Across The River

Photos: © Stan B.I was walking out of my mother's nursing home when I was hit with the hottest wind I ever experienced in my life, unnaturally hot, radioactively hot, and having grown up in NY, having experienced many a NYC summer, I realized- this is most definitely not normal! It was 98 degrees that day and the major reason I wasn't spending extended periods of time pounding sweltering midtown city streets in the little time I had. So, I continued my Queens bound journey to Long Island City- what I once termed "the armpit of NY." For decades it was the land forgotten by time, one of the last stops before Manhattan on the 7 IRT subway line. Not many people lived there and it wasn't anything even remotely resembling a city, the area immediately surrounding said subway stop was just a stagnant, malignant area of decay- like a hoarder's long forgotten and abandoned living space. The area adjoining it was a mixture of longtime residents living in small residential communities separated…