People here on Hausman street started flying American flags in the aftermath of 9/11, when one of their neighbors was killed in the collapse of the twin towers. Almost every building on the block has a flag now: I counted 59 of them as I walked down the street today. Bob McErlean, one of the residents of the block, has made it his job to maintain the flags, replace them if necessary, and properly dispose of those that are no longer suitable for display. A woman I met on the street told me that she just has to call him up if she has a problem with her flag, and he'll come over and take care of it. All of the fire hydrants and sign poles on the block are red, white, and blue, as well, but she says Bob had nothing to do with that — somebody else decided to paint them for the annual summer block party.
While the Parks Department claims this little triangle is "a tribute to those brave soldiers who fought and died in World War I", the park itself gives no indication of this, as far as I could tell. Instead, it seems to be dedicated to deceased members of the Knights of Columbus.
Greenpoint is the site of perhaps the largest oil spill in US history. Over the course of more than a century, somewhere between 17 and 30 million gallons of oil and petroleum products were leaked, spilled, and dumped into the soil and water by various refineries in the area. The descendants of those refining companies are now legally responsible for the cleanup effort, which consists primarily of pumping out contaminated groundwater, extracting the oil from it, and discharging the treated water into Newtown Creek. This photo shows the discharge point for water pumped and treated by ExxonMobil, and is also the location where a Coast Guard helicopter first observed the plume of oil flowing into Newtown Creek in 1978.
Google thinks it's a street, and it looked like one for about half a block, before I reached this mess. But it connects through to a real street on the other side, and there were no signs marking it as private property, so, just to be safe, I "walked" it.
I can see why Reduce and Reuse come first in the Holy Trinity.
You'd think the world's largest brewer could afford a proofreader. They even got their own website wrong! Speaking of their website, the banner at the top instructs you to "Drink the Dragon", which seems to promote some bizarre form of self-cannibalism when taken in conjunction with the message of this ad.
Today was the first day of the Chinese New Year, and to welcome the Year of the Dragon, this business laid out an offering of foods traditionally thought to bring prosperity, health, and happiness.
This little park memorializes the church that used to exist here before the BQE was built. There is also a statue of the Virgin Mary (a.k.a. Our Lady of Mount Carmel), similar to the image on the plaque, standing in the park. I was surprised to see such overtly religious imagery in a public park, but apparently the Parks Department decided the statue (which was donated by members of the congregation) was acceptable as a tribute to the original church. (The church also helps maintain the park, for what it's worth.)
Catherine Fagan is the woman from Hausman Street killed on 9/11.
Most of NYC's sewers are combined sewers, meaning they collect both sewage from buildings and stormwater runoff from the streets in a single pipe and carry it all to a wastewater treatment plant. During times of significant rainfall or snowmelt, however, the increased volume of runoff entering the sewer can exceed the capacity of the system. In order to prevent a backup, the excess (including untreated sewage) is dumped directly into area waterways.
Smile, man! How are you ever gonna sell all these condos with that attitude?
Made from discarded Christmas trees
A tribute to Steponas Darius and Stasys Girėnas, who attempted to fly nonstop from New York to Kaunas, Lithuania in 1933, but died when their plane crashed in what is now Poland. The monument, however, makes no mention of their death. An inscription in the stone simply says that they "conquered the Atlantic, New York to Kaunas". They did make it across the ocean, but not all the way to Kaunas.
The first Carnegie library built in Brooklyn. (In case you were wondering, Williamsburg lost the "h" when it was annexed by the City of Brooklyn in 1855; this library, built in 1903, just decided to use the older spelling.)
318 knitted fence posts. You can't quite see the joke in this shot; here's a much better photo by a friend of the artists.
In the late 1800s, this refinery processed the majority of the sugar consumed in the US! Coming soon — you know it — condos. The only question is: will they put Mr. Pouty in their ads?
