Archive for 2013
once noble
An archive shot from 2007.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We call them “Shwarma Joe” but that’s not their name. This food cart has been operating at the corner of 34th Avenue and Steinway Street in Astoria for as long as I’ve lived here. They do a Halal menu, and offer one of the more affordable lunch options in the neighborhood. I favor the Chicken Kabob wrap myself, sans white sauce. This is an archive shot, as mentioned, captured during the heady days of the second Bush administration. Shwarma Joe never called their offerings “freedom fries,” however.
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dared not
Overwhelmed and underwhelming, that’s me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, we have once again hit that time of the year when the offerings here at your Newtown Pentacle are going to consist of an odd image and a pithy comment or two. The reason for this is the same as it has been every November – busy, busy, busy and exhausted. A short break from substance is required, to allow a humble narrator the opportunity to actually get out there and explore and shoot and research. Today’s shot is from the Procession of San Pio in Astoria, a religious ceremony conducted by St. Joseph’s RC Church.
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olden king
The end of an era happens today.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There is a generation out there- and whether they be youngsters, immigrants, or migrants from other States or Cities- the only Mayor of New York City they’ve ever known is Michael Bloomberg. Like him or hate him, he’s been nothing other than a fact for the last eleven and a half years. Luckily, the likely and chosen successor has not made it through the electoral process to today’s plebiscite, and its time to figure out what we should do next. This is no partisan political post, btw, as I view the political class as little more than employees- which ever side of an imaginary ideological line they happen to stand on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Arrogant, unapproachable, stubborn, inflexible- all of these are words I’ve heard others use to describe him. Often, municipal employees will go pale and say “This is coming straight out of City Hall” when telling a community group that something they wanted is denied. All in all, it could have been worse. Say the words “Mayor Mark Green” and your blood will turn to ice. The little big man will likely be remembered fondly down the road, as his administration has more profoundly altered the municipal landscape than any Mayor since Lindsay or LaGuardia, and we will be reaping the rewards of the vast infrastructure investments made in the last 11 years for decades.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The likely next Mayor is comically tall, could probably palm a dinner plate, and inherits a raft of issues which even three terms could not solve for the current guy. I like the idea of fresh air blowing through the halls of power, but worry that Park Slope will be coming to City Hall with him. There are mid level officials in power there today who were hired during Giuliani’s first term, and its time for a change in management. Not because they’ve done a bad job- they haven’t- but because de facto corruption festers in long municipal tenancy.
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discern nothing
Always moving, no place to go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As one who detests entering the Subway system, it fits neatly within New York City’s macabre sense of humor to force me to enter the labyrinth on a fairly regular basis. The fits of depth born panic and revulsion suffered whilst encased in the rotting concrete bunkers must be controlled. It would be untoward to inflict my own insecurities and phobias upon those fellow unfortunates traveling alongside me, and positively dismissive of a social order in which “anything goes.” Why shouldn’t one defecate in public?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Fear of offering loquacious discomforts to others isn’t something reflected by the general population, for course. It would be ridiculous to complain about the manner in which some behave while down here. Eating fried and highly aromatic dishes, performing basic grooming of hair and nails, or applying face paint- there are those for whom the Subway is an extension of the home. Last week, a woman I was sitting next to was utilizing the atomizer of a perfume bottle to liberally paint the confined air, and the rest of us, with her chosen scent.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It must be a wonderful thing, to be so confident in one’s self. The thought of exposing one’s private moments in such a brazen fashion is beyond me, as I was urged during toilet training to consider certain acts as “private.” Just the other day I was thinking, while watching a mid 40’s woman squeezing out a zit on the R train, that we really need to reintroduce the concept of shame and shunning back into society. You are not, my pimply friend, simply “free to be you and me” when out amongst the other humans. Decorum, please.
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odd individual
Maritime Sunday crashes into port again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The winner of the 2013 Great North River Tugboat Race, McAllister towing’s Resolute was spied while guiding the Atlantic Conveyor Cargo ship from Port Elizabeth Newark to the open harbor along the Kill Van Kull. Resolute was running against the tide, and seemed to using all of her 3,000 horsepower to keep the larger vessel on course.
McAllister Towing is one of the oldest and largest marine towing and transportation companies in the United States. They operate a fleet of more than seventy tugboats and twelve barges along the East Coast from Portland, Maine to San Juan, Puerto Rico.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A crew member from Resolute told me that the boat’s characteristic “beard” is referred to as “pudding.” It’s actually made of ropes, and is also referred to as a “beard,” although it is technically a “bow fender.” Most tugs these days use old truck tires for this function, which protects the hulls of both tower and towee at their point of contact. Check out this page at frayedknotarts.com for details on how pudding is made.
Built in 1975, by Jakobson Shipyard of Oyster Bay, New York (hull #454) as the Resolute for the Providence Steamboat Company of Providence, Rhode Island.
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