Archive for 2010
Astoria Tumbleweeds
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The tumbling remnants of happier times rolls about the ancient village of Astoria, and can be observed in many windblown places. These urban tumbleweeds are predominantly disposed of, according to custom, before the second week of January. The majority of these shots were taken in the first week of the new year. The vast amount of trash is atypical for this block, as holiday feasting and present opening produce an abundance of urban waste.
from nyc.gov
Collections will take place beginning on Monday, January 4, 2010 through Friday, January 15, 2010 .
Residents are encouraged to put out their discarded trees at curbside as early as possible during the collection period.
DSNY asks residents to remove all tree stands, tinsel, lights, and ornaments from trees before placing them out for collection. DO NOT place trees in plastic bags. Trees will be chipped into mulch that will be distributed to parks, playing fields, and community gardens throughout the city.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As longtime readers of this site know, I’m fascinated by New York’s infrastructure and the scale of endeavor it represents. Constantly amazed not by what the City screws up, but what it actually gets right. The extra tonnage of holiday trash, much of it paper, is just absorbed off the sidewalks without much fanfare.
The xmas trees, however, seem to be the last to be collected, which allows the wind to take them where it wants to go. Just today, during the last week of January, I saw one swirling about on the corner and there were a couple over by the local park (which is a perennial target for dumping of household trash from illegally converted area apartments).
from wikipedia
It was around Christmas 1851 when a farmer in the U.S. state of New York’s Catskill Mountains, Mark Carr, began a journey with two oxen drawn sleds toward New York City with a crop of Christmas trees in tow. When he arrived in New York the first Christmas tree market was born, from which he sold all the trees. Though Christmas trees have been sold commercially in the United States since Carr’s 1851 journey from the Catskills, the first American Christmas tree farm was not established until about 50 years later. Until then, most U.S.Christmas trees were simply harvested from forests.
from nytimes.com- click here for an article from 1880 about Mr. Carr
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Like the tumbleweeds in some stereotypical western movie, the last vestiges of ChristmAstoria just roll along and out of frame. I like to think that there’s a wall somewhere near Flushing Bay that they all pile up against, but probably not. The weather will reduce them to wireframes by Valentines Day.
from ci.nyc.ny.us
Christmas Tree Collection –
Citywide Christmas tree collection is also an important part of the Departmentʼs recycling program. In January 2008, approximately 160,250 discarded Christmas trees were collected by dedicated tree trucks over a 12-work day period, January 3 through 16, 2008. Two (2) primary disposal sites were utilized: Fresh Kills and Wards Island.
All trees delivered to Wards Island were chipped by the Department of Parks and Recreation. This joint agency partnership in processing trees proved to be extremely successful. In Fresh Kills a private company, under contract to the Department, chipped the trees.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The sad specimen above was my own humble tree. Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself often choose the “Charlie Brown” tree for our holiday decorations.
from christmastree.org
MYTH #9: Real Christmas Trees end up in landfills.
BUSTED: Christmas Tree recycling programs are available nationwide, and many are quite creative. A farm-grown Christmas tree is 100% biodegradable, so it can be used for all kinds of things in nature, from mulch to erosion control. Fake trees?….see Myth #4 above. People often lament the sight of Christmas trees at the curb after Christmas…but they don’t realize that many communities have curb-side pick up as part of their recycling program. They’re not “being thrown in the trash” or ending up in landfills. They’re waiting to be put into the recycling program.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Tumbling Tumbleweeds by Sons of the Pioneers- Click here for the song
I’m a roaming cowboy riding all day long,
Tumbleweeds around me sing their lonely song.
Nights underneath the prairie moon,
I ride along and sing this tune.
See them tumbling down
Pledging their love to the ground
Lonely but free I’ll be found
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.
Cares of the past are behind
Nowhere to go but I’ll find
Just where the trail will wind
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.
I know when night has gone
That a new world’s born at dawn.
I’ll keep rolling along
Deep in my heart is a song
Here on the range I belong
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.
Back on the Case
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The latest batch of photos are finally finished and uploaded at flickr, most of which were shot in the last month or so. Regular postings will resume within a day or two, and your humble narrator continues to suffer the stinging embrace of winter, here in the frozen heart of the Newtown Pentacle. A ridiculous collection of insulating garments, reduced to rags by constant use, adorns my withered body and restricts movement. Just to satisfy my curious nature, I recently stepped on a bathroom scale before and after preparing for a walk, and discovered that my cold weather gear added 30 pounds to my weight- making me look like a character from a Terry Gilliam movie.
This ludicrous assortment of fleece sweatshirts, long underwear, and overcoats offers me “cover” however, as there’s little chance private security or the NYPD would notice or harass an apparently homeless man walking the fences of the Newtown Creek. When they see the camera, though, the jig is up and I’m soon explaining “what I’m up to” to another armed 24 year old from Long Island with a badge. This sort of encounter has become increasingly rare in the last year, but it still happens- and I remind the intrepid photographers amongst you to always carry ID and remember to call the young officer “Sir”. NYPD responds to polity, usually, and if you’re a gentleman they will generally realize you’re “harmless”. Never call a New York City Police Officer “dude”, respect the badge, if not the person.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The cauldron of Astoria street life is at low simmer momentarily, as the hoodlums of the ancient village find the cold abhorrent. Our local fraternal youth organization has reorganized itself under a new “nom de guerre” and they seem to getting ready to announce their presence to the larger community this spring and summer, when- I’m sure- they will discover a few things about Queens street life. One of their lesser officers, a 90 pound weakling and runt of the litter, has been proclaiming “a storm is coming”. Their new branding incorporates the “M” word, which is never spoken aloud here in Queens, and I’m sure that certain older and long extant elements of the community will attempt to enforce rights to their intellectual property before the springtime thaw. At any rate, the local constabulary has been picking away at their loose structure and for the the moment at least- no one is dealing weed on my stoop as they’ve all landed on juvie probation.
The funniest quote from one of these kids, a 15 year old Algerian immigrant who is more “lummox teddy bear” than he is “stone cold gangsta” is that he wants to quit high school early and join the Marines. It seems that school has too many restrictions, and he thinks that the Marine Corps will offer him more freedom to pursue his interests.
Sigh.
Astoria Slice
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Observations and commentary on the ever shifting urban milieu called Pizza:
Pizza is the fruit of choice for the lifelong New Yorker, a greasy elixir that nourishes the soul. A proper slice is an avenue through which salvation may be found- sort of a cheesy eucharist.
There are borough based niceties known to sophisticates- the overloaded and enormous slices of Manhattan and the Bronx, the crunchy crust and sparse cheese found in “the Queens slice”, the perfect ratios and oil dripping sauce of the Brooklyn and… Staten Island slice. There’s also the fancy “wood burning oven” sort offered by places like “John’s” in the village, of course, but that’s a little “fine dining” if you ask me. There are further specific qualities to each borough’s slice, but I won’t bore you.
Careful observation and sampling of the goods over a four decade long study has led to the following observation- As the ethnic tides of immigration into New York have waxed and waned, the character of New York Pizza has picked up influences gathered from other world cuisines, no doubt because of who is actually cooking the stuff. Moving from the characteristic pentateuch of borough based stylings into a generic citywide slice which owes much to the influx of Latin American labor into the formerly southern Italian dominated kitchens, I’ve noticed a shift in flavor and delivered product. Don’t mistake me, not saying its bad or good, just saying that it is.
The pie above is a June 2008 specimen from Gino’s on Broadway here in Astoria, which has since undergone a change in ownership and staff. Shortly after the pizzeria changed hands, the composition of their product changed noticeably, taking on the new citywide standard- which I call Pizzadilla. The pun is based of course on the Mexican fare called Quesadilla, which modern New York Pizza is beginning to resemble.
The Mozzarella (which is pronounced MOOTSARELLAH, not MMAHTSSARELLA by the way) is less fatty than it should be and the sauce has far less olive oil used in in its recipe. A proper slice- according to me- should drip an orange oil and need to be blotted at the apogee of the fold, it should also nearly sunder its crust when folded. Pizza should also NEVER have ham or pineapple… just what the hell is wrong with you people? The new Ginos also offers the single funniest menu item I’ve ever seen on sale in a Pizzeria- the Salad Slice (which is indeed a slice of pizza with a salad piled onto it).
Newtown Pentacle readers who find themselves on Steinway Street between 30th and 31st should direct their attentions to Rizzo’s, which is a prime example of the “Queens Slice”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Alive and well
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sorry for the lack of postings in the last few days, but the next big batch of photos and research has been occupying me, and I’m a little “written out” at the moment. As mentioned in previous posts, I’m attempting to control myself- to not allow an “all cemetery” Newtown Pentacle to emerge. Of course, that would indicate that there was some sort of grand plan governing when things appear here, or that these postings are following an agenda of some kind. Nothing could be further from the truth, and the weather has largely shut me down for the last month or so on the “gathering content” front lines. As is usually the case during this time of the year, I’m frustrated by my inability to be outside due to my vulnerable and weakened constitution.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The good news is that I was recently invited to take a series of shots indoors at JetBlue’s Terminal 5 at JFK airport, while under the supervision of airport personnel which assured no hassle with security. Certain restrictions (don’t shoot security or actual runways) applied, and the vast majority of the shots are in the hands of and controlled by a major metropolitan ad agency, but I’m authorized to share a subset of them publicly- which will be coming sometime this week. Proper postings will resume shortly, why not subscribe to the RSS feed found in the toolbar to the right so you don’t miss anything? No spam or commercial crap from me, can’t speak for wordpress but that’s really not their style- and the nice bit about “push” services like RSS is that you’ll be able to read the Pentacle on the gizmo of your choice.
New Calvary
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While scuttling away from that ribbon of malefic neglect called the Newtown Creek one fine day, on my way home to the yellow brick splendors of far off Astoria, your humble narrator suddenly had the sensation of being observed and followed by malign forces. Such paranoia is a failing of mine, of course (I’m all ‘effed up), as I’m given to wild flights of imagination and illogical conjecture about everyday and ordinary experiences which are mundane occurrences for everyone else. The impression that I think I’m somehow special would be erroneous however, as this is more curse than blessing.
Simply put, your humble narrator lives very much in his own self defined world- which in this case, framed by the steel overpass of the Long Island Expressway and the cyclopean walls of New Calvary Cemetery. A narrow and neglected sidewalk carried me toward an aperture in its high iron gates.
Calvary Cemetery is owned and managed by the Archdiocese of New York. It consists of four cemeteries and has about 3 million interred:
First Calvary Cemetery: full by 1867, located betw the Long Island Expressway & Review Ave.
Second Calvary Cemetery: located on the west side of 58th St betw Queens Blvd & the Brooklyn-Queens Espressway, land acquisition ended in 1888
Third Calvary Cemetery: est. 1879, located on the west side of 58th St, between the LIE & the BQE
Fourth Calvary Cemetery: est. 1900, located on the west side of 58th St, betw the LIE & 55th Ave
Mailing address: Calvary Cemetery, 49-02 Laurel Hill Blvd., Flushing NY 11377-7396
– photo by Mitch Waxman
New Calvary Cemetery isn’t “special” in the way that nearby Mount Zion and FIrst Calvary are- in terms of historic significance or psychic impression. The latter locations impart a sense of devastating loneliness upon their visitors, evoking a sensation of walking sanctified ground- while New Calvary is actually a very nice and quite pleasant place.
Far larger than the other “suburban cemeteries” New Calvary stretches out in a vast trapezoid of manicured grounds that extend from Queens Blvd. to 55th avenue (north to south) and 49th-58th streets (west to east), is trisected by both the BQE and LIE, and there are far worse places to visit on a sunny afternoon. It abuts Mount Zion Cemetery on 58th street.
from wikipedia
The Rural Cemetery Act was a law passed by the New York Legislature on April 27, 1847, that authorized commercial burial grounds in rural New York state. The law led to burial of human remains becoming a commercial business for the first time, replacing the traditional practice of burying the dead in churchyards and on private farmland. One effect of the law was the development of a large concentration of cemeteries along the border between the New York City boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
note:
There are many new interments, every day, at New Calvary (roughly 60,000 people die in New York City during an average year) – the recently dead and their families are everywhere. Newtown Pentacle “policy” on such matters is still in a state of evolutionary flux, but for the present, focusing in -with or without significant obfuscation of identifying information on the grave marker – on the monuments of the recently deceased is something I’m a little “squirrely” about. Feedback is appreciated, by the way, on this subject and its ethical implications. On the one hand- there it is, out in the open in public. On the other, no one wants to see their dad’s name on some blog. What do you think? Leave a comment, if you dare…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
First Calvary, whose altitude is at a remarkably lower declination than New Calvary, drapes nearby Laurel Hill, but is isolated by the vast complexes of highway bridges which span and overpass the area from its younger sibling.
A visit to New Calvary is actually a very pleasant experience, although the vast majority of the markers here are mundane and mass produced owing to their production during the middle and late 20th century. Such generic markers are utilitarian and seem to be weathering well, but discovery of iconic and unique statuary in the tradition of the O’Brien or Doherty monuments at First Calvary eludes me in here.
If you decide to enter this place, there’s a “no trespassing” rule- which is seldom enforced unless you’re acting like a jerk. You may get told to leave, I once had a groundskeeper keep a very close eye on me but wasn’t confronted. Reason being is that there are active funeral rites being performed. Be cognizant of the feelings of others if you bring your camera with you… another reason I prefer First Calvary is that its mostly full and nearly empty of the living.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Do not mistake my deep affections for the venerable Calvary as an attempt to make its younger offshoot seem facile or cheap. This is a very impressive place, with subtle landscaping and gentle hills. Surreal, one has the impression of perambulating a technicolor movie set, dressed with grass that is “too green” and statuary strategically painted with moss and nitre. The bronze door above is actually from a mold, as I’ve seen other examples of it all over the cemetery belt.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lucky for me, this notion of paranoid pursuit that had caused me to enter Third Calvary brought me there at the apex of the autumnal sun, the so called “golden hour”. When lighting conditions are such, one tends to just shoot and shoot, as they will pass quickly. The sunlight become orange gold and the shadows assume a blueish hue. Such complimentary reactions of color are pleasing to the human eye, evoking the wild theories of the radical painter and art theorist Josef Albers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The grave markers in New Calvary point to lessons learned in the older cemetery, with long concrete foundations providing stable ground for the stones to rest upon. The disturbing subsidence common at the older facility is not seen as often here, probably due to the differing hydrological qualities of the substrate soil.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve learned that many of the Mausoleums found in the Newtown Pentacle are designed with a window of stained glass and a small altar within. The deceased are held in the crypts which lie on either side of this space. The site orientation of most of these mausoleums is east/west and the stained glass was calculated to be illuminated by either sunrise or sunset. The ornate designs revealed during such intervals is remarkable, and if you happen across Calvary at this time of day, look for such ephemera.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is a curious optical artifact I’ve been referring to as “me and Jesus”. The reflection on the right side is me. You can just make out my hand holding the camera, the collar of my filthy black raincoat, a specular highlight on my sunglasses, and the outline of my black fedora. On the left is the shadow pattern of a bearded man with long hair. The obvious explanation is that the backlit stained glass is projecting an image on the tomb glass I’m focusing past… but the image in the artwork is not wearing a crown of thorns, and the image on the left is.
Weird.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hey, you never know what you’re going to find at Calvary.
The Newtown Pentacle 