This was the last public bath in Brooklyn when it closed its doors in 1960.
I met Janusz this morning when I stopped to take a picture of his travel agency on Green Street. He came outside to tell me I'm not allowed to photograph his property without permission. I explained to him that I do have that right, as long as I'm in a public area. He listened, apologized, and invited me to come inside out of the rain to chat for a while. I told him about my wanderings, and he told me about his. He was born in Poland, but has lived all over Europe and South America, learning several trades and eight languages in the process. He moved to Greenpoint fifteen years ago and opened his travel agency. The lovely lady on the shelf is his Brazilian wife Rosangela; Janusz wanted to make sure she was in the photo with him.
One guy I talked to said it's been sitting out on the sidewalk for months; he figures someone wanted to get rid of it, but it's too big and heavy for the garbage collectors to pick up.
I met two DOT employees, Louie and Mike, who work at the Pulaski Bridge. They offered me respite from the rain in their lair beneath the bridge, asked me 500 million questions about my walk, and lavished upon me all sorts of edibles and potables (including some crazy-looking energy drink that I think might give me a heart attack if I consume it). Unfortunately, my photo of them was eaten by my phone, but perhaps our paths will cross again before I'm finished walking.
According to a nearby sign, this 21-ton glacial erratic was carried to Greenpoint from the Adirondacks by an ice sheet some 17,000 years ago.
"[This nature walk] is a symbol of who we are and what we have made here on earth, like it or not — an unusually honest space in which to contemplate the nature of our city and our civilization. As much as we have created the grand cultural playgrounds of Manhattan, we have also created the wretchedness of Newtown Creek. The two worlds need each other and cannot be set apart, though much of our economic system takes great pains to encourage the illusion that this is not the case."
Read more here. (Note that the article is a bit exaggerated in its description of the nature walk's terrible bleakness. For example, there is actually a fair amount of vegetation in two separate garden areas.)
In the "Vessel" entrance to Newtown Creek Nature Walk, looking onto the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant
The greatest Polish word I know, which is not an illustrious title
