Attention, afigcionados: Astoria's getting a fig week and festival

One afigcionado is making this corner of Queens a far more fruit-friendly place.

Buoyed by the success of Astoria’s first-ever fig tree scion exchange in March — which brought in some 200 people to give and take fresh fig cuttings — the exchange’s organizer, Jordan Engel, and his growing team of fig fans are bringing the neighborhood its first-ever full-blown fig festival, as the grand conclusion of Astoria Fig Week.

“There’s a lot of enthusiasm. I’m excited: This is a completely grassroots festival and it shows what people are capable of when some neighbors just have a simple idea and then the community rallies behind them,” said Engel, who works as an urban planner at the MTA.

Astoria Fig Week will take place Sept. 1 to 7 and will include eight local restaurants adding fig specials to their menus for a week. Get ready for a fig, mushroom and blue cheese tartelette at 31st Street’s Urban Vegan Roots; a fig, coppa and mozzarella appetizer at 34th Street’s Vite Vinosteria; and at least two fig pizza pies at Andrew Bellucci’s Pizza and Nonna’s 1977.

“I sent out an email to probably about 70 restaurants in Astoria and many of them were very down to support this by adding fig specials to their menus for a week,” Engel said.

“People can bring whatever they want, but we’re going to encourage them to use figs and bring fig dishes,” said Engel, adding that there will also “of course” be a bowl of figs on the table.

The Fig Festival will happen on Sunday, Sept. 7. It will include volunteer street tree care, a free gardening skill share, an Astoria Food Pantry-supporting raffle, a community cookbook station collecting fig recipes and the neighborhood’s first-ever Longest Table, a free communal potluck experience that takes place in public.

The fig-tastic lineup is hosted in conjunction with the 31st Avenue Open Street, Astoria's volunteer-run public space on 31st Avenue from 33rd to 35th streets. Details on how to register will be shared via 31st Avenue Open Street’s social media.

“It’s kind of become the main stage for community life in Astoria and it provides a space to experiment and create new traditions like this,” Engel said of the organization.