Day 382

Today’s route — 13.8 miles

January 15th, 2013

Day 382

Selling the high life

January 15th, 2013



You know you've hit the big time when a suit of armor is serving you Chivas Regal.

Day 382

Portal of the day

January 15th, 2013


Day 382



Day 382

Relax! Take a load off!

January 15th, 2013



Showing that New Yorkers can be much friendlier than you'd expect, this sprinkler connection seems to be practically begging for the company of someone's derrière.

Day 382

Obed Bookstore & Varieties

January 15th, 2013



Just down the block from El Olam, a Messianic Jewish congregation

Day 382

Nice hat!

January 15th, 2013



This telephone building is sporting some stylish headgear.

Day 382

Come To Us

January 15th, 2013



& Fall In Love With Us

Day 382

A rather snazzy sky bridge

January 15th, 2013



in an otherwise snazz-less part of town

Day 382

Churchagogue of the day

January 15th, 2013



Second Saint James Church of Christ, née Congregation Ahavas Achim B’nai Abraham. In converting this shul to a church, these guys went so far as to cover over the Ten Commandment tablets up near the top of the building, giving them the appearance of the twin towers.

Day 382

9/11 memorial #109

January 15th, 2013



I guess this one counts, even though it was never used as a headstone.

Day 382

Transit Tech

January 15th, 2013



The students here get hands-on experience working on real subway cars — inside the school!

Day 382

Ninth Tabernacle

January 15th, 2013



At first, I assumed this was another churchagogue. But then I noticed that there were no Christian symbols on the building, and that the Jewish motifs of the old Talmud Torah Atereth Israel had seemingly all been retained, and perhaps even augmented: the entrance gate topped with the Star of David looks like it might be a recent addition. It turns out that the organization to which the Tabernacle belongs, the Church of God and Saints of Christ, is, despite its name, a denomination of Hebrew Israelites.

Day 382

Spring Creek composting center

January 15th, 2013



The city started building this 20-acre facility back in 2001 to serve as the main composting site for Brooklyn and Queens (it sits just on the Brooklyn side of the border between the two boroughs). However, it has only been able to process a limited amount of compost since then (you can see the small number of compost windrows at the site, most of them quite overgrown, here) because its application for an operating permit, which is needed for large-scale composting, has been held up by residents of nearby neighborhoods, who claim that the facility already produces significant levels of odor and dust, and that these conditions will only worsen if operations at the site are increased.

Just this past summer, after years of departmental hearings and procedural wranglings, the commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Conservation finally granted a permit to the facility, rejecting the largely unfounded claims of the locals:

Given the other sources of odors in the vicinity of the facility, including the scavenger waste pit used by septic haulers to discharge raw sewage, the City's combined sewer overflow tanks, and the nearby creek and marshes, it is more likely than not that many of the odors identified by the opponents' lay witnesses were from sources other than the composting facility. In fact, Department inspectors detected odors from those other sources during an inspection conducted in 2007. . . .

As with odor, dust conditions were more likely than not the result of other activities in the area, including construction activities, and bus and truck traffic, and not composting activities. With respect to the "black dust" identified by lay witnesses for the intervenors, black dust was more likely the result of soot from idling diesel engines at the neighboring bus depot than the composting of yard waste at the facility.
As one Department of Sanitation official says about this classic NIMBY problem: "Everybody supports composting, but no one wants anything near them."

Day 382




New York no longer burns any of its garbage; this facility, now smokestack-less, is currently used as a Sanitation garage, with a large salt shed on site.

Day 382

The Pink Houses

January 15th, 2013


Day 382

Old Mill Road

January 15th, 2013



A short remnant of a thoroughfare that perhaps once ran to, I don't know, an old mill?

Day 382

Candy stripe

January 15th, 2013


Day 382

Storetop mosque

January 15th, 2013



5 Times Salat

Day 382

If You Look Like Hell

January 15th, 2013



Come See Mel

Day 382

Laser Dog!

January 15th, 2013