Cleaning up the wreckage of the illegal billboard (one of countless illegal advertisements littering the cityscape) that collapsed on Friday.
Home to this row of cars "seized by the Marshal of the City of New York to satisfy an outstanding judgment", according to stickers on their windows. I had never heard of NYC Marshals before this.
Dating back to the days when horses filled the streets of the city, boot scrapers were a common tool used to clean off the bottoms of one's shoes before entering a house. There are many remaining in NYC, but it's rare to find one out here in Greenpoint.
About 10,000 of them, according to the guy who seemed like he was in charge. This is a pallet repair business — they take damaged pallets, replace the broken planks, and then resell them.
Aha! It's part of the MillionTreesNYC program. The flip side of the tag has care instructions on it. The trees in the background are also part of this program, and are also Canada red chokecherries.
Just after it rises out of the cut, where it is depressed below a few street and railroad crossings. Very unusual for a surface street!
Look closer at what's inside the window.
It could also be Mexican, or Hungarian, or even Iranian, I suppose, but the smart money is on Italian.
This leads to a large empty lot owned by Pfizer. I'm surprised they haven't erected a building there yet.
UPDATE: This was once a subway entrance! (Scroll almost to the bottom of the linked page.) (No further Pfizer jokes will be made.)
This is the only block in Brooklyn named for Dr. King. In the background you can see the Marcy Houses, Jay-Z's childhood home.
Long Island Rail Road, the busiest commuter railroad in North America
In the wake of the Malbone Street Wreck, one of the deadliest train crashes in US history, Malbone Street was rechristened Empire Boulevard, and straightened out in the process. That straightening led to the isolation, and survival, of this one single block still bearing the tragic name of Malbone.
