A country lane in the city

In the midst of urban, busy, congested Flushing, abounding with construction projects and traffic replete with honking horns from impatient drivers who must make the traffic light that is about to, or, more importantly, has just changed, pedestrians beware, there is a lane so incongruous, so lovely, a mere two blocks long, it looks almost bucolic.

I took this photograph with my trusty, if failing iPhone (poor battery loses percentage points in such rapidity the hapless Knicks look good in comparison; now, that's saying something, for the New York Knickerbockers stink, nay they stink, though I still love them, well, like them). It is not in any way altered; I know there is such a program (pardon me, app; I show my age) as Photo Shop, but I have never learned to use it, nor do I want to.

Depot Road. It runs north of the Long Island Rail Road tracks, between 158th and 156th Streets; it has a similarly named twin on the eastern side of 162nd Street, and a functional twin, named Station Road, on the south side of the train tracks. The origin of the road is tied with the railroad; there is material on that in the Internet, of course. I found an online article in the Queens Chronicle, and another in an interesting website names Forgotten New York; neither cites sources.

Nonetheless, what interests me is its presence: for all the progress, all the construction over the many years, a few traces remain of a past which all that activity hasn't touched or changed much. This road was recently paved, seemingly part of a wide program of road paving in this sector of Queens, for the first time in many years. The railroad embankment is maintained. Some people walk on it, some cars drive on it, but it is not widely used. Hidden in plain sight, one might think.

I walked the road today on my way to Flushing Cemetery. I decided to go visit Louis Armstrong; his grave, that is. Alas, I could not find it. I walked around and around, but did not find it. I will try again; I did visit it eight years ago, and took pictures, for Satchmo is American royalty.

On the way, I first visited my in-laws; they were both cremated, and have a spot in the cemetery (notice the G-clef; both were pianist and singers).

Of course, there is a nice connection between the Lopezes and the Armstrongs: music. I can remember seeing Satchmo on television shows and hearing him on the radio, and some of my abiding memories of both Gus and Eunice are hearing them singing and playing piano. Gus sang in a barbershop quartet and arranged its music. Eunice played and sang; I can well remember hearing her.


Story has it that horn used to be the real brass instrument, but it was stolen, its replacement was stolen, too, and at some point someone decided that the next one could not be pilfered. Selfish and egotistical, of course, for some soul to decide I shall have Satch's horn, and the rest of the world be damned, but human weakness and folly knows no limits or end.

Louis and Lucille Armstrong purchased a house in Queens, and there Satch lived the last of his years. There are many stories of Satchmo hanging out with neighborhood kids, of his going to the local barbershop; what we at times fail to take to account is that celebrities are also people, and not just idols: they need to buy groceries and get their hair cut, too.

I visited the house once, some years ago. Queens College has his papers and effects; Louis collected everything, and he was an inveterate diarist: he recorded his observations in reel-to-reel tape and had a vast collection of those tapes.

In fact, Queens was home to a good number of jazz musicians, other than Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke. There is a section in southeast Queens where a coterie of jazz musicians bought houses, Ella Fitzgerald and Fats Waller and Milt Jackson and Lena Horne among them; not far from there, John Coltrane lived on the second floor of a house on Mexico Street. I shall visit that area later this year, perhaps in early spring.

After various circuits around the cemetery without success in finding the Armstrong graves, I walked back home. By then it was four o'clock, and the afternoon was turning chilly (which didn't compare with the Arctic blast we had suffered with for three days, but was still cold). As I walked along 46th Avenue I passed by Punjabi Restaurant, where, earlier in the afternoon, I had bought a pair of delicious vegetable samosa.

Not half a mile from home, as I walked north along 149th Street, I suddenly saw a large bird swoop across my field of vision. I knew this was no pigeon. Besides, it moved its wings in a graceful motion. I followed it visually, and once I saw it land I carefully rushed closer as I took my trusty camera out of my pocket. I got a decent shot of it. Laura, an avid birder, took a good look and pronounced it a red-shouldered hawk. Not only did my wife, a librarian, cite sources, she showed them to me: Sibley (ISBN: 9780679451228) and Crossley (ISBN: 9780691147789).

I could clearly see she was indeed right (not that I doubted her).

I followed that bird when it took off and landed in trees a long block away, but I could not get another photo of it. Nonetheless, I think I got a good one. A bird of prey in Flushing (I think we could use more of those).