Archive for August 2013
Project Firebox 86
An ongoing catalog of New York’s endangered Fireboxes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This municipal button has style, verve, and swagger. It towers precipitously on Crescent Street at the border of Astoria and Dutch Kills (the neighborhood, not the waterway, baby) awaiting the emergent and quite uncool news that trouble has arrived. Always at the ready to raise the roof or the alarum, this party loving firebox lets all that pass know help is just one shake of the lever away.
Things to do!
Working Harbor Committee presents: Great North River Tugboat Races and Competition, September 1st, 2013
9:30-11:30 a.m. at West 42nd Street and the Hudson River. Spectator Boat tickets now on sale.
grinning androsphynxes
In today’s post… Staten Island…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A rock thrust roughly from the sea, named for the parliamentary body of the 17th century incarnation of the nation of Holland, …Staten Island… is a place which I’ve been developing a real interest in of late. I will admit that the connections between the Kriescher and Steinway families discussed in this Newtown Pentacle post from May of 2010 spurred my curiosity, but I haven’t strayed too far from the Northern Coast of the island.
An abundance of my posts about Staten Island seem to start and end with a tugboat, but there is a lot going on out here in the deep south which one hopes to explore in the near future.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Intentions to move a bit farther out on… Staten Island… unfortunately involves the use of MTA buses due to the vast size and distances offered by the place. This introduces an distinct kink in my usual plan, which is wander around and find stuff, but for those of you who haven’t walked around the the borough, it offers steep hills and an unforgiving number of cul de sacs which branch off the main roads.
One could easily find himself isolated and surrounded by angry old women armed with brooms or shovels.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Still, there are some real treasures buried in the wooded hills on Staten Island. This little number was introduced to me by Kevin Walsh from Forgotten-NY a couple of years ago, a storybook house set on a hill from which one can see tugboats passing by on the Kill Van Kull.
Things to do!
Working Harbor Committee presents: Great North River Tugboat Races and Competition, September 1st, 2013
9:30-11:30 a.m. at West 42nd Street and the Hudson River. Spectator Boat tickets now on sale.
studied record
In today’s post- infinite Brooklyn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The sheer size of Brooklyn, geographically speaking, is staggering. When one takes into account all of the former various environments contained within the borough, whether former wetlands or forested hills, the mind reels. You can still tell what used to be what in the ancient city, Canarsie is always a bit more humid than Park Slope and Greenpoint a bit more prone to flooding than Bushwick.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Its da land a me boit, Brooklyns. Ise growns ups around dere, out in Canossy near da flatlands, buts Ise nevers gets back dere toos awfun. Nuttin much left from da old days, all my friends and families, dey done moved on and odder dan a pizza joint or two de old neighborhood ain’t mine no more, if it evah was. Dats Brooklyn for ya.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These days, one rather enjoys the view of the place from outside, on the water. The littoral edge of Brooklyn has always been locked up in the hands of private business and government concerns, and is as such, an interesting historical canvas. Artifacts of New York’s industrial beginnings, relict creeks and streams, the true purpose and history of Canarsie Pier… Brooklyn is infinite…
Still, its no Queens.
Things to do!
Working Harbor Committee presents: Great North River Tugboat Races and Competition, September 1st, 2013
9:30-11:30 a.m. at West 42nd Street and the Hudson River. Spectator Boat tickets now on sale.
half seen
In today’s post- the mysterious Bronx.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
I know little to nothing about the Bronx, and have probably only been in the Borough less than 20 times over the course of my entire life. Circumstance never carries me north, toward its heights. What I do know of this vast enigma has only been glimpsed from the edges of the place. I understand it to be quite an interesting place, but to one such as myself, it is enigma. I always say that “I’m saving it for the future,” meaning that someday I’ll start turning my attention that way.
There are definitely groups of people living there, as I’ve photographed them from the littoral periphery.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
Willful ignorance such as this assists me in maintaining a laser like narrow focus on a single subject, but there are large sections of the City for which little to no interest exists in me. I don’t care about downtown Brooklyn, for instance, and consider myself lucky to avoid being there. Nothing wrong with the place, just not my cup of tea. Also, I find the upper east side of Manhattan completely “meh.”
This unknown country of the north intrigues, but I’m not ready to look at it yet.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
Someday I plan to do a little exploring up here, and perhaps attempt some tremulous interaction with the dwellers therein. Supposedly, there is something to the place beyond the odd stadium, bridge, or rail yard.
Of course, its not going to be anywhere as close to cool as Queens is, but there might be some dark secret or two to be unearthed beyond the Hells Gate, and “winter is coming.”
Things to do!
Working Harbor Committee presents: Great North River Tugboat Races and Competition, September 1st, 2013
9:30-11:30 a.m. at West 42nd Street and the Hudson River. Spectator Boat tickets now on sale.
imaginative stimuli
In today’s post- the chiaroscuro of Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Visual splendor makes Queens remarkable, with its open vistas and relicts of vainglory. Whenever the City of New York, since its consolidation, feels itself broken or in need of some experimental improvement- Queens is the place where it has tinkered with rail and expressway, bridge and tunnel, or with municipal zoning and tax abatement schemes. The old girl supports a lot of people these days, and all signs point to the Queens family growing larger.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are things which we aren’t talking about in this election cycle, like what happened to the Bowery Bay Sewage Plant during Hurricane Sandy, or the alarming antiquity of the electrical grid. If you spend as much time as I do around Newtown Creek, specifically the Dutch Kills tributary of that infamous ribbon of urban malfeasance and political neglect, the future of Queens is very much reflected in its past.
How long, I wonder, how long before the tinkering begins anew?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My predictions for the future are dire, as one is pessimistic both by nature and through experience. The growing modern corridors of western Queens will require new power plants and a modernized waste water control system before long which “somebody” will have to pay for. How long before stainless steel digester eggs reminiscent of the type found in Greenpoint tower over Astoria? How long will it be before red and white smokestacks rise over Dutch Kills here in Queens?
When will the tinkering begin?
Things to do!
Working Harbor Committee presents: Great North River Tugboat Races and Competition, September 1st, 2013
9:30-11:30 a.m. at West 42nd Street and the Hudson River. Spectator Boat tickets now on sale.
The Newtown Pentacle 