Queens Boulevard 47th Street Sunnyside Queens New York

This is the heartland of Sunnyside, Queens, New York City as it appeared in March of 2001. We're at 47th Street looking west down Queens Boulevard's eastbound lanes. The next corner down is 46th Street, which back then was easily identified by the exclusive Tier 1 pedestrian killer warning signs flanking its pedestrian crossing beneath the elevated train. 47th by contrast, was merely a Tier 2 assasin, worthy of the Silver medal, as it were, the Be Alert signs. These warning signs remained up until at least 2012 and were gone by 2014.

Speaking of assasins, the city wanted you to know that you can collect by turning in cop killers through their "CopShot" program. That was all well and good, but it would have been nicer if they ended the endless cycle of Death Row appeals that keep such garbage alive long past their execution dates.
In this view we were zoomed up closer to 46th Street, which if streets could be mayors, would probably qualify as the mayor of Sunnyside. At that time, I speculated that the old analog walk signs would soon be replaced with digital Stick Figure/Hand signals and indeed they were, at least by 2007.

Here we see the broader view of the elevated 7-line span between 47th and 46th Streets. The heavily Irish and Irish influenced Sunnyside was decked out for The Great Day, which took place a week after these photos were shot on March 11th, 2001.
This elevated railway section went up during a post WWI period when the Spanish/Moorish Mission style was all the architectural rage. It had the good fortune to go up before its neighborhood, so the builders had the room and resources to make it far grander in scope than similar structures placed atop already developed and busy streets. In contrast, the Roosevelt Avenue section is just a typical bare-bones, green painted, steel skeleton girder and panel elevated subway line job that sits directly atop the traffic lanes.

The 46th Street IRT #7 train station overhead sprawls over 47th Street as well. Back in 2001 it had been recently renovated. For many years, this Mission style concrete covered elevated railway section was in horrific disrepair and its stations were hideous, and still named for streets long since disappeared from the map. Fast forward through the 21st century however nearly two decades since this article was originally written and some of those long dead street names are making a comeback. 46th Street's alter ego, Bliss Street even has street sign recognition now, photo bombing the 46th Street signs on the same lamp posts and nearby businesses continue naming themselves for it.