Modeled after a fireman's trumpet (an early type of megaphone), this sculpture was originally supposed to project a beam of light into the sky every night between 9 and 11 PM. I remember occasionally seeing its light during the four years I lived in Bay Ridge, generally around the anniversary of 9/11, but I'm pretty sure the plans to turn it on every night have been scrapped. Or maybe I just didn't spend enough time down at the pier after dark.
Side note: In researching this memorial, I came upon an enlightening article about memorial #4 and ol' Rockin Ray.
That was the colloquial name of the beautiful 1899 stone building that once stood on this spot. Known formally as the Bay Ridge United Methodist Church, it was demolished back in 2008 when I was living across the street from it. It had been sold to a developer who planned to put up a new apartment building, but then he turned around and sold the site to the city, who is now building a school.
Built in 1941-42, this was originally Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church, whose membership comprised hundreds of Danish immigrants. The congregation dwindled as the demographics of the area changed, and, to serve a growing number of Arab Lutherans in Bay Ridge, the church was handed over to a Palestinian pastor in the mid-1990s and rechristened Salam Arabic Lutheran Church, making it the first such church in the US. But this congregation, too, was cash-strapped, and, in late 2010, the synod decided to sell the church to a developer who plans to tear it down and build an apartment building in its place. Sound familiar?
This little park is named for Anthony Mondello, who worked as an auto mechanic at the repair shop across the street and was killed in action during his WWII service in the Air Force.
I took a Track Safety Training class here once, back in my engineering days. The instructor looked not unlike Christopher Walken, and spoke exactly like him. He showed us horrible photos of people who touched the third rail. It was a fun day.
These three picnic tables, plus three others, were packed with Chinese-, Russian-, and Italian-speaking men playing chess, dominoes, cards, and some checker-like game I couldn't identify.
Joe Petrosino was the city's first Italian-American police detective. Standing a feisty (and chunky) 5-foot-3, he was a prominent leader in the fight against Italian-American organized crime around the turn of the 20th century. This role eventually cost him his life when he was assassinated in 1909 while on a mission in Sicily, making him the only NYC police officer killed in the line of duty outside the US. While his name has largely been forgotten in the years since, he was beloved by the New Yorkers of his time: an estimated 200,000 people turned out to watch his funeral procession (photo) make its way through the streets of Manhattan and Queens!
Built in the 1970s at the northern tip of Bay Ridge, this behemoth and its nearby sibling dwarf the other buildings in this low-lying neighborhood. I doubt you can see them from space, but they're quite visible from Staten Island. And they'll undoubtedly pop up in future pictures, so at least now you'll know what they are.
I somehow managed to capture the one brief period when no one was playing their instruments except the percussionist. But I didn't want to do a second take because I felt like I was distracting people. So, with that said, enjoy this exciting video!
He's got the hard part of the pirate costume down pat.
For what, I don't know. But I feel like it has real potential.
Part of a 270-foot-long mural by Groundswell (some of whose other works we've already seen). Check out what the wall used to look like.
A far cry from its current existence, Fourth Avenue was once a parkway before the construction of the subway that runs beneath it.
That bell tower is a prominent landmark in the neighborhood.
