Virtual Doormen (or Doorwomen, more likely) keep an eye on things from their remote command centers in Florida and Maine. Big Sister is watching!
It's like Momma always said: When it comes to perimeter control, nothing beats a good set of weighted sediment tubes.
(That's the Harlem River span of the Triborough Bridge in the background.)
Quite familiar to southbound motorists on the FDR Drive (here's why), this beloved mural was originally painted illegally on the wall of a desolate East Harlem handball court in 1986 by Keith Haring, who was ticketed by a policeman and fined $25 for disorderly conduct as a result.
Not too long afterward, the mural was vandalized by "an unknown hand", who modified it to read "CRACK IS IT"; this prompted the Parks Department to paint over the wall in its entirety. It was at this point that the Parks commissioner at the time, that irrepressible goofball Henry Stern, stepped in and saved the day. He "personally invited Haring to repaint the mural. Early on an overcast fall morning, the artist returned to the park with cans of latex house paint and a blaring box radio. Later that day Stern showed up and donned a 'Crack is Wack' T-shirt, which the artist obligingly autographed across the abdomen."
Parks has since officially renamed the court and its surroundings "Crack Is Wack Playground", although the department mentions nothing about the painting's illegal origins on its website, which offers an amusing look at a government agency's attempts to glorify an artist whose fame is deeply rooted in his unsanctioned works.
This side of the mural is not so well known to those driving south in the adjacent lanes of the FDR, as it's only visible in the rear view.
According to the Parks Department, this was the first vest-pocket park in the US when it opened on a formerly vacant lot in May of 1965.
For a brief stretch between 122nd and 135th Streets in Harlem, the 1 train pops above ground. Or, rather, the ground pops below the 1 train. There is a substantial valley here (clearly seen on this old subway profile — look just to the right of center at the top), created by long-ago movements of the earth along the geologic fault that runs beneath 125th Street.
Around a century ago, about 178,000 Jews lived in Harlem, making it the world's third-largest Jewish community after the Lower East Side and Warsaw. These days, however, there is only one "mainstream" synagogue left in the neighborhood. Fittingly, the street on which it stands, Old Broadway, is itself a remnant, a curvy piece of the colonial-era Bloomingdale Road that was left over when the road was straightened out to become today's Broadway.
The synagogue is still chugging along, but it's not exactly flourishing: "Rats are not the only thing that the unassuming Old Broadway Synagogue does not have. It has no paid permanent staff. It has no rabbi. And it has no summer services, not altogether bad, since it has no air-conditioning."
UPDATE: Air conditioning and summer services were apparently added several years ago. See comments.
Three out of seven midblock lots on the south side of 129th Street between Lenox and 7th Avenues are occupied by the churches you see in this picture and the following two. There's also another Baptist church located across the street on the north side.
"In a quiet section of Harlem, the inquisitive visitor finds an extraordinary sight: a vast church in polychromed brick, seemingly transplanted from Venice, Siena or Lombardy. It is the Catholic parish of All Saints, one of the last masterpieces of James Renwick, Jr.", the architect of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Grace Church, and the Smithsonian Castle.
Here we see the Park Avenue Bridge, with the Oak Point Link in the foreground and the Four Sisters way off in the distance.
and Beethoven Pianos (their "rebuilding and storage facility")
"Featuring robust brick facades and a high corner clock tower, the former Estey Piano Company Factory is a distinguished monument to an industry that was once one of the Bronx’s most important."
I've seen hundreds of these handwritten signs posted on the trees and utility poles of the Bronx, but, until today, I hadn't found one in any other borough.
Founded in 1904, NAMA is "a blue-collar bedrock of jazz history in Harlem."
This sculpture is the first non-arboreal version of Harlem's Tree of Hope.
