I made a damn cool discovery yesterday. I did not realize how interesting it was until I got home and looked it up. On a desolate stretch of road in some far off asshole part of Queens I noticed a little metal box affixed to a fence. It was small enough that I might have not noticed it if the bright sun did not hit it such that it gleamed a little bit. The box said “DETEX WATCHCLOCK STATION” and opening it revealed a small amount of dirt. I have since learned that in the past this box contained a key, and that a security guard would have used that key to check in at the station to prove he was doing his job of patrolling the premises. He carried a mechanical clock with him and the key, when used, would be used on the clock to record his check in on some kind of paper or magnetic tape. As old-school as it sounds these devices were still being manufactured by the DETEX company as recently as 2011.
What is now making me crazy is that I am all but certain I have seen these stations before, I just cannot remember where. In my mind I vaguely remember a red or maroon colored one affixed to a brick wall, and another silver one on a fence someplace. But where? I was thinking Honeywell Street Bridge or somewhere around Sunnyside Yards, but I just cannot remember. Maybe Rainey Park?
If that foggy memory of seeing these stations holds up then it will be that those stations made less of an impression on me because they did not have words on them. I am thinking that I see unbranded stations rather frequently, but I just can’t remember where. Without the text lettering on them I would think they are demonstratively unnoticeable.
So now I have a new object on which to fixate my otaku sensibilities. Add watchclock stations to payphones, red emergency call boxes, mailboxes, spots painted on sewers, telephone numbers in the old exchange name format, etc…
The watchclock station I found is too small a vessel for any kind of a geocache, I think. But I left a dime there as a prize for the next person who discovers it and finds it as charming a curio as did I.
Yesterday’s wander led to many new-to-me streets, including one which had me swimming in the same narrow waters as a relentless stream of 18-wheeler trucks blasted through. It seemed dangerous but at the same time everyone seemed fully alert to and aware of the tight quarters. This little street, I discovered, was a shortcut of some repute for bigass trucks that seemed far too large for this space. It is near the Goodfellas Diner, which is located at the only truck stop in the 5 boroughs of New York. Goodfellas used to be called… something else, I can’t remember now (Clinton Diner?), but it was renamed to Goodfellas some time in the last several years. Did Scorsese have to sign off on that? He seems like a nice enough guy that he would be happy to let them rename it after his film. The diner was featured extensively in the movie “Goodfellas” and has remained a minor tourist attract ever since. It is a damn good diner, too. They have a non-working payphone near the back, or at least they did when I last entered about a year ago. The diner was the scene of Robert DeNiro’s famous scene where he knocks a phone booth over in anger.
That diner’s use of the Goodfellas name reminded me of a place in Astoria called Gleason’s. I don’t understand how the Jackie Gleason estate does not step in to demand some kind of payment for the use of Jackie Gleason’s name and likeness throughout the place. There is a similar situation at a place called Bam-Bam’s on Northern Boulevard. I think it is a tire shop but whatever it is it uses — without permission, I assume — the name and likeness of the Bam-Bam character from The Flintstones.
When I was in college a band got in trouble with the Igor Stravinsky estate for naming itself “Igor Stravinsky”. And a composer acquaintance I knew right out of college was almost sued by IBM for writing a piece called “International Business Machine.” IBM stands for International Business Machines (plural) and they evidently did not lock up their trademark tight enough to include the singular. As badly as IBM wanted to sue (and they really, really did) they just never could.
