(Note: Click all PANOs once – and sometimes twice – to fully-enlarge)

 

 

Another sparsely-attended number of days this month (13)………….with the first one being on:

 

APRIL 6

Don’t ask me what’s going on in these pictures…………..

 

APRIL 7

I saw this truck pull up in back and this guy with the striped legs walking away from it. Dunno what he did:

 

APRIL 8

More roof work going on:

 

APRIL 9

TONS of HVAC equipment being brought up to the roof, plus the crane on Passaic St:

 

APRIL 10

Four more Passaic St views and three from inside the State St driveway:

7pix

 

APRIL 11

The roof view from home:

We’ll see this view again on the 24th.

 

APRIL 13

Window frame work and security work on the State St side:

 

APRIL 14

A few more tons of roof material and a few more window bits on the State St side (in the order I took them:

PANO:

 

APRIL 18

Recently, you’ve seen LOTS of garbage being thrown down from above. Most of it’s now gone:

 

APRIL 23

You might be able to see the word “STYROFOAM” on these gray panels. Right under that are two more words: “Scoreboard Insulation” (these apartments have scoreboards?):

PANOs:

 

Later, I took a walk around the project……..

Main St side (note the scaffolding – you’ll see more later):

 

PANOs:

 

Passaic St side:

Two more from inside the State St driveway:

 

Lately, there hasn’t appeared to be anything happening on the roof, so maybe it’s a good time to check in with the project manager about doing a roof shoot, now that all (I think) of the HVAC equipment is up there.

He agreed, but his days of availability wound up being predicted to be either rainy or cloudy. Of course, us fussy photographers can’t have that (I needed PM sun) and April was running out of days (and I haven’t shot that many to begin with, so – long story short – I switched some things around one day from PM to AM, PM was good for him that day and it was sunny, so we got it done on the last Friday of the month – April 24, sooooooo………………

 

April 24

………..After a few shots from home:

 

PANO:

 

 

I put on my hat (AND their hat) and went to work (some fashion statement, huh?):

Besides the roof shots, I also wanted to get some interior shots to show any noticeable changes since last time. That was no problem since we had to climb the stairs anyway to get to the roof and stopped on a few of the floors.

You may recall that I wanted to get shots of where all the garbage that was tossed from higher floors landed. Unfortunately, most of it had already been cleaned up and all I got was this:

 

The first (and strangest) thing I saw was men working on stilts! I took a very quick shot as we approached them (in case they were anti-photo)………so quick that I cut off the feet of the closest one.

As we passed them, Chris (project manager) said something to them about “history” – a reference to the picture-taking stranger in their midst and I waved my phone at them and then the strangest thing happened:

They froze in place, closed their eyes while a non-stilted fellow worker hid his face:

I think I’ll call it “Statues on Stilts”.

 

You think that’s strange?

 

Check out this unusual image:

Why is there a ladder that – if climbed – leads to sure death?

Welcome to the Suicide Suite!

 

Next up, we come to “Urinario Solamente”….. and – in case you can’t figure out that simple Spanish phrase – an illustration has been provided to help you decipher it:

Now the question is……….is this a temporary setup for the workers or is this the bathroom of a really cheap apartment?

 

This is some crazy apartment building!

 

Lastly, here’s a PANO of the electrical room:

 

 

Time to hit the roof! (PANO City)

 

The view looking north (we just came out of the staircase – the cinder block structure to the right of center):

 

The view looking west (my apartment is that yellow-brick structure near the center):

 

The inner courtyard and the gray next-door neighbor at 389 Main St:

(Note the sloped, white area under my watermark and its position relative to 389 Main. Why? Because it’s the next PANO.

 

So the project manager asked me what I thought was the purpose of this raised slant:

“To deny the horny oglers at 389 Main the view of your gorgeous sunbathing-on-the-roof tenants?”

His answer was somewhat disappointing……….something about snow drifts.

I’ll let you figure that one out.

 

Back story:

During April, I would try to look closely from home at the roof structures to determine what time of day was most photographically advantageous sun-wise (what was lit-up, what looked better in shadows, etc.).

I used the structures next to the staircase to figure that out and it turned out that afternoon was best (see the top part of the below image – I took that on the afternoon of April 11).

I took the bottom closeup 13 days later after we found a time that worked for both of us:

It’s more than just taking pictures whenever. A little research goes a long way.

 

FINISHING UP ON THE ROOF – THE EAST VIEW

For some reason, there was a sheet that was higher than the roof (and higher than I could see, so my only option was to try a panoramic shot held high from left to right, which would make the middle more visible and the sides less so.

This side is the front of the building on Main St. To make things more difficult, the entire front had scaffolding covering it (PANO):

But I managed to include a lot of good stuff (even though I was shooting blindly), from the Sears tower on the far left, to parts of the Hackensack River (center) to Midtown Manhattan (on the far right horizon).

 

Note: See that wide part of the river just to the right of center? That wasn’t visible the last time I shot from up here a few months ago. See that big cleared area just beneath the river? The Hackensack YMCA building stood there for 99 years until its luck ran out on Friday the 13th, this past February.

 

Here’s THAT story: https://www.hackensacknow.org/index.php/topic,4293.0.html

 

Unfortunately for the tenant who rents the top-floor apartment below where I’m standing, that river view will be lost again sometime in the near future when yet another (taller/expensive-to-live-in) building takes the Y’s place.

So this may be one of the last river view shots from this location for the next couple hundred years.

 

Here’s a tighter shot with more Manhattan and less white sheet (the Empire State Building is the last building on the far right):

 

And here’s the last roof PANO, which shows the river, used car lots, a riverfront park called Foschini, new residential structures, Midtown Manhattan, and a nice view down Main St (that tallest building with the sculpture on top used to be a bank) PANO:

(NOTE: except for the view down Main St, I can see all these things from my living room)

 

SO………….the roof shoot is done.

 

Chris walks me down to the Passaic St-side garage entrance (where we started an hour or so ago) and I take one last site PANO shot of wood and bricks and all sorts of delivered construction materials that maybe I’ll see again some day in a different form:

So the roof shoot is done…………..but I’m not.

 

There are a couple of shots I still need on the State St side, starting with a PANO of that whole side:

You can see a little of neighbor 389 Main on the far left (by the tree).

 

As I was shooting that PANO, I noticed something on the street and recognized it as a small piece of the insulation(?) I shot being delivered to the upper floors this morning (the first 3 shots of this post).

For good measure, I paired it with a closeup of the piece, which leads to one last question……………

How much extra does it cost to have a scoreboard in your apartment?

 

Still not done.

 

Between the two structures is a common driveway, whose gate hasn’t been down much lately………….which lets me slip in and shoot a couple of shots not generally available to me (or the public):

 

The wall on the immediate right (small PANO):

 

…………and the ground view of the roof I was just on:

Notice the “snow drifts” slant below my © symbol?

 

I had nothing to shoot the next 4 days (which I was grateful for, given the previous day’s workload), but then on April 29 (Note: all images are ©Bob Leafe):

PANO:

OK – three things: I think the black hoodie says Satec (hard to read), which is an energy management firm, the guy in the red sweatshirt goes to Bergen Community College (but I think I saw him working on a lot of electrical stuff) and the long hauler in the last shot was stopped at a light (I thought it was there to pick up a crane).

 

April 30

Same two guys sharing giggles. I think the guy in the gray t-shirt is the guy in the fourth pic with a black jacket added. If not, it’s John Lennon…….and he appears to have spotted me. And I have no idea what his jacket says.

PANO:

 

 

Good way to end the month………

 

NOW I’m done! (except for all the computer uploading, photo editing, watermarking, this writeup and building/combining everything into this WordPress post you’re now reading)

 

Was it worth it?

 

Or so says my living room window (and these 59 sequential photographs I took through that window……and 4 more from my kitchen window on the afternoon of April 11, 2026.)

 

Let’s start with the roof of that block-and-a-half-away project I’ve now been shooting for over a year. It’s finally rid of the tons of snow that buried it this past Winter and now shows something that resembles a colorful Spring-like abstract painting on the far right (which may be nothing more than a rusty trough), but it looks good.

Can the neighborhood request that it be moved to the center of the roof for a bit of Spring symmetry (Springetry)?:

 

The rest of the Shoot……………

 

Time to go food-shopping for – judging by the size of the unfolded cart – what might be 30 people (just a guess………..and click to enlarge):

 

Three casually-dressed strollers:

 

A wheelchair-bound gentleman and his phone (click to enlarge):

 

Three vehicles parked in the municipal lot behind my building. Any idea what the top one’s symbol on its rear window says?

 

Young lady with an interesting message on the bag handles:

(I won’t tell.)

 

B&W (photographic term) squared (click to enlarge):

 

Her bouquet is quite colorful, but it’s her black hoodie that says “PINK”:

 

The first of a few dogs out for a walk:

 

Three drivers entering/exiting/doing something else with their vehicles (click to enlarge):

 

One hand for bags and one for her phone:

 

Two cuties about to go for a walk (click to enlarge…..and make that THREE cuties):

 

Gotta take a hair break:

 

Looking for someone:

 

Found him (with a leftover double-buns shot on top):

 

Happy couples:

 

Somewhat less happy-looking couple in search of change for the meter:

 

Happily(?) hydrated:

 

A Happy Birthday balloon and another black top that says “PINK”:

 

Lively discussion (click first one to enlarge):

 

Wish I could read his top:

 

Not my sharpest shots, but in the bottom one, it appears that Fido’s looking to hydrate a tree trunk:

 

Seven floors almost directly below me were 8 shots just there for the taking………so I took them! (click to enlarge):

 

The sun was setting and I was in my kitchen scrounging for dinner when I saw this. As the plane got higher and higher, it was becoming less visible. After the fourth shot, it went out of view. I was surprised that I could see all (or most) of the plane in each one. Are those exhaust trails considered Spring colors?

 

 

A photographically-interesting afternoon at home, I must say.

 

I hope you enjoyed it.

 

 

MARCH 3

Dunno what they’re doing, but it looks like they’ve got a hell of a lot of work in front of (and behind) them:

 

MARCH 9

Workin’ on the pump jacks (the vertical components of scaffolding):

 

Sun on the unpacked deliveries:

 

Way up on the upper Typar……….

 

MARCH 11

Givin’ me the finger!

 

I’ve got a whole series on these two guys on top of the elevator shaft.

Sweepin’ and steppin’:

 

I had to work fast on this one! All of a sudden, a balloon rises from out of nowhere (click!), rises above the guys (click!) and then I had to run to the other side of my apartment to just barely catch it (click!) – right before the wind blew it out of view (click to enlarge):

What does it say? “Happy Valentines Day” (almost a month late)

Well, there’s my excitement for March……..

 

From out of nowhere (just like the balloon):

 

Trading places (click to enlarge):

 

Sudden (and kind of dangerous) building tilt:

 

Hanging on for dear life when it tilts back:

 

“Is it safe to let go?”

 

“Might as well fix something while I’m here……..”

 

Meanwhile, his “friend” sneaks up the ladder (1), knocks him out (2), ties his hands behind his back (3) and wires his feet together (4)………..and look at his face – has he been gagged?

 

King of the Hill:

 

Back to work:

 

“Who’s doin’ all the work here?”, he wonders as he pulls something from his back (second pic………what could THAT be?):

 

We finish the day with nobody doin’ nothin’ in mid-air on a windy day:

 

MARCH 12

Snowy day, windy night

 

MARCH 14

Tackling the massive delivery job on the roof:

 

Trying to figure out how to jam all that roof stuff into those super-drafty windows:

 

March 15

Guys working on a Sunday!

 

MARCH 16

“I heard there was a nosy photographer out there somewhere…..”

“I think I see him.”

 

MARCH 17

Some new shapes to see…..

 

MARCH 18

Did the wind knock this over?

 

Look at those long, painted fingernails on this gir……..uh, person!

 

Pushin’ and tossin’:

 

Tubular tossin’:

 

Slowly shrinking the load on the roof:

 

More tube tossin’:

That very last picture is the shot of the day. It’s not easy timing and framing a large item being tossed like that from 2 blocks away (as he pats himself on the back).

 

 

More stuff to toss:

This last one is a PANO:

 

MARCH 19

More rooftop chaos:

 

MARCH 20

Don’t know what the rectangular-ish red thing is, but it figured prominently in two shots:

 

I’m guessing the 3 things on his head are freshly-cut because he appears to still have a saw in his hands:

 

Tube sucks green stuff out of his ear…………dunno what Big Red Riding Hood is doing:

 

Also dunno what that crane is doing:

 

Never toss a garbage bag with a big hole in the bottom:

 

MARCH 21

Where all those tosses landed:

 

MARCH 24

4/5 of a hardhat conference:

 

“Who’s gonna get rid of all this garbage?”

“Who cares? Let’s just measure it.”

 

“Lookit that guy below me with the upside-down broom!”

 

Piecing together (click to enlarge first one):

 

MARCH 25

From a distance, I thought that green jacket was a person, so I had to frame him/her properly:

Not sure if the bottom two people are alive.

 

Sawing in mourning (the first time those three words have been put together):

 

This shows the same piece, the same guy, and the same pump jack/scaffolding……

 

Here’s that guy again from a couple of pix ago (fool me once…………):

 

“Look what I sawed!”

 

I think the saw is part of his hand……..

 

Two guys in each pic…………….well, maybe not:

 

Wrangling a shiny green snake (and a petrified brown one…………click to enlarge):

 

Greenie gets called for an encore (click to enlarge):

 

MARCH 26

Wish I knew what this thing was…………..

MARCH 28

Still haven’t got those drafty windows fixed:

 

MARCH 30

Related pictures:

 

MARCH 31

I thought the guy on the left lost half his leg…………until I saw the double foot on his ankle:

 

What! No saw?

 

Something about this very blue-eyed guy looks familiar:

 

The last March delivery:

 

Too bad this isn’t a video – I could show you a rolling square:

 

A very windy day (and there’s that darn green snake again!):

 

Too bad he can’t roll the roll:

 

And here’s what happened when it DID get unrolled:

 

 

I hadn’t done a walkaround in quite a while, so that was today’s main job.

Half of these are large panoramics. If you see the word PANO, click it once  to fully enlarge (Passaic St PANO takes two clicks).

 

The Main St PANO view:

 

Two Main and Passaic Streets corner views (only the second one is PANO):

 

Passaic Street PANO view:

 

Two other Passaic St images (the first one is PANO):

 

What is this – the day after Cabbage Night on Passaic St?

 

State St PANO view:

 

Inside view on the shared driveway between this project and 389 Main (on the State St side):

 

See you next month!

 

 

You may have seen this on TV. A 16-year-old boy was stabbed seven times on Central Ave by Union St at around 3pm. By the time police found him, he had made it to Banta Place. (Note: I didn’t have any idea what this was about until I saw the Channel 7 news at 5:20pm)

I started to hear the first helicopter (from Channel 7) at around 3:30pm, but it appeared to be high in the sky east of the river and stationary over Teaneck or possibly Bogota:

 

At about 4pm, the Channel 4 chopper showed up…..

 

…..followed by the combined Channels 2 and 5 helicopter at around 5pm:

 

I never saw all 3 choppers at the same time – usually, it was two, with Channel 7 being a constant:

1. Far away from Channel 4:

 

2. Far away from Channel 5:

 

3. Closer to and higher than Channel 4:

 

4. Turning away to go home (and close to Channel 4):

 

I followed its progress as it made an arc and went straight to Manhattan. That’s probably why I saw the first report on 7 and not 4. But a couple of seconds before I took this picture, they appeared to be – at least two-dimensionally – side-by-side (too bad I didn’t yet have them in focus).Here’s the latest report I could find:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/search-suspects-16-old-boy-113354918.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAKE3JrVyCak0lJsAwLdSyP4tbnpmdf8VzcAwJPeqLMk-gKxuhsNwQC8uZsrZY9WGagfQLqJKqCqoxIrDS2LuuvYFIE59LrQLKllhs1KqvqBaxpncIVu8gx7rgUlX3OJv0lSA6ipIcxVtJ_Nxsap9Zg6JeGXJgx1F92K7bfwjHLEG

 

Ooo – another Hackensack first! AND…another opportunity to get shirt-faced legitimately (hey – doesn’t the fact that the word “crawl” is used imply that participants willingly wind up unable to walk upright for some strange reason?).

 

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve got nothing against having a drink or twelve. In fact, later today, I just might…………..never mind.

 

Event details? This young lady was kind enough to post it all on Instagram (I hope she doesn’t take it down the day I post this).

Be sure to hit the sound button in the lower right of the image:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVwCTpzjmsr/

 

At the end, she mentions that there’s a trolley to get you from bar to bar. That’ll minimize your scraped knees from all that crawling.

 

It’ll be nice to see the Hackensack trolley again – I last saw it parked on Court Street at the Hackensack Christmas Tree Lighting in 2023…………a very festive and colorful vehicle:

 

Actually, I probably won’t see it during the crawl because I’ll be doing a condensed shoot during the very early afternoon because I’ll be busy the rest of the day. I just want to get a feel for what’ll be going on.

 

The best way to do that is to go almost all the way down Main St to the first stop at SideBar at 45 Main.

 

Here are some early pre-crawling arrivals:

One of them is taking pictures of something else.

 

I went across the street to see what it was he was shooting.

 

It was a major disappointment! The “trolley”:

Where’s the HACKENSACK trolley? There’s nothing festive about this one. Oh, wait! The back end is slightly festive:

But it’s not from Hackensack or even Bergen County……….try Hawthorne.

 

There would be nothing else worth shooting. This bland “trolley” would just be parked near 4 other bars/restaurants, so I was done.

Well, not quite.

 

About 2¼ hours later, from home, I saw it turning onto State St. It had just come off Main St after leaving the last stop on the crawl – Noches de Colombia at 382 Main:

 

The rear end of the “trolley” – a fitting ending.

 

Hope y’all had fun.

 

 

The Arts Center (click to enlarge) is located at 675 Goffle Rd (off Rt.208):

 

 

I finally had time to go see this on March 18, but only after I put in a couple of grueling hours at two very difficult New Jersey institutions: The DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) and a motor vehicle inspection station with a very long line of cars. (I had to put up with the first before I was eligible to “enjoy” the second).

I DID get to enjoy taking an unusual photo as my car was being driven to its endpoint (when was the last time you saw a 100-foot-long coupe with 8 wheels and multiple windshields?) Click to enlarge:

BTW – it just celebrated its 28th birthday and still hasn’t gotten to 30,000 miles yet (but it’s close). Added bonus: it passed inspection! I don’t have to go back now for 2 years! Yay!

 

Onward to Passaic County!

 

I had never been to this building before, but found it easily because my friend Eric Leefe used to live just down the street from it.

The house was built in 1810 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

 

The exhibit occupied the basement and the two floors above it. I met Isabella Costa – a museum specialist for the Passaic County Department of Cultural & Historic Affairs – who told me what was where and off I went.

After seeing some mildly-interesting items…

…I walked into a room and was very surprised by what I saw. I went back to get Isabella and told her that I wanted to show her some things!

 

Upstairs we went. This is where we stopped:

At that point, I was just a visitor who had given my name and nothing else. Then we went over to the picture on the left. I was about to point just below the pic of Bruce standing on the piano, but she had already made the connection when she saw “Photo credit: Bob Leafe”. Let’s just say that she was a bit surprised.

Then we walked over to the page on the right side and I told her that the top two photos were mine and I wasn’t sure about the bottom one (I‘ve since checked………it’s also mine).

I’ve got all the performance pictures on this wall! And all from the same New Year’s Eve show!

That was a pretty worthwhile ’77-into-’78 New Year’s Eve! Hard to believe that that event will soon celebrate its 50th anniversary.

 

Isabella took these pictures with my phone:

Yeah – I deserved to lose a hand for that corny pose.

 

Time for a couple of items I hadn’t seen before that came with explanations (click the first one to enlarge):

 

But what’s that yellow item in the previous pic’s upper left-hand corner? It looks vaguely familiar…………..

It should look familiar. This was on the Capitol Theatre’s marquee during Bruce’s 3-night stand on the Darkness…. tour in 1978.

I’m guessing/hoping that those white streaks on either side of his head are just some odd reflections.

 

Here’s another reason it’s familiar:

The “Darkness” link (above) isn’t clickable because it’s part of the photo. However, this one IS: http://bobleafe.com/darkness/enter.html

 

If you’d like to check out the exhibit, it’s open to the public daily from 10am to 6pm EXCEPT Mondays and Tuesdays.

Admission is free.

 

 

Talk about not paying attention when driving a big truck!

Looking east out of my living room window, I have a view of north-south State St on the other side of a parking lot. State St is one way southbound at that point.

All of a sudden, a large truck comes barreling up State St…….northbound! It then parks with its back-half blocking the common driveway between two large apartment buildings – one full of tenants and the other being built. The tenants need it to get into their parking area and the builders use it to bring in equipment for construction.

And did you notice the very-hard-to-miss-at-driver-level sign near the truck’s hood?

The truck door says ”Jolin International, Inc”. The truck itself says “Serving Supermarkets and Discount Stores”. They’re located in Kenilworth, NJ:

 

Oh, good…………….Justice – in the form of a Hackensack police “Parking Enforcement” (that’s what it says on the door) vehicle, has just pulled into the parking lot:

 

Yes! He (or she) has completed a swing around the lot and has now parked right across the street from this horribly-parked truck and there’s NO WAY to NOT see the violation:

 

After waiting a few minutes for the parking enforcement person to come bounding out of the car waving a ticket book in the air, the car pulled out of the lot onto State St southbound as if everything was peachy!

HOW is that possible?

The truck driver must have breathed a huge sigh of relief and appeared to be backing into the apartments’ common driveway because he might not be so lucky when the next parking enforcement vehicle showed up (or maybe he finally saw the One Way sign and was attempting to turn the truck to face in the proper direction):

 

It looks like his truck may have been too tall to get into the apartments’ parking area:

So what does he do?

Turns out he had no intention of facing in the proper direction! He pulled right back facing the wrong direction on State St! The only improvement was that he pulled up a few feet further north so as to not block the driveway anymore (or maybe he moved up so he wouldn’t have to see that annoying one-way sign).

So he’s learned nothing.

 

Turns out he had a delivery to make:

 

So he (and an assistant) made it and came back:

(and there’s that pesky one-way sign again)

 

Done!

 

Now surely he would turn around – not only because it was the right thing to do, but also because State St ended about a hundred feet north at Ward St – another one-way street that went west.

Well, by now you’ve probably figured out that he didn’t do any of that.

He took off and continued north:

 

You can tell where the corner was by the suddenly-north-facing apartment windows. It didn’t look like he was about to make a left turn – the only legal turn available to him – but I couldn’t immediately tell which way he was headed because of a small building blocking my view:

 

It’s not too hard to guess what came next.

He not only drove the wrong way on one-way Ward St, but then he made a left turn across two lanes of traffic onto northbound Main St!

 

BTW – Kenilworth, NJ, is WAY south of here (but maybe he was looking for another building on a one-way street so he could park the wrong way to make another delivery?).

 

What POSSIBLE excuse could he have for driving the wrong way on State St and ignoring the one-way sign that was RIGHT next to his windshield when he parked and blocked the driveway for two apartment buildings?

“I didn’t see any signs telling me not to enter” he might have said.

 

Would you like to see what that entry point looks like?

I guess FOUR signs aren’t enough for TWO eyeballs.

 

The two apartment buildings are on the right: Green (under construction) and red (fully occupied). The driveway he blocked and delivered on is between them.

If you look way down the lane closest to the buildings, you can see a car legally parked and facing southbound – unlike our blind food deliverer.

What else is there to say other than…….

 

THE END

 

?

 

 

You may recall that the previous month’s post expressed pessimism about having much content this month………….and for the first 20 days, it wasn’t looking good.

There were only 6 days during that stretch where I had anything observable to shoot and write about.

But then things were hoppin’ in 6 of the final 8 days of the month, so here we go:

 

FEBRUARY 2

Guys are hanging out of windows to do their work in these two combined shots (click to enlarge):

 

FEBRUARY 4+5

This piece of equipment was left in this position for a couple of days, so I took a picture at 4:55pm on the 4th. Eighty minutes later, things looked quite different when I took the second pic. The next morning, I took the third picture at 10:30am, when strange window reflections showed up

Basically, a semi-boring shot got more interesting as time rolled along.

 

This group of shots has to do with moving and adjusting pump jacks, which are the vertical components of scaffolding:

 

February 6

Time for a quick walk-around on Passaic and Main streets (click to enlarge the first three images):

 

February 7:

Windy day (ignore the camera sounds):

 

 

And then 11 days of nothing…………………

 

 

February 19

Remember “furring strips”? All these wooden pieces will eventually be covered up. I’m betting that what’s going up now will be more photographically interesting than how it winds up.

In the third shot in the first group, a resupply wagon arrives.

In the third group of shots, the crane operator “lands” the apparatus so he can get out and walk over to open the gate for another worker and then they both climb aboard in the next shot to head upward:

 

In the next few shots, they get their wood together. After the second group, count the number of strips below them. Each succeeding shot should each show one more strip being added::

 

The two shots in the second multiple-image group were taken 2 1/2 hours apart:

Quite a difference!

 

 

FEBRUARY 20

This shot was taken at 8:49pm on Friday night. They’ve found a new use for our old friend Typar, since snow was predicted over the weekend:

 

FEBRUARY 21

While waiting for snow, I took one shot on Saturday that incorporated all of our recent favorite BOMs (Buzzwords Of the Month) – “pump jacks”, “furring strips”, and – of course – “TYPAR”!

 

FEBRUARY 22

Well, it DID start snowing on Sunday, but the big wallop came on Monday.

So………..

 

FEBRUARY 23

Here’s Monday morning. You can see the times on the two images:

It was pretty much over by 1pm.

 

This is basically Saturday’s picture, plus the snow:

 

You can see the times on the snow and that the Typar usage was probably a good idea:

 

More snow added to the unplowed roof:

 

 

FEBRUARY 24

This looks like the Monday shot (that looked like Saturday’s shot), but with some added window reflections below the crane:

 

Here’s an interesting little flick with flickering reflections:

I’ve never seen this before and I have no idea what’s causing it (besides the sun).

 

FEBRUARY 25

Speaking of never seeing something before, this has to be the bonus of the month. I’m lucky I saw this as I was walking though my living room:

It was beautiful! Normally, I would say that I wish somebody invited me to go up on the roof to shoot this, but this was a situation where I was probably better off shooting from a distance, while being nice and warm in my living room.

 

I also took two videos: an mp4 and a QuickTime. They combined easily:

 

Lastly, the TYPAR did its job and was removed:

 

 

FEBRUARY 26

We finish off February with two days of furring strip work. The 26th ends with a YouTube video:

 

 

 

FEBRUARY 27

5Pix and 1 tiny video (the sound of the nail gun):

 

You can see from the above video and the 3 images above that that I was on-site. Somebody left the gate to the common driveway between this project and next-door neighbor 389 Main St OPEN!

The last still photo (right above the video) shows a full panoramic image of all of the furring strip work. I would have preferred to take the shot somewhere to the left to be more centered, but the blazing sun – you can see where it is behind the upper part of the center part of the building – would have blinded both me and my camera.

 

February 28

NADA (Saturday)

 

 

 

JANUARY 1

Wind blowing roof snow…

 

 

…….and loose Typar on 5th-floor SW corner apartment:

 

JANUARY 2

Pouring fuel into unidentified apparatus (it didn’t help):

 

JANUARY 3

Window deliveries into various apartments:

 

That 5th-floor SW corner apartment and Manhattan:

 

JANUARY 5

Continuing in the vicinity of that apartment, the next two vertical groups of 4 images each show more Typar application:

 

……..as does this group of 4 images (click to enlarge):

 

As we move north along State St, mixed in with a Typar image are 2 roof images (click to enlarge):

 

Let’s take a short break from Typar (because there’s a ton more of those to show) and look at some window installations (click this and next two to enlarge):

Wasn’t that exciting? No? Oh, well – back to Typar (you’ll be begging for windows when this day is over).

 

Let’s start with that 5th-floor SW corner apartment (again):

Long view (from my apartment): If you look really closely in the upper-right corner unit, you can see a standing red ladder:

 

Outside now……….but before I could get up to Passaic St for the street view of the red ladder, I took these two Typar shots (hey – gotta stay sequential…and click to enlarge):

 

Back to the street view of the red ladder: If you go for a walk to the corner of State St and Passaic St, you can see two views of that ladder…………..from State St (on the left) and Passaic St (on the right…….and click to enlarge):

(Was it worth the wait?)

 

While I’m on State St, I found some other things to shoot. In this group of 3 shots, I saw two workers on different floors. Left pic: on the upper left floor, the guy kept staring at me, so I stared back and took a picture (click to enlarge):

Then I crossed the street and got right next to the building and took a picture (above, right) of both guys. No staring this time.

 

There’s that red ladder again and a couple of new windows:

 

Wide Typar shot:

 

Back across State St for some tighter shots (click to enlarge):

(click to enlarge):

 

Back home for some tighter red ladder shots:

 

Grappling with a huge piece of Typar (click to enlarge):

 

While that’s going on, I noticed a small car parking (but not feeding the meter) for an apparent north-to-south view of the same thing:

 

Time to zoom in and find out where the parking ticket should be sent:

Yeah…………..might not happen.

 

Remember a couple of days ago (January 2) when someone tried to get this apparatus going? Here’s another attempt:

Same result.

 

Carving out a slice of Typar for a window:

 

More struggles with Typar (click to enlarge):

 

How to knock out 10 Typar pix in one “shot” (click to enlarge):

 

Enough with the Typar already…………..

Time to shoot something other than State Street!

 

How about Passaic St? (click to enlarge)

 

And – finally – Main St! (click to enlarge)

GOODBYE JANUARY 5!

 

 

JANUARY 6

Oh, great! More Typar!

Let’s get this over with………….(click this and next two to enlarge)

 

Oh, good………….windows!

 

This is a construction-related truck whose driver – after a couple of hours – just realized he parked the wrong way on one-way State St:

 

“Nailed it!”

 

“Hey – there’s that photographer who’s been bitching about our Typar! (click to enlarge)”

 

JANUARY 7

Most of this green-wall stuff is accessible from the shared driveway with the next-door neighbor at 389 Main:

Frozen drops on the wires?

 

A 389 resident’s vehicle meets one from the 359 project:

 

Wood and wall (click to enlarge):

 

WOOD: Pickin’, Stickin’ (below morning reflections off 389’s windows onto – of all things – TYPAR!)

(click to enlarge)

BY THE WAY…………when I asked the project manager about all that wood on the wall, the reply was:

“Those are called furring strips to flatten surface and attach metal panels to, for the thin brick to be glued to.”

Got it?

 

Meanwhile, on the State St side…………..

 

Is a fancy decal really needed to let the world know that the door it’s on actually works?

 

And who is hiding in the garage with headlights on?

 

Lastly, guess what these elephant ears are made of……..

 

Finishing up January 7, here’s a shot I took early on when I snuck in – disguised as a car…………AND…..              (click to enlarge this and the next one)

 

…… a couple of shots I took much later when I snuck back into my apartment, disguised as a tenant:

 

JANUARY 8

Planning and doing (click to enlarge):

 

Oops! One more “doing”:

 

OMG! I’m so SICK of this stuff! (click to enlarge)

 

That red ladder is starting to look a bit tipsy. Must be from those weird reflections in the first two windows:

 

I don’t know what that long cord is about, but I DO know that that machine is the same one that a couple of people have tried unsuccessfully to fuel and drive away (see Jan. 2 and 5). I also know that this guy eventually dragged it away – never (so far) to be seen again:

 

There’s nothing special about this shot. I think this project is proud that the sun shines on IT and not on the next-door neighbor that’s hogging the lower half/front of this picture:

(Does that make any sense?)

 

Yeah – I know…………..it’s another Typar shot. I guess I like the symmetrical sunburn it’s getting around all its window openings:

 

 

JANUARY 9

Only one shot taken today. I wasn’t sure if this piece of equipment was being stolen or not, so I took a quick pic and blew up the door’s ID.

It’s legit.

 

 

JANUARY 11

Time for a quick walkaround.

I started on State St and stepped into the shared driveway when no one was looking to get a shot of the Green Monster (SO much better-looking than the one in Fenway Park!):

 

Stepping back onto State St, I took a PANO(ramic) shot of that side of the building, which included part of neighbor 389 Main:

 

HAD to include a shot of that 5th-floor corner apartment…………….no sign of the red ladder:

 

Next up: a Passaic St PANO:

 

A corner shot of Main and Passaic streets:

 

And an equal-time shot for that corner’s 5th-floor apartment, where I shot from in December when an icy roof wouldn’t let me shoot from that corner of the building:

 

Back to ground level, I saw this sign. I’m not sure which building materials they provided, but I probably shot some of it, so it might be a good idea to keep this handy:

 

Finally – the Main St PANO:

And that’s it for today.

 

JANUARY 13 – Roof Day!

I wanted to shoot the gorgeous wooden roof before it got layered with various coverings and HVAC equipment. A ton or 3 of that stuff was scheduled to arrive on January 16, so I’m glad we got this done before then.

I told Chris – the project manager – that there were a couple of things I wanted to shoot on our way up to the roof. First and foremost were the views from the 5th (top) floor southwest corner apartment. I knew there would also be other things that I’d want to shoot along the way that I’d know when I saw them – things that would never be seen again by any tenant there EVER.

The first one presented itself when we were down the hall from that apartment. Who would ever see this again?

The wooden symmetry was gorgeous!

 

So we got to the apartment – let’s call it 5SW (southwest corner). The first thing I shot was a panoramic southern view (click to enlarge).

 

From left to right:

The Manhattan skyline sits above the nearby tan building that’s a branch of Bergen Community College. The brick building near the middle (with the jammed parking lot) is the Parisian Beauty Academy. Above it is another new residential building (they’re popping up all over town).

To the right of that – across State St – is the Hackensack Middle School with its green field/soccer pitch. Above all of that is the Hackensack skyline with its expensive high-rises that end on the left at Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC, but to most of us, it’s still just “Hackensack Hospital”).

 

You’re already met 40% of the west-facing view, but directly across State St is the side view of a very nice-looking, semi-elderly apartment building at the corner of State and Passaic streets:

 

Behind that, you can see my favorite steeple (which belongs to the First Presbyterian Church and is my southern view at home………..and at my 7th-floor height in the yellow-brick building to the right of the steeple, it’s my next-door neighbor).

Continuing the trek to the right, we come to two more church steeples. The tan tower to the right of my building belongs to the Second Reformed Church and the red/tan steeple to its right is that of Holy Trinity Church – our family’s church where all the Leafe kids were baptized (and whose school across the street was where we got our learnin’ done from grades 1 to 8.

Furthest to the right is yet another new residential building.

 

Time to continue our walk to the stairs to the roof. On the way – of course – other things caught my eye, starting with this:

 

I had no idea what it was, but it appeared to continue upward:

 

Well, it can’t go too much higher…………there’s only the roof above us.

Sure enough:

 

Continuing our northern walk to the roof stairs……………..

This stopped me in my tracks – a windowless apartment with a new delivery of glass:

A week later, it would have been a much more boring shot. And the Typar isn’t complete, so that helps……….

 

Then I got closer to a window opening in the next room – a sea of Green (Monster)! (click to enlarge)

 

That told me that just around the corner would be the Monster with the wood strips coming straight up at me and I could get to the edge!

But not standing!

I would have to lay flat on my stomach with my arms and phone extended beyond the edge. I couldn’t see what I’d be shooting!

My first guess wasn’t terrible:

 

But it told me where to aim next (click to enlarge):

I’ll take it!

 

ON TO THE ROOF!

SO much better without all the machines and other equipment – all very necessary stuff, by the way – and I’d certainly want to shoot that scene when it’s been completed. Meanwhile……………      (click this one and the next three to enlarge)

 

What we saw earlier, now from one floor higher:

 

The back of my building and the “E” municipal parking lot:

 

I never saw my apartment this close from this height and angle before:

 

One floor above the “windowless” apartment with the delivered glass (click to enlarge):

 

What I could see of Manhattan through some haze (click to enlarge):

 

Some guys were working near the stairwell entrance:

 

Not sure what this is, but it made a nice final roof shot:

\

Wait a minute – it reminds me of a number: 3.14159……..? (for all you geometry freaks out there)

Anybody see that?

 

The last time I was on the roof, I took a picture similar to this one, looking down the stairwell to the first floor. That area was a slightly bright blue – just like this one:

But when we got down to 1, there was practically no blue there. I think an auto camera setting combined with a good amount of upper floor bright surrounding area created the effect.

Just a guess…………..

 

So now I’m out of the building and heading home and what’s the first thing I see? A MuskMobile parked on Main St:

It looks like two differently-colored cars, but it’s the same car.

 

So now I’m about one short block from home, but I’m not done shooting yet because I looked up (click to enlarge):

Why wasn’t I able to see this from the roof?

 

I found that if I included the steeple, I’d get more streaks:

 

So I decided to include my apartment too (click to enlarge):

 

An interesting Tuesday afternoon of shooting…………….

 

 

JANUARY 14

Carriers…………(click to enlarge)

 

JANUARY 16

This was Major-Tonnage-Delivery-To-The-Roof Day.

The first signs of that were :

1. Tractor-trailers lined up around the building (well, half of it, as you’ll see later).
2. A giant extended crane

 

It was a non-stop barrage of whatever these things are (roof coverings?):

 

It appears that one stack was tipped over and caught by an alert (and strong) worker:

I’m sure that’s not the case, but it sounds good.

 

The barrage continues:

 

The workers catch their breath:

 

Ooo, look! There’s a pretty-in-pink variety!

 

This one says “Last” (don’t bet on it), plus a closeup of the label (click to enlarge):

 

The pink ones seem to have affected my watermark:

 

…and gets banished for doing so:

 

A giant hoagie gets delivered for lunch:

 

Time to go for a walk. It’s rinse-and-repeat on Passaic Street:

 

On to Main St, where we find Big Apple Computer…..Ooops! “Compactor” parked in half of a legal space:

 

Just above the shoddy parking, we find a worker dealing with some shoddy Typar:

 

This pic is a nod to someone who helped me shoot all this stuff and whose office is somewhere in these buildings (and it’s NOT Jake from State Farm):

 

Two shots from the SE corner of Main and Passaic:

At this point, the building would have to be named “Typar Heights”.

 

From Truck-To-Top in 3 shots (Well, actually SIX shots):

(click the next two to enlarge):

 

OK – remember the “wrap-around-the-building” delivery trucks mention at the beginning? The best I could do was 5 trucks on parts of 3 different streets.

Ready?

 

Passaic St (Two trucks): You can see the crane working on a truck that has a partial-pink load with an all-white truck waiting behind it:

 

State St (Two and a half trucks in four images): The first truck in the image is near Passaic St (you can see that 5th-floor corner apartment in the upper-right corner of the image) and it has an indiscernible caricature near the front passenger door that I’ll make clearer later:

The second image shows both State St trucks separated by the common driveway between 389 Main (on the left) and 359 Main (what this post is all about).

 

The third image shows the above-mentioned trucks and half of a third truck whose other half sits on Ward St.

 

And lastly, here’s the other half of that truck that’s carrying white and pink cargo AND some of those large hoagies (which reminds me………….it’s lunchtime – gotta go).

 

But before I do, I noticed what looked like a race, after I turned the corner onto State St, between a truck and a chair-on-wheels. You can see the truck’s caricature that I mentioned earlier pointing the way towards the finish line:

 

At this stage, the truck is barely ahead, but looking at the chair’s gearbox, I can see that the man still has another gear to go to surely go ahead and beat the duck truck and win the prize (a roasted angry duck…………..hey – it IS lunchtime, remember?).

 

And here is that clearer image of the late (and tasty) Mr. Duck that I promised earlier:

And he’s sticking his tongue out at ME? No wonder I’m angry. “LOSER!”

 

Phew! Busy day!

 

 

JANUARY 17

Hey! Look what yesterday’s delivery just barely beat:

 

But also look at that delivery’s winter coating:

(This is from a small part of a very large image of 5 photo-stitched pix)

 

JANUARY 20

After three days of exterior inactivity, this is all I could get……..Typar and soon-to-be-glassed windows:

 

JANUARY 21

 You want glassed-windows? That’s almost all that was available today (click #3,5 and 7 to enlarge):

 

Slim pickings, otherwise:

Yellow wires going down two floors from a window to…………a garbage receptacle?

 

Talk about a stretch! A guy uses a hand plow to get to a spot where he thinks his phone is buried in snow, digs it out(!) and then has to back the hand plow out:

(Whaddaya want from 2 blocks away…………Shakespeare?)

 

JANUARY 22

More window work (yawn!)

5pix

(click to enlarge first and fourth images)

That last image shows that 5th-floor corner apartment and Manhattan.

 

JANUARY 25

It doesn’t look like much, but we got around a foot of snow:

 

JANUARY 26

After a lot more snow the day before, this is what the January 16 delivery looks like with the sun reflecting off it:

 

JANUARY 30

With the roof pretty much snow-covered the last two weeks, it feels like a major victory just to capture odd reflections off windows:

 

I’m sure the crew (and the interior photographer) got a LOT done during this time period (send me the photos link, wouldja?)

 

As I’m writing this (it’s now past mid-February), I have very little to show for this month, so we’ll see if a February post is doable or not.

 

Knowing me, however, I’ll probably put out whatever I have just to keep the string going.