Archive for January 2011
Project Firebox 19
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Decapitated, this firebox on Skillman Avenue and Honeywell Street has long been severed from its designed functionality. I’m told by certain knowledgeable sources that you simply cannot remove the stump of an alarm box from its appointed spot, as the circuitry which governs the entire system will be affected by its absence rendering the surrounding neighborhood’s chain of Fireboxes blind to urgent cries of imminent immolation.
This firebox, however, finds a new utility for the needs of the few – or in this case the one- as opposed to the many it once protected, for your humble narrator routinely uses the dinner plate sized platter which crowns it as a makeshift camera platform when photographing the titan Sunnyside Yard with its backdrop of the shield wall of that Shining City which squats squamously across the River of Sound.
profound discouragement
– photo by Mitch Waxman
With my favored vantage on Dutch Kills, the estimable Borden Avenue Bridge, once more accessible– I’ve been making it a point to aim my wanderings toward its general direction whenever I can summon the fortitude to brave the ice. As crazy as it sounds, and regular readers of this- your Newtown Pentacle- have become fairly accustomed to crazy, I really missed this little bridge for the nearly 2 years it had been undergoing emergency repair.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Perhaps its because this is the first section of the Newtown Creek that I actively explored, researched, and made it a point of documenting. Maybe its simply because this is the most easily attained of the Creek’s tributaries for one who walks, or that it seems to be the most “down on it’s luck” section of the vast watershed and I’m drawn by nature to the runt of the litter.
English Kills in far off Brooklyn makes for far better cautionary tales, but there’s just something tragic about Dutch Kills that always draws me in.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An actual “out loud gasp” escaped my food hole when I discovered that the resident Crow of the Borden Avenue Bridge had not been forced out of his shanty by the long construction project, and if anything- the fellow had been building additions to the ramshackle hut constructed from found materials.
Last time that I had pointed my lens at this character was in the February 3rd posting of 2010 titled “affordable housing development on Borden Avenue“.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The smell of a wood fire was wafting from the Crow’s slapdash of plywood, tyvek, and sheet metal- a vague scent which crowded its way into the otherwise extant perfumes normally associated with Dutch Kills.
For those of you who haven’t been reading the Newtown Pentacle since inception- “Crow” is a term I picked up from the neighborhood in Astoria that describes the armies of itinerant scrap metal collectors who find profit in other people’s waste- “put something shiny out on the sidewalk, and the crows will show up and take it” is a common aphorism around my part of Astoria.
I’ve assigned this crow a name “Blue Crow”, but both the “red crow” and the “burgundy crow” have been mentioned previously.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a bunch of these folks I’ve been spying on, and I’ve even heard rumors of a criminal group who pilfer the white bronze monuments and copper fittings of area cemeteries to sell the valuable metals on the scrap market, but I have yet to regale you with tales of the other- and quite polychromatic- crows who hold the “Green Recycling Jobs of Tomorrow, Today”.
One has also wondered, and more than wondered, at what foul congress the Blue Crow might have had with that which cannot possibly exist in the velvet deep of the malign Dutch Kills.
vainly striving
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Trapped by ice and cold, during that time of the year when the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself shines bright but carries no warmth, your humble narrator is bored-bored-bored. Crippled by vulnerability to cold, I’ve been appeasing myself- during those long hours when sleep is impossible- with long exposures and incessant hand wringing.
Your historical nugget for the day is: This is that time of the year when the ancient colony of Newtown was beset by wolves, and the Sheriff was required to distribute gunshot and powder from his stores to the local gentry- so as the the population of these livestock killing predators around Dutch Kills as well as a nearby swampy area (which would someday be called Queens Plaza) might be reduced.
Wolves.
from wikipedia
Cabin fever is an idiomatic term for a claustrophobic reaction that takes place when a person or group is isolated and/or shut in, in a small space, with nothing to do, for an extended period (as in a simple country vacation cottage during a long rain or snow). Symptoms include restlessness, irritability, irrational frustration with everyday objects, forgetfulness, laughter, excessive sleeping, distrust of anyone they are with, and an urge to go outside even in the rain, snow or dark.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Making Lemonade from waste fruit is a specialty of mine, however, so the long exposures mentioned above have been of the photographic kind rather than some shocking and lewd behavior.
For the shots above and below, I used my trusty Canon G10 rigged with a specialized mount. A friend here in Astoria found this contraption for me, after I complained about the annoyances of using traditional camera mounts like tripods on the street. A sturdy Croat, he found the device at a hardware store and described it as “a laser level’s magnetic tripod”, which just happens to have a standard .25 inch tripod mounting screw. This thing just kind of “klangs” onto anything magnetic, which opens up a lot of possible places to steady mount the camera- Cars, fire hydrants, fences, signposts- you name it.
You wouldn’t believe how many individual shots it took to achieve the one above, as passing cars or changing traffic signal lights kept on screwing me up.
from wikipedia
Symptoms of SAD may consist of difficulty waking up in the morning, morning sickness, tendency to oversleep as well as to overeat, and especially a craving for carbohydrates, which leads to weight gain. Other symptoms include a lack of energy, difficulty concentrating on completing tasks, and withdrawal from friends, family, and social activities. All of this leads to the depression, pessimistic feelings of hopelessness, and lack of pleasure which characterize a person suffering from this disorder.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Problem is that despite its many merits, the G10 is ultimately a point and shoot which Canon has placed certain limits on (specifically the limitation in exposure to 15 seconds), and the magnetic doohickey described above is not stout enough for the weight of a DSLR and lens (which is capable of manual exposure times, supposedly the shutter can be left open for quite some time). Luckily, Astoria offers many opportunities for night photography, despite its omnipresent automotive traffic.
Bored.
from forgotten-ny.com
On June 8, 1875 eight individuals met and organized the Long Island City Turn Verein at Koch’s Hall, N.E. Corner of Broadway and 9th Avenue [today’s 38th St] in Long Island City, N.Y. for the sole purpose of introducing and furthering German Turnerism (which embraces the philosophy of building a “Sound Mind in a Sound Body” fostered by Friedrich Ludwig Jahn in Germany). The society’s purpose was to educate its membership physically and mentally through gymnastic exercises and by encouraging use of the German language.
The present building was constructed in 1928 and sold in the mid-1970s. The society is now based in Nassau County.
Project Firebox 18
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Badder than you, this urban survivor owns the corner of Vernon Vlvd. and Queens Plaza South. Scarlet, its backdrop is mighty Queensboro itself, and the mysterious doorway into its tower. Rumored by area wags and historical enthusiasts alike to have once led to elevators and stairways which carried potential passengers to a trolley platform high above on the bridge itself, local legends abound as to the true purpose of the entrance. Who can say?
disquieting effect
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a strange and seemingly shunned house not far from either Queens Plaza or Court Square, a hidden relict on 43rd and Crescent which is shadowed by the Megalith. Intriguing, it’s a fairly old structure located at 25-01 43rd Avenue which is not long for this- or any other- world.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Department of Finance Building Classification for this lot is “V1-VACANT LAND”.
Don’t get me wrong- I’m not advocating for this structure to be saved or its owner’s plans for it to be thwarted in any way or even obliquely commenting on the rapid transformations and shocking scale of the “New Queens Plaza”– this isn’t one of those posts. Neither is it an extensive peeling back of hidden lore or sinister revelations.
Like a lot of things these days- it isn’t good, or bad- it just is.
The place does seem pretty “shunned” though.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What’s surprising about this little building, a clapboard scatterdash, is that it’s here at all. It’s obviously destined to be swept away, may already be gone frankly, as I haven’t been down this direction in better than a month. The enormous broom of economic inevitability is sweeping through the neighborhood and replacing the idiosyncratic and odd with the generic and corporate, and structures like these have no place here any more.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Enormous fencings, the modern kind which block the intentions of curious eyes, have been thrown up around the place. The process of clearance will eradicate traces of the former habitation, and since my self appointed mission is one of documentation, a point was made of finding a hole in said fencings large enough to fit a camera lens into. My dslr is too stout for such missions, but luckily the ever reliable Canon G10 continues to be part of my carry around kit.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The late model car half buried in debris and detritus behind this condemned and seemingly abandoned house witnessed in this product of the G10, however, makes me wonder exactly how long and why this property has been so astonishingly shunned.
The Newtown Pentacle 