On the Avenue

I decide to walk Greenpoint Avenue.  From West, I head east. Past the old Polonaise Terrace, the Chinese Musician, Polservice & Baltyk, across McGuinness & the Key Food ("Best in Town").  Past the Leviton buildings.  From Jewel to across the creek there's no-one walking but me and a guy with a couple of border collies who looked like they'd be more at home in the Yorkshire Dales than trotting in the fumes of trucks & creek & scrapyards. Past the glorious Treatment domes & the Greenpoint Sound Stage, over the bridge that shudders when the big rigs hit it, stopping for The Skyline, with We Set the Standard oil a sure-bet foreground.  Past the Teamsters Local 804 & veering right, where a slew of gas work slows the traffic & narrows the sidewalks. I'm in Blissville.  Past Sparta's Deli & Restaurant & a frame house ground down, cornice long gone, but still clinging on to a carved wooden pediment - all curls & classical lines amp; spindles.  Past the Bantry Bay Publick House across from Cavalry Cemetery. Next time a drink, next time a drink.  The names on the Calvary headstones Italian, Irish, Italian, Polish - Grillo, Kelly, Masiello, Lesczinski. Past the City View & First Mix Spicing, and it's over the Expressway - all Bliss departed, but St Raphael's looks like it should have belonged there.  Past the Simple Love Deli, and a stretch of 50's apartment buildings, and a triangle playground where two laughing girls run round and round and round.  Past the Thalia Spanish Theater (Se Vende Apartamento - bilingual premiere) & past a Steve's C-Town (home from home!).  Everything Sunny, the Sunnyside library, Mi Nuevo Rancho & I Love Paraguay.  The High Spirits liquor store (who wouldn't love that one?) the guy eating lunch, perched at the window of Pecos Y Algo Mas. At the end of the avenue, the same green construction fences & tucked in next to them, Paddy Duggan's Pub & the closed Swan Pianos. We're at the Boulevard.