You see this occasionally in New York, although I'm not sure why. At least in this case, I don't think there was ever a streetcar line here from which it could be a remnant. The elevated 5 train is nearby; did the spike wander off one day in search of an easier life? Perhaps spikes make good impromptu tools in road construction?
I passed several complexes like this today in the area just south of Pelham Parkway.
The big machine in the opposite crosswalk is a saw that cuts into pavement. The water is necessary to cool the saw blade and keep the dust from becoming airborne.
It must have been sitting here for years, waiting for the tree to grow.
New York Botanical Garden, as seen from Southern Boulevard at Fordham Road
New York Botanical Garden. Looks like it takes up about half an acre.
The final remnants of last night's snow hang on for dear life.
This staircase connects the elevated 241st Street viaduct with an NYPD narcotics unit parking lot, and is the only connection between the police facility and the rest of the Bronx. Since the gate at the top is permanently locked, I had to walk through Mount Vernon (a city in Westchester County) to get here. And, of course, even if the gate were open, you would still have to drive through Mount Vernon to get here by car, making this little piece of the Bronx something close to an exclave. This strange geography is reminiscent of the Northwest Angle.
Located on Baldwin Street in the Bronx, just north of the NYPD narcotics unit. The cars parked on the upper roadway (MacQuesten Parkway — which provides the only vehicular access to Baldwin Street), as well as all the buildings you see, are in Westchester County.
This Mount Vernon roadway transitions into a pedestrian path as it enters the Bronx neighborhood of Wakefield. Mount Vernon is named for the Virginia plantation where George Washington lived most of his life; Wakefield is named for the Virginia plantation where he was born.
You can see an older light on a scrolled bracket (the bracket is possibly 100 years old — it would have originally held a streetlight) and a newer one atop the current streetlight.
Outside the gate there is a growing memorial to the unarmed young man shot and killed by an NYPD officer last week. More than a hundred novena candles, many of them burning, line the sidewalk. On the fence hang numerous signs expressing grief and sadness, but the dominant emotion is anger at a police department that is perceived as racist and uncaring. I was standing there in rapt silence with five or six other people when a TV news crew came over, looking to stick their giant camera in the face of those mourning. Everyone immediately dispersed without a word, a collective show of disgust at that disrespectful treatment. The two figures in this photo are the reporter and cameraman.
They're always handwritten, but the text varies from one to the next. I've seen them in other neighborhoods as well, but not in such a high concentration.
Opened 100 years ago as a station on the New York, Westchester and Boston Railway
This is the foundation for a house's patio. You can see a steel I-beam running into the piled stones. Check out Street View for the bigger picture. (The text on the heart reads: "You will not be able to love your children if you do not love your mother".)
1157 Wheeler Avenue.
Judging by the names on the doorbells, his cousin and roommate still live here.
Not controversial anymore. It originally looked like this.
Amadou is also memorialized in the name of this block of Wheeler Avenue: Amadou Diallo Place.
This guy is all over the Bronx — I've probably walked by 20 of his pieces so far. He does a lot of commercial work for businesses, almost all of it featuring at least one deranged bee.
