I'm in Kew Gardens and most of my riding is in Forest Park nowadays. Once in a while, I'll ride out around eastern Queens, or do some laps around Prospect or Central Park. All paved, so I started on a hybrid and then bought a road bike. There are some awesome trails in Cunningham, I hear. So if you go for the mountain bike, you can really use it. And the bike beefiness will go a long way on the roads out here. You can't go wrong with a MTB unless you start wanting to do, like centuries.