, retail promoting, pedestrian building, music filled festivals (complimented by our Halloween Window Contest and it’s upcoming fashion shows) just pulled Bayside out from behind our neighboring business districts and out performed Douglaston, Little Neck, Great Neck, Astoria, Flushing, Whitestone, Austin Street, Fresh Meadows and Sunnyside in it's social and street activity and draw for consumers.

Like the “Sea Biscuit” of BIDs, Bayside just pulled way out from the back of the pack to rebuild an audience and create an excitement about Bell Boulevard and Bayside that the local businesses and community leaders have all been asking for and that’s been long over due.

It’s been over 17 years since Bayside has had a permit issued for any type of festival or block partyand thanks to the guidance of Susan Seinfeld and Jerry Inanecce from Community Board 11, the Public Affairs Dept of Captain Ronald Leyson’s 111th Precinct and Chanel Green of the NYC Street Activity Permit Office the permit process went smoothly, the events were executed flawlessly and literally had people dancing and singing in the streets of Bayside again.

The First Annual Fire and Safety Awareness Day Music Festival was co-sponsored by Senator Tony Avella who donated an educational inflatable hook and ladder fire truck ride for the kids that helped the fireman from Bayside’s local fire station 306 teach the families attending the festival about fire safety coming into the holidays and brought a social consciousness to the first music festival in Bell Boulevard’s history.

The event took place on a residential 40th Ave between Bell Boulevard and 214th street and was gently promoted because we wanted to make sure that our first time and trial run at these types of events went over well with the community and had no problems or complaints.

The second event was “The First Annual Retail Expo” that closed down both sides of Bell Boulevard on 41st Ave to open up the streets for a pedestrian mall and provided individual spaces for Bayside’s retail stores and service providers to promote themselves in a festive, sunshine filled outdoor environment. The expo also attracted families and friends with live music and 12 local bands playing at both ends of the expo all day long.

The third event, “The 2nd Annual Art and Crafts Festival”, sponsored by Helms Bros / Mercedes Benz took place on 41st Ave around the LIRR train station added an international flavor to it with Asian performing artists, a dog act and the featured and culturally uplifting, world renown Carnegie Hall / Lincoln Center performing soprano Chen Min who filled the Bayside air with her inspiring operatic performances at one end of the fair while our own Bayside Historic Societies Paul DiBenideto’s band “Chicken Head” had audiences enthusiastically applauding and dancing in the street at the other end continuously throughout the day.

As If that weren’t enough, Halloween weekend the BID had hundreds of people coming down to look in all the merchants windows for “The First Annual Halloween Window Contest” and in the near future we'll be following through to highlight the season with a series of exclusive, invitation only, velvet roped Fashion Shows to take place while the New Improved Holiday Lights delight and brighten our winter season.

A very special thanks needs to be extended to Keil Bros Garden Center for their generous help with our LIRR Station Beautification Program that helped return the station park back into an attractive town square “Green Space” for Bayside’s residents and commuters.

So, The Bayside BID’s own version of a stimulus package and it’s “New Vitality” energy just rocked and rolled the district, brought opera and endless entertainment and thousands of people back out onto it’s streets, beautified it’s public square and redecorated the district to such a magnificent degree that all in all no one can deny “Bayside is Back and On The Rise !”