Prominent Promenade Pressman Calls It Quits

(Photo: Henrik Krogius, courtesy Brooklyn Daily Eagle)

Henrik Krogius, editor of the Brooklyn Heights Press for 22 years, retired this month. Krogius is a journalist and longtime chronicler of the Promenade that sits atop the BQE and affords unmatched views of the New York Harbor, Governors Island, parts of Staten Island, the Brooklyn Bridge--and, oh yes, Manhattan. That's his photo above from the construction of the BQE in 1953.

He published a book earlier this year called The Brooklyn Heights Promenade. He said he wrote the book to "solidify my claim to be the historian of the Promenade." Nicely done, Krogius, now get to work on the BQE!

The Flying V

A precious family heirloom was uncovered during the holidays. The "Vega 2300" nameplate is all that remains from one of the family's few non-Dodge or Plymouth vehicles. That is back in the days when "Subaru" would most likely elicit a "God bless you."

The Chevy Vega, as some will remember, was a GM subcompact produced from 1970-77, notorious for problems with its engineering, reliability, safety, and propensity to rust. They stopped using the "2300" nameplates in 1973 (opting for the simpler "Vega"). Since this car came into the family motor pool after the Dodge Demon's departure, I am guessing we acquired ours around '81 or '82. It was promptly christened "The Flying V." The car itself didn't last long but the nameplate was hung with kitschy sincerity on the family Christmas tree for many years.

Santa's Back!

Penn Station, 2012

Merry Christmas from the entire Be the BQE Staff and the Research Bureau Too!

Sky Lanes

A couple weeks ago, driving through Brooklyn westbound on the BQE I saw these parallel vapor trails. Spellbound, anyone?

Apocalypse Lite

I don't believe the world is ending today but I'm holding off on buying my monthly MetroCard just in case.

(Photo from Moda Polska)

Greenpoint Noir

Cloud Cover

A big sky over the Gowanus...

A Kind of Alaska?

The vintage Darts and Scamp in the previous post reside on Alaska Street in Port Richmond on the Kill Van Kull in Staten Island. Several miles away, mid-Island in a newer neighborhood called New Springville, you'll find Nome Street and Klondike Avenue. What's the Staten Island-Alaska connection? I'm turning the subject over to the Research Bureau. Watch this space for its report.

Nome St.

Scamps Like Us

An arbitrary turn off Richmond Terrace reveals a veritable Slant 6 Museum.

The lineup...

The money shot...

And the artsy shot...

Demo

Late afternoon on the BQE. On opposite sides of the WTC Towers silhouette, "We'll Never || Forget 9.11.01."

Library Local at Local Library

I guess it's been a while since I returned a book to my local library branch. What I found there astonished me. After I placed my volume barcode-side down on the scanner, it was whisked onto a roller trolley line, made a perfect righthand turn and was deposited into a laundry cart. Of course, I didn't have the wherewithal to photograph that, so I skulked around until another patron put his book through the paces. One of our books was The Hoarder in You. Reader, you be the judge.

Bus Trip to the Karpathy

A documentary trailer for the feature film Brothers by Ukrainian director,  Victoria Trofimenko. The singer (and harmonium player) Mariana Sadovska.

El Camino Real

Chevy Pride

Royal Road. Royal Blue. Just off the King's Road that is the Staten Island Expressway.

210!

You can find the bouncy little show called Y?O!G...A in the second-floor gallery of The Kitchen, the art and performance space at 512 W. 19th St. The show features pieces in different media by Matt Keegan and Eileen Quinlan. Many use yoga mats, that ubiquitous artifact of our urban reality. My attention, though, was drawn to a projection on the wall, roughly the size of a computer monitor. At first I took it to be a digital photograph of Greenpoint or Williamsburg, with the Freedom Tower in the background.

Freedom Tower, Eileen Quinlan

Looking closer, I detected a slight movement in the upper right quadrant. A car, then a truck flashed between the houses, behind the telephone pole. I realized that this is a video. And that it was taken facing the BQE. The checklist of exhibited work tells us that it is titled Freedom Tower, and that it is 210 minutes long. I watched for about 5 minutes. Mesmerizing.