It was quite fragrant out on Franklin Avenue today, thanks to the Golombeck family. Their spice importing business is located here in the old Consumers Park Brewery.
An emergency room that can stand in for a battlefield, and a psychiatric unit once called a "chamber of filth, decay, indifference and danger"
Grace Deliverance Tabernacle, formerly Congregation Beth Israel
From the Canarsie Courier: "Before Remsen Avenue existed, children walked to P.S. 114, a wooden schoolhouse, through School Lane, which ran alongside of 'Pop' James' Grocery and Candy Store."
Plus an auto spa!
(In order for a barbershop to qualify for the Barberz tally, its name must include a Z where an S would normally be. In this case, although it's not obvious, "Nevz" fits the bill as a Z-ified version of "Nev's", with "Nev" referring to Nevada Myers, the owner.)
Until it was sold off a couple of years ago, this was the only active cemetery managed by the city, with the exception of the potter's field on Hart Island.
According to signs in the park, these restored wetlands are located on the former site of a leaf-composting facility. A Revolutionary-era farmhouse that once stood within the bounds of the park and served as a concession stand during the early 20th century was dismantled in 1929 and transported to the Brooklyn Museum, where it was reassembled inside a gallery on the fourth floor (photos here).
Here's a great aerial photo of this Jamaica Bay inlet during the construction of its new combined sewer overflow facility.
Carrying the Belt Parkway across the mouth of Paerdegat Basin at the edge of Jamaica Bay, these two structures were built over the past few years as part of a city DOT plan to reconstruct seven aging crossings along the highway. You can still see some of the piers from the original bridge standing between the new eastbound and westbound spans.
This is the city's last seltzer factory, where a century-old carbonator is still doing its best Jesus impersonation: turning chilled, triple-filtered New York City tap water into "the poor man's champagne". The bubbly beverage is delivered to customers in thick glass siphon bottles (most of them made in Czechoslovakia during the middle of the last century) at a pressure of 60 pounds per square inch. Comparing his supremely fizzy product to "that dreck you buy in the supermarket", Kenny Gomberg says: "Good seltzer should hurt. It’s the truth."
This plaque outside Canarsie's PS 115 looks identical to those found along Eastern Parkway. Planting trees in honor of fallen soldiers seems to have been a popular practice in the years following World War I.
Established in 1839 as the Methodist Protestant Church of Canarsie, and later known as Grace Church, this is the oldest congregation in Canarsie, although it's not clear exactly when the present structure was built.
