careful be
Randomly wandering around Sunnyside, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last week was one of those where my calendar was absolutely packed with “have to’s” and one found himself constantly scuttling from place to place. Given that a significant chunk of my “have to’s” involved Newtown Creek and that I live in Astoria, that meant that the way home inevitably meant transiting through the Sunnyside and Sunnyside Gardens sections of Queens.
I’m led to believe that the cabling rig pictured above is the property of either Verizon or Spectrum, and one or the other is installing upgraded data cabling for high speed internet service. As a note, the Community Board people in Sunnyside insisted – many years ago – that these wired connections be installed in the neighborhood in a subterranean manner, which is why you don’t see the ugly and “willie nillie” tangle of airborne data and phone wires witnessed in other parts of Queens in Sunnyside.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The NYC EDC team who are working on the ill conceived Sunnyside Yards Deck have adjured repeatedly that the revised planning for their Death Star will require the deck to be no more than three stories above current street grade, contradicting the feasibility report they created a few years ago. In fact, they’ve said they’re “throwing the feasibility study out” and we should just ignore it.
Ok, but that’s two million smackers of tax payer money you’re throwing out, and let’s do a bit of imagining based on what you’re seeing in the shot above. This section would be relatively unchanged on the east side of 43rd street, where the LIRR is transiting above those one story garages. Figure that the train represents a second story, and that the signal boards above the tracks are roughly the third story. That’s the height of the deck? Only three stories? What about the fifteen to thirty story tall luxury apartment houses on top of the thing of the sort you see in the distance?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Patrick “Battle Axe” Gleason, the last mayor of Long Island City, left us warnings back in 1898 to not trust the Manhattan people’s intentions for Queens. He predicted that they would empty their island of the stinking factories and workhouses, and turn Queens into a charnel house of rendering plants, industrial chimneys, and gas refineries. That’s what started happening in the early 20th century. Ever since, whenever they get a bright idea over at City Hall, where they want to try it out is in Queens.
Stand up, speak out. Just say no.
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Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
Events!
Slideshow and book signing, April 23rd, 6-8 p.m.
Join Newtown Creek Alliance at 520 Kingsland Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn for a slideshow, talk, and book signing and see what the incredible landscape of Newtown Creek looks like when the sun goes down with Mitch Waxman. The event is free, but space is limited. Please RSVP here. Light refreshments served.
The Third Annual, All Day, 100% Toxic, Newtown Creekathon. April 28th.
The Creekathon will start at Hunter’s Point South in LIC, and end at the Kingsland Wildflowers rooftop in Greenpoint. It will swing through the neighborhoods of LIC, Blissville, Maspeth, Ridgewood, East Williamsburg, Bushwick, and Greenpoint, visiting the numerous bridges that traverse the Creek. While we encourage folks to join us for the full adventure, attendees are welcome to join and depart as they wish. A full route map and logistics are forthcoming.This is an all day event. Your guides on this 12+ mile trek will be Mitch Waxman and Will Elkins of the Newtown Creek Alliance, and some of their amazing friends will likely show up along the way.
The Newtown Pentacle 
“The NYC EDC team who are working on the ill conceived Sunnyside Yards Deck have adjured repeatedly that the revised planning for their Death Star will require the deck to be no more than three stories above current street grade, contradicting the feasibility report they created a few years ago.”
Why imagine it when you can take a trip over to East New York’s Lincoln Towers on Sutter Ave to Linden Blvd, between Lincoln Ave and Elderts Ln, built over the MTA Pitkin railyards. Almost 3 stories of stairs on the sides to get up to the building entrance level.
“Ok, but that’s two million smackers of tax payer money you’re throwing out…”
Pfft! Dude, it’s only money. Someone else’s money like taxpayer’s money. So who gives a shit?
This paves the way for more politically connected people to get their snouts in the trough to conduct a few dozen more studies and studies of studies. We’re a middleman economy now that we no longer produce much in the way of tangible wealth anymore. The current building rampage is nothing more than monetizing already existing wealth.
But hey, liberals and progressive leftists are always generous to a fault with other people’s money because y’know, the needs of the many, parasites have a right to live off other people, the greatest good, blah, blah, blah. Get with the program already.
But here’s something for you- human scale or inhuman scale in this case:
There is another aspect of this proposed metropolis which is that in comparison to the megalithic towers and the mean, sterile existence of its denizens. The individual human being is reduced to an optical zero in comparison to the cyclopean scale of the buildings. The soul of the individual is not merely humbled against the vast scale of the numbingly bland or brutishly ugly architecture as a vulgar display of the power of the State, but the soul is utterly crushed beneath it.
If Orwell’s novel 1984 and the film Metropolis had a love child, this would be it.
Yours to use with the caretaker’s compliments.
Donald Cavaioli
Cav
April 8, 2019 at 3:20 pm
Could those garages be turned into studio apartments?
georgetheatheist . . . location, location, location
April 8, 2019 at 3:52 pm
>He predicted that they would empty their island of the stinking factories and workhouses, and turn Queens into a charnel house of rendering plants, industrial chimneys, and gas refineries.
I’d like to read his actual words on the matter…but couldn’t find much.
Tommy Efreeti
April 9, 2019 at 2:39 pm