This was one of the last reworked sections of the LIE in
Queens. The LIE has just merged it's upper and lower decks, which
extend east from the Brooklyn Queens Expwy interchange, into the
Maspeth neighborhood. The Grand Avenue overpass is up ahead, directly
followed by 69th St, one of the main thoroughfares running from
Ridgewood up to Woodside. These overpasses were all rebuilt during
the major overhaul of this section, which used to have bigloops
in the center median. Now, giant 80's style trussarms man the
walls.
A notorious mob rubout took place in a diner near here many years
ago. Grand Ave. will forever live in infamy for me, for being
the home, a couple of miles south of here, of the Avis Used Car
Center, where I bought my previous car, an extremely lemony 1984
Chrysler Lebaron. Not that my '86 Mercury has been much nicer
to me.
For some weird reason, Grand Avenue becomes Grand Street once
it enters Brooklyn, at the confluence of Ridgewood, Bushwick and
Williamsburg. Extending to the East River from there, one could
say it resumes almost directly across the East River, as Manhattan's
Grand Street. Maybe the Williamsburg Bridge, which shadows both
Grands at each end, should be replaced with a Grand Street Bridge
linking both Grand Streets.
I used to go with a girl in Glendale, Queens, which required my
getting off the subway at Grand St. in Williamsburg to take a
bus which eventually meanders onto Metropolitan Ave, near the
infamous Avis center. The train that stops there is the 14th Street
line, labelled the "L". I called it the "Smell",
as I'm sure alot of it's regular riders do. Few things were more
miserable than waiting for that bus in rotten weather late at
night. This was before my car-owning days. The L train's greatest
claim to fame is that it had the last grade crossing in the NYC
subway system, way out in East New York.
