Photo Gallery: Belt Pkwy
| Starrett City, a co-operative apartment complex built in the early 1970's, comes into view as we near Pennsylvania Avenue going east. Through much of central Brooklyn, north-south avenues are named for major New York State municipalities. Once those got exhausted, somewhere in the precincts of the East New York neighborhood, the city planners switched to states of the Union. Of all those state avenues, Pennsylvania is far and away the king, stretching from the Belt northward until it rams its way into the Jackie Robinson Pkwy just north of Atlantic Avenue. |
| All the flora to our right grew up upon city refuse. Um um good! For years it was little more than sand covered garbage. Now it's a forest! |
| All off here for Starrett City. This complex reminds me of an Israeli development town, but you'd probably have to have been there to understand what I mean. Only a few blocks north of Starrett is mega-boulevard Linden, part of which was probably to have been the Cross Brooklyn Expressway and Interstate 878 in the late Robert Moses' dreams. Starrett itself has been the witness to no shortage of broken dreams and promises. In one of the most heinous crimes of recent years, some laborers employed by a contractor who lived there, murdered him, stole his keys and invaded his apartment in Starrett. There they found his sleeping wife and teenage daughter. I don't think I need recount what these savages did to them. Let's just say being able to get away with everything of portable value the family owned wasn't enough. |
| The overpass carrying Pennsylvania was reconstructed a few years ago. Despite being reformed with little, if any regard to aesthetics, it could certainly look worse. The next stop is Cross Bay Blvd. No, you did not lose count or misplace two exits. To my knowledge there have never been any such things as exits 15 and 16 on the Belt. Just as this part of Pennsylvania Avenue was late being developed, there is plenty of unchartered territory awaiting development in the no-mans lands ahead of us, before we return to civilization in Howard Beach, Queens. Shot 10/99. |