Amazing Things Are Happening Here

More from the archives.

This enormous translucent banner hangs across three glass and steel pedestrians bridges at New York-Presbyterian Hospital on Fort Washington Avenue. The bridges allow people (and materials) to move from one building to another without going outside.

Click on the photo for a larger view and you’ll see visitors, students and employees using the glassed-in walkways at this massive teaching hospital in Upper Manhattan.

Amazing Things Are Happening Here

New York-Presbyterian Hospital

Radio 53 AM

More from the archives.

This sign was posted on a traffic signal control box near Union Square. As always, you can click on the image for a larger view.

You must listen to Christ Radio 53 AM Radio on 24 hours or the Devil will take you and your family and make bats out of all of you.

Christ will protect you. Devil is Boogie Man. Beautiful gorgeous Mary and Christ will hug and kiss you forever in Heaven. For keeping the ten commandments.

It’s so easy to keep the ten commandments. Teen ages and people in Hell are suffering terrible.

Guys on the corner

Scene on the corner of Madison Avenue and 72nd Street.

Hi, do you wear a button?

This sign was posted at the top of a stairway inside the Clark Street subway station. I can’t help but wonder whether it worked.

Have you ever posted (or answered) an ad looking for love?

I Believe In Harvey Dent

Suddenly, I feel very thirsty

I was on Manhattan’s Lower East Side when I noticed this building at the corner of Essex and Rivington Streets.

It is painted with enormous advertisements for Red Stripe beer from Jamaica and Schapiro’s Kosher Wine. This neighborhood must be a very tough place for a tea-totaler.

Get a Free Laundry Basket

This sign was posted in the window of the Laundry King laundromat on 4th Avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

Baby rabbit’s for sell

This sign (click on the photo to read it) was taped to a post in front of Brooklyn Borough Hall. It says:

Baby rabbit’s for sell. They are cute and fun so if you would like one come to Court St. The price is 30 per rabbit

No indication of who is selling the rabbits, when they will be available, where on Court Street they can be found, and whether the price is $30 or 30¢ each.

However, there’s no doubt that rabbits can be cute and fun — and tasty, too.

Itty Bitty Bunny
Rabbit Habit

Signs of Brooklyn Food Shops

Anyone, anywhere can hang a bland, boring factory-made sign on the front of a store. Ho-hum.

That mundane method of advertising might work in some towns, but around here, many shop owners pride themselves on their creative signage, using images that convey the very essence of their business’s identity.

Not only do these shop owners employ unusual signs, they don’t bother to hang them; instead they plant their signposts right in the middle of the sidewalk. Here are a few of the signs currently adorning the pavements in front of some of Brooklyn’s favorite food shops.

Terrace Bagels
224 Prospect Park West

Esposito’s Pork Store
357 Court Street

Clemen’s Taco and Burrito Place
252 Prospect Park West

NY Times: Dry-Cured Sausages: Kissed by Air, Never by Fire
NY Magazine: G. Esposito and Sons Pork Store
NY Magazine: Terrace Bagels Café
NY Magazine: Clemen’s Taco and Burrito Place

Swordfish and Roosters and Rams. Oh, my!

Deep in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood, across from a tile factory and hard by an auto body shop, an eye catching sign stands at the corner of 21st Street and 3rd Avenue.

Adorned with images of a ram, a swordfish and a rooster, in three languages it advertises the Al-Noor Halal Live Poultry Market.

Intrigued by the sign, I ducked around the corner to visit the store. All I’ll say is that for a person like me (accustomed to meat that comes from a white-coated, genial butcher standing behind a gleaming, sanitized counter), slaughterhouses are not suitable for casual visits.

Oh, my!

Black Electorate: Growing Muslim Community Brings New Traditions To The Neighborhood

Discouraging Signs in the Subway

With 6,200 cars, 840 miles of track and an average weekday ridership of 4.9 million, New York City has one of the largest, busiest and most complex subway systems in the world.

Unlike the systems in many other cities, New York’s subways operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. That means all service and repairs must take place while the trains are running.

In an attempt to cause the least disruption to riders, most planned maintenance and construction work (as opposed to emergency service) is scheduled for weekends. As a result, getting around the city on Saturdays and Sundays can be challenging for even the most savvy New Yorkers.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) says that they issue service advisories to “provide information about planned service changes on weekends that are needed for their Capital Plan work such as construction projects.”

Many city dwellers try to stay informed about temporary service changes and interruptions by checking the MTA’s Web site, subscribing to special e-mail and text message alert services (such as those offered by HopStop and the Straphangers Campaign), and/or following local newspaper and television reports for updates on the latest service advisories.

Any of those approaches is more effective than just showing up in a subway station and hoping to locate and make sense of the printed advisories that are posted every weekend.

Today every station I entered had at least a few advisory signs taped to the walls, but these were the most discouraging, disheartening and headache-inducing of the bunch.

Today’s Service Advisories posted in the Times Square station

Sign in the Pelham Bay Park station

Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)
MTA Service Advisories
MTA Guide to Weekend Travel in Lower Manhattan
MTA Subway Facts and Figures
New York Public Interest Research Group Straphangers Campaign
Transportation Alternatives
Tri-State Transportation Campaign
HopStop New York

Signs of South Williamsburg

What is Williamsburg, Brooklyn like? To a great extent, the answer you receive depends upon the age and class of the person you ask.

In the early part of the 20th century, this waterfront community was the most densely populated neighborhood in the United States. Immigrants from Italy and Ireland lived in Williamsburg and worked in its thriving refineries, breweries and shipyards (Williamsburg was the setting for the best-selling novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn).

Following World War II, the neighborhood was transformed when thousands of Jewish refugees arrived from Europe. The area became headquarters for several displaced Hassidic sects, most notably the Satmar community that originated in Hungary.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Williamsburg changed again when it acquired a large Hispanic population, mostly new arrivals from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

In the 1970s, when the city teetered on the edge of bankruptcy, the neighborhood reached its lowest point. While the South Bronx burned, much of Williamsburg was overwhelmed by poverty, drugs, arson and violent crime. 

Real estate values plummeted, the middle class fled and, in their wake, young artists arrived. The 1980s and 1990s produced an influx of hipsters and musicians who established a creative community around Bedford Avenue (one subway stop away from Manhattan).

Today, ever-evolving Williamsburg is attracting developers who are replacing many of the old industrial buildings and tenements with luxury housing.

Despite the vast and rapid changes to the neighborhood, South Williamsburg remains almost exclusively the domain of the Satmar. This is an area where Yiddish is more widely spoken than English, strangers are regarded with suspicion, and most of the businesses cater exclusively to the needs of this devout, insular community.

It isn’t easy for an outsider to get a peek inside the world of the Satmar, but here is a sampling of the signs they’ve displayed on the streets of South Williamsburg.

Feltly Hats at 185 Hewes St

Feltly Hats at Hewes and Lee Ave

Shoe shop on Ross Street

Kolel Sibernburgen on Hewes Street

We specialize in whitening ladies silk scarves

Hem lines is our specialty!

Ms USA Inc

Gestetner Printing: Wedding and Bar Mitzva Invitations

Mikvah of Congregation Yetev Lev D’Satmar

Poultry store at Division & Driggs Ave

It is strictly forbidden … on shabbos

Optical shop

Crown Hatters

Bais Hasefer

United Talmudical Academy school bus

Delivery cart from Satmar Meat & Poultry Market on Lee Ave

Heimish Care

Not here! Shatnes is next house

Signs on buildings at the corner of Hooper & Lee

Record Online: In Brooklyn, Hasidim Build Shul in a Flash
NY Post: It’s a House Of ‘Gosh!’
Block Magazine: The Satmar Community of Williamsburg Divided
Hasidic News: Satmar
OU: Rav Yoel Teitelbaum - The Satmarer Rebbe
Billburg
FREEwilliamsburg
Village Voice: Arson for Hire
Demographia: The South Bronx:
From Urban Planning Victim to Victor

Mysteries of Manhattan: Nick Beef’s DieKu

These images of gravestones were pasted to the wall of a passageway in the West 4th Street subway station. They have a credit line (A DieKu - Nick Beef - NYC) printed in the bottom border but provide no other information about their origin or purpose.  

The gravestones in the upper image follow the classic haiku structure:

Corona Brewer
Noble Golden Beer Skillman
Wetmore Lips Aleman

The names in the lower image create:

Bizzaro Bushman
Texas Manno Wargo Wild
George Izzo Looney

Upper DieKu
Originally uploaded by annulla.

Lower DieKu
Originally uploaded by annulla.

Two DieKu Pasted to the Wall
Originally uploaded by annulla.

Lee Harvey Oswald & the Mysterious Nick Beef
The Story of Nick Beef
Wikipedia: Haiku

Sign on Warren Street

Sign fastened to a tree near the corner of Warren and Clinton Streets.

Sign on Warren Street
Originally uploaded by annulla.

Push for Help

Armed only with a heavy, black marker, someone turned this customer assistance intercom box in the Times Square subway station into a helpful, smiling face.

Push for help
Originally uploaded by annulla.

Don’t Knock, Shout

Today this sign was posted on the front doors of the Iglesia Antioquia, a Pentecostal church on Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue.

Sign on church door  

The Sign on Miller’s Famous Restaurant

This sign is posted on the door of Miller’s Famous Restaurant at the corner of New Utrecht Avenue and 56th Street in Brooklyn. I didn’t see anyone littering, smoking, spitting or playing a radio near the entrance, so I guess the sign must be working.

Sign on Miller’s door

Miller’s Famous Restaurant

Angry signs in Brooklyn

These handwritten signs, both addressed to pedestrians, caught my attention.

Taped to fence on Monroe Place 

Taped to wall on Pineapple Street 

Signs, signs, everywhere signs

A selection of signs seen in Lower Manhattan on a Sunday morning.

Calvin Klein Jeans on Houston Street 

Go vegan, thanks. 

Teairra Mari on the Bowery 

Rosario’s and Kropps & Bobbers 

Help Wanted 

Buckle Up New York