Built on the right-of-way of a former aqueduct (hence the name), this road has an exceedingly wide median. Here in Queens, just across the border from Brooklyn, there appears to be a park of some sort taking shape.

UPDATE: It's not a park; it's a bioretention facility with "the capacity to divert at least 200,000 gallons of stormwater that would otherwise flow into the combined sewer system–roughly 90% of the stormwater that accumulates within the drainage area during a moderate storm."

She looks a little different than I remember...

but the seal at the top of the building, with its three sheaves of wheat that look like mushrooms, reminded me of something I'd seen before. I was a little confused by its presence here in New York, but then I reached the end of the block and found myself standing at Pennsylvania Avenue.

Honored by a 2010 legislative resolution in the State Senate, he has apparently been able to hold onto his church despite a parishioner fraudulently selling it to a developer.

Danny Kaye's alma mater

The father of black history

Continuing the proud tradition of presidential chicken, this establishment seems to have weathered the early criticism of its name change and was even featured in a Clipse music video (though its name was erased from the sign when the video aired on TV).

UPDATE: The only version of the video still available online is the one with the restaurant's name erased.

UPDATE: Obama Fried Chicken is a goner.

Located at 770 Eastern Parkway, this building is the headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. It is of such significance to the organization that Lubavitchers around the world — from Italy to Australia to Israel — have built replicas of it.

From a distance, I thought this was some kind of protest against the Screen Actors Guild. It is in fact part of State Senator Eric Adams's campaign against droopy drawers.

was that this is a metaphor for racial harmony. But, upon closer inspection, I think the sun's just shining on one side of an enormous, hollowed-out tree.

This is one of two Cambodian Buddhist temples in NYC, the other being Wat Jotanaram in the Bronx. I was surprised to find this temple sitting at the end of a block of large Victorian houses; in fact, the temple itself resides in one of those houses. Take a look!

The two gentlemen on the right were standing outside when I passed by. We struck up a halting conversation built on their modest English and my nonexistent Khmer. They invited me inside to see the sanctuary and meet the temple's monk (the gentleman on the left, in case you couldn't tell). Before I knew it, the conversation had turned toward my singlehood; the idea of fixing me up with a Cambodian girl was proposed and roundly lauded by my new friends.

However, before I had a chance to unwittingly and irrevocably signal my matrimonial intentions with an absentminded gesture, like in some bad movie, the clock struck four: it was time to pray. For the next forty-five minutes, the five of us (there was one older woman, as well) sat on the floor in the same asymmetrical pose that the fellow on the right is holding in this picture (occasionally switching legs), with hands raised, palm-to-palm, at chest level. My companions sang what was essentially one continuous chant, which sounded something like this. Even for a total outsider, it was quite entrancing at times.

Before I left, they invited me to attend their three-day-long Khmer New Year's celebration in April. As it happens, I will be out of town for those very same three days. But hey, there's always next year — and I'll still be walking then, after all!