This sequence of three assignments for English Composition students at Queensborough Community College is structured as a response to the Goings On newsletter published in the May 2025 issue of The New Yorker, which showcased seven short profiles of the staff writers’ favorite ‘Only in New York’ spots. Featured under “Local Gems,” four of these pieces focused on spots in Manhattan and three on places in Brooklyn. To counter this well-worn pattern of borough discrimination, QCC students write a letter to the editor that criticizes the magazine’s decision to overlook Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island and a 250-word-profile of their favorite spots in Queens, imitating the rhetorical features of the New Yorker pieces they have studied in class. For their capstone project, they pretend they have been invited by The New Yorker to contribute a longer, more ethnographic profile of a local place in Queens that combines storytelling and description with primary and secondary research. The intended outcomes are for students to apply what they learn in ENG 101 to their local, everyday contexts and to make their communities visible to a larger audience. Using Queens as a resource and as a teaching tool, this curriculum aligns with the goals of a culturally relevant-sustaining pedagogy.