What Is a Park?

I took these shots on the western spur of the BQE headed toward the Triboro (RFK) Bridge on Friday morning.

Baby It's You

Some Enchanted Evening Somewhere Off Rte 1

Jennifer Graham wrote a nice op-ed in the Boston Globe a couple weeks ago called "A Special Fondness for an Ugly Highway." To set the record straight, she is writing about Rte. 95, not the BQE. Her piece reminded me of an episode of the great Jean Shepherd's America on WGBH in which he rhapsodizes Rte. 1 (the pre-95) as art in all its kitschy splendor (see Youtube video below). 

Did that subconsciously prompt my semi-annual viewing of John Sayles' Baby It's You? Hard to say, except that Vincent Spano, as "The Sheik," makes his own Rte. 1 pilgrimage (c. 1966) from Miami to Sarah Lawrence College to take one last "shot" at high school girlfriend Jill Rosen (Rosana Arquette). Who cares, as long as it gets you back to this movie?

I've done the math for you:

• Best Rosanna Arquette movie
• Best use of Bruce Springsteen on a soundtrack*
• Best New Jersey movie
• Best movie to use the "Trenton Makes, The World Takes" railroad bridge sign
• Best college drinking/puking scene

It adds up to the Best Movie of All Time, or at least a leading contender for the All-Time Pure Pleasure (Even When It Hurts) Award.

(*Not to mention title song by the Shirelles.)

Cave People

No those aren't the cave paintings of Lascaux. It's the BQE, specifically the retaining wall under the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. I was thinking this would make another good site for the homeless "Tilted Arc" sculpture. But time and traffic conspired to give me a closer look.

Who needs Serra and his Cor-Ten when we have flaking concrete?

And, a little further, on striated concrete? Perhaps the time has come for the great Werner Herzog BQE film.

Prince Valiant on the BQE

Even in the rain I recognized it from its rear end long before I could glimpse the rest of the car. It had to be a Valiant. Bigger and a bit older than the two my family owned in the seventies, but with that same boxiness (boxticity?). They were never my favorites and couldn't hold a candle, as far as driving went, to our '72 Demon (basically, Dodge's Duster knock-off) even though they had the same legendary "slant-6" engine--inspiration for the nineties' DC punk/riot grrrl band Slant 6.

When did the boring, old Valiant cross the threshold to hipster-cool? My father once said he should have bought two Demons instead of one, put the other in the garage, and bring it out ??? years later. Wish he had.

Pick Up (on) This!

El Chalaco on el BQE

They say tone does not transfer well on email. What about on truck advertising? I think I know what this guy is saying: He's had enough. We've all had enough. El Chalaco, I salute you!

Outlaw in Joe's Country

Danger!

Coming back to NYC from the North Country, where he was doing some research, your correspondent approached the fearsome West Rock Tunnel on the Wilbur Cross Parkway. That sign (at right) sternly warns drivers to "Remove Sun Glasses at Tunnel" (NB: not before tunnel, at tunnel). While I generally strive to respect the rules of the road, I hesitated. The tunnel is barely 400 yards long. Maybe just this once....

What is invariably said to lie at the end of the tunnel?

Reader, I dared! And the light on the other side was all the more glorious for it. Come and get me, Joe, if you think you've got the Joementum!

I never knew the tunnel was called the West Rock Tunnel, nor that it was in New Haven. It's actually the only highway tunnel in New England going through a landmass, the hill of West Rock State Park. Maybe we should consider creating a similar park on top of the BQE somewhere; with snowmaking technology we could have skiing and snowboarding, as well as hiking and biking. Mount Maspeth?

Tilted?

"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice," Martin Luther King famously said. The arc of art, on the other hand, is about 120 feet and it bends towards New Jersey. Until now.

After diligent scouting, your intrepid correspondent has found two possible sites for Richard Serra's controversial Tilted Arc, installed in the Federal Plaza in downtown Manhattan in 1981 and removed in 1989 in the Battle of High Art and Lowly Pedestrian Just Trying to Get across this Damn Plaza. Reputedly, the piece (in pieces) occupies a warehouse somewhere in New Jersey.

Site A

Let's bring it back to New York but this time let the BQE provide the platform. Both sites are in Brooklyn, the first one below a beautiful church in Carroll Gardens, the second--my personal favorite--in Greenpoint where the east- and westbound lanes of the BQE seek out different levels.

There's a common complaint that we don't take time to really look at art. With the traffic conditions in these two spots, I think I can guarantee the piece will get some good long looks.

Q: But what if Serra's arc tilts the wrong way for the site?
A: Turn the damn thing upside down.

Site B