[3705 Fort Hamilton, Boro Park, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]
Last Sunday I stood before 3717 Fort Hamilton Parkway. Today we’re moving a little bit up the block. The Green-Wood Cemetery is cater-corner across the street from 3705, whatever 3705 was.
Notice the punched-out hole (or in Treasure Island argot, the black spot): perhaps this tax photograph was deemed useless because there is no identifiable building in it. There is a billboard for Schaefer beer (a brand that occasioned a memorable incident in my youth). And there’s the Culver Shuttle up above, shut down in 1975. The El tracks were demolished in 1985.
The reason I chose this photograph: when I was a boy, we traveled by car under these El tracks many a time on the way to and from my grandparents’ house. To: on Fort Hamilton Parkway. From: on 12th Avenue. What made it interesting: the already defunct or nearly defunct rail tracks on the ground below the El had been repurposed as bocce courts. On a weekend afternoon, there would always be groups of men playing the game.
Here, from The New York Times, is a celebration of bocce in New York: “A City’s Simple Joy.” And here, from Anthony Catalano, are three photographs of bocce players beneath the El: 1,
2, 3. The ground-level tracks, like the El above, are long gone.
And yes, that is a punched-out hole, not a bocce ball.
Related reading
More OCA posts with photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives
Sunday, October 23, 2022
Bocce
Saturday, October 22, 2022
Today’s Saturday Stumper
Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper is by Steve Mossberg, whose puzzles have at times given me fits. I see that I’ve written that sentence in a previous post, and nearly written it in another, with sometimes for at times. So I’ll revise:
Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper is by Steve Mossberg, whose puzzles often give me fits.
This was a tough Stumper — thirty-nine minutes for me. I felt defeated from the start: 1-A, ten letters, “Sweater for the small,” what? I found a starting point dead center: 36-A, eight letters, “Henchwoman, e.g.” With 30-A, nine letters, “Fantastic shortcuts,” above, and 41-A, nine letters, “Genesis through Deuteronomy,” below, I began to work out more answers. But gosh, was this one tough. Which is a good thing.
Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:
1-D, three letters, “Minimal bit.” So hard to see, especially when you have neither 1-A nor 15-A nor 17-A.
5-D, four letters, “Head home.” Groan.
9-D, three letters, “Booster beneficiary.” A nice way to clue a common answer. My first thought was VAX — an initial vaccination benefiting from a booster.
12-D, eleven letters, “‘The Great Picture Hunt!’ is the sixth in its series.” A giveaway, maybe.
15-A, ten letters, “A question of effort.” This one had me hung up for a long time.
19-A, five letters, “Spring gatherings.” Too clever for my own good, I thought POOLS.
22-D, five letters, “Took all the way to the top, maybe.” Just strange.
25-A, seven letters, “Two different groups working with wires.” A bit strained.
26-A, six letters, “Often-steamy stories.” I’m wise to you crossword guys.
34-D, five letters, “Went at it.” Clever.
29-D, five letters, “Back for more?” Really clever.
53-D, four letters, “Choice for chips.” I hope you’re joking.
My favorite in this puzzle: 55-A, ten letters, “Penguin ritual.”
No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.
Friday, October 21, 2022
DuckDuckGo for Mac beta
Iran, China, Mar-a-Largo
The more we know, the worse it gets. From The Washington Post:
Some of the classified documents recovered by the FBI from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and private club included highly sensitive intelligence regarding Iran and China, according to people familiar with the matter. If shared with others, the people said, such information could expose intelligence-gathering methods that the United States wants to keep hidden from the world.[That’s a “gift” link — it won’t count against the paywall.]
At least one of the documents seized by the FBI describes Iran’s missile program, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation. Other documents described highly sensitive intelligence work aimed at China, they said. . . .
The secret documents about Iran and China are considered among the most sensitive the FBI has recovered to date in its investigation of Trump and his aides for possible mishandling of classified information, obstruction and destruction of government records, the people said.
A Pete Seeger stamp
[Click for a larger view.]
I need to get to the post office more often: in July, the USPS issued a Pete Seeger stamp. It’s a good image, from a black-and-white photograph by Pete’s son Dan.
The brief biography on the USPS website rewards close reading, as much for what it omits as what it includes. It makes no mention of the Almanac Singers’ anti-interventionist position in World War II (which ended when Germany attacked the Soviet Union), saying only that the group “tunefully promoted labor unions, then patriotic songs as war loomed.” Nor is there any reference to Seeger and the Weavers being blacklisted in the 1950s. And though the bio does mention Seeger’s contributions to the causes of civil rights and environmentalism, there’s no reference to his anti-Vietnam War efforts. Readers of a certain age will remember “Bring ’Em Home.” And will also remember that in 1967 Seeger was not permitted to sing “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. In 1968 he did.
So it would appear that the USPS has constructed a less “controversial” image of Seeger. Oh well. Perhaps that was a way to sneak him past Louis DeJoy.
A good way to think about Pete Seeger’s appearance on a stamp: a man once viewed as “un-American” was of course a true American all along. I remember a 2006 New Yorker profile of Seeger that closed with a glimpse of him standing by himself along Route 9 in Beacon, New York, during the invasion of Iraq, holding a sign that read PEACE. Speaking your mind freely and without fear, even if alone: that’s American.
Related reading
All OCA Pete Seeger posts (Pinboard)
Sold a Story again
The first two episodes of Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong became available yesterday. They’re revealing and infuriating. Now I understand what my children’s teachers meant when they said that they used “a balanced approach” — they meant nothing in particular, with only a smattering of phonics. Fortunately, our children learned to read before starting school, as Elaine and I did.
Here’s an example (not from the podcast) of the wrongheadedness that can underlie opposition to instruction in phonics, from an educator who learned to read before starting school. He writes that he
can’t really ever think of “sound it out” as a strategy for me when I encountered words I didn’t know. Asking other people is my go-to strategy even today, as I wander into my 60s.And how, you may wonder, did those other people figure out how to pronounce those words — if indeed they’re pronouncing those words correctly.
Only last night did it occur to me to wonder: when college instructors outline the textbook in class and give out “study sheets” (i.e., questions and answers) for exams, are they merely slacking off, or are they compensating, consciously or not, for their students’ reading deficiencies?
[And quick, someone get that educator a dictionary.]
Thursday, October 20, 2022
Mystery actor
[Click for a larger view.]
Do you recognize her? Leave your best guess in the comments. I’ll drop a hint if one is needed.
*
Hint: She was good company, and her favorite meal was “lunch.”
*
Oh well. I put the answer in the comments. You’re still welcome to play on the honor system.
More mystery actors
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Separated at birth
[Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky in Anna Karenina (dir. Joe Wright, 2012) and Gene Wilder as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein in Young Frankenstein (dir. Mel Brooks, 1974). Click either image for a larger view.]
I wish someone had said “We need to make him look less like young Frankenstein.”
Also separated at birth
Claude Akins and Simon Oakland : Ernest Angley and Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán : Nicholson Baker and Lawrence Ferlinghetti : William Barr and Edward Chapman : Bérénice Bejo and Paula Beer : Ted Berrigan and C. Everett Koop : David Bowie and Karl Held : Victor Buono and Dan Seymour : Ernie Bushmiller and Red Rodney : John Davis Chandler and Steve Buscemi : Ray Collins and Mississippi John Hurt : Broderick Crawford and Vladimir Nabokov : Ted Cruz and Joe McCarthy : Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Gough : Henry Daniell and Anthony Wiener : Jacques Derrida, Peter Falk, and William Hopper : Adam Driver and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska :
Bonita Granville and Cyndi Lauper : Charles Grassley and Abraham Jebediah Simpson II : Elaine Hansen (of Davey and Goliath) and Blanche Lincoln : Barbara Hale and Vivien Leigh : Pat Harrington Jr. and Marcel Herrand : Harriet Sansom Harris and Phoebe Nicholls : Steven Isserlis and Pat Metheny : Colonel Wilhelm Klink and Rudy Giuliani : Ton Koopman and Oliver Sacks : Steve Lacy and Myron McCormick : Don Lake and Andrew Tombes : Markku Luolajan-Mikkola and John Malkovich : William H. Macy and Michael A. Monahan : Fredric March and Tobey Maguire : Chico Marx and Robert Walden : Elisabeth Moss and Alexis Smith : Jean Renoir and Steve Wozniak : Molly Ringwald and Victoria Zinny
