NYC Flea Market

channel buoy
photo by LK, thanks!

Hi everyone! So today while we wait for the Verizon phone repair guy, let's go back a week and check out the famous 6th Avenue Flea Market in Manhattan. It is actually on 25th between 6th and Broadway. I found it on the Saturday we went to the green market and returned the following day.

Hmmm. Fun but not fabulous, very urban, kinda, well..crappy? Cool. though.

It is billed as NYC premier antiques flea market....and true to the Paris origins of flea markets [old clothes w/ fleas back in medieval times] there are a LOT of racks and even piles of old clothes.

Not so tempting.

On the plus side, a few real dealers, with the things I like.

I promised myself no more brown Staffordshire china! So I passed that booth up.
Then there are a lot of bead sellers, mostly African beads/ dealer but a few vintage sellers too.

The African beads are fabulous! Expensive though.

I can make an upscale I survived Sandy necklace,

 or bracelets...

I loved the large recycled-glass beads....

Also a man who had neat tiki amulets...

And the African textiles are amazing!

I loved them and had hoped to return to buy one or two to incorporate into a quilt, but that didn't happen. [next time?]

They also had African bead work items, even chairs! And chests and ottamans. I so wanted one of those chairs, far right, [so sad the pix aren't great, sorry...]So fantastic...

These were long strips of all white tiny beads, about 8" wide. I wish I had captured the texture better. They looked like heavily quilted white work.

Then a familiar face! A dealer I have been buying from for years..on Long Island, has relocated to the city. As always his was the booth I loved, filled with graniteware, mason jars, butter crocks, and old dump dug bottles and buttons. My eyes latched onto this crock and I knew i had to have it.

It is BIG! And old.

I love the way the brown slip glaze on the top third is warty and spotty,

 and the prim stamped blue 2...

Great find, great price, fun to see an old friend---see, I told you YC is a very small town, in its own way.....

Lucky for me I was with a guy who was willing to tote around the big heavy crock all day, once I bought  it! Thank you, M!

PS Many thanks to everyone who has asked me about hurricane relief donations.
I hesitate to endorse any specific charity, but pet relief / relocation is always so needed. These poor creatures do not understand what has happened to them; one moment they were warm, fed, loved and cherished/ the next the icy dark water took away their people and homes! And need our help and love.
Large organizations such as the Red Cross and Salvation Army do a good job, so maybe this holiday season toss a dollar into the SA guy's pot and think of us here in NY?

Red Cross/ Sandy Relief

North Shore Animal League/ Rescuing Sandy Pets

[a very fine no-kill shelter organization here on LI]

If you are a sewer/ quilter: here

                                         

I have no personal interaction with any of these groups and am NOT asking you to donate. Follow your hearts and brains...

love

           lizzy


      gone to the beach.....

our red channel buoy
Usually it is out there where the big ships travel.
one each-red/green/white
photo by LK



sunset
photo by LK



Today's beach pix were taken by my friend LK. Thank you, L! NYC and flea mkt pix by me....

Beach Treasures

 Hi! The ocean brought treasures..in a ''make lemonade out of lemons'' kind of way.

I love finding old bottles...

These are  NOT antiques but nicely seaglass-weathered...

One of the neatest finds is what we think is the ribs and keel? of an old boat! Very old, perhaps 19th century.

I had utilized the shipwreck as a photo shoot prop before I realised what I was seeing! Looks like a spine! The huge heavy nails once attached cross beams, like the one holding the bottles. A lower hold deck? Note that I am guessing here....

A larger ship was rediscovered on Fire Island after the hurricane.



from Newsday's Facebook page



Then there's all this great driftwood!

I am restraining myself but...

a fish?

Cool coffee table? The piece on the left?

And a pair of rusty jungle bells and striped angel-stockings knit fabric, for my winter-y dolls.

Amazing to find such a tiny bit of usefulness, isn't it?

Here's a little cutie captured at the edge of one of my landscape pics. I've never seen a squirrel this close to the dunes.

Other creatures:
ALL the kitties came to visit. First night only mama Kitty came, next day the whole gang. I was so happy to see them.
They don't like the kibble I brought them though!? I know...they are waiting for their Nathan's hotdogs, who knew feral cats could be so spoiled and finicky?

No mockingbirds yet, and no flock of spotted sparrows. I am enticing then with seeds and dried berries..and hopeful.
[I fed the kibble to the gulls and crows at the beach...]

love

      lizzy

        gone to the beach

Self portrait on dune

PS be sure to scroll to previous post for after storm hurricane pix! Below....

Back to the Beach

11.15.12

Hi!
I am home, and all is well. My photos are safely moved to my big computer, no more itsy-bitsy netbook for me. My son fixed the wonky wifi last night, don't you just love having kids?! I was gonna show you more NYC but of course first thing I did, well after a couple loads of laundry, was run out to my beach. So I'll show you NYC flea markets this weekend, because for now...we are going to the beach!
[Can you tell how happy I am?]

This is what I saw:
east....

west:

Straight ahead, south...very peaceful now, isn't it....

East-south-east, out the Long Island coastline.....

Back towards the north, or bay...

geese, headed to the golf course,lol. not south

My little friend!? He waddled right over for his bread!

These are the highest inner dunes now. They survived though very changed.

The dull color is from the the seawater; it kills the green plants' leaves/ stems, though the roots survive. You can see the swales, the water behind the reeds. These semi-natural swales give normal storm surges room to flood but usually not overwhelm.

The above dunes are the ones I showed you a few weeks ago, when they were high rolling ''hills'' covered with pines, bayberry, heather, woolly grey lambs-ear, moss, and seagrass....

October '12



Oct 2012

 
The outer dunes now, seen in the far distance in the above pic,

...are, well, gone; [above] though I suppose the sand is there somewhere.

 More outer dunes, gone after Sandy .

To the east again,
Now...

before...

And the familiar boardwalk, now.[note the dunes on each side, once perhaps 20 feet high, are gone!

before

now

before

before

Now we know why these signs are here! Or were here. But the beach will recover. When I first moved here there were no dunes at all, not a speck of vegetation , just hundreds of feet of pristine white sand. A lady in our community fought hard to get these dunes built! We planted seagrass, dug swales or catch basins, so more plants would grow; beach roses and bayberry were introduced. This took years...but her vision  saved my tiny community. And the beach will rebuild on the bones left behind.

10.25.12

Speaking of bones...tomorrow I'll do a separate post, part two..with all my cool beach finds---antique/ bottles, driftwood, and a very old 19th century shipwreck!

so please check back!

Thanks to Surf Fire Island for this interesting Sandy data:

Buoy 44065 saw a 32.5' wave height at 8:50pm on October 29; this buoy is located near the entrance to New York Harbor, roughly 15 nautical miles southeast of Breezy Point, NY. This exceeded the previous record of 26' set at about 9am on August 28th, 2011, associated with Hurricane Irene.

Buoy 44025, which is roughly 30 nautical miles south of Islip, NY, a record 31' wave height was recorded at about 8pm on the same evening. This exceeded the previous record of 30 feet set on December 11, 1992.

I guess I should be glad we couldn't these waves, it got so dark! Now just a memory....

love

      lizzy

gone to the beach.....!

and from Fire Island, NY, so apropos...if misspelled!


 ''*we're* coming back''



PS  Today, Nov 15th, 17 days after Sandy destroyed much of the NY/ NJ shoreline and many communites in ignored Long Island...President Obama finally did a flyover! He didn't stop, mind you, he FLEW over. He did stop in Staten Isalnd where the guy interviewed on TV said, ''...I thought it was just a publicity thing, you know, a photo op...''.

Yeah, me too.

I didn't look it up but I bet it didn't take  the president almost three weeks to go to NO after Katrina. [*Bush flew over NO 2 days after Katrina; he was highly criticized fpr not putting''boots on the ground.'' This is not a political blog. I believe a show of Presidential leadership is essential during a crisis. I do not live in NYC, Bllomberg is not my mayor; so his refusal to have FEMA prior help is not  relevant to my area.

No more politics here. Ever. I promise.]