This is a reconstruction (using some original materials) of the Vechte-Cortelyou House, the site of the Maryland 400's desperate counterattack during the Battle of Brooklyn, an event we've seen memorialized twice previously. In the late 19th century, the house was used as a clubhouse and/or storage building for the baseball team that would later become the Dodgers, who played here in an early incarnation of Washington Park, catty-corner to the site of the later, more well-known park of the same name.
This "enormous, eccentric toaster" memorializes the aforementioned Frenchman, who served as a general in the Revolutionary War and played a key role in securing crucial French contributions to the American cause.
That grille-mounted cuddle object looks awfully familiar...
Located in the Red Hook Houses, this farm provides free produce to the tenants and employees of Brooklyn's largest public housing project.
Either that, or two intersecting streets that border the playground
I tried, but it was already closed. I think there's a logical flaw in those instructions.
Fitted with a perforated cap that allows about 25 gallons of water per minute to spray into the street, this fire hydrant serves as a neighborhood sprinkler in which children and other young-at-heart hydrophiles can cool off and frolic. Even though the fire department provides these spray caps for free, many young New Yorkers prefer to illegally crack open their local hydrants, setting them on full blast. An unthrottled hydrant (like this one) can release upwards of 1000 gallons of water per minute, noticeably reducing water pressure in the area and lowering the flow into the hoses of any firefighters who may be trying to put out a nearby blaze.
To deal with the prevalence of these illegal street geysers during the summer months, the Department of Environmental Protection sends out teams of professional killjoys: those unfortunate workers assigned to hydrant duty, whose job it is to go around and turn off all the open fireplugs, trampling the sweet, naïve joy of countless youngsters who just want to enjoy a nice shpritz, and incurring the wrath of heat-crazed, projectile-equipped onlookers.
Obscured by all the overgrowth, that white sign on the wall reads:
Attention friends and neighbors,Judging by the appearance of the place, you'd think it hadn't been touched in a decade or more (and the AOL email address does nothing to dispel this impression), but it turns out the dig took place just last summer! This site is rumored to have been a burial ground for soldiers who died in the Battle of Brooklyn; Dr. Bankoff and his students were searching for evidence to verify that claim. John B., replying from the aforementioned email address, reports that nothing conclusive was found, however. (See page 14 for more info.)
The Brooklyn College Summer Archaeological Field School, under the guidance of Professor H. Arthur Bankoff, will be working this site on a regular basis. Dr. Bankoff is the head of the Anthropolgy Department at Brooklyn College, and is recognized as a leader in his field of archaeology.
With the property owner's consent, they will be carefully searching the site for any evidence which may connect these grounds to the village of Red Hook and its Revolutionary War heritage.
We request all persons to treat this property with the respect it deserves during and after this archaelogical mission.
Contact RedHookHistory@aol.com for any information.
It's the Queen Mary 2!
(See for yourself.)
Fittingly for Red Hook, it looks like a ship. (And it's not the only thing around here that does.)
Is it just me, or does this couple look like an older Courtney Cox and a slightly younger Bruce Springsteen?
You don't see many of these on the streets of New York — anymore. (But it's not the first Checker we've come across.)
A little over an acre of crops growing atop an old athletic field, across the street from IKEA
Looking toward Staten Island, with Bayonne, New Jersey on the right
I recently claimed that this billboard has begun to comply with city regulations, but now it seems to be advertising a rather commercial affair: a giant party Six Flags is throwing to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Trinidad and Tobago's independence. Neither the billboard nor any other ads I could find say anything about it being a benefit event, but I did come across one mention of an educational nonprofit tucked away on the official website. Perhaps that's sufficient for this ad to be deemed non-commercial, or perhaps the billboard owner has simply returned to the law-flouting ways of yore.
Like the one we saw yesterday, this Lipa Schmeltzer billboard is well within 200 feet of the BQE. (He's quite proud of these ads, by the way.)
And in case you were wondering, Mr. Schmeltzer's openness to secular musical styles, which are well known to cause "ribaldry and lightheadedness", makes him somewhat controversial within the Hasidic movement.
Just before stepping into the car, the officer in the passenger seat crumpled up a piece of paper and casually tossed it on the street. (It's the white thing lying between the car and the curb.)
Manhattanhenge (the two times each year — about three weeks before and three weeks after the summer solstice — when the setting sun aligns with the Manhattan street grid) has become quite a spectacle in recent years. (Drivers may know it better as the fifteen minutes or so when they can't see a goddamned thing heading west across town, including the throngs of spectators out in the middle of the street.)
West 205th Street here in the Bronx is angled a tad further north than its counterparts on the Manhattan grid, so its second henge of the year occurs a few days before Manhattan's. It doesn't quite compare to the sight of the sun nestled at the bottom of a Midtown canyon, but sometimes comparing is for fools.
