Barely Coastal

Postcard from Poquetanuck (c. 1910)

In a recent post, I reported on an excellent coasting, aka, "rolling," run through the gentle hills of Ledyard, Connecticut, that dropped you in Poquetanuck, a village of Preston. When I was growing up, Poquetanuck was a sleepy little place with a church, a few old houses, Bob Hall's trophies and uniform shop, and the aptly named Brookside bar. It fronts a marshy expanse known to us as Stinky Cove because at low-tide it really stank. Low tide? Yes, the cove is brackish, drawing water from the Thames River and ultimately the Long Island Sound. The coast of Preston.

Sleepy now, but at one time, before it was reincarnated into a mill village like nearby Hallville, Poquetanuck was a busy little port and shipbuilding center. In 1786, Jeremiah Halsey had built there a very curious boat, a "snow-brig," named the Lady Strange. Double-decked, about 150 tons, she was constructed wholly of planks. According to the indispensable History of New London Connecticut by Francis Caulkins, the only timbers used were for the keel, stem, and stern post. "She proved to be a good sea vessel and a fast sailor, and mad several voyages from New London, but was afterwards owned in Philadelphia." The application for the Registry of Historic Places claims the Continental Army ordered a 36-gun frigate to be constructed at Poquetanuck but I'm skeptical. These days, you can kayak there--if you don't mind the smell.

Das Phillies

Meet the Phillies

Keep the label up!

That isn't Germantown as in northwest Philadelphia you're looking at. That's Germantown as in southern Germany, probably Stuttgart. And these 1951 Phillies aren't in the National League, they're in the German Youth Activities, a program begun by U.S. GIs immediately after WWII as a way to reach out to children of the devastated nation. Naturally, baseball figured prominently in the effort. Nor was the reeducation limited to the boys. Here, a WAC Staff Sergeant coaches one young slugger. (Much more about the GYA here.)

But why Phillies? Yankees might seem a bit too imperialist. Red Sox a bit too, well, red for the times. Cardinals translates easily as Kardinals but means the prelates, not the birds. Let it be Phillies then. Who knows, maybe there's a biergarten or rathaus somewhere in Stuttgart where they still follow the Phils.

Note on the title: The plural definite article ("the") in German is "die" not "das." However I thought "Die Phillies" might be a bit provocative in some quarters.

(Photos courtesy Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe Institute for Advance Study, Harvard University.)

The Other Quiet Coast

Topless Connecticut (Courtesy NY Times)

Sunday's New York Times featured a story called "On Connecticut's Quiet Coast." The writer particularly enthused about the towns of far eastern Connecticut, Noank, Mystic, and Stonington, calling them "as close to heaven as you get." As these are your correspondent's old stomping grounds, I'll use the next couple posts to fill in some of the more obscure corners of our near heaven.

Connecticut Road
(Linda Eckstein, All My Eyes)

Regular readers of Hog River Journal (inexplicably renamed Connecticut Explored) may remember a piece a few years back called "Coasting Out of the Seventies" (I actually titled it "Coasting Out the Seventies," but let it stand.) In it I described a pastime my father passed on to his sons and daughters. He called it "rolling." The idea was to find a long, more-or-less downhill stretch of quiet road, put the car in neutral, and let it roll as far as you could without having to stop or put it back in gear. It combined sport with cheapness. There were plenty of good runs but the very best one was in Ledyard--now home to Foxwoods Casinos, then home to not much: Avery Hill Road, an idyllic backroad connector that took us from the Submarine Base in Groton to Preston. Here's how I described it the HRJ piece:

What made it particularly great was that, unless you perfectly timed the point at which you took your foot off the gas and controlled the speed you were going, you would not have enough momentum to carry you through the stretch where the road leveled off between two fields and make it to the point where you started rolling downhill again.  You could try opening the door and pushing off with a foot—or two if you had a passenger—but, if you mistimed it completely, you had to concede defeat and put the car in gear. If, if you got it just right, you would creep along, nearly coming to a stop, before slowly, slowly picking up speed until you were flying again, using the brakes only at the stop sign where the road met Route 2A in the middle of Poquetanuck Village....  I can still picture the exact point in the stone wall at the top of the curve of the hill where you give it the gas one last time, throw it into neutral, and let it go.

The best coasting car of all was a 71 Dodge Demon. Talk about close to heaven!

(This post dedicated to James W. and James V., coasting scholars both.)

Nameless Queens

Who's counting?

A new news and phone cards store--just what we needed--opened on Roosevelt Avenue just steps from the BTB Research Bureau. Why "84" when it appears to be on the corner of Roosevelt Ave. and 85th St. (Woody Guthrie Street)? I say "appears" because it's actually on the corner of Roosevelt and Forley Street.

Roosevelt is the border between the gridlines of Jackson Heights' numbered streets, avenues, and occasional roads, and the quaint named streets and avenues of Elmhurst: Forley, Britton, Gleane, Ithaca, etc. Take a look at the lower right-hand corner of the topographic map below. You can see everything bends to the east or west after it crosses Roosevelt Ave. Elmhurst Avenue makes a bold attempt to maintain its name after it crosses Roosevelt Avenue but within a few blocks it is pacified by 37th Avenue. As Polish poet Stanisław Grochowiak wrote, "To the promised land of statistics."

No Chris Christie Fan

Emerging into the sun-dappled rotunda of the Frank R. Lautenberg Railway Station in Secaucus this morning, I noticed a table staffed by a cop and a vaguely authoritative figure in a pink shirt and tie. But what was on the table? Pamphlets? Inflatable neck pillows to ease NJT passengers' stress and strain? No, it was the Garden State's response to the the second crippling heatwave of the summer: Jersey Boys fans.

Exercise plan too

In an instant, an image came into my head of the same fans with Chris Christie's mug emblazoned on them instead. Sorry I am not proficient in the dark arts of PhotoShop to mock one up. You'll just have to imagine yourself looking across a bus or subway aisle and seeing a row of Christies batting back and forth. Sure, Christie's face would cover a pretty good-sized fan, but if we can get the reproachful finger on as well, imagine the cooling power!

The hot air that cools (Photo: AP)

This Borough Is Your Borough

Arlo, Norah, Woody, and Joady (1951)

Many fascinating details about Woody Guthrie's New York life in the recently published My Name Is New York: Ramblin' Around Woody Guthrie's Town by Norah Guthrie and the WG Archives, timed to coincide with the centennial of Woody's birth. This one caught my eye. An envelope from Woody in the Brooklyn State Hospital (where he died) addressed to "Arlyo Guthrie, One Fifty Nine Dash One Three Eighty Fifth Street, Queens (Fourteen), Longy Island, New Jerk." I knew Woody and his family lived in Howard Beach at the end of his life (1952-1967) but I didn't know they lived on my street--more correct, I now live on their street.

Just for fun I tried to follow the path of 85 St. from Jackson Heights (me) to Howard Beach (WG). On Google Maps of course; I'm no Will Self or Iain Sinclair. It's not so easy, given the unpredictable condensations and expansions of the Queens anti-grid. It disappears in Elmhurst altogether. It picks up in Woodhaven, though pauses for the vast St. Johns Cemetery and vaster Forest Park (85 Ave. and 85 St. meet just south of here). Ozone Park is sketchy. But it runs straighter than an arrow through Howard Beach. A quick switch to Satellite view shows houses on the block are much larger than the little Cape Woody, Margorie and the kids lived in. Plus a whole bunch of in-ground pools. I doubt Arlo had many pool parties. But, as the photo above testifies, the Guthries loved the beach just as much as my family did.

Personal Demons

 2013...

Word on the street is that Dodge will bring back the Dart in 2013 after 30 years in brand-name exile. But this is not Matt Saracen's Dodge Dart, let alone the one my family banged around Southeastern Connecticut in the 1970s. Instead, it is built by Fiat, based on its Alfa Romeo Giulietta. I guess I'm happy they aren't calling it the Dodge Giuliani, but it just doesn't have the feel of a Dart.

...and 1974.

It's unlikely they will bring back the Demon, Dodge's knock-off of the Plymouth Duster muscle car. It was only on the market for 2 years, from '71 to '72. Protests by Christian leaders about its name and satanic logo (below) scared the suits at Dodge. According to Lindsey Fisher on streetlegal.com, they briefly considered rebranding it as the Beaver. Turns out that had associations all its own.

Living in a devil town

Does the American taxpayer still own Chrysler? If so, fellow shareholder, I'm worried.