There is a tourism epidemic. As noted by Annie Lowrey in the Atlantic, every popular place on earth is plagued by instagrammers trying to capture that perfect selfie with hashtag bucket list check.  I noted this in my trip to Iceland where fantastic landscapes feel marred by tour bus dumped crowds.

But at least for now, there are still large swaths of NYC where tourists rarely roam.  Begin with anywhere in the outer boroughs: more specifically, even high rise crazy Long Island City, where folks flock to PS1, contains streets where pedestrians hardly tread.

Last Saturday, I decided to walk from the Vernon/Jackson station to my friend’s house in Sunnyside, and my phone showed it was a straight shot down 49th Ave.  Adjacent the Queens Midtown Expressway, south of  the LIRR  rail yards, one finds signs of the old industrial LIC.  Many of these buildings are looking for tenants, including a streamline art deco building on the corner of 27th Street and Pearson Place, with 6500 square feet of loft space listed at $12,459 a month and 8500 square feet of warehouse space at $17,708 a month.

Just across Dutch Kills, an inlet for Newton Creek, 49th Avenue becomes Hunters Point Avenue, and here one finds an industrial building from 1962.  You can buy the entire thing–all 32,340 SF–for a mere $13,845,000. Stan Deutsch Lighting still has its address listed here, but it looked pretty deserted.

I am not the first to discover this funky street.  Forgotten New York did a fantastic tour of this area back in 2012.  But the big question is what will it look like in the future. There is a plan to cover over the massive LIRR yards and develop Sunnyside Yards into the next Hudson Yards.  So get a breather from the hordes while you can.