I believe this is Sandy Brook, anyway. A couple of creeks flow through the woods here in Bloomingdale Park.
The "hotly anticipated" brood of 17-year (a prime number, of course) periodical cicadas that emerged from the ground to mate this spring was largely absent from the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. Staten Island, however, was another story, as evidenced by the countless molted exoskeletons littering the forest floor here in Bloomingdale Park. It's been a banner year for the borough's cicadaphiles, most notably those at the Staten Island Museum — home to the world's second-largest collection of cicadas — which has devoted a yearlong exhibition to the creature.
(Does the photo above make you hungry? If so, you're in luck: just check out these cicada cooking suggestions and then wait 17 years — bon appétit!)
That green rectangular thing covering the trailer hitch is a replica of a (or perhaps an actual) Claymore mine.
"N.Y.C. DOT put up the first automated traffic light here in 1916!!!"
So claims this handwritten sign taped to a pedestrian signal pole at the intersection of Huguenot Avenue and Amboy Road in Staten Island. I'm not sure exactly what this is supposed to mean, and I can't find anything online to clarify the matter.
Branch flagging — another vestige of the recent cicada invasion
A DOT palimpsest! See if you can make out the previous destination this sign pointed toward. Here's a larger version of the photo, and here's the answer.
VARIOUS ARTICLES USED IN
RELIGIOUS SERVICES OF ALL FAITHS
WERE DONATED IN MEMORY OF
ERNEST P. PALCIC, JR., SP. 4
WHO GAVE HIS LIFE
IN THE SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY
VIET NAM — JANUARY 24, 1968
BY THE EMPLOYEES OF
WILLOWBROOK STATE SCHOOL
AND THE
BENEVOLENT SOCIETY FOR RETARDED CHILDREN
APRIL 1969
