Saturday, September 17, 2011

A Walk To My Studio

Some pictures that I took while walking to my Lower East Side studio from my home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Saturday, September 10.

I live right on the border between very Italian northern Williamsburg, and very Polish Greenpoint. The apartment that I share with Michael has a magnificent sweeping view of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway complete with a Mickey D's and and Staples. Nothing worth photographing there.



The sycamores in McGolrick Park, just a block from my home.





Saint Stanislaus Kostka very Polish Catholic Church from Driggs Avenue.





Corner of Driggs and Manhattan Avenue. Manhattan Ave. is the main drag of Greenpoint, Brooklyn. You can see the Citicorp Tower on Manhattan island at the end of the street.





McCarren Park from Driggs Ave. The park is one big workout field for the affluent professionals who live around it. In the background is one of many buildings in Williamsburg left unfinished because of the economic collapse.






The always crowded Saturday McCaren Park Green Market.
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A little bit of old Russia on Driggs. The Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Transfiguration next to McCaren Park.





I took a little detour down North 6th Street to the river front. Above are some of the new towering riverfront condos. For only $600,000, you can get a one bedroom on one of the middle floors with no balcony, and not much view.






Midtown Manhattan viewed from the small park by the Williamsburg ferry terminal on the East River.





The spires of Midtown. Left to right, Empire State Building, New York Times Building, the second mast from the right belongs to Conde Nast on Times Square. And then finally, the new Bank of America Building on Bryant Park, currently the second highest building in the city.





The Empire State Building and the NY Times Building.





The new World Trade Center going up, viewed from Williamsburg. On the left is the top of the Woolworth Building.





The East River Ferry coming in, disturbing the weekend fishing. In the background is the Chrysler Building.





The ugly duckling of East River bridges, the Williamsburg Bridge.






The Manhattan Tower of the Williamsburg Bridge.






The entrance ramp of the Williamsburg Bridge on the Brooklyn side, viewed from Bedford, Ave. The domed structure in the back is not a church, but an old bank, the first Williamsburg Savings Bank built in 1875. Someone is restoring it, but I don't know who.





The pedestrian path on the Williamsburg Bridge, built about 10 years ago to replace the old boardwalk. Looks quiet now, but by evening it will be full of Satmar Hasidim heading home from synagogue.






The Brooklyn tower of the Williamsburg Bridge from the pedestrian path.






Unfortunately, most of my shots of the view from the bridge became pictures of the fence.




The Empire State Building from the bridge.





The M train on the bridge. It usually doesn't run on Saturday, but ran that day because the L train was down for maintenance.

It started to rain, so I had to put away the camera. My studio is only a block away on the other side of the bridge.

3 comments:

JCF said...

Nice shots, Doug!

The W'burg Bridge may not be a lovely as the Manhattan Bridge, or as iconic as the Brooklyn Bridge, but it's far from ugly (IIRC, it's better-looking than the Tri-Borough?)

it's margaret said...

We lived on Kent Ave in the rectory of Ascension... what fun to see these current shots of the City!

In that day, a young friend of ours, with many mental and learning challenges, rode the bus home from his special education classes through Williamsburg. He discovered that if he leaned out the school bus window and flipped people off he could garner quite the reaction. He did it at church too... much to his mother's horror. His bus driver discovered what was going on --and his bus driver was a Hasadim from the neighborhood --and he told our young friend that he knew something even "worse/better" to do --and showed him how to make the sign of the Cohen blessing, which requires the crossing of several fingers and particular motions --and our young friend was then driven through Williamsburg by his bus driver and allowed to hang out the window throwing blessings all around --and was greeted from the streets with great favorable responses and much bowing. He did that blessing business at church too --much to his mother's relief.

Unexpected blessings abound!

June Butler said...

Doug, I came over from Google Reader to say that I like your fence pictures from the bridge, and I also admire the photo of the Brooklyn tower. I'd call the pictures techno-art, but that's probably not the proper name.