In a hopefully auspicious moment, our trip literally got off with a bang.
During our last ever walk back from Jude’s daycare on the evening before our trip began (Aug. 9), Carroll Gardens was rocked by a loud explosion. Large plumes of dark smoke billowed out from under a car parked at the northwest corner of Henry & Degraw and lights in nearby stores flickered on and off, leading residents and store owners to pour onto Henry Street to check out the problem. Then: boom! A very loud explosion, followed by people screaming and a lot of commotion—including several women with yoga mats running quickly away from the scene and a livery car driver reversing north down Henry Street (it’s a one-way street, the other way!) at full speed.
We could not find anything online about what had happened. Apparently though, this is reoccurring problem on Henry Street: http://mcbrooklyn.blogspot.com/2011/07/electrical-explosion-on-henry-street.html. In any event, once the smoke cleared, the symbolic importance of the explosion was not lost on us.
