Archive for February 2015
creeping silently
Always classy, Astoria.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Since we seem to live in preternatural darkness and cold, Viking Hell as it were, one has decided to just accept the fact that it will never be warm or sunny again. There will never be a day when one needn’t pull on the twenty nine pounds of coats, boots, and sweaters again. This is how we live now, it’s the new normal, and “wet and cold” is this years version of a black t-shirt and a pair of Levi’s. Never has my Metrocard seen as much use as it has in the last few weeks, as I’m taking the bus and train to places that I normally walk to, something which I consider an admission of defeat.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The thing that’s really charming about this time of the year is the fact that garbage day has been cancelled numerous times due to all the snow, and giant piles of frozen trash are embedded in the mountains of ice and snow. This is fantastic for several reasons, but the big one around HQ is that my little dog Zuzu – who is an inveterate and unapologetic sniffer or trash bags – came down with some sort of stomach bug after a recent walk. Nothing improves the experience of being stuck inside more than a dog who is either vomiting or experiencing “dogarreha.” An expensive visit to the Vet seems to have cured her up, but Astoria has become a septic mess in the last couple of weeks. Realize who is saying that, incidentally, as I’m “Mr. Newtown Creek.”
How bad is the weather? The shot above is from my iPhone, which was used because I didn’t want to bring my regular camera out into this mess. Said camera is casually brandished during rain storms while out on the harbor, and I didn’t want to risk it walking down the ice clad sidewalks of Astoria. Similarily, I worry about risking the dog on these hazardous substrates.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The thing I worry about the most, dog wise, is actually stray voltage from brine soaked electrical infrastructure embedded in the sidewalks.
The second big dog hazard is something which I’ve been noticing the last few years. Salt is pretty terrible for the pads and naked feet of the pooch, but a simple prophylaxis against it entails the usage of something called “Musher’s Wax.” The oily substance is mainly beeswax, which when rubbed onto a dogs paw creates an oily barrier that protects and moisturizes. Of late, however, road salt has been declining in popularity in favor of some sort of “melt pellet” substance. These pellets seem to find their way into the webbing between the dogs toes, and work their way up into the pads. Since her feet are already wet, the pellets begin to dissolve and release solvents. Bad stuff, and before you ask, my little dog Zuzu ain’t gonna wear those stupid little red boots.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
horrible swaying
In the cold waste.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is preoccupied, driven to distraction actually, by the Big Little Mayor’s announcement yesterday that he will be using the full power of City Hall to drive the decking over of the Sunnyside Yards and the subsequent installation of a housing complex in that space which would eventually be home to some 30,000 people. It reminded me that I like “gridlock” and “divided government” as it keeps epically bad ideas like this from coming to fruition. The price of decking the yards, alone, runs into the hundreds of billions, for instance. The term “affordable” is determined using a federal formula called the “average median income” or “AMI” which will average together the income and tax data gathered within a set area and calculate what “affordable” means. This area will include the Upper East Side in Manhattan, where the Wall Street people live, which means “affordable” will translate into $50,000 or more in rent a year. The term “affordable housing” is a shell game, and the money would be better spent repairing the decaying NYCHA system.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Robert Moses threw his hands in the air at the idea of decking the Sunnyside Yards, saying that it was just too complicated. So did Nelson Rockefeller. A cultic group of urban planners, however, refuses to give up on the idea. Currently led by Dan Doctoroff, the right hand man of the Big Little Mayor’s analogue for Satan – Michael Bloomberg – these planners salivate at the idea of setting up an ideal community. Towers in the park, as the crypto fascist LeCorbusier would have described it. They use Starrett City as an example? Have you ever been to Starrett City? I have, and I don’t plan on going back to that impersonal collection of Soviet style apartment blocks ever again. Density is a good thing? How about we dense up the sections of Manhattan rife with four story town houses like the Upper East Side?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been wondering what my 2015 was going to hold. Now I know. For those of you reading this at your office desks on Beekman or Chambers streets, start planning on this project not being as much of a slam dunk as you thought it would be. Your worst nightmare, pissing off someone who understands the “system” but isn’t beholden to it, has happened. The Sunnyside Yards project proposal is going to be opposed, vociferously. You can’t fight City Hall? Not on City Hall’s terms you can’t, but this is going to be a street fight, and your expensive suit is going to get very dirty before I’m through. I may call Queens home, but I’m from Brooklyn, and street fights are what we know how to do.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
heavy and reeling
It’s all so depressing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Leaden footsteps carried me across the ice choked devastations of the Newtown Pentacle over the weekend. One desired to see his beloved Creek, after all. My destination and goal was the East River and getting the shots displayed in yesterday’s post, depicting the FDNY’s Firefighter 2 battling a blaze along the coastline of North Brooklyn, so a laconic scuttle was enacted through the cold waste. It was soon decided that the indolent life style of a home bound winter hermit has damaged my muscle tone and badly affected overall stamina. I’m all ‘effed up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It took everything I had to endure the cold, which easily penetrated through the twenty nine pounds of thermal underwears, sweaters, boots, and street cassock (a pet name for the filthy black raincoat) hanging in a sickening fashion about me, as if they weren’t present. One could barely stand at certain points, and the only thing keeping my feet moving past the once upon a time location of the venerable Penny Bridge was the fear of becoming frozen to the sidewalk were I to collapse. Sometimes, one must lean into it, embracing physiological entropy. My beloved Creek sensed my weakness and fatigue, and allowed me to enjoy the ecstasies of her gestalt.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If I have a place anywhere upon the earth where a wellspring of energy might be tapped into, where the lines of lei are arranged in my favor, it’s here at Penny Bridge. Calvary, First Calvary, is across the street and my beloved Creek splashes her gelatinous analog for water upon the oil stained bulkheads about a thousand feet away. Here, in the cold waste, was nepenthe experienced. Officially, one is “back on the beat” and this – your Newtown Pentacle – is back in session. Enough of this wintry sloth, a humble narrator is tired of the boredom, and the Newtown Creek offers thrills both salacious and sublime.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
swept aside
Conspiracy in North Brooklyn?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured above is the FDNY’s Firefighter 2 Fireboat dousing the remains of a document storage warehouse at North 11th street right at the border of Greenpoint and Williamsburg. The building is likely a total loss and will be probably be demolished, as this was a seven alarm “all hands fire” which required the attentions of more than 200 Firefighters to control. It’s eerily similar to the Greenpoint Terminal Market fire, which “Grenperntners” will eagerly describe as an arson job designed to clear the way for real estate development. FDNY investigators described the Greenpoint Terminal Market event as an accident brought on by a homeless man’s campfire.
There’s a few conspiracy theories already forming around CitiStorage, which I’ll pass on with the caveat that these are “conspiracy theories” and nothing resembling the final analysis of what happened will be available for months until after the FDNY investigators pronounce judgement.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The first conspiracy theory is alluded to above, and declares that the Real Estate Industrial Complex was hungry for this valuable piece of land on Brooklyn’s Gold Coast. Arsonists were sent in to get rid of the structure, which is why the fire had two distinct ignition events. To me, this one doesn’t hold water, as it’s far simpler for the REIC to legally gain possession of anything they want simply by pushing the right political buttons. Look at Willets Point, or Atlantic Yards, or Hudson Yards for examples of the vulgar display of their power. This “burn out” concept used to be a thing, during the 1970’s, 80’s, and 90’s, incidentally.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The second theory requires a bit of context to fully appreciate. The documents storage facility which went up in flames housed, amongst other things, court and hospital records for the City. The Albany scandal revolving around Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver accuses him of various improprieties regarding referrals to a personal injury law firms, from which he personally profited. The conspiracy theory is that somebody torched this place to protect the former “most powerful man in New York” from some revelation or “smoking gun” which Federal investigators might have found there. Again, a conspiracy theory, not a conclusion.
from nytimes.com
Those that said they had records stored in the warehouse, which occupies nearly half a square block, included the state court system, the city Administration for Children’s Services, the city Health and Hospitals Corporation, and members of the Greater New York Hospital Association.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whatever happened, the toxic plume of smoke from the fire has been painting the neighborhoods surrounding this spot at Bushwick Inlet for a couple of days. I was able to smell it in Astoria just last night, and as one approached the spot in Greenpoint where the shots above were captured, it was inescapable and somewhat nauseating. Pictured above is what the scene looked like in 2013, incidentally, sans conflagration.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 