A Wiseguy Ossuary
August 14, 2015 11:23 PM Subscribe
Although most New Yorkers haven't been there, the Hole hides in plain sight. Many pass it on the way to John F Kennedy International Airport, on a bleak road above which jets wheeze in on their final descent toward the runways along Jamaica Bay. Behind a tatty curtain of trees and weeds, there is a strange depression in the land, as if a sinkhole had opened here on the desultory border between Brooklyn and Queens. It looks less like a New York neighbourhood than an Arkansas village, only with housing projects on the horizon instead of the Ozark Mountains. Welcome to the Hole.
> Go to the Hole now, before Starbucks arrives.
That's more or less the joke I was going to make.
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:01 AM on August 15, 2015
That's more or less the joke I was going to make.
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:01 AM on August 15, 2015
I love hearing about weird hidden places like that but there's some seriously bad and overwrought writing in that article.
posted by octothorpe at 4:30 AM on August 15, 2015 [12 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 4:30 AM on August 15, 2015 [12 favorites]
there's some seriously bad and overwrought writing in that article.
There certainly is. Also, "Every city has a shadow city." But this one's in New York.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:33 AM on August 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
There certainly is. Also, "Every city has a shadow city." But this one's in New York.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:33 AM on August 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
What a grand bit of touristic poverty fetishism.
posted by wotsac at 6:16 AM on August 15, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by wotsac at 6:16 AM on August 15, 2015 [7 favorites]
Anyone here seen/met/joined the Cowboys?
posted by the quidnunc kid at 6:31 AM on August 15, 2015
posted by the quidnunc kid at 6:31 AM on August 15, 2015
Jets "wheeze" in to JFK? I swear to FSM I've never heard a jet "wheeze".
posted by five fresh fish at 7:08 AM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by five fresh fish at 7:08 AM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
The sewer system doesn't reach this part of town AND I have a garden. I guess I don't live in the developed world, either.
Also, you keep making reference to how the area is below sea level, yet you can't figure out how the Hole got its name?!
posted by Ruki at 7:23 AM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Also, you keep making reference to how the area is below sea level, yet you can't figure out how the Hole got its name?!
posted by Ruki at 7:23 AM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
I swear to FSM I've never heard a jet "wheeze".
Neither have I. I live by an airport that sees everything from fighter jets to Beechcraft to something like all of the new 737 waiting for delivery. I've heard jets moan, whine, scream, roar and grumble. But never can I recall a jet wheeze.
It must be one of those British things, like how British cats don't say 'meow' they say 'caw-caw'.
posted by wotsac at 7:34 AM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Neither have I. I live by an airport that sees everything from fighter jets to Beechcraft to something like all of the new 737 waiting for delivery. I've heard jets moan, whine, scream, roar and grumble. But never can I recall a jet wheeze.
It must be one of those British things, like how British cats don't say 'meow' they say 'caw-caw'.
posted by wotsac at 7:34 AM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
five fresh fish: "Jets "wheeze" in to JFK? I swear to FSM I've never heard a jet "wheeze"."
Never talked to a jet with a chest cold, eh?
posted by Splunge at 7:39 AM on August 15, 2015
Never talked to a jet with a chest cold, eh?
posted by Splunge at 7:39 AM on August 15, 2015
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze
posted by Segundus at 7:43 AM on August 15, 2015
posted by Segundus at 7:43 AM on August 15, 2015
I think a jet wheezing is not something you want to hear; certainly not if it's airborne with you on it.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 7:44 AM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Kirth Gerson at 7:44 AM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think in maps. Google Maps doesn't have "The Hole" as a polygon, but I take it this is the far eastern end of what it calls East New York, or just west of Lindenwood? Going on geography and the reference in that excellent NYT article to Emerald/Ruby/Sapphire St.
It reminds me a little of Dogpatch in SF. That tiny neighborhood is now on the map thanks to the general real estate craziness as well as a new streetcar line.
posted by Nelson at 7:47 AM on August 15, 2015
It reminds me a little of Dogpatch in SF. That tiny neighborhood is now on the map thanks to the general real estate craziness as well as a new streetcar line.
posted by Nelson at 7:47 AM on August 15, 2015
I swear to FSM I've never heard a jet "wheeze"
What, you don't remember the Vinny Testaverde era?
posted by key lime guy at 8:30 AM on August 15, 2015 [5 favorites]
What, you don't remember the Vinny Testaverde era?
posted by key lime guy at 8:30 AM on August 15, 2015 [5 favorites]
We have the neighborhood of Duck Hollow which is so isolated that firetrucks can't get to it.
posted by octothorpe at 9:05 AM on August 15, 2015
posted by octothorpe at 9:05 AM on August 15, 2015
Great, another article where people are SHOCKED! SHOCKED! that there are some run down areas in the NYC area. See also: Willets Point.
NYC isn't just skyscrapers in Manhattan, it's a gigantic, arbitrarily defined geographic area. If you like ruin porn, just cross the Hudson; a lot of areas in NJ look similarly miserable and are much closer to Manhattan than "The Hole", even if they aren't within the legal boundaries of New York City.
"This is the true New York," wrote urban explorer Kevin Walsh of Forgotten New York, a photography project chronicling the city's overlooked areas. "This is NYC with pretense and artifice stripped away."
Oh, please. I swear for some people "any really run down area" is somehow synonymous with "true New York." Maybe the truest New York is one of those uninhabited islands in Jamaica Bay.
posted by pravit at 9:30 AM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
NYC isn't just skyscrapers in Manhattan, it's a gigantic, arbitrarily defined geographic area. If you like ruin porn, just cross the Hudson; a lot of areas in NJ look similarly miserable and are much closer to Manhattan than "The Hole", even if they aren't within the legal boundaries of New York City.
"This is the true New York," wrote urban explorer Kevin Walsh of Forgotten New York, a photography project chronicling the city's overlooked areas. "This is NYC with pretense and artifice stripped away."
Oh, please. I swear for some people "any really run down area" is somehow synonymous with "true New York." Maybe the truest New York is one of those uninhabited islands in Jamaica Bay.
posted by pravit at 9:30 AM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Wow Duck Hollow is amazing. Looks like the kid of place where you'd dump a sackful of puppies in the river and wash your sadness away with a can of beer.
I didn't think to check Wikimapia for The Hole. Here's their take on the polygon. Wikipedia has a thin article that puts the center here. North of Linden Blvd; Google has those streets in the Lindenwood polygon.
Wikimapia also links this article from Curbed which has some photos and a map.
posted by Nelson at 9:35 AM on August 15, 2015
I didn't think to check Wikimapia for The Hole. Here's their take on the polygon. Wikipedia has a thin article that puts the center here. North of Linden Blvd; Google has those streets in the Lindenwood polygon.
Wikimapia also links this article from Curbed which has some photos and a map.
posted by Nelson at 9:35 AM on August 15, 2015
"A Wiseguy Ossuary" sounds like a line from a James McMurtry song.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:34 AM on August 15, 2015
posted by benito.strauss at 10:34 AM on August 15, 2015
This is a 5 block area in a city of 304 square miles.
Seriously overwrought. If you can't find 5 blocks of something like this any city, you're not looking hard enough.
The article was very, "It was a dark night in a city that never sleeps...".
posted by herda05 at 11:47 AM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Seriously overwrought. If you can't find 5 blocks of something like this any city, you're not looking hard enough.
The article was very, "It was a dark night in a city that never sleeps...".
posted by herda05 at 11:47 AM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Never talked to a jet with a chest cold, eh?
Jet pertussis is horrifying. Get your aircraft vaccinated!
posted by five fresh fish at 12:47 PM on August 15, 2015
Jet pertussis is horrifying. Get your aircraft vaccinated!
posted by five fresh fish at 12:47 PM on August 15, 2015
It must be one of those British things, like how British cats don't say 'meow' they say 'caw-caw'.
Only if they've been to Eton.
posted by arcticseal at 9:43 PM on August 15, 2015
Only if they've been to Eton.
posted by arcticseal at 9:43 PM on August 15, 2015
Jet Wheezing happens to be my Wu-Tang Clan name.
posted by Chitownfats at 12:16 AM on August 16, 2015
posted by Chitownfats at 12:16 AM on August 16, 2015
Metafilter: The kind of place where you'd dump a sackful of puppies in the river and wash your sadness away with a can of beer.
posted by sneebler at 8:01 AM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by sneebler at 8:01 AM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
So it's just a neighborhood in NYC?
posted by gucci mane at 4:51 AM on August 18, 2015
posted by gucci mane at 4:51 AM on August 18, 2015
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posted by 1970s Antihero at 3:30 AM on August 15, 2015 [3 favorites]