What Did the Tomatoes Do to Deserve This?

Drunken Polish prank, something more sinister, or just tomatoes that fell off a truck? Kurt Strahm sent us over some images of tomato torture in Greenpoint's McCarren Park. He spotted a strange scene on Wednesday morning with tomatoes lying in the street, being crushed by the passing traffic. That's not so strange, but seeing tomatoes impaled on the fence surrounding the park...very strange.

Maybe it's the work of a lycopene-hating cult or someone with an extreme tomato aversion. Or maybe it was a tribute to Bunol, Spain's Tomatina. By Thursday morning, the mess was all gone. We feel sorry for the park employee that probably had to clean up the mess.

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By tien mao in Miscellaneous on September 21, 2007 10:30 AM

Comments [rss]

guest

My brother did something like this once: one tomato on a stake in the lawn. He hates the things, so when I asked him what he was up to, he said it was "a warning to all tomatoes."

"So it's like an ULTIMATUM?"

Yeah, yeah, puns are always funnier when they're your own...

guest

Its probably from the Lucky's Real Tomatoes dumpster.

BTW, smitty: I used to work for the Food Bank for New York City. Lucky's (and many other fruit and veggie wholesalers in the area) gives a lot of the surplus tomatoes they can't sell to the Food Bank and City Harvest (both part of America's Second Harvest). What goes in the dumpster generally can't be safely stored and/or eaten.

guest

Are you sure you don't mean KURTZ Strahm?!?

"These round knobs were not ornamental but symbolic; they were expressive and puzzling, striking and disturbing -- food for thought and also for vultures if there had been any looking down from the sky; but at all events for such ants as were industrious enough to ascend the pole. They would have been even more impressive, those heads on the stakes, if their faces had not been turned to the house."

guest

Is this connected to alice waters' visit to NYC yesterday?

matukonyc

I would first assume it was a "square sober hipster 'artist'" prank first, local teens second, and probably a Polish prank last of all. The Poles are too busy doing things like working to feed their families for this kind of nonsense.

beckley

There's a company a couple blocks away that distributes tomatoes. They always have a dumpster or two full of them outside their garage door on Banker Street. Presumably they're past their prime.

S.D.

Yep, "Drunken Polish prank" struck me as a foolish start to the post.

Blairy Blair

It's totally different, other islander, the Polish are always drunk. The Chinese aren't famous drinkers in the slightest.

other_islander

Drunken Polish prank...

Umm, would "drunken Domincan prank" have been appropriate for Inwood or "drunken Chinese prank" if this had been Canal Street?

Flag on the play!