New York images

(Warning - image intensive post. Click on any image for full size)

With Shea Stadium, the home of the New York Mets since 1964, shutting down at the end of the this season, i decided to make a pilgrimage back to the park and see the team i've rooted for virtually my entire life one more time in their old park. And with my oldest daughter getting ready to leave the country for a few years this summer, i thought i might bring her along. She managed to get to one game at Shea before we moved to the west coast while she was an infant. And it was an opportunity to show her some of the other places where she spent those first months of her life.

One of the things i've always loved about the city are the random graphic elements that seem to appear whenever someone leaves white space around. In a place where corporate entities big and small spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year to make sure you see their message, the notion of using the cityscape for personal expression remains somewhat subversive.




These guys are bilingual, although i don't think this is a literal translation.


We stayed Friday night on Pearl St., near the financial district and the Brooklyn Bridge, and walked up through Chinatown, Little Italy, the Lower East Side, and Soho in the rain. We had tickets for Friday night's game, which Mets' management, always putting the fans first, finally got around to calling off at around 8:30 that night. Saturday morning we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge into Brooklyn Heights. Here's the obligatory artsy-fartsy shot of the Bridge's stone arches.

And one of the my oldest taking her own photo looking up the East River. That's the Manhattan Bridge in the background, and the Williamsburg Bridge behind that.

We used to live a few blocks north of the Williamsburg Bridge, in a neighborhood called the Northside. Bedford Avenue is the spine of the neighborhood, and if you take the L train from Manhattan, it's the first stop. I could never figure out when we lived there why it wasn't the happening neighborhood: it was affordable, convenient, and safe. Now, it is the happening neighborhood, and while it's still convenient and safe, it doesn't appear to be affordable. The one-bedroom we were renting for $140/month in 1985 is going for about $2700/month these days. And the 6 unit building across the street that sold for $90K that same year is now worth about a million, maybe more.

We made a spur of the moment decision to continue walking from the Heights up to the Northside. These abandoned homes on Flushing Ave, not far from the Bridge, were puzzling.

This is some of the most expensive real estate in the country, and 12 or so 2500 square foot homes have just been abandoned to the vines for the past 40 or so years? This explained things, though.


The day after the rainstorm:

A redbud grows in Brooklyn:


Obligatory John Lennon memorial photograph:

We eventually got to see a ball game. Mets fans have always been an interactive bunch, and Karl Ehrhardt was probably the best of the bunch. He apparently died earlier this year, and my condolences to his family. It was good to see that the tradition continues in some form. Here's Cow-Bellman working the crowd.

I suppose it was to be expected, but the Mets, who lost almost every game i ever saw them play at Shea, including being no-hit by Bob Moose of the Pirates in 1969, stunk up the field but good on Saturday night, and lost 7-1, giving up 6 runs in the last three innings. My daughter now knows what it's like to be a Mets fan.

Final note. Everyone knows that New York is renowned the world around for its customer service, especially that provided by the many public utilities in the city. Here's an example of what i mean, provided by the Long Island Rail Road.