when park closes?

The Kissena Velodrome, one of 29 or so velodromes in the country, hosted the 1964 US Olympic track cycling trials. By 2002, however, after years of neglect, it was in such poor condition that an article in Bicycling magazine declared it "the nation's worst cycling track". It was rededicated in 2004 after being renovated as part of NYC's failed bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics, but now, more than a decade later, it appears to have sprouted a nice array of cracks once again.

Perhaps expressing a yearning for a simpler life of rustic pleasures, these young fishermen are spending this sunny spring Saturday sitting beside Kissena Lake, their lines idling in its still waters. The gentleman on the left is clearly the leader, as indicated by his camouflage hat and authentic overturned five-gallon bucket. (Note the rinky-dink kitty-litter pails that his more citified companions are perched upon.) As I walked by, a country song — about fishing — was playing on their portable stereo.

UPDATE: A few months later, nutrient-rich runoff that was washed into the lake by a flash flood triggered a bloom of blue-green algae that killed at least 150 fish.

I saw a number of turtles sunning themselves on the rocks of Kissena Lake today.

Dedicated in 2007

This little monument and the ones from the previous two photos (Korean War and 9/11) are all located in the same part of Kissena Park. As I was walking through the area, I saw three young girls wandering around and inspecting everything. They were discussing whether the Korean War memorial or the 9/11 one was more important. The size of the Korean War memorial makes a seemingly indisputable case for it being the more important of the two, but, then again, I would imagine that if I were a young New Yorker, even if I had not yet been born when the twin towers came crashing down, any mention of 9/11 would probably seem far more powerful than even the most imposing monument to some long-ago war I'd never heard of.

When the girls reached Ms. McCarthy's memorial, the youngest one asked what it was. The oldest took a minute to examine it and then announced: "Dorothy McCarthy. She played tennis and was loved."

According to a nearby plaque set amid some pavers designed to resemble railroad ties, the short-lived Flushing-to-Creedmoor section of A.T. Stewart's Central Railroad of Long Island passed by this spot on its way through what is now Kissena Park. As we've seen, portions of the railroad's route east and west of Kissena Park have been incorporated into Kissena Corridor Park.

In recent years, there's apparently been a lot of strife at this huge community garden (aerial view) in Kissena Corridor Park. According to a 2013 Wall Street Journal article:

Despite its serene setting and rows of flowers and vegetables, a community garden in Flushing, Queens, has turned into a battlefield.

Violent fights, death threats and shouting matches, sometimes involving fistfuls of dirt, have become routine at Evergreen Community Garden, leading to volunteer guards at the entrance and police patrols. And almost all of the tangles involve elderly Korean gardeners, officials and witnesses say.

The disputes grew out of the city Parks & Recreation Department's decision last year to take control of the 5-acre garden from a Korean-American senior citizens' group, which had transformed the trash-filled public space into a working garden back in the early 1980s.

The parks department—which contends the seniors' group had been improperly selling produce from the city-owned plot and excluding outsiders—turned control of the park over to its GreenThumb network of community gardens and installed a manager last year.

But the older gardeners are still trying to reclaim the land, at times by drastic means.

A year ago, the garden's 75-year-old former manager clutched a lighter and container of gasoline, threatening to light himself on fire if he didn't get his old job back, city officials said. The incident prompted a police hostage negotiation team to respond and two nearby schools to be locked down.

You can read the rest of the story here (text-only version here).

This is a male cottonwood. It's the females that produce the seeds with the fluffy white sails that give the trees their name.

We've seen lower.

Note the built-in electrical outlet.

After throwing back a few in the Emergency Room, be sure to stop by the Recovery Room, located just over three blocks from New York Hospital Queens.

You can see the whole poster here.

You can see a few interior photos here.

A September 2014 Street View image shows three other sports cars (including another Corvette) parked at the house across the street.

the velodrome is optional.

We're now in Mount St. Mary Cemetery, where a lion cub was found roaming around the headstones one night in 1980.

Here are #1 and #2.

Mr. Thunders, a guitarist, was a founding member of the New York Dolls. Jerry Nolan, a former drummer for the Dolls, is also buried here at Mount St. Mary.

Outside the interment chapel at Mount St. Mary Cemetery

A community mausoleum at Mount St. Mary Cemetery

The sign at the back of this shelter outside Sinai Chapels, a Jewish funeral home, reads: "Kohanim — For your convenience, there is an enclosed lounge to your right with heat, A/C, video, audio and microphone".

The Kohanim (or Cohanim) — the priestly class — are the subset of Jews said to be patrilineally descended from the biblical Aaron. A 1997 NY Times article explains:

The Cohanim predate rabbis, and trace their origins back 3,300 years to the first high priest, or Cohen, Aaron, the older brother of Moses.

Beginning with Aaron, priestly status has been passed down through the ages, from fathers to sons through word of mouth. To this day, all the Cohanim are seen as descendants of Aaron, not just figuratively but by blood. Many, but not all, have the surname Cohen, Kohen, Cohn, Kohn, Cone, Kone, Cahn, Kahn or Kahane. (Cohen in Hebrew means priest.) But not everyone with one of those names is necessarily one of the Cohanim.

In Orthodox and some Conservative congregations, they are accorded special respect and are the only ones who can perform certain important religious duties (that is not the practice among Reform Jews). The Cohanim blessing is made by holding the hand with a split between the ring finger and middle finger -- a gesture that Leonard Nimoy remembered seeing as a boy in synagogue, and decided, as Spock on ''Star Trek,'' to adapt as the Vulcan greeting.

(DNA evidence offers some support for the idea of an ancient, patrilineally descended priestly class. According to a 2009 study: "In conclusion, we demonstrate that [approximately] 46.1% . . . of Cohanim carry Y chromosomes belonging to a single paternal lineage . . . that likely originated in the Near East well before the dispersal of Jewish groups in the Diaspora.")

But let's get back to the matter at hand. Because of their priestly status, observant Kohanim abide by a number of restrictions relating to dead bodies in order to avoid becoming ritually impure. Relevant to the photo above is the prohibition on being under the same roof as a dead person who is not one of the immediate family members listed here. To pay their respects to a deceased friend or other relative without defiling themselves, Kohanim traditionally stand outside while a funeral service takes place. Many Jewish funeral homes have external loudspeakers that allow the Kohanim to hear the service. Some funeral homes, like Sinai Chapels, provide the Kohanim with a room in a separate building where they can follow along with and even participate in the service.

I was on an unofficial little stroll around Boerum Hill in Brooklyn when I noticed a piece of rail (close-up) visible in the pavement of Bergen Street just west of Bond Street. This must be a remnant of the streetcar line that once ran down Bergen Street. The trolleys are long gone, but this western half of the line lives on in the form of the B65 bus. (Most of the city's old streetcar lines were transformed into bus routes.)

These Hindu offerings likely started their nautical voyage in Ferry Point Park, on the opposite bank of Westchester Creek.

At left, across the water and beneath the northern approach to the Whitestone Bridge, is Ferry Point Park, where the coconuts from the previous photo were likely launched.

Facing out onto the public waterfront path that hugs the perimeter of Harbour Pointe at Shorehaven, a gated community, this sign is strategically located beside Harbour Pointe's swimming pool.

That's a monk parakeet (a.k.a. Quaker parrot) nest atop the light pole, with a parakeet in flight right above it (zoom in). Brooklyn is the borough best known for its wild parrots, but, as we've seen, there are quite a few here in the Bronx as well. This nest is a couple of miles away from the well-established colony in Throggs Neck.

We've now visited all three of the Bronx's funky, narrow-streeted, cooperatively owned little waterfront communities. While the other two, Edgewater Park and Silver Beach Gardens, are "overwhelmingly" white, Harding Park has a predominantly Hispanic population.

as seen from the southern end of Harding Park

And a homemade window? I didn't notice it at the time, and I can't swear it's not just an odd square of paint, but it looks to me like someone just cut a square hole in the side of the van and put a piece of glass in it to make an extra window. Here's a closer look.

Looks like it's been a while since the Bronx's foremost flouter of NYC Administrative Code Section 10-119 has visited Harding Park.

This car's (former?) companion — an even cooler red '53 Pontiac — wasn't around today.

There were a number of fishermen out in Harding Park today, including the two you can see in this photo (one is bending over).