Kraftwerk

Jamie: 1st Oct 2007 - 21:11 GMT

i used to have a kraftwerk tshirt. nice power station though. quite pretty with it's paited chimneys.

Peter: 2nd Oct 2007 - 00:17 GMT

you can also see em here, in the second photo. that was over 5 years ago. wow.

missjhyde: 2nd Oct 2007 - 00:20 GMT

My husband was one of the steamfitters who built this Ravenswood Co-generation power plant. It was completed three years ago and built right next to the old Ravenswood. The three tallest stacks are from the old Ravenswood, and the shorter stack is from the new 250Megawatt plant. There are A LOT of power plants around NYC and on Long Island!

Awesome photo!

GGP: 2nd Oct 2007 - 01:12 GMT

Now I will tell a Jack-like story. When I was a kid, we would drive home at night from visiting my grandparents in Astoria (who, by the way had a Ravenswood phone prefix: RA8-4089, I believe). From the 59th Street Bridge, those smokestacks (in their earlier incarnation) each blinked two red lights up at the top, and those blinking lights terrified me, because they were like the angry eyes of a vertiginous red monster. My mom knew I loved owls, so she calmed me by telling me they were just very tall, striped owls, happily blinking their eyes in the dark. And so I came to love them, the friendly red-eyed owls overlooking the East River at night.

I would like to know where the name "Ravenswood" comes from....

Peter: 2nd Oct 2007 - 13:10 GMT

i love owls, too... ggp, i think i may never see this plant again without imagining the stacks to be giant owls!

also: Ravenswood, Queens

GGP: 3rd Oct 2007 - 22:40 GMT

I'm glad the image will stick with you, Peter. Now you need not fear those vertiginous smokestacks when you see them in darkness. Thx for the link, too. :)