This must be the Brooklyn equivalent of MOMO's expansive tag of Manhattan.
Either that, or the guys working on the house down the block had a leaky can of paint.
I was surprised to find this battery of NYPD security cameras guarding the quiet terminus of a leafy dead-end street here in Victorian Flatbush. One resident who was out walking his dogs told me they were installed as a response to people hopping the fence and walking along the subway tracks to the nearby station (less than a block from the right edge of this photo), thus avoiding paying the fare. While that explanation didn't seem totally implausible, it also didn't pass the smell test: the two directional cameras were both pointed away from the area where people would be climbing over the fence. In fact, they seemed to be rather conspicuously monitoring a house on the left side of the street. Further research reveals the real reason those cameras are there: that house is occupied by the NYPD's highly decorated Chief of Department!
The Q train station at Avenue H was not originally built as a train station: it was a real estate office for T.B. Ackerson, one of the developers of Victorian Flatbush. Landmarked in 2004, it's one of the few remaining wood-frame station houses in the subway system. It is so quaint, in fact, that its porch roof is held up with honest-to-goodness log columns. Which, of course, raises the question: Why are there no rocking chairs??
He's memorializing all the people who died in the earthquake, fire, and famine of 1805!
About 30 feet to the right of this door, a bright red, wall-length mural boldly proclaims: "Everybody was born talented / So find your talent / And don't waste your talent". Mission accomplished.
Erasmus was founded by Dutch settlers in 1786, and the original Academy building is still standing in the courtyard (you can just catch a glimpse of it through the gated entryway) of the grand, Gothic-style campus that was built after Erasmus was donated to the public school system. The building pictured here was the first part of that campus to be constructed, and it was opened in 1906.
If this photo looks familiar to you, it's because both schools were designed by Charles B.J. Snyder during his prolific tenure as NYC's Superintendent of School Buildings from 1891 to 1923. His lofty ideals for municipal architecture revolutionized the school system and "symbolized the commitment of the city to care for and even uplift its citizens", according to the NY Times.
(As you may recall, I passed by the backside of Erasmus on Bedford Avenue last month.)
Founded in 1654 under the direction of everybody's favorite peg-legged, intolerant bastard (but then again, who wasn't in those days?) (these guys weren't!) (intolerant, that is, not peg-legged) (although odds are they weren't peg-legged either), Peter Stuyvesant.
The oldest legible stone here in the cemetery apparently dates to 1754; I saw several from that era (1760s and 1770s) during my brief stroll. While some of the markers are now too worn to be read, others have achieved unintelligibility simply by sinking into the ground over time, their recorded dates of death themselves becoming interred.
For an unusual take on this place, I'd recommend the beautiful photos and fevered narration of Mitch Waxman, who can generally be counted on for such things.
This park is named after Umma (an Arabic word meaning "community"), a highly successful community group formed in 1978 to help fight crime in the neighborhood. A local blog recently published a lengthy interview with Ed Powell, one of the founders of Umma.
I'm walking every street in New York City.
This is the counterpoint to my walk across the US. Instead of seeing a million places for just a minute each, I'm going to spend a million minutes exploring just one place. By the time I finish walking every block of every street in all five boroughs, I'll have traveled more than 8,000 miles on foot — all within a single city. Details!
Email me at matt@imjustwalkin.com
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Maps: Progress | Photos
~9,954 miles walked
Your donations allow me to keep walking full-time. If you think what I'm doing is valuable and you'd like to offer some support, I would be very grateful. On the other hand, if you think I'm a worthless bum, feel free to email me and tell me to get a job, bozo. Both are excellent options!
