the long island motor parkway: exploring a new discovery

The Long Island Motor Parkway will always be in my mind as a part of my childhood. That's because

The end of the bike trail, at Union Turnpike and Winchester Boulevard

a part of it formed a bicycle path from Cunningham Park (near my home) to Alley Pond Park (a few miles away). That section formed a bicycle path, running through suburban Queens, which my sister, my father and I rode quite often. Together and apart. We called that section "The Bike Path." Short and sweet.

The bike path, or at least the paved part of it that we used, began just East of the Clearview Expressway and North of Union Turnpike. It ran Eastward, through the trees between rows of backyards. There were a few access points -- one at Bell Blvd, and one at Springfield Blvd. It crossed those North-South Boulevards via bridges. It entered Alley Pond Park a few blocks East of Springfield Blvd, and then swept downward. There was a gentle curve to the right, then down under the Grand Central Parkway. It continued downhill, sweeping back to the left. Then, further down, you could see Union Turnpike to your right and the fields of Alley Pond Park to your left. Finally, it starts climbing, and you reach a dead end atop an embankment. Facing Winchester Blvd, you've reached the end. The embankment is there because the LIMP used to continue on to the East, crossing Winchester Blvd. via bridge, and going through what is now Creedmor Psychiatric Center.

I haven't been on that path in years, but it remains a part of my childhood memories.

I was unaware that there is a historical society dedicated to researching the LIMP, and preserving its history. I guess it stands to reason, but the thought had never crossed my mind. At any rate, this past Saturday I found myself on Creedmor's grounds because of an advertised event -- a walk to explore the first new discovery about the LIMP in years. So Asher and I went to see what the hoohah was all about.

Asher at the tunnel entrance

The discovery was an underground walkway, crossing under Union Turnpike. We gathered at the North entrance, a nondescript weathered staircase on the hospital grounds. We could walk down the stairs, but the actual walkway was closed off by a locked door. We could peer through the door and see a long damp corridor with a hint of light at the other end. Howard Kroplick, a historian with the Long Island Motor Parkway preservation Society was talking about the LIMP and the underground walkway. He explained that the other end, located south of Union Turnpike was grated up. But the staff at Creedmor goes through the tunnel periodically to make sure all is OK.

This kind of puzzled me. The tunnel was a new discovery? How did that make sense? The entrance was maybe ten yards from the parking lot. The entrance to the tunnel was walled up with a locked door. The other end was grated shut. And Creedmor's staff goes through it periodically to check that it's sound. That didn't jibe.

Kroplick (or someone else -- I forget) explained that the staff at Creedmor knew of the tunnel since forever. But they didn't know that it had anything to do with the LIMP, and the Preservation Society was unaware of its existence.

There were blueprints out, and we could walk down to take a peak at the tunnel entrance. Kroplick told us stories of his time chasing LIMP-related history. My favorite story involved the building of a new bicycle path at Bethpage State Park. Workers found parkway under the surface of the ground, and realized there had been a road there. The Preservation Society was called in to investigate before construction of the bike path continued. I enjoyed the irony of Kroplick complaining that they had paved over the road.

All was going well. Asher and I were having a good time. Then the police arrived.

cinema history class: a reel of trailers

For the most part, in Keith's home-taught cinema-history class we screen one movie each week. There have been two exceptions -- during the role-reversal weeks Joe made presentations that involved TV episodes.


Well, last Thursday became another exception. An hour and a half of movie trailers. I can't even begin to try to list the films whose trailers were included. Except for The Virgin Witch. That one I remember.


Watching a long program of trailers is definitely a different experience than watching one movie. In many ways it was enjoyable. Instead of one story we got a few dozen. And many of these trailers were likely better than the movies themselves. It was actually a lot of fun, acting as the crew in a MST3K episode, tossing out barbs and heckling the screen. And it also served to provide ideas for what we'd like to see. "Hey, Keith, add this one to the list" was a constant refrain. And it's definitely useful to get a sense of the sensibilities that were at play in the film industry.


Joe suggested making this an annual tradition, and I think that's going to happen, which will make this the class' third tradition. The other traditions being our month of spaghetti westerns and our role-reversal month (which I have generally referred to as bring your own month).

more stoopid stats: world series drought edition

Table 1: The 30 longest droughts

I was thinking about the Cubs' victory in the World Series, and how it brings to a close the longest championship drought in Major League Baseball history. And what I was thinking the most is that this is an area ripe for the StoopidStats treatment.

First of all, I should note that I take issue with the fact that people are saying that the cubs ended a 108-year drought. They last won the World Series in 1908. By that logic, when a team wins the WS for the second time in a row, they are ending a one-year drought. That being the case, I think it's more appropriate to say that the Cubs ended a 107-year drought. But who am I to fight the world? Since I can't find the world, I am accepting that a drought's length is X-Y where X and Y are years that the team in question won the World Series, and they didn't win in any intervening year. Where X is the team's first win, I take Y to be 1902 (the last year before the inception of the modern World Series. Where Y is the team's most recent win, I take X to be 2016 (the current year). Although baseball's championship was called the World Series during some years in the 1800's, I am only considering the modern World Series, which began in 1903.

Now that the Cubs' drought is over, the longest active drought belongs to the Indians who are stuck in a 68-year jag. There have been a total of 141 droughts, which is equal to F+P-1 where F is the number of franchises (30) and P is the number of World Series played (111). That includes 23 one-year droughts which, per above, represent a team winning the series a second, third, fourth or fifth time in a row. Table 1 shows the 30 longest droughts, and table 2 shows each franchise's longest drought. A note about the second table -- there are 31 entries because the Cardinals have had two 24-year droughts, which are tied for the franchise's longest.




Table 2: Each franchise's longest drought

Droughts these days are necessarily longer than droughts from years past, simply because there are more franchises. With 30 teams, each one wins, on average, once every 30 years. When there were only 16 teams, each one won, on average, once every 16 years. I should put something together that normalizes adjusts drought length for the number of teams. The task is made more difficult by the fact that many of these droughts span years that included expansions. So it's not as if I can multiply each drought's length by a simple factor. More troubling is how to handle the two years (1904 and 1994) that didn't have a World Series. I am open to suggestions.

baseball stoopid stats (2016 edition) #4: wins, losses and games over 500 (by state)

I presented a chart of all major league baseball franchises and their cumulative games above .500 (along with a table of active franchises ranked by wins) here.

Then I combined the franchises based on the geographic location indicated in their names. That chart and table are here.

For my third trick, I combine the teams based on their home state. Note that for these purposes I treat the District of Columbia, Quebec and Ontario as if they are states. To date, 28 states have had major league franchises. Of those, 19 had at least one franchise in 2016. The winningest, New York, has had 27,614 wins and stands 3,279 wins over .500 -- thanks largely to the Yankees and their significantly winning record. In 28th is Iowa, whose only major league team, the Keokuk Westerns, went 1-12 in 1875.

While New York and Pennsylvania are ahead in wins, it's only a matter of time before California, with five franchises, passes them. Barring changes in the the number and/or locations of teams, that is. New York and Pennsylvania are ahead simply because they each had three teams for the majority of the 20th century, and two teams for most or all of the rest. California didn't hava franchise until 1958 when the Dodgers and Giants moved there. It expanded to three with the inception of the Angels in 1961, then to four when the A's moved to Oakland in 1968 and five when the Padres were introduced in 1969.

By the way, in 2016 Florida (with two teams) passed Washington (one team) to move into 15th place.

baseball stoopid stats (2016 edition) #3: wins, losses and games over 500 (by location)

In my last post, I presented my graph of the cumulative games above 500 stat for every major league baseball franchise. That post was here.


One thing that I didn't mention is that I also track wins, losses and games over .500 by location. That is, grouping franchises by the location indicated ion their names. the "New York Yankees" are part of New York. The "Texas Rangers" are part of Texas. Note that, in this scheme, some franchises have different parts of their records attributed to different locations. For example, the Dodgers' record through 1957 is part of Brooklyn. Their record since 1958 is part of Los Angeles. There have been 54 different locations represented in the major leagues, and the graph is as follows:

The locations, listed in order of wins (most to least) is at right. Among locations that no longer have a franchise, the one with the most wins is Brooklyn.