All the patriotic street furniture we've noticed so far has been either American or Italian; it's good to see another nationality getting in the spirit.
Keep your eyes fixed on the far right side of the video. Can you see it?
You can see crossovers swooping between the outer local tracks and the center express track. Just behind me are two more crossovers; collectively, these four inter-track connections allows trains from any of the three tracks to access either side of the platform at the nearby terminal station of the Astoria Line.
Generally speaking, this is how trains get from one side of the tracks to the other when they change direction at the end of the line, and it's how two trains coming from the same direction can end up on different sides of the platform at the last station.
This monument to Christopher Columbus was unveiled in 1941, but no one had yet secured funding for a pedestal at that point. Residents of the area became worried that, without a place to mount it, their statue might be taken and used as scrap metal in the massive World War II recycling effort, so they hid it in the basement of Queens Borough Hall. After the war, as you can see, they were able to raise enough money for a stone base on which the sculpture was permanently installed.
This converted call box is mounted outside FDNY Engine Company 263 and Ladder Company 117. Also on the firehouse wall is a poster with photos of all 343 firefighters who died on 9/11.
I was given an impromptu tour by a fireman who was just proud of his job and eager to share. And possibly a little bored. His counterpart next door at Ladder Company 117 also served as an excellent tour guide, it should be noted. Thanks to the two of them, I finally learned the difference between an engine company and a ladder company.
This photo doesn't do it justice; look how narrow the entrance to this lot is!
This cemetery is the final resting place of the musician Scott Joplin, known primarily for his ragtime compositions, including "Maple Leaf Rag" and "The Entertainer". In fact, as it turns out, St. Michael's just held its annual musical tribute to him yesterday!
Joplin achieved some fleeting fame during his lifetime, but was largely forgotten in the decades after he died of syphilis in a New York City mental institution in 1917. He was buried in a pauper's grave here at St. Michael's, which remained unmarked until the mid-1970s, when a growing revival of interest in his music reached fever pitch.
This renewed appreciation for his work led to a posthumous Pulitzer Prize, the first full staging of his opera Treemonisha, and a starring role for several of his ragtime pieces in the soundtrack of The Sting. Even today, you can hear his music echoing out on the streets of America — every time an ice cream truck drives by blaring the first section of "The Entertainer" on endless repeat.
This is just one section of an expansive 9/11 memorial at St. Michael's Cemetery. Also included are monuments dedicated to the PAPD (Port Authority Police), a PAPD bomb-detection dog, the NYPD, the FDNY (again), and Queens firefighters specifically, as well as a first responder memorial not related to 9/11.
Many of the names on these monuments (though not the monument pictured here) are accompanied by small medallions with QR codes printed on them. If you scan one of those codes, you are taken to a website with information and memories about the corresponding individual. (The company that provides this service charges $100 per medallion!) You might be able to spot some of the QR codes in the circles next to the names on the monuments linked above. Check out Sirius's memorial for a good example.
Baffling riders and passersby for months on end, these mysterious postings, ubiquitous along the Q69 bus route, were no match for the investigative prowess of the New York Post. Flyers defending Tony have recently come onto the scene, and have inspired an enlightened exchange of ideas.
After months of seeing these signs, we've finally reached election day. And the winner is...
