A Bike Tour of My neighborhood

[SfanGoch]

Since it was supposed to be a hot, miserable day, I thought it would be the poifect time to take a bike ride to my ancestral home, The Garden Spot of the Universe..........Greenpoint (Greenpernt to a real Brooklyn Native. After all, Brooklynese was invented in Greenpernt.  ). Me kid and I grabbed our gloves and ball and threw them into the backpack, figuring we'd do some tossing at the Greenpoint Playground Baseball Field. We figured wrong. There ain't no ballfield no more. The friggin' Parks Dept. here decided to "remodel" it. The work permits indicate it won't be finished until Spring 2019, meaning sometime around 2047. Two soccer fields to be added; but, no more ballfield or handball courts. Figures.

Here's Junior (Junior....Riiiight. He's 15, built like a defensive end and reminds me of the bouncer who used to work at Dominic "Sonny Black" Napolitano's Motion Lounge.)

In case any of youse was wondering what I look like...

 

This is my alma mater, SS. Cyril & Methodius Parochial School, located on Dupont Street. My old second grade classroom, located on the lower left corner, is renting for $3750/mo. My parents didn't spend that much on tuition for both my younger sister and me during the  nine years we each attend school here.  

 

This is "The Lot". It was a magical and mysterious place for all of the kids in the neighborhood. Because of the way it was situated, every backyard in a four square block area was accessible through its portal. We were able to conduct large scale wargames, giant versions of team tag and Hot Peas & Butter throughout the entire neighborhood. Of course, there were dangers lurking behind windows. 

One of those threats to fun was known to one and all as "Beast". He lived in the apartment on the far left center of this Photo. See, "Beast wasn't just another grouchy old guy. In fact, he was a grouchy 35 year old guy. Beast's M.O. was shoot us with a BB rifle as we crossed through his building's yard. Beast thought it was funny when he popped one of us in the ass. His years of sniping came to an abrupt finish after a perfectly thrown M80 blew out his window, finally putting an end to Beast's unholy reign of terror. There used to be ancient oak tree, which was over 350 years old, located at the rear of The Lot. It predated the arrival of Peter Praa, the first person to live in the area in 1646, by 50 years. The dirtbag who purchased the property about ten years ago promptly had it cut down.

This is Rivera's Grocery Store, located on the corner of Manhattan Ave. ( the main drag of Greenpoint) and Dupont St., owned and run by the same family for almost 60 years.

 

This my friend Eddie Rivera, proprietor of Rivera's Grocery. 

A city vista from Manhattan Avenue Street End Park (Jeez, what a lame name), located on Newton Creek.  

Newtown Creek has the distinction, shared with the Gowanus Canal, of being designated Superfund sites due to the high concentrations of toxins found in the sediments. Greenpoint has the distinction of sitting on over 34 million gallons of gas and petroleum which seeped underground. The Point was the first major oil refining center in the country, dating back to the 1860s until the mid 1980s. If this pool ever ignited, it would have the explosive equivalent to a 20-50 kiloton nuclear device. Pretty darned impressive, I'd say.

Looking across at Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City in the Borough of Queens.What you're seeing are the remains of the bulkhead of the Vernon Avenue Bridge, which carried trolley, automobile and pedestrian traffic over the Newton Creek to Vernon Avenue (now Vernon Boulevard). Jonas Grumby wannabees use the bulkhead as free mooring for their boats.

The Vernon Avenue Bridge opened on Oct. 18, 1905 Fist pic, the bridge itself. Even back then, the Newtown Creek was so polluted, you could almost walk on its surface.

 

Second pic, view from the Greenpoint side in 1923

 

The bridge was removed in 1954 and replaced by the Pulaski Bridge, built on Oakland (later McGuinness Blvd)

 

This is a view of India St., where my family moved to in 1972. The City seized our house, and six other buildings on Dupont St., under eminent domain, forcing almost 60 families to move. The City razed the structures in order to plant public gardens which were never open to the public. The gardens were tore up and replaced be senior housing in 1985. 

 

These are some extremely rare 78 rpm records hanging on the wall of the Tomcat Barber Shop on India St. I asked the owner if I could take a pic of them.

The red bearded, linguini-limbed, transplanted "hair design specialist" from Wiscotuckybraska named, I swear to God, Montague, bought them at the Salvation Army Thrift Shop around the corner on Manhattan Ave. for about six bucks total because he thought they would look, like yah, kewl nailed over his work station. The two records on the far right are worth a combined one grand. I told the owner about the value and he almost dropped a gold brick. He said he's going to ask Montague if he'd be interested in selling all five for fifty bucks. He doesn't want Monty to feel he was getting ripped off.  

 

On the southeast corner of India & Franklin Streets are the historic Astral Apartments, built in 1885-1886 to provide affordable housing for employees of Charles Pratt's Astral Oil Works.

The building was designated a landmark in 1983. Pratt founded and endowed Pratt Institute, a renowned art and engineering college located on Dekalb Ave. in Brooklyn. My childhood friend Tommy, became the building super in 1995. He was recently deposed from this exalted position after it was discovered he was operating an illegal strip club in the basement.

A view of Midtown Manhattan from India St. Pier with the King of All Buildings taking center stage:

Looking along the old waterfront. Greenpoint was the center of shipbuilding in the early-mid 19th Century. Companies like Eckford & Webb constructed numerous famous vessels which sailed the China Tea routes.

 

The Williamsburgh Bridge looking south on the East River:

 

Has anyone, as a kid, ever wondered where the Mongol no. 2 pencil you chewed on in class was made? If you are over 65, it was made in Greenpoint at the Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory. John Eberhard Faber moved his manufacturing operations to Greenpoint in 1872 after a fire destroyed his factory on William St. in Manhattan.Faber manufactured pencils in Greenpoint until moving to Pennsylvania in 1952. The Faber building in the photo was built in 1922 and has been designated a landmark. How would one know that this was a Faber factory? Check out the terracotta pencils on the face of the building.

 

The Greenpoint Terminal Warehouse, at the intersection of Milton and West Streets.

 

Back in the Swingin' Seventies, Gallo Wines had a warehouse here. There was a tear in the corrugated fence which we used to heist....er...emancipate cases of Mountain Rhine Wine .  

Ran across a few interesting cars during the day. This VW was parked on Franklin Street, up the block from the warehouse:

 

This '67 Fiat was parked at the Sonomax gas station on Greenpoint Ave. 

 

It's lack of size was striking. My son stood next to it to provide a sense of scale:

It's for sale BTW.

This '67 El Camino SS 396 was seen on Banker St.

Two fer the price of one! A Corvair and a Mazda RX2 down the street from, of all places, Automotive Trades High School, near McCarren Park.

 

The Greenpoint War Memorial in Msgr. McGolrick Park. It was installed in 1923 and honors Greenpointers who served in World War I. 

 

The Shelter Pavillion in McGolrick Park, another designated landmark, was erected by the architectural firm of Helmle and Huberty. The structure was designed to invoke the feeling of 17th and 18th century French garden structures. 

Finally, the Monitor Memorial. This statue honors the esteemed Swedish-American engineer and inventor John Ericsson, as well as the Monitor, the ironclad ship he designed. Created by the Italian-American sculptor, Antonio de Filippo, this sculpture was dedicated in 1938. The statue depicts a heroic male nude pulling a rope attached to a capstan, and symbolizes Ericsson’s role in military-maritime technology, and honors the memory of the men of the Monitor.

So concludes the quick and dirty two dollar tour of my neck of the woods. It might be a post-industrial wasteland; but, it's my post-industrial wasteland and wouldn't trade it for anywhere else. Thanks for checking it out.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 2, 2018 by SfanGoch

[maltsr]

Thanks for the tour, Joe, a great idea and I guess this won''t be the last such topic.....

[peter31a]

Very cool tour, Joe. Like the Coney Island tour this is an interesting walk down memory lane.

[cobraman]

I enjoyed that , thanks.

[Phirewriter]

Very enjoyable! Nice to see your son actually rides his Stingray. Hope to see more.

[berr13]

Thanks for a neat tour!!  I really enjoyed seeing your neighborhood, and the pride you take in your community is obvious.  I also enjoyed your historical knowledge of the area, and I'm hoping you do it again and show us stuff you left out this time.  Thanks, Joe!

[SfanGoch]

Thanks for the kind words, guys. For better or worse, Paul, you're right. There's a whole lotta Brooklyn to see.   For years, my son and I have taken what we refer to as "adventure walks". These involve stepping outside of our building and randomly choosing a direction to walk or bike. Then, we're on our way to check out different neighborhoods and the interesting things they contain. These adventure walks accomplish two things. First, they instill a sense of pride in my son about where he lives. Brooklyn's been given a bad rap over the years as a crime-ridden wasteland and I want to show him that this is the greatest place to grow up in and live. Secondly, they are not just fun, they're educational. I always point out structures and places of historical significance and throw in background info. I consider myself an amatuer historian. My main are of interest is the area once called the Eastern District of Brooklyn. This area encomasses the neighborhoods of Greenpoint, Williamsburg and Bushwick in the northern and eastern part of the borough. Junior says I remind him of the W.C. Fields mouse in the cartoon "Shop, Look and Listen".  

His favorite walk was the "Murder House Walk". We went to the Ocean Hill and Brownsville sections where I pointed out the locations of places used by the hitmen of the infamous "Murder, Inc" in the 1930s and early '40s. Here are some of the boys. The surly guy on the far right is Harry "Happy" Maione. He was nicknamed "Happy" because he never was. second from the left is Abe Reles, leader of the hit squad. He got immunity from the 100+ "jobs" he performed by agreeing to testify against Lepke Buchalter, the head of The Mob's assassination squad. Kid Twist, while under police "protection" at the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island, was tossed out the window of his sixth floor room, earning him the sobriquet, "The canary who could sing, but couldn't fly".

We checked out places like "Midnight" Rose Gold's candy store on the corner of Livonia and Saratoga Avenues. This was the gang's headquarters.

Then 

 

Now

I'll post a more detailed tour in the future.

 

[crazyjim]

Thanks for the tour.  Very interesting.

[smhardesty]

Thanks! Very interesting to see where and how others live. Being a lifetime member of small, rural towns I find several things very strange and curious. An apartment that rents for $3750/mo just totally blows my mind. Here in my new home town, an apartment that rents for more than $750/mo is considered too much. Most places are in the $300 to $600 range. You also mentioned the Automotive Trades High School. In rural southern Illinois, each town has a single high school and some counties have only one school for the entire county. All the choices available for schooling in large cities just boggles my mind.

Very interesting and entertaining.

[Ramfins59]

Very cool Joe.  Thanks for the tour of your neck of the woods.  

[SfanGoch]

Steve the great thing about the city is that there are specialized high schools for many different career choices from aviation/aerospace to prepping for a job with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority as a motorman on the subways. The bad side is how expensive it is to live here. You have to be very wealthy, or very poor. Both of those demographic groups get breaks from the government. According to the city dept. of taxation & finance, lower middle income is defined as $120-150K/yr. "Affordable" housing means apartments renting for $2000-2500/mo. There are studios in the new glass-enclosed hipsterrariums going for almost 6K/mo. A pack of smokes, because of all of the "sin" taxes the city slapped on, are $13/pk. It's beyond crazy, man.

Your welcome, Rich. We're planning on a trip to Fort Tryon Park and The Cloisters soon. So, as a nod to you, we'll do a tour of Inwood.  

[Ramfins59]

1 hour ago, SfanGoch said:

Steve the great thing about the city is that there are specialized high schools for many different career choices from aviation/aerospace to prepping for a job with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority as a motorman on the subways. The bad side is how expensive it is to live here. You have to be very wealthy, or very poor. Both of those demographic groups get breaks from the government. According to the city dept. of taxation & finance, lower middle income is defined as $120-150K/yr. "Affordable" housing means apartments renting for $2000-2500/mo. There are studios in the new glass-enclosed hipsterrariums going for almost 6K/mo. A pack of smokes, because of all of the "sin" taxes the city slapped on, are $13/pk. It's beyond crazy, man.

Your welcome, Rich. We're planning on a trip to Fort Tryon Park and The Cloisters soon. So, as a nod to you, we'll do a tour of Inwood.  

Gee thanks Joe.  I lived at 553 Academy St.  (North of Dyckman St.)  Not the greatest of neighborhoods now, so please be careful.

[SfanGoch]

You'd be surprised at the neighborhood now, Rich. My nephew and his wife actually lived on Academy for three years before moving to Lynbrook in 2013. They liked the area. Chalk it up to gentrification.

[Tom Geiger]

Nice tour Joe!  There is history everywhere if one cares to look! Most don't. 

And it's only like 120 degrees out today???   

[SfanGoch]

Thanks Tom. I really want to document what I can before "progress" completely eradicates any trace of the past.

Tell you what, it felt that hot walking up Court Street in Boerum Hill/Carroll Gardens earlier. I went to Caputo's Bake Shop

for some fresh Italian bread and then to G. Esposito & Sons Jersey Pork Store to get fresh sausage to make some sausage, pepper and onion heros for dinner.

I dunno about the happy swine in front. It's a bit creepy if you think about it, promoting cannibalism.  

[crazyjim]

I've never lived in an apartment but that sure sounds expensive.

Last time I was in Manhattan we went o the original Ferrara's bakery.  It was excellent.

[SfanGoch]

Yup, Ferrara's is great. there are still a number of real Italian place holding out in Little Italy. If you make your way back up here, Grotta Azzurra and Umberto's Clam House are two great joints and are located within a half block of each other on Mulberry and Broome Sts. If you make the journey over the Williamsburg Bridge, you have to stop at Bamonte's on Withers St., between Meeker and Union Avenues. It has a real, authentic atmosphere because the real wiseguys from the neighborhood frequent the place. Heck, you might even see 101 year old Columbo Family member and Greenpoint resident John "Sonny" Franzese enjoying a meal there. He was paroled last year and was the oldest inmate in the Federal Prisons System at the time.