Park Slope (Brooklyn) NY

[toggleswitch]

Webmaster: picture-heavy, please feel free to delete.

As promised, more shots of Brooklyn, this time in Park Slope, New York State. This is a section of New York City.

Traveling north on the BQE (Brooklyn-Queens Expressway) to Queens leaving Brooklyn. Shot this through the car window at 70 mph. The speed limit is technically 50 mph on all NYC highways. In actuality, there is so much volume, it is just not enforced, at all. You usually cant go even 50 mph.

Empire State Building on left.

Citicorp center (Citibank)in middle (45* angle sloped solar-collector roof) The solar panel was shut down decades ago. *SIGH* Their other building is in Queens (at the right of the frame)in bluish glass. It look bigger only because of proximity to camera.

 

[toggleswitch]

Park Slope (Brooklyn), NY

Brownstones yet again (attached townhouses)

 

[toggleswitch]

Park Slope (Brooklyn), NY

ditto

 

[toggleswitch]

Park Slope (Brooklyn), NY

This block had gas-fired post-lights galore in the front yard/garden.

Some have mantles, some are just a bare flame..

 

[toggleswitch]

Park Slope (Brooklyn), NY

Gas light with mantles

 

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Park Slope (Brooklyn), NY

more

 

[toggleswitch]

Park Slope (Brooklyn), NY

overview

 

[toggleswitch]

Park Slope (Brooklyn), NY

Former horse stables. Now living quarters.

If anyone ever asks the occupant:
*Where your raised in a barn?
*They could honestly say *Well sorta.....*

 

[toggleswitch]

Park Slope (Brooklyn), NY

more

 

[toggleswitch]

Even new construction is made to look "classic"

Stucco exterior finishes are a new concept here.
It was always brick or "brownstone" in the city, and brick, stone or concrete /vinyl siding in the suburbs.

Interestigly the chosen color is an attempt to imitate the color of brick.

 

[toggleswitch]

Park Slope (Brooklyn), NY

Local school.

More than likely it orignally had a coal-fired steam, non -electrically controlled heating system.

 

[toggleswitch]

Park Slope (Brooklyn), NY

Original slate sidewalks. Again probably at least from mid to late 1800's.

 

[toggleswitch]

Park Slope (Brooklyn), NY

There always has to be one flamboyant one in the group.....

 

[toggleswitch]

Park Slope (Brooklyn), NY

Here is a new one on me.

A concession store where they sell on E-bay for you.....

 

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Park Slope (Brooklyn), NY

and, as my cusotmary *Thank you* for joining us on today's presentation---> some fun pics.

 

[toggleswitch]

Park Slope (Brooklyn), NY

Say what?
Can we have that again in English, please?

Many immigrants here have a washer, but not a dryer.
(Yes, we have a 7-month heating season, meaning it gets mighty cold here!)

Do I have to personally go teach ESL?
and does the print shop not proof-read these things?

 

[toggleswitch]

Park Slope (Brooklyn), NY

Hmmm.

oh *FILTERED* water for the washers, in NYC where we have the cleanest mountain water in the country?

I just dont get it at all.

HOT, WARM AND COLD
WOW....HOW EXCITING.

 

[toggleswitch]

Park Slope (Brooklyn), NY

Live here long enough and this might be necessary...

"Psycho" comes from the Greek "PSYCHE" which is "soul"....
why we think of it use it as as "MIND", I dont know.

 

[toggleswitch]

Park Slope (Brooklyn), NY

Parting gift.

OMG my escort to the prior wetablishment is waiting form me outside the doors... LOL

 

[toggleswitch]

BTW ceilings were upwards of ten feet tall [std ceiling is now 8 feet, 7 in basements) so that the by-proucts of gas-light combusion would rise and not be breathed in.

In an aparment building, fumes would exit via a transom (operable window)over your front door. The common (communal-use) hallway had skylights over the upper-most staircase and grilles that vented out the air from the gas-lights in he hallways! (Bet ya didnt think of that one, eh?)

Similarly paint was hugely expensive and only oil-based at one time. (read: painting a major PITA.) All woodwork was stained and laquered DARK because the soot of combustion would discolor it and be plainly visible if it were light in color. [PS, combustion and drying oil-based paint make for horrible smells. VOCs in the air were not healthy either.]

Frequently there were medalions surrounding lighting fixture in the middle of a ceiling. These fixtures were orignially gas chadleliers. The medallion was to be able to paint only that small area (to cover the soot) rather than the whole ceiling.

Soot is why corners were rounded and why there is traditionally an upper molding about a foot down from the ceiling. Again to be able to pain the ceiling, the corners and some of the side walls and have a clearly defined point of demarcation...Painting the whole room was prohibitively expensive. A that time, you painted the ceiling more than the walls. Now the walls get done sometimes before the ceiling.

Also due to the high cost of paint many walls were wall-papered. The upper molding also served as aplace to place clips so that artworks and picture frames could be mounted via heavy-duty cords. No nails, no hooks. Didn't have to damage the wallpaper. Before TV and color printing people would rotate their wall-hangings (I SO KID YOU NOT) for visual stimulation and change.

 

[jmm63]

Great Pics Toggle, we're you able to get over to Grand Army Plaza and to the entrance to Prospect park, lots of photo ops over there too. Plus the BEAUTIFUL Montauk club at Berkley and Plaza St W. Your pics make me miss the old neighborhood, perhaps a short trip on the weekend soon is in order

 

[toggleswitch]

coem on over and bring the spouse!

 

[toggleswitch]

Jim,

Don't encourage me! LOL.
But seriosuly, glad these are of some value to someone.

 

[toggleswitch]

Park Slope (Brooklyn), NY

Here is a living room.

Although the upper molding that is usually a foot down from the ceilingis no longer there, the pictures over the fireplace are an attempt to re-create the *period-look*,

Notice the medallion over the ceiling's light fixture.
The fixture is not exactly surface mounted, but rather somewhat below the ceiling, in that the gas-pipe stub (capped off) is still present.

In the fireplace is a gas-fired radiant heater
used before (and in the beginning of) centralized steam heat.
Centalized steam heat abouded having three or four sources of combustion in each aparmtnet and was safer, overall.

Gas was the *manufactured* type made from *cooking* coal.
At the time, natural gas was burned off as a *nuisance* as crude oil wells were drilled and tapped. Tehy did not know how to tame it and pipe it to a plant to process it.