Have you ever seen Edward Scissorhands? Well, now meet Edward Scissor-section! The vortex of 51st Avenue and Queens Boulevard is clearly a crossing that should never have taken place. Some may argue in favor of other perilous intersections, such as Yellowstone Boulevard, 71st Avenue or Union Turnpike, but for sheer physical extremity, that at 51st Avenue has to take hands down the title of Most Dangerous Intersection and that most likely to inflict pain and death.

These two roads slash through one another at such a sick crazy angle, Isoceles might have had second thoughts on inventing the triangle had he known what this would one day be here. The sharply angled crosswalk lines betray the long treacherous path that walkers must navigate to get from one end of this mess to the other. They've said, whoever they is or was, that then then infamous Death Boulevard was at its widest at Yellowstone Boulevard, but the longest trek from north to south as the crow flies and the feet walk, must be 51st Avenue. Getting from one side to the other, given the wild slant, is at least a two block long hike. Standing guard, waiting for new crossers to guide across the parted sea, is one of many traffic agents that was assigned to various notorious intersections throughout the winter of 2001.

Looking east, two historic neighborhood landmarks occupied the next block; the Sage Diner and the Elks Lodge that followed it. Since I went to Russell Sage Junior High, I used to imagine the diner was also named for him, and it might well have been, but it could also be for the spice. Look closely now at the indentation in the sidewalk right at the end of the eastbound crosswalk. That indentation should serve the crossers reaching or stepping off the curb. It also acted however, as the entrance and exit to and from the diner's parking lot. Many cars made wild turns off the both Queens Boulevard and southbound 51st Avenue, into that lot through that indent. Many others also left that lot and got right onto the boulevard, even when 51st Avenue had the red light. In a way, they could have claimed that indentation was in limbo, neither 51st Avenue nor Queens Boulevard and therefore they did not run a 51st Avenue red. I witnessed this constantly while shooting. Despite all the police activity, nobody entering or leaving that lot carelessly got stopped. At the time I felt someone had to prevail on the Sage Diner to move their entrance and exit farther down 51st, away from the corner. Well, the Sage never took the hint and believe it or not almost two decades later as seen in Google Map views, its successor Nevada Diner hasn't either. One of the very last such diners even left in New York City still has the same hazardous entrance and exit. Since neither diner ever got a pedestrian killed here sign posted by their entrance, I guess my own concerns are overblown.

With the venerable Elks Lodge in the background, the traffic agent guard finally collects a group to escort across the boulevard. Like the improbable surviving diner, the Elks Lodge building has managed to weather the many storms of the past couple of decades since I shot these photos, but although its muscular elk statue still graced the front entrance, at least as of 2017, it's not Elks holding court there, but the New Life Fellowship Church. I'm sure the diner couldn't care less, so long as there's a hungry throng leaving that building at least once a week. The Elk building is actually at the corner of Simonson Street, but directly across the boulevard as the crow flies from the wildly angled 51st Avenue, which once upon a long, long time ago was called Maurice Avenue, which is still the name of 51st Avenue south of which 51st Avenue was never called 51st Avenue, or perhaps more properly, where Maurice Avenue was never not called Maurice Avenue.

Now a look at the ultra extreme angled 51st Avenue intersection from the northside facing southwest. Great Bear is an old name along Queens Boulevard, but it used to be on the northside in a big old garage building. The Pan American Hotel following was the only big hotel on Queens Boulevard. I've always thought its location here was strange, but apparently it did well for itself here for decades, despite not really being too close to anything, including a subway station, the nearest being a few blocks east at Grand Avenue. The Sage Diner probably shared the wealth generated by the hotel.

A block away is Albion Avenue, where just the day before I originally wrote this in 2001, a jogger got clipped in the head by the rear view mirror of a tour bus. He was on life support afterward and I don't recall what ultimately happened to him. Several blocks southwest of here, 51st Avenue runs into Maurice Avenue, which as I already expounded upon above it once was the northern end of. Maurice eventually meets up with the Long Island Expressway at a normal 90 degrees. I finally passed my 4th road test at that location in the late 1970s.

Facing dead west, it was just more of the same; fast food and auto services. Some still breathing dot com advertises on the billboard. As I write on April 2nd, 2001, one would think that the Dow and NASDAQ both went for a walk across Death Boulevard...right here....and no...they did not make it to the other side!

One unfortunate update regarding the once prosperous Pan American Hotel. Its fortunes did not fare too well as the 21st Century progressed. It ended up the focus of intense community battles as New York City repurposed it as a homeless shelter. As I write this in 2018 apparently it is still a homeless shelter and presumably still a neighborhood bone of contention.