This is one of two short remaining stretches of Old New Utrecht Road, a thoroughfare that dates back before 1850. The road has been wiped out between 14th and 17th Avenues, but vestiges of its former route running diagonally across the street grid can be found in aerial images: heading south from 14th Avenue, look for the handful of buildings with oddly angled midblock walls that would have once fronted the road.
Winter melons, I believe. And note the anti-bird CD (Rise of Nations).
According to a crossing guard hanging out nearby, Our Lady of Guadalupe Church only puts up this poster and its companion around the anniversary of 9/11. I'm not counting temporary displays in my tally of 9/11 memorials, which is why this one, beautiful as it is, doesn't make the official list.
Tiny white and yellow florets growing from the magenta bracts
At 4,260 feet, the main span of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was once the longest suspension bridge span in the world, and it still holds the title of longest in the Americas.
On the back of a Jewish school bus in Borough Park
This was originally the Menora Masonic Temple, and its cornerstone came from Solomon's Quarries in Jerusalem.
These people are purchasing live chickens (packed in the yellow crates) for the controversial annual ritual of kapparot practiced by some Orthodox Jews in the days leading up to Yom Kippur. In this custom, a chicken is "swung" ("waved" is a more accurate description, as you can see in this NY Times video) three times above one's head, symbolically transferring one's sins to the bird, and then slaughtered. In some cases, the meat is donated to those in need (some articles I've read say this rarely happens, while others say it usually does). In recent years, a growing number of animal rights activists and rabbis have been vocally denouncing kapparot as a cruel practice that violates the Jewish prohibition against the infliction of unnecessary pain on animals. They encourage instead the following of an alternative tradition in which money is used in place of a chicken.
The famed cantor Yossele Rosenblatt, who appeared as himself in a cameo role in the landmark 1927 talking picture The Jazz Singer after turning down a larger part for religious reasons, served as chazzan here at Anshe Sfard for a couple of years until the synagogue's finances collapsed in the stock market crash of 1929. You can hear some of Rosenblatt's recordings, recently digitally restored by a devoted fan, here, and you can watch a musical tribute to "the greatest chazzan of all-time" here.
Perhaps once a smaller version of the nearby Thirteenth Avenue Retail Market, this building is now occupied in part by the Foodland Supermarket and in part by the Shatzer Matzah Factory.
