This is the next big traffic report landmark going south following the Kosciuszko Bridge, exit 34, for both Meeker Avenue and Morgan Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. This particular exit probably got it's abundant attention from traffic reporters because of it's catchy sounding popular name, Meeker-Morgan. As a kid, Meeker was one of my favorite streets for reasons I'm sure I'll never understand in hindsight. It was lit throughout much of the 1960's by Westinghouse OV25 Silverliner cobra heads, hanging on my favorite elliptical mast arms. Since traffic was usually very slow, any trip down this stretch was bound to afford anyone curious enough, a good clear view of the goings on below the highway. Our family took this stretch of the BQE every Sunday, down to the Fort Greene neighborhood, to visit my grandmother. The cobra headed streetlights of the BQE's service road through Greenpoint, Meeker Avenue, came very close to the edge of the elevated highway and thus remained clearly in my line of sight as Greenpoint slowly passed by while we crawled through the weekly traffic jams. Though much has changed since February 1999 when these were taken, exit 34 for Meeker-Morgan remained, at least as of 2017, although construction on the new Kosciuszko Bridge's southbound descent lanes were gradually flowing toward the exit like lava from a volcano.

For a little kid, this was about as close a view as you'd be likely to get of a streetlight fixture that is normally way above your head. Whether that familiarity was behind it, I'll never know, but the Westinghouse OV25's became my favorite light fixture of all time and Meeker Avenue's name always seemed to seep into the endless fantasy roadmap drawings that I drew as a little kid. As for the Brooklyn Queens Expressway itself, aside from the traffic it was best known to my family throughout the 1960's for having the most bumps and ruts of any road we frequently used. The zoom view above exposes clearly the Brooklyn tower of the Williamsburg Bridge, on the left. Soon, at exit 32, traffic had to choose between the Willie on the left, or the rest of the southbound I-278 BQE on the right. As of February 1999 when these photos were taken there were still a few surviving Silverliners on Meeker Ave. Anyone with enough patience is welcome to cruise both sides of Meeker on Google Earth to see if any are still there.