Exit Be the BQE

The BQE, glimpsed across the New York harbor from the Staten Island ferry. Feels distant, in time as well as space. The replacement span of the new Kosciuszko Bridge has opened, and I haven't even driven across it. The old bridge, with its spectacular slow-motion views of Manhattan, will be dismantled piece by piece--not, as rumored, dynamited in one spectacular farewell show. At some point, work will (must? may?) begin on the "layer cake" of lanes under the Brooklyn Heights promenade. I will mostly, and gratefully, experience that as a spectator.

Be the BQE has taken more than a few detours and diversions and breaks since its first post in April 2011 (two years after Lawrence Weiner's At the same moment above). Now seems as good a time as any to call it a day. The boys in Research Bureau have moved on to other projects. Getting a line on Staten Island looks like a full-time job, and then some.

Thanks to all regular readers, and all visitors to the page, whether they meant to stop in or not. Watch out for the lane drops!

Ghost Garage

Still receiving mail, but the garage is long gone.

Grant Street, Staten Island.

Red Blue Red

An otherwise cookie-cutter Mobil station on Victory Blvd. at Manor Road adds some color on a gray day with its two mini Fiats and, I'm going to guess, '50's Nash coupe (or kit).

Pinhead on the Pike

Moving always turns up odd artifacts. Going through some books to give away or sell, I came across this Zippy I'd clipped from the Boston Globe, probably sometime in the early 2000's ("you could look it up").

Route 82 in Norwich is also known as the Salem Turnpike. Yup, there is a Wal-mart there these days.

Turnbuckles off the Turnpike

Quiet morning at the Brown & Perkins loading dock in Cranbury, NJ. B&P is the place to go if you want soft rope, eye bolts and hoist rings, turnbuckles, chain buckles, shackles and more. Wholesale only, of course.

Tiresome Art

If you've ever wanted to prowl around the upper floor of a century-old Manhattan garage, now's your chance. The Irish Arts Center is staging Enda Walsh's theatre installation, Rooms, in the second-floor storage space of Cybert Tire on Eleventh Avenue.

Eventually, the IAC will have the whole building as its new home, while Cybert's moves to a new home around the corner on 52nd St. For now, enjoy the well-trod wooden steps, the (empty) gumdrop dispensers, double-stacked radiators, the corner sink, and, yes, the smells of a century of rubber. The art is pretty good, too, if a tad depressing. But that's Ireland, right?

Sunrise at Snug Harbor

The handsome Sunrise Automotive Center on Lafayette Ave., just off Richmond Terrace.

A plasticky CITGO station peeks out from around the corner.