Archive for January 2013
trembling protest
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just the other day, one was strolling along Jackson Avenue in Long Island City and enjoying the late afternoon haze of auto exhaust when I decided to avoid a group of rough and aggressive looking youngsters by ducking down a dead end called Dutch Kills Street. Haughty and diffident, these unscrupulous looking minors had perhaps reached the third grade, but realizing that they have spent their short lifetime playing violent video games and were therefore potential killers, your humble narrator decided to walk the familiar path of ignominy and hide from them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Such physical cowardice has often proven to be the better part of valor for one such as myself, a shunned and awkward thing which resembles a man. Dutch Kills Street, where the native art form of Queens (illegal dumping) is practiced wholly, is overflown by structures sprouting out from the Great Machine at nearby Queens Plaza. Vehicular traffic departing and approaching the mighty Queensboro bridge hurtles along overhead, and the street grade lanes end at the fence lines of the titan Sunnyside Yards..
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the end of the street was observed another of the curious shoes which I’ve been noticing scattered around in similarly desolate locales over the last few months. Odd bordering on obsequious, the presence of just one half of the mated pair- again and again- just makes a little bell go off in my head when I see it. It is common to see all sorts of domestic and personal goods scattered about the neighborhoods surrounding the fabled Newtown Creek, but the homogeneity of these singular shoe sightings simply suggests something sinister and suspicious.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The rough looking group of third graders had noisily passed the intersection of Jackson and Dutch Kills, heading towards Tower Town down in Hunters Point. They were assembled in a “skirmish line” formation, walking abreast of each other while in the company of a group of women who seemed to have some measure of control over their movements. Some of these women had far younger children with them, who were being transported in bizarre cart like machines- whose appearance I did not like, I should add- which I found disconcerting. Your humble narrator hid behind a pile of trash for awhile, then fled the scene with haste.
small hours
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
No small amount of effort is being expended by your humble narrator these days. The so called Magic Lantern show, a vast and rambling amalgam of photographs and text which attempts to encapsulate the story of a certain Creek, is being rebuilt for 2013. The document has been allowed to swell, in the name of inserting everything learned since its last incarnation was crafted. A positive use of my time, to be sure, but something which is all consuming.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of my bad habits, or good (depending on your point of view) is “burning the midnight oil”. It is an easy thing for me to lose track of the time, lost in a supernal state of focus on my task, and suddenly realize that the sun is rising. Doing this for a day or two at a time is not that much of a drain, but on a large scale project like the Magic Lantern- this can literally mean weeks lost in a surreal and quite odd personal time zone.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m preparing the document in expectation of a nearby date, one which will be announced here soon, during which I’ll be timorously venturing forth into the new year. The retooled slide show presentation will incorporate much of the “discovery” of 2012 into it, and expand on several sections which time constraints or ignorance made short. More on this next week, at your Newtown Pentacle.
calm alabaster
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If one doth dare, acknowledging and admiring the languid splendors of the Newtown Creek from midstream is neither commonplace nor ordinary. Intellectual inebriation is experienced by one such as myself while engaged in ribald contemplation of the place.
Ineffable wonder surmounts the water body, and no place is more steeped in legend and litigation than the southern banks found between Greenpoint and Meeker Avenues in infinite Brooklyn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In focus this day, here at your Newtown Pentacle, are the fuel tanks which betray the presence of the British Petroleum (formerly Amoco) facility at Apollo Street. This was a sliver of the gargantuan Standard Oil works, a bulk storage yard built on the property in 1969 by the fore mentioned Amoco oil corporation.
Refining of petroleum distillates ceased on Newtown Creek in 1966, and the local oil business in modernity is all about storage and distribution.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The BP yard is 9.98 acres, hosting one underground and eleven above ground tanks with an overall capacity of 5,902,512 gallons of storage. There is Kerosene, Gasoline, Ethanol, and #2 fuel oil in supply- all of which are available for bulk purchase by local companies.
Additionally, there’s eight dual phase recovery wells on site which, as of 2011, had siphoned some 21,500 gallons of petroleum from deep underground. That’s where a story that started during the 1880’s actually began in 1978.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Apollo Street in Greenpoint Brooklyn, where the Locust Hill refinery fire happened, and where the Standard Oil operation once towered, is pretty close to ground zero of the infamous and much referred to “Greenpoint Oil Spill”. In 1978, when a Coast Guard helicopter pilot first noticed that oil was oozing from the bulkheads of Newtown Creek- it was right across Apollo from the BP yard, at a former Paragon Oil terminal owned in modernity by a beverage importer and distributor.
In the shot above, the spot to look for are the three garage doors on the cream colored building just beyond the tanks. That’s where the Coast Guard first spotted the plume.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As a point of fact, however, it should be mentioned that the traditional manner in which Americans pronounce the word “Oil”- Oy Uhl – is incorrect in North Brooklyn.
Around these parts the way to say that word is simply “Erl”.
“Greenspoints Erl Spell” is what “Greenpoint Oil Spill” should sound like, if pronounced in proper Brooklyn patois.
squared moonlight
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The excess and pageantry of the vegetable world is sorely missed by one such as I, during these cold and dark days. An unreasonable desire to depart these climes for a southern destination is all consuming, but that would mean losing that grudge match with New York City which one has been fighting for better than four decades.
The war started between the City and myself began on the first day of Kindergarden, and overall, I’m losing badly despite the occasional pyrrhic victory.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A significant part of “being a New Yorker” is never “giving in” or allowing the city, which is surely sentient in some alien or malign manner, to beat you. The macabre sense of humor with which the great urban hive inflicts its maledictions and ignominies however, and the manner in which one weathers them, are what sets we “born and bred’s” apart from other urban dwellers.
Still, it would be nice to see vibrant vegetable color again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For now- one must be satisfied with the Astoria Tumbleweeds, and an appreciation of frozen soot must be cultivated. In addition, it’s a good idea to just get used to that weird smell coming up out of the sewer drain. Whatever it is, it’s frozen in place and will be around till March.
Read as a part of “the winter of my discontent”, which in fact, is every winter.
found unconscious
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whilst roaming about Long Island City recently, one has come to the realization that the long economic doldrums affecting and stultifying the rapacious desires of the Real Estate Industrial Complex have seemingly come to an end. A recent flurry of high profile constructions, demolitions of centuried warehouses, and industrial tumult points to this fact.
Accordingly, this means that several long standing structures are likely not long for this world.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator has little need for sprockets, bearings, or pulleys. However, this business on Jackson Avenue hosts a charming mid 20th century bit of signage which answers some need which dare not speak its name within me. A resume and history of “Century Rubber Supply” is beyond my capability or desire to delve into, and I’ve never shopped there, I just like their signage. Enormous construction efforts are underway all around the diminutive structure, and the rest of the block it occupies has shed itself of tenants.
In Long Island City, this indicates that the bell is tolling.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The malign ideation that dwells within the Megalith and its infinite army of acolytes seem to be on the right side of history. Sooner than later, one fears, the idiosyncratic wonders of Long Island City will soon be entirely replaced by shield walls of glass and steel.
Bland homogenization which stinks of the Crypto Fascist theories of LeCorbusier ruling the future is my fear, but that’s an opinion, and like the anus- everyone has one.
A singular question which will stain the lips of all the still unborn Queensicans of future times, I fear, will be: “where might I buy some sprockets?”. The very old folk who remember an earlier time will remain silent when their children offer this query, lest what else may have been lost is asked about.
The Newtown Pentacle 