BOMB and Explosion

My friend Mark and I went to check out Brooklyn's Other Museum of Brooklyn (BOMB) after work this evening. (If you visit the website, note that the BOMB we went to and the BOMB depicted are different buildings. BOMB moves with the real estate market.) It is open every Tuesday from 7 - 9 pm.

The new BOMB is in a building that is not heated or necessarily finished. As I went up the staircase, I was slightly fearful that I would plunge through the boards. It was sturdy, though. When we were upstairs, the curator, Scott, offered us beers. When I said I don't drink, he sweetly said he also had cranberry juice and various flavored seltzers.

Basically, BOMB is a museum dedicated to promoting the historic preservation of Admiral's Row, which is a set of buildings in the Brooklyn Navy Yard that the Mayor's office wants to tear down, and a place for the curator to store things that he rescues from the trash. Here's what Mark and I saw (apologies for the blurry pics - I used my BlackBerry phone):

If you squint really hard at the upper right, you can make out a canister used during Prohibition to make alcohol. The twisty spigot is wrapped around a gumball machine. Near the furnace to the right, sort of behind the fireplace, is a long black cylinder which is a rusted out sewage pipe. The window shade is pulled back by a paper mache puppet that looks out the window and admires the neighborhood.

The bathroom counter is covered with items that Scott, the curator of BOMB, found on the beach. This includes a femur, many pieces of broken china, coins, and rocks.

This portion of the wall was part of a church steeple in the 1800s. I love it. Yes, that is a cow skull hanging in the center of it. The Disgruntled Cow uses Scott to express her displeasure at how the Mayor milks the City dry. The object with wheels is a racing car from 1920 that reminds me of a go-kart.

This torpedo used to hang outside the museum. I sort of like it in the niche at the top of the staircase.



Mark and Scott are far more knowledgeable about Brooklyn than I can ever hope to be, so I mostly listened to them chat as my feet went numb from cold. Scott gave us all kinds of goodies to take home. Of course, I loved every second of my visit.

The explosion on the subway ride home, though, was terrifying. As we sped through the tunnel, a passenger with a wispy white goatee suddenly blew up at another rider. He jumped in the man's face and bellowed, "Why are you staring at me? Get your eyes off me! Do you have a problem with me. I said stop looking at me. Are you sweet for me, huh? Are you a homo? DO you want me to shove something up your ass? Fuck you!"

A few months ago, someone was randomly stabbed on the subway under very similar circumstances, and even though I was at the other end of the car, my heart thundered away. The other passengers watched the scene unfold and looked nervous, but only I changed cars when the train stopped. The man who was harassed got off, whether it was his stop or not. I hadn't been that nervous on the train since I was caught in the middle of a fight during rush hour and a guy broke a glass bottle and brandished it at someone.