This used to be a blue, single story building along the BQE on Meeker @ Varick, but it has all grown up!
Prior to the addition, it was Conch Umbrellas, a Chinese-owned umbrella manuacturer located throughout the U.S. including right here in Greenpoint, USA.
It could still be them, it certainly doesn’t look like a residential building.
From a distance, I thought that some kind of Ikea pop-up store was happening.
Posted in BK, Greenpoint, NYC, Tourist
Tagged big blue, blue, blue building, BQE, building, Conch, Conch Umbrellas, Ikea, Meeker Avenue, umbrella, Varick Street
This is one of the strangest buildings in Brooklyn as far as I’m concerned.
Sure, it’s a normal looking bank, but its location seems to always throw people off quite a bit.
It just doesn’t belong among the buildings, graffiti and BQE on-ramp that surrounds it.
Clearly, the bank needs to be visually vandalized to better fit into the nabe.
Everything else around it is pretty cool, though. Enjoy the pictures..
I do realize that some of the graffiti may actually be younger than this newish building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, but it’s the old school aesthetic versus a cookie cutter pseudo-modern strip mall debt store presence that makes people react to disgust when they see this thing the first time.
Posted in Art, BK, Designy, NYC, Street Art, Tourist, Williamsburg
Tagged bank, BQE, BQE on-ramp, Brooklyn, building, Capital One Bank, ELIK, elvis fucked marilyn, empire city, eyesore, FASE, fasetv, graffiti, IRGH, on-ramp, RAMBO, SABIO, savage, smells, Williamsburg
The Empire State Building, with Cavalry Cemetary in the foreground…
and the BQE above, on 43rd Street in Maspeth, Queens.
Posted in farther out, Manhattan, NYC, Queens
Tagged 43rd Street, BQE, Cavalry Cemetary, Empire State Building, Maspeth, Queens
If you’re a regular reader of Brooklyn Imbecile, you’ll know that I have a bit of a bricks fetish.
I love the pairing of a geometric grid construction coupled with organic, non-rectangular signs of wear and tear, weathering and climate-based chemical reactions.
These bricks come from part of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway in Dumbo, Brooklyn, at York & Adams Streets near the Manhattan Bridge.
Here’s 16 more super saturated deteriorating bricks just for you my friend…
More special bricks here, here, here, here, here, but definitely not here.
Posted in BK, NYC, Art, Designy, Sciencey, Texture
Tagged Adams Street, BQE, Bricks, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Imbecile, Brooklyn Queens Expressway, climate-based chemical reactions, construction, Dumbo, geometric, grid, Imbecile, Manhattan Bridge, non-rectangular, organic, red, saturated, signs of wear and tear, weathering, York Street
Posted in BK, Non-human Life, NYC
Tagged autumn, BQE, Fall, leaf, leaves changing color, orange leaves, orange tree, tree
That is one exceptional patch of grass I would have to say. When I saw this on Kingsland Avenue, south of the BQE, I kinda wanted to just sprawl out on it and take a nap, provided there really isn’t any pee-pee here. This kind of quality grass just does not exist in any park system in or near Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
You got to respect that cute little sign. I say good luck with that.
Posted in BK, Greenpoint, Non-human Life, NYC
Tagged BQE, Kingsland Avenue, patch of grass, pee pee
Snow is the last thing on Earth that I want to see today. And the owner of this historical vehicle will not be seeing any around here anytime soon.
From underneath the BQE.
On Meeker Avenue & Frost Street (no pun intended).
Posted in BK, Designy, Gadgets, Greenpoint, NYC
Tagged BQE, hippy bus, Just Say Snow!, Volkswagen, VW bus
This is where shopping carts are born before they become the official transport tool for redeemable plastic and glass by the many freelance recycling surveyors of our fine cities. From the little bit of land between the McGuinness BQE off-ramp and Meeker Avenue.
Posted in BK, Greenpoint, NYC
Tagged BQE, Brooklyn, Greenpoint, McGuinness Blvd, shopping cart
Sorry, DickChicken, but you’re not missed. From under the BQE.
Phase 1 of the new Brooklyn Bridge Park is complete and we wanted to check it out. This is an area that a few years ago was pretty much a dump, with crumbled buildings, industrial waste and/or artifacts, but now it is pretty darn nice. The overall design of the park is impressive and it’s pretty amazing how many people were there yesterday. No one in NYC can ever say, “Do we need another park?” or “Will people even use this new space?” because people were everywhere really enjoying this new space. And this is just the beginning, this is down by Pier 1 in Dumbo, Brooklyn, but by 2013 most of the park going north up to the original part of the park by John Street and some other locations will be complete. This is a good start. I have to say that the new grass is definitely sod and looks a little surreal because it is so perfect looking. I don’t believe you can have such perfect looking lawns without a good amount of chemicals used to do so. Also, there was two big turn-offs for me. One was that there were no public bathrooms yet open even though there was a nice big friendly sign that said, “Public Bathrooms This Way–>”. And two, over on the Manhattan side, there’s a helicopter sight-seeing tour company that is responsible for a lot of very noisy flying over your heads as they span the Brooklyn Bridge before heading over to the Statue of Liberty, which you can nicely see from the park (just not with a camera phone camera). I was kind of hoping we would see an unintended water landing.
The contrast of old and new can be quite stark at this park.
High-quality attractive, sturdy benches make for some good people-watching seats.
Remnants of the original piers remain along with a view of the double layer BQE right before the Atlantic Avenue exit that most people probably have never seen.
Tagged Atlantic Avenue, BQE, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Dumbo, Parks, Phase 1
