I recently took a lengthy walk recently from Oakwood Heights down to Oakwood Beach in Staten Island, continuing on a fairly straight course back through Midland and South Beaches before catching a bus back to Brooklyn. I’ll touch on this trip further in future pages, though I think I covered Midland Beach fairly comprehensively in 2015. The region varies, from gorgeous Victorian-era houses to empty, flooded lanes that were once more densely occupied until Hurricane Sandy hit them in 2012.
Two major roads link all these communities–Hylan Boulevard, which I generally avoid in my walks since here, it’s an endless parade of honking cars, fast food joints and shopping malls, and Father Capodanno Boulevard, which bruits its way through nothingness for most of its length, from Lilypond to Midland Avenues. Father (Vincent) Capodanno Boulevard was named for a Staten Island priest who won a posthumous Medal of Honor for his actions under fire during the war in Vietnam in 1967. I’m old enough to remember when it was called Seaside Boulevard.
At Seaview Avenue, traffic is controlled by massive stoplight stanchions, giving the intersection more of a western or midwestern look; at busy intersections, NYC stoplights are generally beefed up versions of the octagonally-sided NYC streetlamp, with a heavy mastarm supported by guy wires. For some reason the Department of Transportation is using these massive stoplights here. Could it be a pilot program? These seem too large to really make their home elsewhere, though I can see them being used on Linden Boulevard or Kings Highway in Brooklyn, which are also very wide streets.
The mastarms are heavy enough to support illuminated versions of the large cross street signs that were introduced at busy intersections around 2005 or so. I like these! I suppose they’re too heavy to use on the guy-wired stoplights. They include nearby house numbers.
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11/19/18