[4716 Fort Hamilton Parkway, Boro Park, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]
I look at these tax photographs and go where my imagination takes me. The two guys glaring at the WPA photographers: have they been caught wiping the fingerprints from a murder weapon? That mound of dirt, that open window, that bare bulb burning in the basement: really, what is going on here?
“I don’t like this, Johnny. They’re takin’ pitchers.”
“Don’t worry aboudit; they’re just some WPA kids tryin’a make a buck. They don’t know what we’re doin’. Just keep wipin’.”
“But Johnny —”
“I said wipe .”
What’s really going in, I suspect, is that an empty building is being cleaned or renovated. Notice the windows, all without blinds, curtains, or shades. On January 2, 1941, The Brooklyn Eagle reported the sale of no. 4716.
This building still stands, a six-minute walk from where my family once lived in Brooklyn. But that beautiful door is gone. And it’s safe to assume that these two men are no longer vertical.
Related posts
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard)
Sunday, November 2, 2025
Two guys in Brooklyn
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
comments: 2
Is that a coal pile? Also like the chalk heart, and the lions? Heads at the top of the stairs
I suppose coal is more likely, though I prefer to think that they're burying a body under a dirt floor. I really wanted to be able to read what was in that heart. It's difficult to see the lions, but they're still there in Google Maps.
Post a Comment