There are more streets still sporting their original brick or Belgian block pavements than you may think. There are still dozens, as a matter of fact… here are some of them.
If not for the cars, this picture could be from the 1930s!
Tiny Bay Ridge Place, in Bay Ridge, is still awaiting the tar coating that other Bay Ridge streets have. Here the January midwinter light illuminates the brickwork.
Another block-paved street in Brooklyn is Coffey Street in Red Hook. Both Bay Ridge and Red Hook have been able to keep their beautiful brownstone buildings, as well as a few Belgian-blocked pavements.
The block of Joralemon Street between Hicks and Furman still has its glorious Belgian stones. This is in historic Brooklyn Heights.
Poking through the pavement at 2rd Avenue and East 11th Street.
Tucked between West and Washington Streets just north of Charles Street, Charles Lane in Greenwich Village was once the northern boundary of a state prison.
It’s said that Thomas Pynchon worked onGravity’s Rainbow here; and what better street could the reclusive Pynchon find than this cobblestoned oddity trailing off from the waterfront?
Tiffany Place in appropriately-named Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.
2003: we’re told Tiffany Place is undergoing “renovations”, not entirely for the better.
Back in Red Hook, we frequently encounter streets paved in a circular fashion, like these on Van Dyke Street.
My guess is that the workmen, kneeling down to pave the street back in the 1800s, bricked the streets as far as they could reach–forcing them to work in a circle.
8/31/1998