In 1966, this glacial kettle pond was drained and turned into a pair of baseball fields. The fields proved to be largely unusable due to frequent flooding, however, and the city eventually surrendered and restored the site as a pond.

I've never noticed a particularly strong odor emanating from Callery pear flowers, but many people apparently find their scent unbearable. (See, for example, this article entitled "Meet the tree that's making your neighborhood smell like Semenville, USA".)

Smells aside, perhaps the noblest of all the city's Callery pears is the 9/11 "Survivor Tree". After 9/11, it was "the last living thing to come out of the rubble of ground zero — a charred stump that, to an untrained eye, looked dead." The tree was taken to a nursery in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx to recuperate. After almost a decade there, having returned to excellent health (and having survived another brutal assault — by Mother Nature this time), it was moved back to the World Trade Center, where it now stands amid a grove of swamp white oak trees at the National September 11 Memorial plaza.

This building was dedicated in 1929 as the home of Glendale Baptist Church. It now belongs to Myanmar Baptist Church, the city's only Burmese church. The church puts on a popular annual "Fun Fair", which is primarily a Burmese food festival.

Behind me was a sign for Michael A. Marti Street.

As Kevin Walsh of Forgotten New York points out, this restaurant may have been named for the Belmont Stakes, but its spires seem intended to evoke the grandstand at Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby.

In comparison to the nearby Glendale Diner, the Village Voice described Belmont Steaks in 2003 as "a costlier, fourtysomething divorcée-magnet". The place has apparently been closed since 2012; perhaps there weren't enough fourtysomething [sic] divorcées in the neighborhood to keep it afloat.

This course opened with 9 holes in 1901 and expanded to 18 in 1905. One online reviewer says that the current clubhouse "is reminiscent of a muffler shop you might have passed on the Jackie Robinson Parkway on your way in" — quite a contrast to the former clubhouse we just saw.

Editor's note: The Jackie Robinson Parkway is not a good route for spotting muffler shops. The vast majority of the road is surrounded by cemeteries and parks, and the remainder passes through residential areas.

Constructed in 1905 as the clubhouse for the Forest Park golf course, Oak Ridge is now home to the park's administrative headquarters, the Queens Council for the Arts, and a community center.

(We saw this building from the other side a couple of years ago.)

This bandshell in Forest Park is named for George Seuffert Sr., who "became a music teacher and concert violinist before establishing the Concordia Military Band in 1894, later becoming the Seuffert Band. They performed on a bandstand on this spot until 1920, when the bandshell was built to replace it."

George Seuffert Jr. took over the role of bandleader from his father in 1931 at the age of 19. For decades before his death in 1995, he and the band regularly gave free summer concerts here at the bandshell.

George Jr. also served as the music consultant to five mayors, from Lindsay to Giuliani. In addition to organizing the city's free music programs, he "reportedly knew all the world’s national anthems, and was responsible for performing them at diplomatic functions for the city." He earned a salary of $1 per year in this position, but he never bothered to collect his paychecks. In 1994, to rectify the situation, Mayor Giuliani ceremoniously presented him with a check for $29 — 29 years' worth of back pay.

J train, Q56 bus, truck, foot

(Here we are again at 75th Street–Elderts Lane, one of the city's three bi-county subway stations.)

Looking closely at the spray-painted awning, you can make out the name of a house of worship: Noah's Ark Christian Church. Meanwhile, a glance up at the faded sign near the top of the facade reveals the name of a previous occupant of the building: Hide-a-way. My best guess is that the Hide-a-way was a bar, based on both its name and the fact that an entity called "91-01 76th Street Tavern Corp." owned the building from 1981 to 1985.