agriculturally challenged
Does anyone ever say “thank god, it’s Tuesday”?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Banal and sad is how I’d describe the current state of the Steinway Street commercial corridor here in Astoria, where the most interesting destination restaurants are often food trucks. Online, and in person, conversations about the subject lament the modern state of this old commercial strip.
Block after block of empty storefronts, sidewalk gathering places for lawless inebriates, law and order issues, blight. High commercial rents are usually blamed, or Amazon, or the “new people” who don’t shop locally and order everything online. High traffic volumes, a dearth of street parking, are also offered as causal factors for the current state of the street. Funny thing is, there are plenty of shops on Steinway which are doing extremely well, serving the needs and wants of the “new people.” I’m suspicious of all this, and wonder if some game is afoot. The answer offered to any problem these days is to demolish the current building stock and erect new structures, right?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The best example of this going on in the neighborhood, in my eyes, revolves around the not too far in the future expulsion of the used car and automotive businesses along Northern Blvd., in favor of building more and more “affordable” housing on the large footprint property lots these entities currently occupy. Why we aren’t talking about converting these spaces over to some sort of retail or other commercial function is beyond me. I’ve long believed that what Astoria, and LIC in general, needs is to cease being a referential dormitory community dependent on Manhattan and to plan/develop purposely as an exurb “city” instead.
The problems facing Steinway Street’s commercial establishments are hardly unique in modern day NYC, but the solution isn’t going to be offered by “anchor tenants” like Taco Bell or Chipotle. Steinway Street is not some midwestern shopping mall. Look to Roosevelt/Corona or Flushing for solutions to the retail crisis.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Given my recent trials, it’s kind of a rare thing for me to present either a shot of the Sunnyside Yards or a photo captured while the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself was twisting about in the sky, but there you are. One happened to be returning from a protest event offered by a cabal of leftist groups decrying the Sunnyside Yards proposal last week, and on my merry way back home I couldn’t help but crack out a couple of exposures at one of the facilities many fence holes, most of which are in my mental catalog.
Back tomorrow with something else, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Come on a tour!
With Atlas Obscura – Infrastructure Creek! My favorite walking tour to conduct, and in a group limited to just twelve people! December 14th, 1:30-3:30 p.m.
Click here for more information and tickets!
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.
The Newtown Pentacle 
Does anyone recall the “Delta City” project from Robocop? Well, after the UN and our ruling class are through designing and building this massive rabbit warren, it’ll be Delta City meets the San Angeles hypersoy society of “Demolition Man”.
Only that this version will have only a thin veneer of green, sustainable peace and plenty (along with all the reliable electricity they want) for the elites while the masses will be eating bugs when they can get it, lucky to have electricity for a few hours a day while being packed into “pods” or microapartments.
Population density will be increased to the point where private cars for proles must be outlawed simply because there won’t be anyplace to park nor can the roadways ever handle the sheer volume. Bicycles might be foisted upon us much to the delight of the midwestern transplanted assholes of transportation alternatives. But eventually, there’ll be even too many bikes chained up all over the place to where the sidewalks will become impassable and then the bicycles will be taken away from us as well. Proles will then walk, or perhaps more appropriately, crawl on their bellies like the soy or bug fed worms they are, wherever they need to go to.
Of course, our political and managerial masters and favored elites will still be cruising around in the biggest, baddest SUVs they can get their paws on. There’ll be no other traffic to impede them.
And why you might ask? Because the Club of Rome says we must and the UN and our betters agree, that’s why.
Donald Cavaioli
Cav
December 3, 2019 at 4:44 pm
The TNEOGI doth not twist so much as rotate.
Tommy Efreeti
December 12, 2019 at 12:26 pm