found unfastened
It used to be called Jane Street, y’know.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent occasion found one perambulating from Astoria to Hunters Point. My eventual assignation was scheduled for the early evening (or late afternoon if you sleep in) and a decision to walk a less than efficient route was undertaken. A crooked hypotenuse is what I’d call the route chosen for transversing the somewhat triangular area, which would carry me into a couple of places I haven’t walked through in about a year. A year in LIC is long enough for square blocks of the place to have been demolished and for hundreds of feet of glass tower raised from the rubble, and since it was a nice day – off I went.
The DSNY earth mover was seen on Vernon Blvd., and for some odd reason, presenting these shots to you in a timeline inverse to their actual capture works better. Go figure.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Queensboro never disappoints. The Terracotta House restoration seems to finally be just about finished and a cursory inspection suggests that a pretty nice job of it has been done. For those of you not in the know about the New York Terra Cotta company, nor the sole remaining remnant of their presence in LIC, click here for a fairly old Newtown Pentacle post on the subject – from 2009.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One spent an awful amount of time in this area back in 2009, during the centennial celebrations of the great bridge. I was a parade marshall for the event, the first time I’d ever done something like that. I’ve become an old hand at conducting tours and being in public at this point, but back then everything was shiny and new.
If I knew then what I know now… I tell ya…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It won’t be long before Queensboro is hemmed in on all sides by towers and condominiums, and the glorious light of a winter afternoon will be occluded in the same manner as the East River Bridges in Brooklyn. For those of you who have never wandered around this area, it is highly recommended, but watch your back.
You are generally pretty safe around these parts, but if things go bad it happens pretty fast and the consequences can be awful. You mainly have to worry about traffic, but there are also inslaubrious characters hanging about here and there. Just keep moving, I always say.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The north side of the bridge had already been overshadowed by a series of new high rise construction projects. The tower you see in the shot above is over in the shining city of Manhattan across the river, a residential luxury tower which vaingloriously surpasses the height of the Empire State Building – called 432 Park Avenue.
As mentioned at the top of the post, the Queensboro bridge landing in Queens Plaza was once LIC’s Jane Street.
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The Newtown Pentacle 
Mitch: In your Terra Cotta Building 2009 posting – https://newtownpentacle.com/2009/08/12/the-terracotta-house-or-what-is-that/ – you mention a state law that requires that the City of New York investigate possible native American activity on to-be-built-upon land. Do you have any more infor on this law? Thanks.
georgetheatheist . . . checking it ouit
February 24, 2016 at 1:07 pm
I don’t, most likely got that info form the City planning docs for the defunct silvercup towers
Mitch Waxman
February 24, 2016 at 1:17 pm
Anybody out there can supply this law? Thanks.
georgetheatheist . . . checking it out
February 24, 2016 at 1:42 pm