One of a pair of red-tailed hawks I saw on the golf course today
Here's a wider shot of the whole gate. We may be in Brooklyn, but this is some top-notch Queens chrome.
Brought to you by Steve Campanella, "a retired Marine and compulsive collector".
From the NY Times, December 9, 2007:
If there were a commissioner for pigeon racing in the five boroughs of New York, in recent years that title would have gone to Frank Viola. Mr. Viola, a slight, white-haired man from Bath Beach, Brooklyn, founded his namesake club in the early 1990s and ran the Frank Viola Invitational for the last 16 years. With 1,500 birds, the race became one of the largest in the city, the Kentucky Derby of the pigeon season.
This Islamic community center occupies the former Colonial Mansion kosher banquet hall.
By and large, NYC's emergency call boxes are a slovenly lot. But there are some notable exceptions, including an even more dolled-up version of the one you see above.
of the stately 62nd Precinct station house, which was apparently once home to the 70th Precinct
On the other side of this gate is Dyker Beach Golf Course, where just yesterday I saw two red-tailed hawks maybe 250 yards (an easy Tiger Woods drive) from here.
There are a number of terra-cotta emblems, some visible above, adorning the forecourt of the Columbus. The Santa María is represented on two of the emblems (close-up), as is the Niña, but the Pinta is nowhere to be found!
An inscription on the other side of the entryway indicates that the building was erected in 1926. An ad that ran in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1927 proclaimed the Columbus to be "The most perfect and up-to-date Elevator Apartment House in Brooklyn", and boasted of these features:
Every improvement for convenience and comfort, including solarium on roof and auditorium for socials. Equipped gymnasium in basement with attendant physical instructor.
Italian garden; telephone and radio connection in every apartment; wall safes, incinerators, Otis elevators. A few choice apartments available.
Two blocks from elevated and subway trains to Times Square. Surface cars nearby. Convenient to schools and churches.
This article offers a photo tour of the house's "aggressive" sculpture collection. It also includes a close-up of one of the dragon/"gargoyle" light fixtures installed outside the second-floor door. Prior to today, I believe, we had seen that type of fixture exclusively (not to mention abundantly) at two different Pilgrim Church properties.
This fountain stands at the southwest corner of the intersection...
This sculpture, which undoubtedly owes its existence to Henry Stern, stands in Patrick O'Rourke Park (named for a man who died from brain damage sustained as a kid during an operation intended to cure bedwetting), the former site of a World War II-era victory garden.
This house (closer look, Street View) is somewhat understated in comparison to its sibling in Rosedale.
Much like the gentlemen we saw gamboling about the excavated soccer field this morning, the tabletop gamers of Milestone Park are not about to let the weather curtail their recreational options.
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.
