Top Tens from '10

Douglaston Patch launched on Nov. 11 and the response from readers, so far, has been fantastic.

In the New Year, we will continue to follow the stories taking place in your community, post your announcements and events and welcome your comments.

Here are 10 of the biggest stories we have posted since our launch. Keep an eye out for further coverage of these stories in 2011. 

TOP 10 DOUGLASTON PATCH STORIES FOR 2010
By Nathan Duke
1. Tony Avella defeats state Sen. Frank Padavan, R-Bellerose in the November election.
2. Douglaston leaders push for the creation of a green market in the community.
3. Douglaston residents await Fairway Market's debut.
4. Edward Braunstein wins Ann-Margaret Carrozza's Assembly seat. 
5.  Residents from Little Neck and Douglaston are frustrated about the city's decision to place a median along Little Neck Parkway near Sandhill Road.
6. The process to rename Douglaston's historic streets hits a snag. 
7. Manor leaders call for Shore Road to be fixed up. 
8. A massive sewer upgrade project on Northern Boulevard begins wrapping up. 
9. Manor House residents are left without gas for one month. 
10. Douglaston Patch talked with Darryl Strawberry about his restaurant and two brothers, both EMTs, who helped deliver a baby during December's blizzard. 

TOP TEN NORTHEAST QUEENS SPORTS STORIES
By Keldy Ortiz
1.  The Mets top the list in 2010. Who could forget reliever Francisco Rodriguez who, after a Mets loss, was arrested after he got into an altercation with his father-in-law?
2. Benjamin N. Cardozo High School had much success this past year in sports, but none bigger than the girls volleyball team, who won the PSAL City Championships for the first time since 1981.
3. After two straight seasons of making it to the second round of the PSAL baseball playoffs for consecutive seasons, Cardozo fails to make it again as they fall in the first round to Brooklyn Technical High School.
4. Boys basketball teams for Bayside High School and Cardozo High School renewed their rivalry in a close game. Cardozo won 66-63.
5. Cardozo went on the championship game at Madison Square Garden, where they lost to Boys & Girls High School.
6. Averaging nine wins during the past three seasons, the Patriots of Francis Lewis girls varsity basketball team had a perfect season in 2010 at 14-0, but lost in the quarterfinals to Manhattan Center High School.
7. It was yet another tragic year for the New York Mets in 2010 as they collapsed for the second time in three years finishing at 79-83.
8. Though the Francis Lewis High School boys varsity baseball team did not win the championship, senior graduate Jonathan Bobea had the ultimate win by getting drafted to the Los Angeles Angels. But he turned down the offer and decided to go to the University of Kentucky.
9. Queens College's girls tennis team held a perfect record in the season at 14-0 and winning the East Coast Conference .
10. The Bayside girls varsity basketball had a 14-win season (three better than last season), only to finish the season losing in the second round.     

TOP TEN TV SHOWS OF 2010 
By Eric Blattberg
10. LOST
When "Lost" premiered in 2004, the series rocked viewers to the core with a pulse-pounding pilot episode. The final season is what Losties were waiting for and while not the eye-popping, edge or your seat television to which fans had grown accustomed, the show gave us a lot to cheer for and shed tears over ("There is no Sayid!").
9. SONS OF ANARCHY
"Hamlet" meets "the Sopranos" on motorcycles is the best way to explain this show. But as the third season evolved, "Sons of Anarchy's" mythology went deeper to explain its premise.
8. MAD MEN
The Emmy-winning show, declared to be the best on TV, simply got better throughout the series' fourth season. On a weekly basis, Jon Hamm proved that he is the best working actor today.
7. MODERN FAMILY
We all know how weird, crazy, funny and heartwarming a family can be. If you don't, "Modern Family" will remind you every single week.
6. DEXTER
How does a man exact vengeance for the murder of his wife when he already murdered her killer? That was the question "Dexter's" fifth season tried to answer in the form of Lumen (Julia Stiles), a woman who was tortured, abused and left for dead before Dexter rescued her.
5. STAR WARS: CLONE WARS
Set in-between episodes two and three of the "Star Wars" saga, "The Clone Wars" sees Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda trying to restore piece to the galaxy and end the war against the separatists.
4. NO ORDINARY FAMILY
When ABC first announced "No Ordinary Family," a series about a super-powered family, I was wondering why the channel didn't just adapt Marvel's "Fantastic Four" into a TV show. Featuring a realistic portrayal of a family, the show's Michael Chiklis and Julie Benz are able to branch out from their previous roles on "The Shield" and "Dexter."
3. BLUE BLOODS
CBS is the undisputed king of TV on Sunday through Thursday nights and Friday is par for the course with "Blue Bloods," a down and dirty cop show that infuses family drama.
2. 24
For seven years, Jack Bauer (Keifer Sutherland) has doled out and received more punishment and torture, emotional and physical than any one man should have to inflict or endure. The final season saw Jack defending New York from threat after threat, a conspiracy plot, a mole within his own CTU, and the murder of his girlfriend.
1. THE WALKING DEAD
I didn't want this show to be on the list as I'm not a big fan of the zombie horror genre. But "The Walking Dead" is the new "Lost" - gripping, emotional, and visceral.

TOP TEN MOVIES OF 2010
By Nathan Duke
My Runners-Up (11-20): A Prophet, The Fighter, The Ghost Writer, Toy Story 3, Red Riding Trilogy, Dogtooth, Hereafter, The American, Secret Sunshine, The Town and Mad Men Season Four.
10. THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
Lisa Cholodenko redefined the family dramedy with this tale of two teenagers conceived through artificial insemination who bring the man (Mark Ruffalo) responsible for their existence into the lives of their happily married parents (a great Annette Bening and Julianne Moore).
9. SHUTTER ISLAND
Martin Scorsese's adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel of the same name was one of the year's most underrated. Leonard DiCaprio excels as a man split in two by a personal tragedy who is called in to investigate a disappearance on the titular locale.
8. THE KING'S SPEECH
Tom Hooper's rousing picture has Oscar written all over it. "The King's Speech" is not a stuffy costume drama, but rather a beautifully acted story of how a man in the public eye finds his voice both literally and figuratively.
7. TRUE GRIT
The Coen Brothers don't so much remake Henry Hathaway's 1969 classic film as reinterpret Charles Portis's novel. Replacing The Duke with The Dude, the Coens take a western revenge thriller storyline and transform it into a thing of beauty in its haunting coda.
6. ANOTHER YEAR
The ever-reliable Mike Leigh ("Secrets and Lies" and "Happy Go Lucky") delivers another gem with this terrific character piece about a happy, older couple and the sad sacks who make up their circle of friends. Lesley Manville is revelatory as the lonely secretary who is looking for love in all the wrong places.
5. CARLOS
For sheer audacity, Olivier Assayas's five-hour epic about Venezuelan terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanches (AKA Carlos the Jackal) is one of the year's must-see movies. Edgar Ramirez is phenomenal as the titular character in this completely engrossing examination of a super-sized ego.
4. GREENBERG
One of the year's most underrated films, Noah Baumbach's tale of middle-aged malaise is both poignant and acerbically funny. Ben Stiller delivers his best performance since "The Royal Tenenbaums."
3. BLACK SWAN
Darren Aronofsky's dizzying thriller is a descent into madness that pays homage to "The Red Shoes," David Lynch, Brian De Palma, Dario Argento and David Cronenberg. Natalie Portman gives the performance of the year and Matthew Libatique's claustrophobic photography makes for a tense, unsettling experience.
2. WINTER'S BONE
Debra Granik's taut Southern gothic tale of survival is the directorial breakout of the year, featuring Jennifer Lawrence in one of the year's star-making performances. The picture casts a spell early on and retains a feeling of impending doom.
1. THE SOCIAL NETWORK
David Fincher's movie of the moment has topped virtually every critic's list – and for good reason. Not only does it perfectly paint How We Live Now, but it is also a riveting, stylish, brilliantly performed and written "Citizen Kane"-styled story of a man who forsakes his friends to create an online empire in the age of disconnection.