Archive for November 2012
gibbous glow
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Since Hurricane Sandy and the accompanying storm surge were made a few degrees worse by the full moon and it’s accompanying tidal forces, it occurred to me that in addition to having somehow pissed off Poseidon- New York might have angered a lunar deity as well. There are lords of the sea, and lords of the sky, after all.
from wikipedia
The pregnancy of Coatlicue, the maternal Earth deity, made her other children embarrassed, including her oldest daughter Coyolxauhqui. As she swept the temple, a few hummingbird feathers fell into her chest. Coatlicue’s child, Huitzilopochtli, sprang from her womb in full war armor and killed Coyolxauhqui, along with their 400 brothers and sisters. He cut off her limbs, then tossed her head into the sky where it became the moon, so that his mother would be comforted in seeing her daughter in the sky every night.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
More often than not, the moon is represented by a goddess in the west, which ties the waxing and waning of the Earth’s anomalous astronomic companion to the female cycle of menses. In the near and far east, the moon was interpreted somewhat differently.
from wikipedia
In Cook Islands mythology, specifically of the Hervey Islands, Avatea also known as Vatea (meaning ‘bright’) was a lunar deity and the father of gods and men in Mangaian myth of origin.
According to one myth, Vari-Ma-Te-Takere (The primordial mother) created six children from her body. Three were plucked from her right side and three from her left. The first of which was Avatea, the first man, who was perceived as a moon god. As he grew he divided vertically into a hybrid being; the right half was a man and the left half a fish.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The pagan, as in historical pre Christian religious beliefs, would see the moon as a threatening and sinister celestial sign. This is a hold over from the old days of wicker kings and female priesthoods, of course, if you subscribe to the theories of Robert Graves. One would suggest that in the future, New York City take the lunar cycle a bit more seriously, lighting beeswax candles and offering appropriate ablutions.
from wikipedia
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Luna is the divine embodiment of the Moon (Latin luna; cf. English “lunar”). She is often presented as the female complement of the Sun (Sol) conceived of as a god. Luna is also sometimes represented as an aspect of the Roman triple goddess (diva triformis), along with Proserpina and Hecate. Luna is not always a distinct goddess, but sometimes rather an epithet that specializes a goddess, since both Diana and Juno are identified as moon goddesses.
In Roman art, Luna’s attributes are the crescent moon and the two-yoke chariot (biga). In the Carmen Saeculare, performed in 17 BC, Horace invokes her as the “two-horned queen of the stars” (siderum regina bicornis), bidding her to listen to the girls singing as Apollo listens to the boys.
fellow student
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator is exhausted and forlorn, and cannot bear to present another posting of the post hurricane Sandy environment around the Newtown Creek. A desire for the purity of chromatic splendor, the chance to inhabit a Mondrian painting, possesses me. Let’s take a day off, and just enjoy some color, say I. It’s a day to do a little housekeeping, and let the edifice air out.
On the housekeeping note, I’ve set up a twitter feed for those of you who would rather receive the Pentacle in that manner. If Twitter is what floats your digital boat then “follow” me at @newtownpentacle.
Right now, its just your standard newtownpentacle postings filling in there, but over the course of time you’ll start seeing unique content disseminated which is a bit more “in the moment”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Twitter thing is something I should have set up a while ago, it was actually the storm that drove me to create an account, as it provided a neat conduit to news coming out of City Hall and the Governor’s mansion during Sandy. Additionally, although I haven’t been promoting it, I’ve got a Facebook page going as well- for those of you who have surrendered their right to online privacy and are comfortable with having a publicly traded company track you online- you can follow me at facebook.com/mwaxman1.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The tour this weekend will be the final one for this year, although I’m currently striving to set up another schedule of boat and walking tours for 2013. As you’d imagine, the Magic Lantern show which I was going to do last night with Atlas Obscura is being rescheduled for sometime this winter, and I’m told that Observatory has conquered their flooding issues (they are nearby Gowanus). Count on a few fluffy postings for the next couple of days, as I need cartoons, comic book movies, and any form of escapist entertainment I can find to escape the tyranny of the real world.
Upcoming Newtown Creek tours and events:
Note: there are just 3 tickets left on this one, which is likely the last walking tour I’ll be conducting in 2012.
for an expanded description of the November 11th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
slight remainder
Notice: the November 9th Magic Lantern Show with Atlas Obscura is cancelled for now. We hope to reschedule for sometime during the winter. Observatory, where the event is scheduled to take place, has been damaged by Hurricane Sandy and flooding.
Alternatively, it has been decided to move forward with this Sunday’s Newtown Creek “SideTour” Poison Cauldron walking tour in Greenpoint, details are found at the bottom of this posting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Having moved through one of my regular “routes” from Astoria to Greenpoint to catalog the so called lower reaches of the Newtown Creek, it was time to return via another well explored and familiar pathway back to Queens. Over the Pulaski Bridge, into Long Island City, and ultimately up Skillman Avenue back to my neighborhood. On the Pulaski, I noted that one of the many undocumented sailboats which enjoys free berth on the Queens side had sunken, as you will discern in the lower right corner of the shot above.
The other locations and concurrent postings in this series exploring the post Hurricane Sandy conditions found around the Newtown Creek are Borden Avenue Bridge in open place, The Dutch Kills turning basin in dark moor, Calvary Cemetery in solid stones, The Maspeth Plank Road in sinister swamp, The Grand Street Bridge in shallow mud, English Kills in stranger whence, and Blissville to Greenpoint in vaguer recollection.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Descending down into Queens via the Pulaski stairs, where an eerie quiet was experienced. Again, this section of my survey was accomplished on Sunday the 4th, coincidentally the day which the NYC Marathon would normally have been conducted and ran across the Bridge, and the guys with the dirty fingernails who are the motive force in LIC had been hard at work cleaning up for the better part of week at this point.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Evidence of sedimentation escaping the Creek’s bulkheads was apparent, evinced at street corner sewer grates as in the shot above. That sidewalk isn’t wet, that’s oil. An unrelated trip just two days ago revealed the corner to be in the same condition, but this is the definition of “wrong side of the tracks” down here and the larger City has bigger problems right now than some piddly corner hidden away in an industrial backwater.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Stalwart, the Long Island Rail Road yard at Hunters Point was in fine fettle, despite the orange hue which their rails had taken on, no doubt due to immersion in salt water. This was a commonality shared by all rail tracks observed around the Creek which were flooded, but remember that the historic facility at Hunters Point has survived through flood and fire since 1870, and that Sandy was hardly their first rodeo.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The big story down here, beyond the flooding in the residential sections of Tower Town along 2nd and Center Streets- which I am not going to discuss- was the flooding of the Midtown Tunnel. According to the AP and WCBS, as well as official statements from the MTA, the water in the Queens Midtown Tunnel flooded in from the Queens side and emanated from Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Anecdotal stories transmitted to me described Dutch Kills breaching its banks and flowing down Borden Avenue which met with surge waters that rose over the bulkheads from the Creeks junction at East River. So far, no photos or video of the flooding have reached me. I understand that large scale pumping operations are still underway, and that the tunnel is now passable but only by buses.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This flooding of the Midtown Tunnel is the reason why the Long Island Expressway is being diverted onto local streets after Greenpoint Avenue (at least as of a couple of days ago) and describes one of the larger casualties of Hurricane Sandy in western Queens. We got fairly lucky around these parts, as compared to southeastern districts like the Rockaways and Howard Beach.
Again, in the shot above, notice that fresh orange patina on the tracks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Noticing the large piles of trash along the rail tracks, conversation was struck up with a local woman named Marti. She maintains a small community garden alongside the fence line and revealed that she had been cleaning this mess up for days with the help of a few sympathetic laborers. All of this flotsam ended up plastered along the fence from the westerly flow moving down Borden Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The businesses along Borden, as mentioned in the first posting in this series, all experienced flooding in at least their basements. Enormous losses of vehicles and equipment notwithstanding, they were back at work on this day.
Of course, this is what Long Island City does, which is getting back to work.
Upcoming Newtown Creek tours and events:
Note: there are just 4 tickets left on this one, which is likely the last walking tour I’ll be conducting in 2012.
for an expanded description of the November 11th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
vaguer recollection
Notice: the November 9th Magic Lantern Show with Atlas Obscura is cancelled for now. We hope to reschedule for sometime during the winter. Observatory, where the event is scheduled to take place, has been damaged by Hurricane Sandy and flooding.
Alternatively, it has been decided to move forward with this Sunday’s Newtown Creek “SideTour” Poison Cauldron walking tour in Greenpoint, details are found at the bottom of this posting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Amongst the oddest things I’ve witnessed around the Newtown Creek in the wake of Hurricane Sandy is a Long Island Expressway (ok, technically Queens Midtown Expressway) completely devoid of Manhattan bound traffic. This is, of course, on account of the fact that Newtown Creek is actually being pumped out from inside the Queens Midtown Tunnel, which is where the sky flung viaduct leads to.
Regardless, it is irregular.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shots in this post, and tomorrow’s as well, we’re captured last Sunday while on foot. Hank the Elevator Guy, who accompanied and drove me around for the shots presented for the last few days, was absent. His is a life of ups and downs, and thinking outside the box. That’s elevator humor, btw. Your humble narrator, alone as he should be, marched involuntarily across Greenpoint Avenue toward the bridge for named for it, and the loquacious Newtown Creek.
Thankfully, the Tidewater building seemed no worse for wear.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the Brooklyn side, which I am told was quite submerged, visible damage from the flooding was everywhere. On the street, it was small- a knocked down street sign caked in muck, a high water mark on the cement wall of a factory building, a car whose windows showed condensation on the passenger cabin side.
There was little pumping still going on, but there was a great deal of sweeping and heavy equipment was observed moving piles of garbage about.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the corner of Paidge and Provost, nearby the shuttered Newtown Creek Nature Walk, an area where I have been told that the water was some seven feet deep, petroleum residue was all over the sidewalk and the smell of fuel hung heavily in the air. Both corporate and municipal assets in the area were heavily damaged by the flooding, and in some cases a total loss of vehicular fleets was suffered.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in the past, one of the groups who tolerate my presence is the Newtown Creek Alliance, and early on in the Hurricane Sandy story, the group’s Executive Director Kate Zidar advised that it would be a good idea to not wear the shoes utilized to walk around in the contaminated areas within ones home. Here is a visible example of why, and your humble narrator reiterates and endorses this simple precaution.
Who can guess, all there is, that came bubbling up from down there?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Moving from Paidge in the direction of the staircase adorning the Pulaski Bridge, which would carry me back into Queens, I noticed this petroleum distributor had a significant amount of earth moving equipment on site. They are one of the dozens of distribution depots which were laid low by rising waters, critical infrastructure dependent on maritime access.
When this facility, and all the others like it, are back online– the current fuel shortages will become a distant memory.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The North Brooklyn Boat Club, where I’ve spent many happy afternoons this summer, was stricken hard by the flooding. Luckily- redoubtable devotees of the institution like T. Willis Elkins, Fung Lim, Leif Percifeld, and Dewey Thompson will not let their dreams drown, and a massive cleanup of their lot has been underway. The DOT yard next door also received a pungent bath when the Newtown Creek, unfettered, roared across their property.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The thing though, and it’s always hardest to remember this when you’re flat on your back and bleeding from the ears, is that NYC will ALWAYS rebuild. Stronger, better, faster. There will be fighting, and scandal, and horrible truths will be uncovered- but this is a once in a lifetime chance to reform the City.
Tomorrow, we return to the Queens side and Borden Avenue, and end our survey of the aftermath.
Upcoming Newtown Creek tours and events:
Note: there are just 4 tickets left on this one, which is likely the last walking tour I’ll be conducting in 2012.
for an expanded description of the November 11th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
stranger whence
Notice: the November 9th Magic Lantern Show with Atlas Obscura is cancelled for now. We hope to reschedule for sometime during the winter. Observatory, where the event is scheduled to take place, has been damaged by Hurricane Sandy and flooding.
Alternatively, it has been decided to move forward with this Sunday’s Newtown Creek “SideTour” Poison Cauldron walking tour in Greenpoint, details are found at the bottom of this posting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Completing the survey of the distaff tributaries of the fabled Newtown Creek in the aftermath of the so called Frankenstorm, Hurricane Sandy, my stalwart companion Hank The Elevator Guy and your humble narrator proceeded to the heart of darkness itself, the malign English Kills which runs along the borderland of Bushwick, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and Ridgewood.
There are few casual visitors to this spot, and those of us who are familiar with this section of the Creek make attempts to limit our exposure to it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Reports from those who live nearby, and don’t enjoy the measured luxury of choosing how often to breathe the unique perfumes of English Kills, indicated that significant flooding occurred here. The water was meant to have infiltrated out from the bulkheads, overflowing the tracks of the LIRR’s Bushwick Branch, and onto both Morgan and Johnson Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shells of bivalves were extant upon the moist ground. Can it be possible that they were deposited by the tidal surge? One thing which should be noted is that the smell one normally associates with this area, something not dissimilar to a turtle’s aquarium tank, was absent. Everything smelled… well, wet.
Only way to describe it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Everywhere that I’ve seen exposed rail tracks around the Creek, they all exhibit this fresh patina of orange corrosion. Causation does not equal correlation, however, if you were to compare them to the shots in the Newtown Pentacle posting from March of this year “approaching locomotive” you will notice a distinct change in color which your humble narrator would ascribe to immersion in brackish water.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The water in English Kills, as always, was horrible to behold. It was a bit murkier than usual, as would be suspected, and a large amount of floatable trash was observed. Again, not unsurprising. There is a reason that my old pal Bernie Ente called this spot “the heart of darkness” and why I use “gods gift to pain“.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is a pretty well established spot for homeless shanties and sometimes full blown camps to be established. It’s hidden and far enough away from “civilization” for no one to complain about a camp fire, after all.
This shanty was smashed, no doubt by heavy winds.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The CSO at the end of the Newtown Creek’s furthest extant. One can only imagine what was erupting from it during the storm surge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The larger Homeless shanty dwelling atop the CSO seems to have survived the storm, and they are flying the flag.
Notice the storm debris hanging from the plants along the banks, no doubt left behind as the waters receded, sucking along anything that was submerged or floating in it on the way back into the waterway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator has been in contact with certain members of the government about oil sheens and petroleum residues observed around the Newtown Creek on this survey. They assured me, and asked that I pass along that they will be back on the beat with us as soon as they clear up the disastrous situation in the Rockaways, Staten Island, and especially the Arthur Kill. They have asked that if anybody in the area spots oil, especially after the coming storm on Wednesday, that you call the NYS DEC Spills Hotline, open 24 hours a day at 1-800-457-7362.
Tomorrow, I’ll be tying things up with a visit to Greenpoint and Hunters Point made on Saturday, sans the services of Hank the Elevator Guy.
Upcoming Newtown Creek tours and events:
Note: there are just 4 tickets left on this one, which is likely the last walking tour I’ll be conducting in 2012.
for an expanded description of the November 11th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
The Newtown Pentacle 