In this version of the classic St. Michael statue, the part of Satan is played by what looks like a dog-headed serpent.
of Paerdegat Basin. You can see One World Trade Center way off in the distance at right.
Things are looking a little tidier than they did when we passed by on the opposite shoreline.
Across Jamaica Bay from JFK Airport, this weird little structure can be found on the trails of the Jamaica Bay Riding Academy in Gateway National Recreation Area.
On the frozen-over trails of the Jamaica Bay Riding Academy (whose owner is named Tony Danza), this proved to be the easiest way to get around.
I found this bottle of Haitian Barbancourt rum on the shore of Jamaica Bay. Inside were two waterlogged pieces of paper (one of them bearing the logo of NYU Langone Medical Center) with largely illegible traces of writing, three long feathers, a pink flower, some little black (beans?) and yellow (candy?) things, and a coating of thick purplish syrup.
is the old inert storage building (take a look inside) at Floyd Bennett Field.
The self-proclaimed "world's most famous tree" features an ever-expanding arboreal constellation of stuffed animals arranged and maintained by Eugene Fellner, a retired city worker who traces the genesis of his collection back to July 2007:
It just kind of happened one day when a neighbor called me and said there was a stuffed tiger [the thing wearing sunglasses near the bottom of the photo (zoom in), in the middle of the trunk] around the corner . . . I picked it up right there, brought it home, and placed it in the tree. It was a long time before the second animal went up. People would walk by and admire the tiger. Sometimes it would scare them, and they would jump if it caught them off guard.Check out this awful video to see an interview with Mr. Fellner.
Heading back from Brooklyn on the subway after my walk, I passed by Masstransiscope, Bill Brand's spectacular, zoetrope-inspired work of art installed in 1980 on the remaining platform of the Fourth Avenue Line's abandoned Myrtle Avenue station. The series of 228 hand-painted images was most recently restored in 2013 after graffiti writers vandalized it while the subway system was shut down for Hurricane Sandy. You can view Masstransiscope from Manhattan-bound B and Q (and late-night D) trains; after your train leaves the DeKalb Avenue station, just gaze out a window on the right side and wait for the show to begin. It's rare to see the whole thing without the train slowing down and stopping in the tunnel approaching the Manhattan Bridge, but, as Mr. Brand says, that's part of the experience:
When I designed Masstransiscope . . . the trains even then always slowed down and stopped as they still do today. So, I designed that feature into the piece. I actually like that the illusion breaks down and you can see the slits and the static paintings behind them.
