As you can see, work has begun on a multi-year project to build a new roadway through the arch of the Bayonne Bridge, 64 feet above the current one. When the higher roadway is in place and the lower one removed, the bridge will no longer be a navigational obstacle to the jumbo-size container ships that are expected to proliferate once the expansion of the Panama Canal is completed in 2016 or so. (One statistic that puts the importance of this project in perspective: some 12 percent of all international shipping containers in the US pass beneath the Bayonne Bridge on their way to Newark Bay.) The Port Authority has a plan to keep the bridge mostly open to vehicle (though not pedestrian) traffic during construction.
That heap of metal is what's left of a passenger waiting shelter at the old Elm Park station on the abandoned North Shore rail line. The shelter looked considerably more shelter-like not long ago, although it was mostly hidden by foliage when we looked down on the station from the other direction back in July of 2013. As you can see, the parts of the platforms that were visible then have since been removed, and the area where they stood, beyond the chain-link fence, has been cleared, perhaps for use in the big construction project happening on the Bayonne Bridge (that's the approach to the bridge rising in the background).
This is only the second ripe fig I've found this year! If this were one of the previous two years, I'd have eaten a million of them by now, but this year's crop is pretty puny. It seems that the harshness of the preceding winter is to blame. A few months ago, lots of people were fretting that their trees had died, but I think in many cases the trees simply didn't start producing leaves and figs until much later in the year than normal. I'm seeing a good number of figs growing at this point; it's just that most of them are not even close to ripe, and I can't imagine they're going to get there before the weather turns cold again.
I found this collection sitting outside of Certified Gasoline. I like to imagine that if one of the gas stations they supply falls behind on its payments, they send out a guy named Tony to "take care" of its signs.
They put up this sign after the infamous "roving emu gangs" incident of 1987.
across the street from Graniteville Quarry Park
This Rafael Viñoly-designed structure was Staten Island's first new police station in over 50 years when it opened in the summer of 2013 as the home of the nascent 121st Precinct, the youngest of the island's four precincts.
My first thought when I saw the building was "Whoa, that's cool!" But then, as is often the case with such things, the designer's description of it ruined it for me:
The second floor cantilevers ninety feet toward Richmond Avenue in a symbolic gesture of community engagement that defines the main entrance and creates a visual link between the main lobby and the street.A symbolic gesture of community engagement? Come on. This is a giant stapler of doom looming ominously above anyone who dares make the 200-foot trek from the sidewalk to the entrance. It's intimidating, not engaging.
The 121st Precinct station house as seen from Hillside Cemetery
Take a closer look and see if you can spot a groundskeeper dozing behind a couple of headstones here at Baron Hirsch Cemetery.
followed by a horse trailer and a similarly colored '79 AMC Spirit AMX. These vehicles are located just around the corner from the ones in the previous two photos (and a couple of other interesting ones as well). You can see most of them in Street View. I can't believe I didn't notice what's on the trunk of the purple Pontiac!
Many of them are faded and hard to read, but the legible ones all appear to be $250 tickets for litter on the sidewalk — "a large accumulation of scattered bottle(s), cigarette pack, cup(s), napkins, paper bags(s), piece(s) of paper, wrappers", for example.
Dedicated in 1938. Father Eugene Carrella, the pastor of this church until recently, has an impressive collection of 300 to 400 religious statues and relics.
featuring Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico's most popular religious icon. The guy who built it told me he started working on it nine years ago but that it was much smaller at first (as you can see in this 2007 Street View image). He also invited me to his annual party here in December. He said there would be a mariachi band and that everyone would be welcome, Mexican or not.
