I walked the complete length of Queens Boulevard, from where it begins (or ends, depending on your outlook) at… where does it begin, anyway? I looked to Google maps for clarity but, as so often happens with that resource, I came away confused and unclear.
Open Street Maps seemed less ambiguous, commencing Queens Boulevard at the intersection where Jackson Avenue goes one way and Northern Boulevard the other. To me that is correct, illustrating for the umpteenth time how Google Maps is riddled with obvious errors.
For purposes of this litany, Queens Boulevard began for me at the intersection where Jackson Avenue and Northern Boulevard go their separate ways, and the bridge over Sunnyside Yards heading toward Thomson Avenue begins.
I walked, walked, and walked, stopping only once for an attempted bathroom break at the Target on Austin Street in Forest Hills. Evidently that is a popular spot for such a pit stop, as the line of peeple proved prohibitively slow and I decided not to wait. I had places to go, people to see, hearts to break. I also just did not have to go badly. I have a bit of a survivalist streak in me that makes it seem prudent to check in at bathrooms whenever possible, regardless of the necessity.
I have very little to show for my epic stramble, though. I recorded no GPS track/map of the journey because the battery on my phone was low, so I turned it off most of the way. I took few photos and don’t think I made any video, as has been my wont of late. Real feel temperatures were said to be in the mid-90s, but I felt fine. I like the heat, and I like a good sweat. It feels like my body weeps. The sun cooked my face, neck, and arms, further exaggerating my farmer’s tan lines.
A word kept coming to mind: Waste. Was this journey wasted for having left no evidence of its path? I did almost nothing interesting along the way, retained very little new knowledge of an Avenue I already know well enough, upon which I have strambled countless times.
If there is any sense of accomplishment it comes from how I had never, as best I can recall, followed Queens Boulevard from Queens Plaza all the way to Jamaica Avenue, all in one sitting, so to speak. According to maps, which proved unreliable in determining exactly where Queens Boulevard begins but seem reasonable for this slip of information, the distance is about 8 miles.
It took about three hours from point to point, at the end of which I sat on a Jamaica Avenue bench for several minutes then hopped the E express from Briarwood back to Queens Plaza. On that E train I overheard someone explaining to his friend why express trains are so much faster than locals. It seemed oddly meticulous to me, and painfully obvious, but this individual nevertheless felt it necessary to fully and painstakingly explain to his friend exactly how and why an express train gets them to midtown so much faster than the local.
“You see if we was on the local we’d be stopping at every single one of these stations we keep passing by. 67th Avenue, you see that? We’d have to stop there.” He announced every station as we roared past, clarifying repeatedly that if they were on the local they’d spend “probably an hour” getting from Briarwood to midtown. The E train is such a miracle, is it not…
As for my journey I had no reason, no purpose, no goal or expectation of bragging rights, not that anyone would be impressed by an account of this trek. I felt compelled to waste an afternoon, and that is what I did. I have mastered the art of wasting days, and as the saying goes, the way we spend our days is the way spend our lives. I think it was Annie Dillard who said that.
For all that gratuitous effluvial waste matter spewing in my path I did spot one curio. Two doctors, married or otherwise related I assume, whose last names are “Doctor”. They would be addressed as “Doctor Doctor” would they not? It must be an old, old joke for them.
In Rego Park I passed a building inhabited by a women with whom I had a brief but memorable encounter online and then in person. Online we talked like sweethearts from the first words, but upon meeting at our enthusiastically-scheduled encounter just hours later it was agreed we had nothing to work with, no basis for a relationship. She suggested I come to her place anyway, an offer I probably should have accepted but did not. Unlike today I was strictly relationship minded back then, not ready or willing to mess around just for gits and shiggles. How things have changed in that respect.
I passed Maple Grove Cemetery, burial site of one of the first friends I made in New York, along with his brother, who I knew only briefly. I did not enter the grounds this time but I visited Maple Grove recently, on the same day I went over to Brooklyn to check on an old rotary dial payphone hiding away at Cadman Plaza.
As always I took note of the payphones. As far as I can tell the remains of only three public pay telephones remain on all of Queens Boulevard. One empty pedestal stands behind a fence on private property at Queens Boulevard and Ireland Street. Another phone, battered and bedraggled but mostly intact, is at 64th Avenue, at an entrance to the subway station there. A mostly intact phone survives near the Crown Motel, née the Crown Motor Inn. On all of Queens Boulevard those are the only remnants of outdoor phones I know of. Others survive in the subways, though I am unclear at this time if any of them still work.
I make long, double-digit-mileage walks quite often. I don’t know why I chose to recount and detail this particular journey at such length, given that the experience was mostly unremarkable.
In other news I’ve been posting videos like it’s my job, my duty, my call to arms. It is both fun and even satisfying but I start to think I should slow down. I’m happy to have a genuine and interested audience, but I also feel a vacuum opening in the space filled with evidence of these wasted days.
Still, want to know what the old wood escalators at Macy’s look like, and how many payphones are found among them? I got you covered.
Want to hear my thoughts on the new rule banning singletons from climbing up The Vessel at Hudson Yards? Go for it.
I intend to post about this here as well but I shared a video slideshow of some neat 35mm slides I found at a thrift shop a couple of weeks ago. The box was labeled “35mm slides 1980s NYC.” I took one slide out and held it to the light. It showed the Twin Towers. I knew I had to buy these three boxes of slides, and at a cost of only $5 it felt like I’d stolen the freakin’ things.
The slides capture activities of a troupe of entertainers, clowns, dancers, singers, etc., who took their act to locations all over the city, spreading the word of God, inculcating passing strangers in the ways of Christianity. They took their act to Union Square, Grand Central Terminal, Bushwick, and other locations. A few shots from the top of the Twin Towers are also gratifying. All in all it is good stuff to see. The photographer even captured a couple of unusual shots of Old Calvary Cemetery from vantage points on the BQE.
