The Engine 311/Ladder 158 firehouse stands at the northeast corner of Springfield Park (map), a lovely green space with a stream running through it and a pond in the middle. This building brings to mind the nearby Engine 314 firehouse located at the northeast corner of Brookville Park, another streamy/pondy park (map). In fact, the locations of the firehouses relative to their respective parks are so similar that I initially thought I was looking at the same firehouse we saw earlier, even though I remembered there was a different mural painted on the door.
I can't find anything to confirm this, but I'd guess the proximity of these firehouses to the parks is not a coincidence. Until fairly recently, southeastern Queens relied on local wells for its water supply, so perhaps it seemed like a wise idea back in the 1920s (when this firehouse was put up) to build firehouses near bodies of surface water that could be used as backup, or maybe even primary, sources of water for the fire engine tanks. (At that time, I believe these ponds were still being used to feed the Ridgewood Reservoir, which supplied water to Brooklyn until 1959.) A third similar park in the area, Baisley Pond Park, does not appear to have a firehouse located particularly close to it, however, so maybe I'm just full of crap.
And I suppose it's also possible that the firehouses were built on city land simply as a cost-saving measure, with the nearby water playing no role in the decision.
I saw a paper delivery guy pull up to this house in a car with "UniversalMaids.com" emblazoned on the side, take one step out of the car, and lackadaisically chuck a copy of the Daily News in the general direction of the yard. It landed right in the middle of one of these bushes, making it almost invisible (close-up). The guy contemplated the situation for a moment before deciding it would be best to just move on to the next house and refrain from doing any extra work. Odds are he was just lazy, but perhaps he had realized that these people would undoubtedly be better off not reading the Daily News. (I ultimately decided to leave the paper hidden in the bush for that same reason.)
After years of successful implementation in Staten Island, the city is now developing Bluebelts — which use natural drainage corridors rather than conventional sewer systems to manage stormwater — in Queens. Street reconstruction for the Springfield Gardens Bluebelt was in full swing today.
It seems like this place offers it all. There's only one thing missing — the address! There's nowhere near this sign that looks like it offers these services (take a look for yourself), and there's no indication on the sign where one might go to partake of them.
Every borough has at least one street named Broadway. Queens's main Broadway runs about four miles between Long Island City/Astoria and Elmhurst, but this block-long private street also carries the Broadway appellation. There's one other Broadway in Queens that I know of, a dinky little stretch of pavement out in Ramblersville.
The plaque above, dedicated here on City College's South Campus in 1959, reads:
To this Remembrance Rock has been brought precious earth from the battlefields of Gettysburg, San Juan Hill, Argonne Forest, Normandy Beach and Korea to memorialize the gallant boys of Alma Mater who died in our wars. Here also has been placed soil from City Hall, the old 23rd Street building and the crowded tenements of our city to symbolize the gratitude of all those students who here received a free college education. May Remembrance Rock ever serve as a place for alumni of the City College to come to, pause and remember.There's another nearby plaque, added to the rock in 1999, commemorating the decision of the city's public university system (CUNY) to adopt an open admissions policy in 1969, a decision spurred by the takeover of City College's South Campus that same year by more than 200 mostly black and Puerto Rican students protesting the college's lack of diversity.
(The two glass-clad structures rising in the background, still under construction but mostly complete, are CUNY's Advanced Science Research Center and City's College's Science Building.)
Here's a close-up of this plaque found at today's Polo Grounds Towers, built on the former site of the Polo Grounds.
This triangular section of Highbridge Park commemorates the many prominent African-Americans who made their homes in Sugar Hill during the 20th century. According to the Parks Department:
Residents included such political reformers as W.E.B. DuBois, founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Walter White, secretary of the NAACP, and the Reverend Adam Clayton Powell Sr. Musicians and performers such [as] Paul Robeson, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn also lived here. The field of arts and letters was represented by Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Aaron Douglas and William Stanley Braithwaite. Professionals included Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American U.S. Supreme Court justice.
This is the rear facade of the old Washington Heights Free Library (currently Bethel Holy Church). Visible at right in the background of the previous photo, it faces out onto the Sugar Hill Luminaries Lawn, which was apparently known as the Library Lawn in the early years of the 20th century.
Just over 100 years ago, the John T. Brush Stairway was dedicated in honor of a former owner of baseball's New York Giants. It provided passage from the top of Coogan's Bluff down to the Polo Grounds, where the Giants played. (As evidenced by this hilarious photo, Coogan’s Bluff was, according to the NY Times, "a sort of Tightwad Hill for local fans, a place where those unwilling or unable to pay the stadium’s entrance fee had a clear, if distant, view of the proceedings at no charge.")
After decades of deterioration, the stairway recently underwent a $950,000 reconstruction (here's a view from the bottom), although it's still off limits to the public. It was supposed to reopen about a year and a half ago, but I've learned that it's exceedingly rare for any construction project in New York to run on schedule, even something as seemingly simple as a staircase.
From what I can tell, the steel letters visible in the landing above ("THE JOHN T. BRUSH STAIRWAY PRESENTED BY THE NEW YORK GIANTS") are the only parts of the original stairway that were retained during the reconstruction. With the Polo Grounds itself long gone, these letters are quite possibly the last surviving physical link to the old ballpark.
Count Basie and Paul Robeson were both residents of 555 Edgecombe Avenue (Street View), the apartment building that stands at this corner.
Located across from the 33rd Precinct station house on the outskirts of Highbridge Park
once again, this time at the former location of this mural (wider shot).
Specializing in the treatment of dog bites
Here we are again at this World War I memorial sculpted by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, founder of the Whitney Museum of American Art. The surrounding park, Mitchel Square, is named for John Purroy Mitchel, the former NYC mayor who, after joining the Army's aviation service during World War I, fell out of his plane on a training flight and plummeted to his death.
Neptune and the Argo (closer look) preside over the main entrance to the former Audubon Ballroom and Theater, where Malcolm X was shot and killed in 1965. Columbia University has since built the multi-story Audubon Business and Technology Center on the site (partially visible at left; bird's-eye view), while also restoring a good portion of the original facade and part of the ballroom where the shooting occurred, and providing space inside for the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center.
In the lower left, you can see the Anima Sola, whom we previously encountered, in three dimensions, at another botánica.
The Old Croton Aqueduct, out of service for several decades now, still cuts a slanted swath across the street grid of Upper Manhattan on its subterranean path from the southern end of Highbridge Park down toward 151st Street, where it turns south and runs directly beneath Amsterdam Avenue for a couple of miles. Standing on 153rd Street, above, you can see some oddly shaped buildings whose oblique walls skirt the course of the aqueduct as it slices diagonally through the middle of the block on its way toward 152nd Street. The aqueduct's route through this area is clearly visible as a treed corridor in aerial photos, and as a chain of elongated lots arcing across the city's tax map with total disregard for any sense of rectilinear real estate order.
I'm not sure if the organization of that name still exists; perhaps the group's memory now lives on in this hopefully fertile patch of earth beside Mt. Zion Lutheran Church.
The property has been left alone, and is still owned by the surviving son.
"He's in there," Mrs. Barfield said. "We all know this."
In — there? That seems very unlikely. The gate was padlocked, the windows boarded up, and there was no apparent heat or electricity. . . .
Mrs. Barfield offered one hypothesis circulating among neighbors: the bunker. Years ago, she said, when the roundabout at 225th Street and 141st Avenue was being dug, the father and sons were seen at night hauling stones back to their house to build what the neighbors thought — though they had no evidence to support it — was an underground chamber.
That piggybacked on other baseless rumors that were fueled by the fact that the father was German and that in 1964 an otherwise ordinary German housewife in Maspeth, Queens, was unmasked as a former guard at a Nazi death camp.
Nevertheless, rumors, a reality in every neighborhood, persisted.
A glance at the other side of this truck reveals an association with Kev's Place across the street, where "Everyone is like family".
My great-grandmother! I thought I had discovered her grave the last time I was here at Montefiore Cemetery, but it turned out I had found a different Clara Green.
You can see photos of all four sides here.
