Astoria Park under Hell Gate Bridge
— — the rust-red arch holding the sky above the strait.
Not only on a wall.
“Astoria Park runs along the Queens bank of the East River where the tidal strait called Hell Gate turns the water into something with weather of its own. The 1916 steel arch carries Amtrak trains across in a single deep curve, painted the colour of old iron oxide. Below it the WPA pool, the running track, and a stand of plane trees. On a warm evening the F train sound drifts in from somewhere and the river keeps moving. from the studio
Astoria Park under Hell Gate Bridge, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Astoria Park covers about 60 acres along the East River in the Astoria neighbourhood of Queens, between Hoyt Avenue and Ditmars Boulevard. It is the largest park in the western half of Queens and one of the oldest, established in 1913. The park sits directly under the southern span of the Hell Gate Bridge and the later 1936 Triborough (now RFK) Bridge, with the tidal strait of Hell Gate running along its western edge. Manhattan's Upper East Side is visible across the water.
The Hell Gate Bridge is a 1,017-foot steel through-arch carrying four tracks of the Northeast Corridor across the East River between Astoria and Randall's Island. Engineered by Gustav Lindenthal and completed in 1916, it was the longest steel arch bridge in the world for a generation and is still the heaviest. The rust-red paint, Hell Gate Red, was matched on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which Lindenthal's design directly influenced. Two stone towers anchor the arch on either bank.
The park is open daily from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. and is free. The Astoria Park Pool, a 1936 WPA project by Aymar Embury II, is the largest of the eleven WPA pools in New York City and opens late June through Labour Day. The running track around the pool is a quarter mile. The N and W subway lines stop at Astoria Boulevard and Ditmars Boulevard, both a ten-minute walk to the riverfront under the bridge. Best light hits the arch from the south just before sunset.