Damn! On a hot day like today, I could have really gone for some lemenad.
A tone so deep and so pleasant (at least it once was — the bell is now just street-level eye candy)
Honoring the first US citizen to achieve sainthood (not to be confused with the first native-born American saint, whom we've indirectly encountered on two previous occasions)
That was the question posed to the children who attend Red Hook Playgroup. Their ridiculously cute answers are posted all over this street-facing window. Sylvie came up with another instant classic; her response begins: "That all my friends maybe love me".
IKEA wanted to put a store in Red Hook on the site of an old shipyard; as part of the deal, they had to build a park to preserve some of the area's history and provide public access to the waterfront. The sprawling park is quite beautiful, and incorporates many shipyard relics, including the massive crane you see here. I do have one complaint, though...
Now boarding: the all-important rack of snack-size Frito-Lay products
These cars are owned by the Brooklyn Historic Railway Association, an organization run by Bob Diamond (of Atlantic Avenue Tunnel fame) that hopes to re-establish trolley service in Brooklyn. They've struggled for more than a decade to obtain city approval for the project, and at one point were even laying tracks in the street, but all that now remains of their efforts are these three rusting trolley cars sitting behind the Fairway supermarket in Red Hook.
Manhattan's 34th Street Partnership BID may have outgrown these dinged-up old planters, but Red Hook isn't too proud to put them to good use. You can find quite a few of them livening up the waterfront around here.
This is a reconstruction (using some original materials) of the Vechte-Cortelyou House, the site of the Maryland 400's desperate counterattack during the Battle of Brooklyn, an event we've seen memorialized twice previously. In the late 19th century, the house was used as a clubhouse and/or storage building for the baseball team that would later become the Dodgers, who played here in an early incarnation of Washington Park, catty-corner to the site of the later, more well-known park of the same name.
This "enormous, eccentric toaster" memorializes the aforementioned Frenchman, who served as a general in the Revolutionary War and played a key role in securing crucial French contributions to the American cause.
That grille-mounted cuddle object looks awfully familiar...
Located in the Red Hook Houses, this farm provides free produce to the tenants and employees of Brooklyn's largest public housing project.
Either that, or two intersecting streets that border the playground
I tried, but it was already closed. I think there's a logical flaw in those instructions.
Fitted with a perforated cap that allows about 25 gallons of water per minute to spray into the street, this fire hydrant serves as a neighborhood sprinkler in which children and other young-at-heart hydrophiles can cool off and frolic. Even though the fire department provides these spray caps for free, many young New Yorkers prefer to illegally crack open their local hydrants, setting them on full blast. An unthrottled hydrant (like this one) can release upwards of 1000 gallons of water per minute, noticeably reducing water pressure in the area and lowering the flow into the hoses of any firefighters who may be trying to put out a nearby blaze.
To deal with the prevalence of these illegal street geysers during the summer months, the Department of Environmental Protection sends out teams of professional killjoys: those unfortunate workers assigned to hydrant duty, whose job it is to go around and turn off all the open fireplugs, trampling the sweet, naïve joy of countless youngsters who just want to enjoy a nice shpritz, and incurring the wrath of heat-crazed, projectile-equipped onlookers.
Obscured by all the overgrowth, that white sign on the wall reads:
Attention friends and neighbors,Judging by the appearance of the place, you'd think it hadn't been touched in a decade or more (and the AOL email address does nothing to dispel this impression), but it turns out the dig took place just last summer! This site is rumored to have been a burial ground for soldiers who died in the Battle of Brooklyn; Dr. Bankoff and his students were searching for evidence to verify that claim. John B., replying from the aforementioned email address, reports that nothing conclusive was found, however. (See page 14 for more info.)
The Brooklyn College Summer Archaeological Field School, under the guidance of Professor H. Arthur Bankoff, will be working this site on a regular basis. Dr. Bankoff is the head of the Anthropolgy Department at Brooklyn College, and is recognized as a leader in his field of archaeology.
With the property owner's consent, they will be carefully searching the site for any evidence which may connect these grounds to the village of Red Hook and its Revolutionary War heritage.
We request all persons to treat this property with the respect it deserves during and after this archaelogical mission.
Contact RedHookHistory@aol.com for any information.
It's the Queen Mary 2!
(See for yourself.)
