Archive for July 4th, 2014

This one’s for Andrew.

Friday, July 4th, 2014

This year is the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Verrazano-Narrows bridge.

Earlier this week, the NYT ran a retrospective piece about the young reporter who covered the construction of the bridge; a man named Gay Talese, who later went on to bigger and better things.

The Times piece includes links to some of Talese’s original articles, if you want to feel nostalgic for the old NYT, or the Robert Moses era, or…

(Obligatory.)

Posted in Books, Bridges, Clippings, Roads | Comments Closed

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

Friday, July 4th, 2014

History has shown, Scruff observed, that you can never have too many fireworks.

Indeed. We spent a fair amount of money on fireworks for tonight, but the people of Dyckman Street make us look like pikers.

Scruff, whose real name is Ralphy Sanchez, 27, heads a group known as Down Post, representing a block on Post Avenue between Academy and Dyckman Streets. He is confident his group will put on the best show; he estimated that he had about $1,500 of fireworks at the ready, much of it, he said, bought with the proceeds from sales of marijuana.

Of course, this is illegal in New York City. But the people of Dyckman Street don’t give a rat’s ass.

Each block has a 10- or 20-person explosives team, but anyone is free to join. First, the firecracker chains go down — two long ones can stretch the length of a block and light the pavement in a polychromatic blaze for 15 minutes or more. Soon, they pull out the smaller rockets, handing the Roman candles to the children.

Do you smell that, former Mayor Bloomberg? It smells like…freedom.

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Explosives, Law, NYPD | Comments Closed