The Newtown Pentacle

It’s International Beer Day, on this planet.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One had received word that a recent excavation, committed in pursuance of a new tower construction project in Long Island City, had unearthed certain forbidden artifacts which had been interred back during the Borough Presidency of Curly Joe Cassidy in 1903. After his inauguration as BP, Curly Joe knew implicitly that then there are certain facts which, if disseminated to a wide audience and commonly known by the populace, might spark the dawning of a new dark age in which men would abandon all pretense of civilization and embrace their inner and atavist savage nature.

All the Borough Presidents of Queens, on the day of their inauguration, are required to read an ancient message, contained on a worm eaten scrap of parchment inscribed by William Hallet back in 1661, a document which is rumored to transmit the lore of a degenerate offshoot of the Lenape Nation and warn of the elder devils whom they both worshipped and reviled. No one but the Borough President of Queens is allowed to read this document, and they will all deny its existence. Melinda Katz won’t discuss the subject, and instead refers petitioners to the archivists at the Queens Library branch in Jamaica. For some, this hidden knowledge is too much to bear.

Why do you think Donald Manes really committed suicide back in the 1980’s?

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Along the path I picked to pursue the rumor of centuried artifacts unearthed by the Real Estate Industrial Complex, one encountered further evidences of the Queens Cobbler. For several years, the single shoe phenomena has been discussed at this – your Newtown Pentacle – and the theory that these individual shoes are gruesome taunts left on the public way to torment the Detectives of the 108th and 114th precincts by a serial killer has been advanced before.

This serial killer of men and women has been assigned the cognomen “Queens Cobbler” by this publication. Just as with the parchment scroll of hidden knowledge passed through the generations of Borough Presidents, the government will deny the presence or crimes of the Queens Cobbler.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Despite this, the single shoes scattered around the neighborhoods surrounding the Newtown Creek and the buried wetlands of Sunswick Creek tell a different story. Legend has it that there’s a storage room found in an industrial section which hosts a perverse inventory of blood spattered materials, and that one of the local food carts is serving human meat souvlaki. Long Island City is a metropolis of secrets, and always has been.

The monstrous realities of what the Pennsylvania Rail Road engineers uncovered nearby the former grist mill of Burger Jorrissen a century ago – constructing the foundations of the Sunnyside Yards – while reclaiming the flood plains of the “waste meadows,” was skillfully hidden and remained a closely guarded secret amongst those who encountered “it”. That’s why – when the modern day “East Side Access” project engineers accidentally stumbled into “it” they were taken aback and convened emergency meetings in both Albany and Washington, and why progress on the transit project is so behind schedule. Why do you think security is so tight at their job site?

There are things older than mankind which might be found in Western Queens, things that were mercifully buried during the age of glaciation, before which we humans are naught but insects scratching in the dirt. There’s a reason that the Lenape preferred to avoid the “bad water place,” as they called the area.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

My quest to discover the forbidden artifacts of Curly Joe Cassidy carried me across the concrete devastations towards the River of Sound (or East River if you must) and one soon found himself at the Hunters Point waterfront section in LIC, which has been rent asunder in recent decades by the actions of the Real Estate Industrial Complex and their dross amibitions.

There are things you’ll encounter hereabouts which cause one to wonder, and more than wonder, about all there is that might be hidden behind concrete wall and balustrades or lying buried in the tainted earth. One has always wondered if the chemical pollution found in the eluvial clay and sand matrix beneath the pavement is some sort of containment mechanism purposely laid down during the age of industry to tame those things which lurk in the hydraulic voids and forgotten masonry tunnels which lie beneath the streets awaiting discovery.

Upcoming Tours and events

Brooklyn Waterfront Boat Tour, with Working Harbor Committee – Saturday August 12th, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.

Explore the coastline of Brooklyn from Newtown Creek to Sunset Park, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman, Andrew Gustafson of Turnstile Tours, and Gordon Cooper of Working Harbor Committee on the narrating about Brooklyn’s industrial past and rapidly changing present. – details here.

The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek Walking Tour, with Newtown Creek Alliance – Sunday August 13th, 11 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.

Explore the hellish waste transfer and petroleum districts of North Brooklyn on this daring walk towards the doomed Kosciuszko Bridge, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.

Two Newtown Creek Boat Tours, with Newtown Creek Alliance and Open House NY – Wednesday August 16th, 5 p.m. and 7 p.m.

The neighborhoods surrounding Newtown Creek are home to the densest collection of these garbage facilities anywhere in the city and collectively, the waste transfer stations around and along Newtown Creek handle almost 40% of the waste that moves through New York. Join Newtown Creek Alliance’s Mitch Waxman and Willis Elkins  to learn about the ongoing efforts to address the environmental burden that this “clustering” has caused. – details here.

DUPBO Newtown Creek Walking Tour, with NYCH20 – Thursday August 24th, 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.

Explore Greenpoint and Hunters Point, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.

“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle