at the Mahatma Gandhi Satsangh Society Hindu temple
at the Eltingville station on the Staten Island Railway
In the early part of the 20th century, there were hundreds of railroad grade crossings in New York City, and they were becoming more dangerous and disruptive as the volume and speed of vehicles was increasing. A 1910 article in the NY Times called them "deadly grade crossings . . . traps that imperil human life". Almost all of them have since been eliminated, with the railroad tracks now passing over or under the roadways. The plaque above, found outside the Eltingville station on the Staten Island Railway, commemorates the elimination of grade crossings along this section of railroad, a project apparently carried out under the auspices of the Public Works Administration.
This leads to "a boarding house for the Young Israel of Eltingville synagogue". The house is now boarded up, however, after catching fire in July.
The name of this childcare center brings to mind Martin Van Buren — "Old Kinderhook" — the first president from New York State. Speaking of Old Kinderhook, have you ever wondered where the expression "OK" came from? There's some dispute, but the predominant theory is pretty awesome.
This fenced-in, unlabeled old clapboard church belongs to the adjacent Wartburg Lutheran Home for the Aging.
The plaque beneath this sculpture outside St. John Cantius Catholic Church (a rare trace of the Polish community that once existed in East New York) reads:
OUR LADY OF EAST NEW YORK
PRAY FOR US
RUEGA POR NOSOTROS
PRIEZ POUR NOUS
MÓDŁ SIĘ ZA NAMI
PRAY FOR US
This former Coca-Cola bottling plant is now owned by Brooklyn Bottling, a beverage company that dates back to the 1930s. When Eric Miller, the founder's grandson, took the reins of Brooklyn Bottling in 1988, he introduced some highly successful new products and marketing strategies. Tropical Fantasy, a line of low-priced fruit-flavored soft drinks, was selling extremely well until the sudden appearance in 1991 of anonymous handbills claiming it was made by the KKK and contained "stimulants to sterilize the black man".
As the rumor spread across the city's black neighborhoods, sales of Tropical Fantasy plummeted by 70 percent. Fighting back, Brooklyn Bottling hired a public relations consultant and printed its own flyers stating that the FDA and the city's health department had declared the drinks safe for consumption. The company, whose work force was 80 percent black or Hispanic, met with community leaders and won the approval of some leading African-American activists. Mayor Dinkins, himself an African-American, even drank Tropical Fantasy at a news conference in a show of support. Sales eventually rebounded as people realized the rumor was bogus and once again began chugging down those harmless bottles of artificially flavored high-fructose corn syrup.
Heading in for a snowy stroll around Maimonides and Mount Hope Cemeteries, which occupy a small corner of the massive cemetery belt that stretches across the middle of the Brooklyn-Queens border.
Loew was the founder of Loews Theatres and MGM studios. This NY Times article offers a look at how he got started in the theater business.
Dedicated on November 11, 2001, this memorial in the middle of the Louis Pink Houses was, according to the NYC Housing Authority, the "first permanent national memorial" to those lost on 9/11. You can see the individual plaques here.
(Visible in the background of the previous photo)
I saw quite a few abandoned cars here in Spring Creek Park.
Losing control of your car in the snow and sliding into a wooden fence usually isn't that big of a deal, except when the fence conceals an immediate plunge over a retaining wall. I passed by earlier on the upper-level street, shortly after the accident, and a guy who seemed like the owner of the car was joking around with the police, so I don't think anyone was seriously injured. And the house beside the fence wasn't damaged either.
Now on the property of the Bhavaanee Maa Mandir, it reads:
THE WORLD WAR
1914 1918
IN HONOR OF THOSE
OF THIS COMMUNITY
WHO DEVOTED THEMSELVES
TO THE CAUSE OF FREEDOM
IN THE SERVICE
OF OUR COUNTRY
ERECTED
BY THE PEOPLE
OF
THIS COMMUNITY
(of which there are two dozen) that the church at left belongs to Pilgrim Assemblies. We saw nearly identical luminaires when we passed by the Pilgrim Renaissance Convention Center back in 2012.
