Idling in Gowanus

Some sanitation workers were playing touch football in a stark playground right in the middle of industrial Second Avenue. One of the guys had the wind knocked out of him and retreated to a bench. His colleagues gathered around to console him.

A block away, a forklift driver was sipping a coke, leaning back in the driver’s seat, almost sprawled over the whole back end of the vehicle, like it was a La-z-Boy. (That’s what you call attitude.)

It’s break time at Dunkin' Donuts, the working man’s friend. In the time it takes to finish a cup of coffee, I see representatives of a dozen different trades come in for sustenance. In that brief respite, I discover a secret: sugar and caffeine are what really fuels the industrial economy.

Brooklyn Prays (No. 1)

A Decrepit Army of Droning Hydras

Another languid day was drawing to a close, the air thick and motionless, trapping everything dirty in its torpor, especially that stale, tarry smell. The retreating sun cast muted bronze streaks across the horizon; the steeples and antennae were stalagmites carpeting a vast sepia cavern. Ventilators and ducts, a decrepit army of droning hydras, guarded their rooftop sanctuaries.

In-Spired (No. 1)

Spires puncture
industrial skyline
with otherworldly energies

Backhoe Gulch: Periphery at the Center

The confluence where the BQE merges with the Gowanus Expressway, the Prospect Expressway, Hamilton Avenue, and several side streets is a spectacular cluster-fuck. The intricacy of this monstrous intersection is breathtaking, in part because it’s less than 100 yards from actual residences. (I can only imagine the calloused psyches that have had to adapt their sleeping and dreaming habits to this auto-saturated environment. To call the traffic relentless is an understatement.)


In the middle of this triangle-shaped juncture sits the grassy knoll called Backhoe Gulch. At first glance—from a passing car most likely—it looks like nothing more than a grubby little traffic island, a swath of negative space that is simply a by-product of the roads that surround it. It’s true that Backhoe Gulch is a mean and trashy place, but it’s also an officially designated park, which means it’s open to the public. I’ve been there a few times, but I couldn’t imagine seeing anyone else there. (Given the location, and its aura as a body-dumping ground, I think I’d be wary if I did.)


For all its crusty insignificance, Backhoe Gulch is one of the most exhilarating places I know. That’s because of the noise, the strange feeling of being somewhere that’s obscure yet congested and centrally located, and especially the unique vantage points. Backhoe Gulch affords a view of the city drivers might get if time froze and they could blithely stroll down the highway on foot. At the top of the hill, you can safely stand right beside the Prospect Expressway, just a few feet from the passing cars. The layered views of Gowanus, Brooklyn Heights, and Manhattan are like no others. The southern direction offers an ideal view of the bizarre structure that connects the Gowanus Expressway with the Prospect Expressway and the BQE. It’s a brutalist masterpiece as well as a feat of highway engineering.


There’s always a place for pastoral retreat—to flee the city’s onslaught and commune with nature. Backhoe Gulch, though, is another park experience. It provides an opportunity to become one with the flow of massive intertwining traffic arteries and to pulse with that distinctly urban lifeblood of accelerated kinetic frenzy.

PhotoGraffiti (No. 1)

Footbridge Haiku

The highway stops for no man
the car-less trudge
over streams of traffic

Ode to the Discarded Air Conditioner

Woe is the poor air conditioner in the street: broken, abandoned, left to the ignominious fate of curbside torpor and refuse truck oblivion. A life of service deserves a nobler end, perhaps one final chance to serve.


A hard surface and an open space are all that is required for a Small Appliance Departure Rite. Audio-visual documentation is strongly recommended. These ceremonies should include as much ritual as inspiration permits, such as chanting ("Cooling unit, cooling unit, cooling unit . . .), a brief manifesto, and/or exaggerated body movements.


To begin, take the remains of the appliance by the cord and spin overhead. Strike repeatedly until creative and therapeutic rethinking of obsolescence is achieved.

Color Among the Ruins

A Classic Block

Fourth Ave. b/w St. Mark’s Pl. & Warren St.



There's lumber, lawyers, laundry, and more on this block. Also, it exhibits the panoply of facades so typical of Brooklyn as a whole: aluminum, brick, faux stone. It's a jumble of commerce and materials, a microcosm of city life where everything overlaps and pulsates with a vitality that transcends the utilitarian.

Kensington Daze

Denny’s Steak Pub—A complimentary weekday buffet (where else do you find that?), sausage and peppers, with an alluring snack mix at the bar: Cheetos, pretzels and barbequed Fritos. It’s an accommodating place . . . Lotto, horse racing feed . . . A New York Post on the bar: “MISERY: Coroner Reveals Anna Nicole’s Descent into Hell” . . . lachrymose Dire Straits’ songs, one after another . . . nicest day of the year so far, 78 degrees--perfect. [Church Ave. & McDonald Ave., 3/27/07 (Tuesday) at 2:18 pm] . . . Club 773—Oprah blaring on TV . . . trompe l’oeil pics of Elvis and John Wayne . . . an impressive selection of darts accessories for sale, in glass display cases . . . More lottery action, horse racing video, an Instant Lotto vending machine—the Brooklyn version of a gambling bar . . . Ahh, the languor of weekday drinking . . . the sun through the open door reflects off the video poker machine . . . no one here under 60 or 70 [Coney Island Ave. & Cortelyou Rd. at 4:05 pm.] . . . Coney Island Avenue @ Cortelyou to Avenue I—a crazy ethnic mélange: Russian, Polish, Pakistani, Muslim, Christian, Hasidic . . . my love of Brooklyn sometimes makes me tear (5:09 pm) . . . Nitecaps bar--Some bearded dirtbag laughs at an electrocution death reported on the local news, mocking the other miseries dribbling from bland anchors’ tongues—a coarse but understandable response to media abstraction . . . Spring means DrunkWalks . . . McDonald Ave., beneath the F line: Royal Marble, Family Dollar.

Dead End

Car Service Haiku

I need a car . . . "Five minutes"
no matter what
it is always five minutes

Butler Street is for Lovers

Do yourself a favor: walk down Butler Street, starting at Bond Street and moving east. It’s a spooky but fascinating stretch, especially at night. Be sure to notice the almost-completed Comfort Inn between Nevins Street and Third Avenue. You might ask yourself, as I did immediately: “Why would they build a hotel here, of all places? Who would want to stay there?” (For the answer, visit the blog Curbed.)