Lillian Edelstein, a self-described “housewife,” became the leader of the East Tremont Neighborhood Association and kept up a valiant fight against Robert Moses and the Cross Bronx Expressway.
I chose this photograph for the strangeness of the long, sloping, vanishing building, which makes me think of Giorgio de Chirco’s Mystery and Melancholy of a Street.
This building, at the southeast corner of 46th Street and 3rd Avenue, was one of many that were destroyed to make room fo Robert Caro’s Gowanus Parkway.
I found this photograph by chance (swear), closing my eyes and clicking the mouse. Was the photographer more deliberate, wanting to catch this car in motion? Or did the driver just zoom into the frame?
What happened one day on 38th Street: those three kids followed the photographers down (or up) the block. These kids would not be denied, though I doubt that anyone was trying to deny them.
Walk down Flatbush Avenue from (what I’ve dubbed) the Leaning Tower of Brooklyn, and you woul have found The House of Pets, aka Altman’s Long Island Bird Store. With scenes of animal mayhem.
The camera angle makes this corner look like the Leaning Tower of Brooklyn, but in truth it’s the tip of an triangle bounded by Flatbush Avenue (to the left), Ashland Place (to the right), and Lafayette Avenue (out of sight).
4920 New Utrecht Avenue: I chose this photograph for its neon in semi-daylight, vivid in the shadow of the El. The band of light between the El and the buildings looks itself a bit like neon, or at least like fluorescence.
