On May 3, 2026, I spent the afternoon walking around the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook with a friend. That walk led to my May 25, 2026 report on seeing a large warehouse fire in Belleville, New Jersey, from across the river. I took the photo of smoke rising from the Garden State that I used in my reportage at 3:59 PM. Now let us skip ahead 51 minutes to 4:50.
After admiring the scenic water views (admittedly interrupted by the troubling smoke rising from New Jersey), my friend and I continued walking along the water in Red Hook. On one of the piers, we happened upon a seemingly randomly placed park bench composed of concrete and wooden slats (not uncommon in New York City). That would not have been too unusual – even in consideration of its random placement – but for the fact that the wooden slats where one would sit were broken, and the two sides of the bench were angled inward instead of being straight and parallel to one another.
My friend noticed the bench first and pointed it out. I noted that I thought it was curious, and was prepared to continue walking. But then she demanded to know whether this bench was not good enough to document and write about. Here, I should add, that this was the same friend who tried to guilt-trip me about not photographing a stuffed animal she had rescued in Williamsburg (after I had documented a BLOB DYLAN), which led to my not only documenting it, but also making it the center-piece of an unexpectedly long article. Not one to back down from a challenge, I took four photographs of the broken bench on a pier in Red Hook, and I present them for your visual enjoyment below.
This first photo came as we were walking back from the end of the pier.
Here, I captured it from its “better” side (it is all relative I suppose). It does not look “too” broken from this angle, although you can see the left side is facing inward.
I conclude with a close over-head shot, also featuring my shadow. Here, you can see that the left side of the seat is not only broken, but also partially missing, We also see that some slats appear to have been pulled from the “less” broken aside. We can see the right is missing three nails and the left two.
I did not come up with an explanation for the randomly placed broken bench. There are many old warehouses that have been converted into shops and studios in the area, so I assume that one of them was responsible for the bench. Speaking of which, my friend and I picked up coffee at a coffee shop called Cafe Here at 499 Van Brunt Street (see approximate location) in one of the converted warehouse spaces not far from the broken bench (it may have been the same pier but I am not 100% certain). I purchased an Americano – in part because buying coffee out is expensive and that was the “budget” espresso option. It was good.
