The Newtown Pentacle

Thursday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Stepping out of one time warp (the one where I’ve been enjoying a month to six weeks worth of lead time on these posts, so ‘Hi’) and into a different one, for today’s post.

Here’s the deal: I left a two day window open for today’s and tomorrow’s Halloween facing posts, hoping that I’d be able to find something spooky looking or a monster story to pass on, but it’s been an entirely salubrious interval and nothing truly Halloweenish has emerged.

What you’ve got today, thereby, is essentially an archive post inspired by the very recent shot of a tricycle.

I encountered the Tricycle pictured above, sitting all abandoned and in a park, on Pittsburgh’s North Side. Got me to thinking about all of the abandoned bikes I used to see back in NYC.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This one, back in Astoria, was chained to that fence for so long that the plants involved it in their dealie and it just became a trellis for the verge over the course of time.

Wandering, always wandering, me.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Spotted this throw away nearby my old apartment on Broadway in Astoria, and it always struck me as being an odd way to get rid of a bike. Even odder, the Spanish speaking delivery peeps of Astoria didn’t cannibalize this thing for parts.

They have a whole hidden social organization and hierarchy, the deliveristas. I learned that there’s a ‘Rey’ whom you have to pay up to for the privilege of working in Astoria, and that one of the many groups of people whom you ‘do not want to ‘eff around with’ in Queens are the deliveristas.

One night, I was asleep and then awakened by a hullabaloo going on across the street. A group of deliveristas were whipping one of their own, with bike chains that had locks attached. A bloody mess was left for NYPD and FDNY to scoop off the sidewalk. I got to listen to an argument between Fire and Police departments, as to who was going to clean up all the blood left on the corner. Neither did, and they left.

The next morning, I made a few calls, and DSNY ended up getting the job of handling that leave behind gore.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Newtown Creek, where everything eventually ends up sooner or later.

The odd thing about this kid’s bike being where it was is that this is more or less the omphalos, or the ‘darkest of the hillside thickets,’ along my beloved creek. Smack bam middle of a particularly noxious section of the industrial zone, this is. Recycling, shipping, concrete, DSNY, junkies, all within throwing distance here.

Hmmm.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

There used to be some guy who collected up all of the ‘discarded’ bikes (‘collecting’ is as good a word as any, regarding this particular fellow) around Astoria and LIC. The frames were stored publicly, as pictured above, and be mass chained to lamp posts. I have no idea what came next.

Each one of these abandoned bikes has a story, the epilogue of which saw me randomly encountering the thing, while scuttling along the streets.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This is a pretty old photo, but still one of my faves.

A group of kids who were doing trick bike riding on the subway platforms, at Queens Plaza while I sat on the other side waiting for the R. What could go wrong? Nothing.

Nothing matters, and nobody cares.

Back tomorrow.

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“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.