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September 5, 2012 3:34 PM

The History Of New York In 50 Objects (NYT)
posted by The Whelk (29 comments total)

I can't believe they missed: 1888 - Katz's
posted by griphus at 3:37 PM on September 5, 2012

No mention of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire on the sewing machine entry either, or stuff like The Masses. Oh well.
posted by The Whelk at 3:45 PM on September 5, 2012

I managed to go to the last automat on 42nd as a young child. I seem to remember they had a faucet that dispensed gravy. That was the best thing ever. When I finally have fuck you money I'm going to get hot and cold running gravy. Why cold gravy? Cuz fuck you.
posted by Ad hominem at 3:54 PM on September 5, 2012 [10 favorites]

Living Reef Made of Millions of Oysters to Clean the Gowanus

A new pier is being built at the mouth of the Gowanus Canal, but it's not for a new pretty waterfront park. It will host millions of mollusks that will help clean the toxic Superfund waterway. ... One oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 4:01 PM on September 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

I managed to go to the last automat on 42nd as a young child. I seem to remember they had a faucet that dispensed gravy. That was the best thing ever. When I finally have fuck you money I'm going to get hot and cold running gravy. Why cold gravy? Cuz fuck you.

I had my hate on response for cold gravy before I even finished reading. Glad I finished reading before posting. Well played.
posted by Keith Talent at 4:02 PM on September 5, 2012

What, no puddle of urine? It just wouldn't be New York without a few.
posted by deadmessenger at 4:02 PM on September 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

The rich have faucets for urine, right next to their gravy faucets. No relying on puddles for them, not since Giuliani.
posted by griphus at 4:10 PM on September 5, 2012 [7 favorites]

I used to share a big apartment in Queens with a pair of slovenly old men. Seems like I delivered the Flushing Remonstrance at least twice a month.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 4:14 PM on September 5, 2012 [2 favorites]

Man they have had plans for the Gowanus since forever.

I lived right next to it for a while and spent many an hour tossing fireworks into it trying to light it on fire. People always said they had plans to open it up to the Atlantic but they stopped the plan because they couldn't dredge as it was built on an ancient mastodon burial ground.

Then I heard they were going to put in giant propellers to circulate the water out into the ocean. Then I heard they couldn't because diseases that live nowhere else on earth live in the Gowanus and they didn't want them getting loose, since no living creature has immunity.

I don't think oysters can clean the gowanus. At best they will mutate and eat the rats and feral dogs in those vacant lots near Gowanus Hollows.
posted by Ad hominem at 4:24 PM on September 5, 2012 [4 favorites]

Also they all have the clap.
posted by elizardbits at 4:26 PM on September 5, 2012

Also they all have the clap.

The rich since Giuliani or the Gowanus Oysters?

There better be a gastropub in Park Slope serving a dish called Gowanus Oysters by christmas.
posted by Ad hominem at 4:30 PM on September 5, 2012

Man this is the second time in four days the conversation has turned to the veneral diseases in Gowanus Canal
posted by The Whelk at 4:31 PM on September 5, 2012

gowanus

Is that a portmanteau?
posted by Sys Rq at 4:36 PM on September 5, 2012

Hey, Ad hominem, I used to live next to the Gowanus also, on the corner of 1st and Bond, back in the mid-'80s.

I once met some Brazilian sailors in the subway who had arrived in NY via fuel barge up the canal, docked next to the Carroll Street bridge.

Another time, (fall 1985, I think?) there was a big ruckus down at the edge of the canal one grey Sunday afternoon. Several police divers in orange drysuits were searching for something in the water. When I asked one big walrus-mustached diver what they were looking for, he replied "Nothin!".
posted by Araucaria at 5:14 PM on September 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

I lived on 4th street Between Smith and Hoyt, mid-late 80s

One of the urban legends was that the mob dumped bodies there. I saw a car parked on smith and 5th, near that vacant lot with a dead guy in it. Another urban legend was neighborhood kids would go joyriding and push the cars into the Gowanus to hide them.

That was a weird area, I told the here story once before about roosters in the street stopping cars on Hoyt and 4th, there was a cockfighting ring there and they let the roosters walk around in the middle of the street. There were also these crazy guys from the salvage yards across the canal riding 4wheelers all the hell over.

I loved it there, my parents of course did not. I was like 10 and they did not approve of me spending all my time trying to light the canal on fire.
posted by Ad hominem at 5:39 PM on September 5, 2012

gowanus

Is that a portmanteau?

Gow That's What I Call Anus!
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:24 PM on September 5, 2012

Years ago, I was down there, and saw a store with a vandalized corner awning that had GOWANUS written on both sides. On one side, the vandals had done the proper thing and turned it into GO ANUS. On the other GOW NUS.
posted by griphus at 6:40 PM on September 5, 2012

I got to the bottom of the page to find a, what?, jar of dirt? [hovered] "9/11" Oh.

Hey, NYT, it's still not cool to spring that shit on us.
posted by etc. at 6:53 PM on September 5, 2012

And now back to Gowanus jokes! Don't forget that "canal" is "C" plus "anal"!
posted by etc. at 6:54 PM on September 5, 2012

esSEX STREET MARKET
posted by griphus at 7:01 PM on September 5, 2012

Apparently in Manchester the most vandalized sign is for Canal Street.
posted by The Whelk at 7:22 PM on September 5, 2012

I once lived at the intersection of Canal and Essex.

Good times.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 7:42 PM on September 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Isn't the Brooklyn Bridge an object?

Maybe it's stretching the point but, isn't Central Park a object?

And the "9/11" jar was just insulting. The photos of the devastation of the towers (those sad, decrepit shells) will live with me forever. This puddle of, what, paper, plaster and asbestos? Something poisonous and inhuman? What is that? Nothing! Where are the lives that were lost?
posted by SPrintF at 8:59 PM on September 5, 2012

SPrintF, for many New Yorkers, especially first responders and those who worked at Ground Zero in the weeks following the attacks searching for the remains of victims, that "puddle of nothing" is a very real reminder of the lives that were lost. It is also a reminder of the health problems that affect some of those workers due to their exposure to something "poisonous and inhuman." When I saw the picture, I didn't even need to hover over it to know what the object represented. Short of all those "missing" flyers victims families were putting up during the rescue phase of the excavation of The Pit, that jar of dust is the most significant object you could have to represent 9/11 because that's all that was left.
posted by KingEdRa at 12:12 AM on September 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

And moving on to a less serious object, I was amused no end by the the story of the Artichoke King. Also, somebody should make up "Gowanus Surf Team" shirts.
posted by KingEdRa at 12:17 AM on September 6, 2012

Last year Radio 4 did a history of the world in 100 objects, IIRC most if not all of the objects are held at the British museum.
posted by Virtblue at 2:22 AM on September 6, 2012

Virtblue: All of them are at the British Museum; the programme, A History of the World in 100 Objects, was written and presented by the BM and made with the BBC.
posted by adrianhon at 3:21 AM on September 6, 2012

This puddle of, what, paper, plaster and asbestos?

I purposefully did not save any of that, which was inches deep on my windowsill and even inside. Mainly, I didn't want to "take anything away," to profit in any way from such an evil thing. My brother-in-law, a doctor, looked at the "dust" from my window sill with a magnifier, and found hair and bone fragments.

All of the dust was categorized as crime scene evidence, and it was illegal to take any.
posted by StickyCarpet at 12:44 PM on September 6, 2012

I know it's the longest-running-show-ever, but boy do I hate that Broadway is represented by the mask from Phantom of the Opera.
posted by crossoverman at 8:08 PM on September 6, 2012