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From The New York Shitty Photo Pool: Vidar
Filed under: Brooklyn, Stuff That Makes Miss Heather Happy, Sunset Park, Sunset Park Brooklyn
Chris Arnade (who took the above photograph) writes:
Vidar, 89, left Norway on a whaling ship at the age of 15 just prior to the start of WWII. Unable to return because of the war he joined the Merchant Marines, working as a gunner on cargo ships plying the North Atlantic. Four times he survived being sunk; once he was adrift in a life boat for five days.
After the war he immigrated to the then predominately Norwegian neighborhood of Sunset Park, Brooklyn where he found jobs on fishing boats. A hurricane in ’56 led to another rescue at sea. “That was enough. I moved to working on tug boats.” He retired in 1983. He recently was awarded the St. Olaf’s medal by the King for his service to Norway during the war.
I met him in one of my favorite bars in NYC, the Soccer Tavern (Soccer tavern one and Soccer tavern two). He had his first drink there in ’43 while in the Merchant Marines, and still tries to make it a few times a week. The neighborhood now is almost all Chinese, and the regulars, a mixture of Irish and Chinese, like to talk about the bar as the only Chirish bar in New York. “Back then there used to be six bars on this block. Now this is the only one in the whole area.”
From the New York Shitty Photo Pool, Part II: At The Laundromat
Filed under: New York City
Taken by hanshendley.
From The New York Shitty Photo Pool: BFF
Filed under: Brooklyn, East New York, East New York Brooklyn, New York City, Stuff That Makes Miss Heather Happy
Chris Arnade (who took the above photograph) writes:
Jason (10) and his godbrother Derick (12) where playing in front of their house on an otherwise industrial stretch of Atlantic Avenue where they have been living with their mother for the last few years. While they were showing me their karate moves a rush of police cars came screaming by, headed a few blocks away where a woman was shot.
Derick told me that when he grows up he wants to be an NFL quarterback. Jason wants to be an artist; he spends his free time drawing Manga. Both insisted I come back and take pictures of them breaking boards with their bare hands, like “real karate masters.”
From The New York Shitty Photo Pool: Ruben & Lefty
Chris Arnade (who took the above photo) writes:
Rubin called me this week and told me I had to come up and see something amazing. One of his pigeons had given birth to a baby with only one wing. Both Rubin and Vinny, life-long pigeon keepers, had never seen anything like it in over 40 years of flying and breeding pigeons.
They let me know that they were going to do everything they could to make sure the pigeon stayed healthy and safe. When the mothers start trying to push the babies out of the nest (in a few weeks) they will transfer this one to a special cage they built. They still haven’t come up with a name yet, although they are leaning towards “Lefty.” I suggested “Wingy” or “Uno,” but they are welcoming other suggestions.
NYS Flickr Pool
