Blue Bunny

Fences

BQE seen from 37th Avenue/Broadway overpass between Jackson Heights and Woodside. The cell phone camera rested on the ledge and below the fence meant to do what? Keep you from throwing things onto the traffic below. Or jumping.

High Art/Product Placement?

Untitled (2013)

When I posted about Rambo's latest billboard bombing on the BQE yesterday, I hadn't read the Times story about the two Julian Schnabel shows currently on in New York, one at Gagosian and one at a gallery called Karma. Maybe it is karma or coincidence, but if it turns out Schnabel has movie opening in the Tribeca Film Festival I'm going to begin to be suspicious. By the way, the piece above would make a nice billboard.

Wise Guy

After a quiet period, the graffiti artist Rambo is back on the BQE. In black:

And white:

Strange that "disciples" and "Julian Schnabel" are spelled correctly, but "thier"? A slip of the spray can?

That's All

Tadeusz Różewicz, Polish poet and playwright. October 9, 1921-April, 24, 2014.

Photo: Jerzy Olek

Time for me
time presses

what do you take with you
to that other shore

nothing

and so
mother
that's all

yes son
that's all

and so only this

only this

that's all that's life

yes that's all that's life

(1989, tr. BTB)

Czas na mnie 
czas nagli 

co ze sobą zabrać 
na tamten brzeg 

nic 

więc to już 
wszystko 
mamo 

tak synku 
to już wszystko 

a więc to tylko tyle 

tylko tyle 

więc to jest całe życie 
tak całe życie

Sunspots and Yellow Mocs

Queensboro Plaza upper platform (April 2014).

Streetcar to the Beach

Tuesday's New York Times included a good piece by Michael Kimmelman proposing a streetcar line connecting Astoria and Red Hook. Kimmelman points out how difficult it is to travel between Queens and Brooklyn, not sparing a few choice words for the G train. It's a fine idea, floated first by city planner Alex Garvin. Of course, as the article notes, this is not so much a new idea as a return to the way things used to be--when streetcars ruled the roads.

Photo: Courtesy Museum of the City of New York

This photo from 1898 depicts cars along the Jackson Avenue & North Beach line.  This was one of the Steinway Railroad lines that began operating in northwestern Queens in 1892. North Beach was home to the Gala Amusement Park, which was razed in 1929 to become the site of La Guardia Airport.

North Beach (courtesy SteinwayMansion.org)