Project Firebox 20
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are many places in and around Astoria where time and space fold in upon each other and you find yourself at the corner of an avenue and street which bear the same number. This scarlet paladin withstands and discharges its duty despite the frozen indignity heaped on and around it at the junction of 37th avenue and 37th street- just off Northern Blvd. Who can guess what odd sights it has witnessed at this tripartite angle between Dutch Kills and Astoria and Queens Plaza, and what strange attractors frequent such concurrent corners?
The Newtown Pentacle 
At the margins: here marked the original (1871) northern boundary of the original 3rd ward of Long Island City. Just west of here on 37th Ave (then Webster) was set the new southern boundary of the expanded village of Astoria when she amended her charter in 1867. As the Pentacle has illustrated before, in such places accumulate creations of an earlier day – misshapen, disowned, and forgotten.
TJ Connick
February 10, 2011 at 12:48 am