Tom Anderson wrote:

7 train from Manhattan to Shea Stadium; said goodbye to my friends who
were going to see the tennis and walked into Flushing in search of
Chinese food; having found it, and a local burger place i can't honestly
recommend, walked back, and then along the length of Flushing Meadows,
getting lost in Kew Gardens Hills on the way (and passing an enormous
rail depot of some sort) and eventually found Briarwood Van Wyck
Boulevard station; sat there for a while waiting for an E train towards
Jamaica before getting round to reading the small print on the map and
realising that it wasn't going to come; walked out and down to Sutphin
Boulevard station, and caught a J train; changed at Broadway Junction
(an amazing station!) onto the A, and rode it to Hoyt Schermerhorn;
walked around the Fulton Street mall and environs, ate cheesecake,
bought a couple of T-shirts in Modell's (one of which has now fallen to
bits); somehow got back to east 66th street - i think it wasn't via the
4 from Borough Hall, but rather the 2 or 3 to Times Square, so i could
have a go on the shuttle to Grand Central and then get the 6 home!

Not bad!

That enormous rail depot was (the badly misnamed) Jamaica Yard, home to
the R-32 and R-46 cars used on the E, F, G, R, and V trains.

You could have taken the F train to Sutphin Boulevard. It's a different
station, but it's only a few blocks away from the E/J/Z station.

Did you look out the railfan window (the window at the front of the
train) at all? That's something that isn't possible in London except on
DLR. (It won't be possible in New York for much longer either, since
the older 60-foot rolling stock is about to be replaced, and in a few
years nearly every train will have a transverse cab at either end.)

Anyway, should i have been afraid?

No, although I probably wouldn't have gone for a long walk in an
unfamiliar city without a map. Probably the most dangerous area you
were in was the Broadway Junction area, but you were inside a busy
subway station, so I wouldn't have been concerned. (Speaking of
Broadway Junction, did you see the rail yard off to the right of the J
train? That's East New York Yard, home to the R-42 and R-143 cars used
on the J/Z, M, and L trains.)

I was a bit worried when i was lost
in Kew Gardens, since i was off the edge of all my maps, but it seemed
like a nice area, and i knew roughly where i was heading, so wasn't
afraid as such. I managed to walk through a couple of motorway junctions
on the way (these seem to be a popular feature of New York parks!),
which didn't make things any easier.

This one, most likely:
http://www.empirestateroads.com/week/week32.html

Robert Moses, NYC Parks Commissioner for most of the middle of the 20th
Century, also built nearly all of NYC's highways.

Brooklyn itself was fine - felt
rather like Brixton, actually, far more London-like than any other part
of New York (although the scabby northern end of Broadway had something
of the Seven Sisters Road to it).

The scabby northern end of Broadway? Are you referring to Broadway
Junction or to the much more famous Broadway, the one that runs up the
length of Manhattan and continues into the Bronx (and, arguably, beyond)?
--
David of Broadway
New York, NY, USA