THOUGH it’s a good problem to have, I’ve now accumulated a very large backlog of photos to use in Forgotten NY. In 2026 alone I have taken nearly 5000 photos with just over three months left in the year. Part of it is because I have made a more concerted effort to get out and walk (despite age-related orthopedic and digestive issues) and I recall I couldn’t get out much from last December to March as it was quite windy and icy the past winter. Many forecasters say a strong El Niño will produce a relatively mild winter but we’ll see. In August 2025 I shot a couple of hundred photos in two separate trips in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, much of which I have yet to use. Hopefully many of them will find their way to the website soon.
I have never gotten a full handle on Brooklyn’s Ocean Avenue, which stands in place of East 20th Street and runs from Flatbush Avenue at Prospect Park south to Emmons Avenue facing the bay. Even when I was bicycling through Brooklyn from 1973-1993 when I lived there when young, I always found Ocean Avenue fairly boring except the stretch facing Prospect Park at its north end, which has interesting apartment buildings. And, there was also this wooden bridge at its south end.
Spanning Sheepshead Bay just west of Ocean Avenue is a weird, wooden bridge with a low fence that looks as if you could easily jump over it into the bay, or even get knocked over if sufficiently jostled. The bridge has a very old pedigree: it was first opened by long Island Rail Road king Austin Corbin in 1880, and after a few false starts (Corbin kept closing the bridge since he thought “undesirables” would frequent his development, then-exclusive Manhattan Beach) it has been continuously open since then. It’s called the Ocean Avenue Bridge, even though it’s a block west of Ocean Avenue. The avenue continues in Manhattan Beach between Shore and Oriental Boulevards.
Far as I know, you can still get a ticket for riding a bicycle across the bridge; one time, as I was crossing, I discovered one of the wooden rail sections missing, making a dip in the bay a real possibility for the unwary. The bridge was lit by mini-versions of the old Belt Parkway “woodie” poles; faux bishop crook fixtures were installed in the late 1990s. The bridge recently went a renovation that thankfully did not erase its rough hewn charm.
Check out the ForgottenBook (HarperCollins, 2006), as well as Forgotten Queens (Arcadia, 2013). I also have a chapter in the anthology “New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg” (Reaktion, 2007). As always, “comment…as you see fit.” I earn a small payment when you click on any ad on the site.
9/22/26