Rusty Fences and White Roses--Now That's Queens! 4 July 2001

What a surprise. I lived here as a boy. Actually one house beyond at 8003 249th Street. These are attached houses, as we called them in NY, rather than row houses as they are called in most of the rest of the country. I Moved out in 1955 when I was 13. I have a picture of my sister and me sitting on the stoop right next to that angled railing you see at the right. The owners of the house you are looking at had a "good news bad news" situation. Although they lived right next to busy, noisy Union Turnpike, they were the only people on the block with windows affording northern expoure. The rest of us had only east and west views.

Hi vinphizz, 6 degrees of separation. It took me about 45 min. to tag this onto the map. The only thing I remembered was that it was on Union Turnpyke. It turns out that this row of attached houses (houses not attached are called detached) are the only ones in the area that have flat roofs. That really lead me to it, but it took a while. My niece came over and she saw this and said, "That house is right down the block from me. At the cawnah." She lives down and across the street. I was satisfied with the pin-pointing of it. I had to relocate the marker westward bound to east by about 20 ft.. My memory lapsed on the direction of the car. Not bad, I thought to myself.

The neighborhood, Belle Rose, still has one of last running farms in the city. My other niece takes her toddler son there to pet the animals.

I hope it brought back good memories for you. And I see now you have a much nicer view of a farm house in Woodstock, right smack in the middle of Woodstock--a beautiful part of New York State. :}Tb

Some interesting parralells here. My current house adjacent to the last working farm in Woodstock and Bellerose having the last working farm in Queens; 2 photos in Google Earth right outside a dwelling of mine.

I spent the first nineteen years of my life in one of the attached houses on the opposite side of 249 street. Evidence that this intersection is the lowest elevation in any direction for miles were the floods that routinely turned it into a lake in the fifties. I live at one of the highest points in Queens now.

Hi there Somnial. Glad you clicked along my pic and hope it brought back good memories for you. I like that it is just a house to me on a corner, but it is also a home. Might not have been yours, but it has been for others'. Years ago I went to a Walker Evans exhibit at the Whitney Museum. I am not remembering the photographer's name, but another photographer was being exhibited alongside Evans'. The other photographer's work was similar to Evans' work except his photos were taken from the 70s to the early 90s. One of the houses in a photograph, from this unremembered photographer, was a friend's friend's house. I was bit by the Doberman Pincher on my arm. No bleeding, only broke the skin, but the dog scared the c#@p out of me. The photograph was taken in 1986, 6 years after I was bit on the arm.

Glad you no longer live in a lake and went to higher ground. The house I grew up in on Staten Island was built on top of a swamp, so when it rained the basement would always flood, although it was not low to the sea level. It was a marshy swamp.

:)

Phonetically spelled, but spaciba, MATIZ. :)

Nice picture, greetings from germany!