Archive for the ‘Subway’ Category
curiously dislocated
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
- photo by Mitch Waxman
Although it is the Mother of harlots, entering Manhattan on a regular basis is periodically required of your humble narrator, for none may trade nor sell in the City of New York lest this borough’s mark is upon them. Usually this journey is accomplished along the subterranean R line, but often will one walk over to the elevated N line on the 31st street side of the neighborhood just to mix things up. You take the low road, I’ll take the high road, and I’ll be in midtown before ye…
- photo by Mitch Waxman
The Shining City, a place which your humble narrator actually lived for many years, has become lost in an inferior incarnation of itself. One does not long for the era of sin and fornication recently passed, it is the modern facade of the City which agitates. Many disagree with me, arguing for acceptance of a halcyon and quite modern era of progress and development which will eradicate the mistakes of prior centuries. All I can tell you, in retort, is that I don’t see many autochthonous smiles in Manhattan. Also, $9 is too much for a tuna sandwich.
- photo by Mitch Waxman
An echo chamber, things there are no longer hot, nor cold- rather they are lukewarm. Don’t get me wrong, there ain’t no mountain spring water running out here in Astoria neither, there are oodles of things wrong in Brooklyn and Queens. I’m sure the Bronx and …Staten Island… likely have some problems too. I’m just saying that we don’t export them, unlike the unsustainable island of Manhattan, and that I- for one- am a lot more comfortable and likelier to be smiling here in Queens.
curious noises
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
- photo by Mitch Waxman
Admission that Malthus was probably right in adopting a dire tone is offered, something which occurred to me while sitting in a dank concrete bunker and waiting interminably for a Manhattan bound Subway. The worst of all possible situations – alone with my own blasphemous and fever inducing thoughts. Racing phantasms leapt about behind my brow, as train after train exited Manhattan moving east. Each electrically powered chain of metal boxes which entered and left this dripping subterranean bunker seemed to be full of humans, but it is impossible to say with certainty who- or indeed “what”- might have been cradled within.
Finally, a cyclopean shape appeared in the distance of the cement corridor.
- photo by Mitch Waxman
Realization that the alloyed conveyance proceeding in the particular direction desired by one such as myself was at hand resulted in a humble narrator sitting uncomfortably amongst the many. Judgement and condemnation was surely brewing in their minds, as furtive glances revealed hostile stares. At the other end of the car were a group of teenagers, and I was reminded of media reports describing the peer group’s outré and often violent delinquency as well as rumors detailing their drug fueled rampages. The practice of running rampant is prevalent in the youth of these degenerate days, after all.
Toward the corner which I faced, an older woman was knitting, just a bit too nonchalantly for my taste.
Perspiration began to drip coldly down my back, which was fully hidden beneath a filthy black raincoat which smells of sewers and wood smoke, and my breathing became erratic.
- photo by Mitch Waxman
Imminent, waves of sudden panic eliminated my desire to enter the Shining City of Manhattan onboard this crowded contraption. One departed this underworld, carven into the marshy soils of Queens itself, to once more gaze upon the greasy skies of Long Island City. Standing in a small patch of transmission oil and shattered glass, as a castaway McDonalds bag found its wind blown course to my leg while some strange but obviously relieved inebriate urinated into a phone booth, calm reason once again overtook me. Home, at last.
Down in those concrete catacombs, how can one ever know what horrors are of the mind alone or hint at what there may be that is lurking down there?
suffocating windrows
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
- photo by Mitch Waxman
A few of you have emailed me recently, concerned about the dire outlook and melancholy displayed here, at your Newtown Pentacle, in recent months. Concerns have been transmitted that I seem to be grasped by a dark and somber mood are noted, and appreciated. Everything is fine, however, and your humble narrator is simply reacting to normal stressors in typically infantile manner. For example- I need an expensive new zoom lens and have no idea how I am going to pay for it, which is the very definition of a “first world problem.”
- photo by Mitch Waxman
The thing is, though, that at the moment I’m more than a little bored, without a whole lot to look forward to in the immediate future. There’s going to be a Working Harbor Committee Newtown Creek Boat tour in May, and I’ll be announcing a series of 2013 walking tour dates that will stretch out from the early spring to the fall in a few days… Also, the Kosciuszko Bridge project will be kicking to life soon… right now, though, not so much.
- photo by Mitch Waxman
For the moment, I’m just some weird guy in a filthy black raincoat whom you see while driving along, walking toward Newtown Creek with a camera in my hand. A veritable mendicant- discarded and disabused, walking the earth and cataloging its riches. “When you’re down in the dumps”, I always say, “buy into your own mythology”- it’ll get you through the rough patch.
tarnished plate
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
- photo by Mitch Waxman
Queens Plaza is that which greets visitors to our fair borough, the home to a great machine called Queensboro. This machine, utilitarian, is the backbone which carries vehicular and light rail traffic from the western tip of a long island to the eastern shore of the great human hive’s focal point in Manhattan. Grotesque, the area has been the focus of quite a bit of municipal thought and spending over the last few years.
Mayan Apocalypse Countdown: just 8 days left until the 13th b’ak’tun ends, initiating the Mayan Apocalypse on December 21st. Tick, tock.
- photo by Mitch Waxman
An amenity, called Dutch Kills Green, has been installed as a city park. Controversy over its design and the opinions of area wags notwithstanding, your humble narrator has observed that the place is being well used. A nearby school offers daily crowds of scalawag teenagers, and the place seems popular with both indigent and office worker alike. Several interesting madmen cross the place regularly, including myself.
- photo by Mitch Waxman
Annoying, artless graffito has appeared of late in the place. This post is offered in the hope that those of you, lords and ladies, who find themselves in the employ of those powers and potentates who enjoy official stewardship over the community might like to know the phone number of one of these “street artists”. It is realized that so much of the graffiti which turns up is anonymous, and that some minor satisfaction might arrive from being able to ring the person up.
- photo by Mitch Waxman
Phone conversation is something generationally aberrant to those under a certain age, with SMS text or twitter replacing verbal communication, so you might wish to tweet the artist instead. Alternatively, Facebook might be your bag.
slumbering watcher
- photo by Mitch Waxman
Inconsistent and odd by nature, your humble narrator finally feels quite in tune with the current season, an unpredictable mélange of pendulum swings. No matter what it is that is causing this wild series of climactic shifts, the light has been absolutely glorious for the last few weeks. Whatever shape or opacity which the atmospheric filter has taken of late, the emanations of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself have been suffusive.
- photo by Mitch Waxman
Accordingly, my wanderings have increased, as has the geographic scale of them. During the dark and cold of the winter, even as mild a one as we have recently experienced, my various weaknesses and physical inadequacies contain me within a small area. Now that the warmth has returned to the air, a humble narrator is unbound, and free to cause trouble across not just the Greater Newtown Pentacle but the entire megalopolis.
- photo by Mitch Waxman
Queens Plaza, (as always) seems to be the central locus by which one such as myself can approach this greater City, and observed recently is this interesting twist on the sophist “if you see something, say something” mantra disseminated by Manhattan elites. This particular motto is a bit more “outer boroughs” in its outlook.
- photo by Mitch Waxman
In Manhattan, which is the focus of the government and business community, one is encouraged to bring the gendarme in to mediate even the slightest of conflicts. This policy is certainly prosaic, but out here in Queens and Brooklyn, one quickly learns that the cops don’t arrive in time to break up a fight or perform the same duties as Manhattan precincts do. Out here, they arrive well after the blood has been spilt, and as the above motto suggests: you’re largely on your own when “it hits the fan”.
Also from newtowncreekalliance.org
- photo by Mitch Waxman
Earth Day BYO Picnic Lunch at the Newtown Creek Nature Walk
Sunday, April 22nd at 1 p.m.
Come join in for this casual celebration of the victory that is the Newtown Creek Nature Walk. Bring your own brown bag lunch and join the Newtown Creek champions who worked hard for years to win this unique waterfront park.
Sunday, April 22nd at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant Nature Walk between 1pm – 2pm.
Finally,
Obscura Day 2012, Thirteen Steps around Dutch Kills
April 28th, 10 a.m.
Your humble narrator will be narrating humbly at this year’s Obscura Day event on April 28th, leading a walking tour of Dutch Kills. The tour is already two thirds booked up, so grab your tickets while you can.
“Found less than one mile from the East River, Dutch Kills is home to four movable (and one fixed span) bridges, including one of only two retractible bridges remaining in New York City. Dutch Kills is considered to be the central artery of industrial Long Island City and is ringed with enormous factory buildings, titan rail yards — it’s where the industrial revolution actually happened. Bring your camera, as the tour will be revealing an incredible landscape along this section of the troubled Newtown Creek Watershed.”
For tickets and full details, click here :
obscuraday.com/events/thirteen-steps-dutch-kills-newtown-creek-exploration
