Thursday, February 26, 2009

100 Years Old & Feeling Groovy





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Slow down, you're moving too fast.
You got to make the morning last.
Just kicking down the cobble stones.
Looking for fun and feelin' groovy.
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(Paul Simon, 59th Street Bridge Song)
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"Dad, I can see our park!"
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Queens bound, 1957, riding over the 59th Street Bridge on the last trolley leaving the kiosk on Second Avenue, I sat on my Dad's lap studying the north Manhattan shoreline intently, looking for my Yorkville neighborhood.
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This photo is from the bridge's first year. It opened on March 30, 1909.
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There were still dairy farms along Queens Boulevard in Long Island City and Sunnyside. I saw a picture that was taken in 1918 near the Bliss Street stop at 46th Street. You see the stone #7 subway El and there are cows grazing in the background.
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If you yodel or sing on the top of your lungs under the El late at night when the traffic is slow, you can produce a tremendous echo. The El's curved ceiling is acoustically sound, I sang "Twenty Five Miles to Go" along with Edwin Starr on my transistor radio. I did it a few times after snowstorms followed by a quick trip to the White Castle on 43rd Street and Queens Boulevard. Got a Slim Whitman thing going once with my yodel.
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The photo above view is on 59th Street looking east from 2nd Avenue to 1st Avenue. The huge gas tank on the left was on 62nd Street & York Avenue, then called Avenue A.
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Look at those cobblestones!
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Happy Birthday, Bridge.
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