This is the city's last seltzer factory, where a century-old carbonator is still doing its best Jesus impersonation: turning chilled, triple-filtered New York City tap water into "the poor man's champagne". The bubbly beverage is delivered to customers in thick glass siphon bottles (most of them made in Czechoslovakia during the middle of the last century) at a pressure of 60 pounds per square inch. Comparing his supremely fizzy product to "that dreck you buy in the supermarket", Kenny Gomberg says: "Good seltzer should hurt. It’s the truth."

Every Thursday since 1921

Carrying the Belt Parkway across the mouth of Paerdegat Basin at the edge of Jamaica Bay, these two structures were built over the past few years as part of a city DOT plan to reconstruct seven aging crossings along the highway. You can still see some of the piers from the original bridge standing between the new eastbound and westbound spans.

Here's a great aerial photo of this Jamaica Bay inlet during the construction of its new combined sewer overflow facility.

According to signs in the park, these restored wetlands are located on the former site of a leaf-composting facility. A Revolutionary-era farmhouse that once stood within the bounds of the park and served as a concession stand during the early 20th century was dismantled in 1929 and transported to the Brooklyn Museum, where it was reassembled inside a gallery on the fourth floor (photos here).

A strange little block-long pedestrian alley

More photos here

Until it was sold off a couple of years ago, this was the only active cemetery managed by the city, with the exception of the potter's field on Hart Island.

Plus an auto spa!

(In order for a barbershop to qualify for the Barberz tally, its name must include a Z where an S would normally be. In this case, although it's not obvious, "Nevz" fits the bill as a Z-ified version of "Nev's", with "Nev" referring to Nevada Myers, the owner.)

From the Canarsie Courier: "Before Remsen Avenue existed, children walked to P.S. 114, a wooden schoolhouse, through School Lane, which ran alongside of 'Pop' James' Grocery and Candy Store."

An emergency room that can stand in for a battlefield, and a psychiatric unit once called a "chamber of filth, decay, indifference and danger"

The former Mardi Gras Theatre