This building doesn't look much like an old stable. Which makes sense, because it never was a stable. It just played one in an episode of Boardwalk Empire. Here's what it looked like back in 2007.

Written entirely in Latin, this diploma (close-up) from Collegii Manhattanensis was awarded to Joannem Josephum Fitzgerald in MDCCCLXLI. I don't know why it was sitting here beside a Sanitation Department garage; perhaps it was rescued from the trash by a garbage collector.

UPDATE: Ben has discovered that the mysterious Mr. Fitzgerald was in all likelihood Congressman John Joseph Fitzgerald from Brooklyn!

Overlooking the waters of New York Bay from the dead end of 51st Street in Sunset Park, tucked in between a slew of snowplow blades and stacks of upside-down litter baskets and protected from the trucks of the adjacent Sanitation Department garage by a row of red, white, and blue bollards, a flagpole with a weathered plaque attached to it memorializes "all the men and women who gave their lives for this great nation".

Close-up

There was once a time when this grimy tuber could be seen brightening everyone's day with a cheery thumbs-up sign, but then he lost his right arm in a presumably tragic accident sometime in the past few years. A Hasidic guy walking by saw me admiring the sign and told me he designed it some twenty years ago.