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Tales of Calvary 13- The Callahan monument
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s the fifth of December, a date which the pagans once called Faunalia. In 1945, Flight 19 disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle, and we only have to wait 16 more days for the Mayan Apocalypse to occur.
Why not spend the day in Section 6?
Cornelius Callahan and his family are represented by an enigmatic monument at Calvary Cemetery, here in western Queens, which is remarkable not just for sheer size but for workmanship and design as well. Callahan was chairman of the building committee for the Catholic Archdiocese, and was credited with being instrumental to the building of the orphan asylums in Kingsbridge by Archbishop Farley himself. He died on June 8, 1911.
You can read his obituary at the nytimes, click through and scroll down to the bottom left of the page.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It should be mentioned that this monument is the sculptural capstone of a family crypt. In addition to Cornelius, his wife(s), sister, daughter and apparently a pet named Emma are buried beneath this block of carved stone. Daughter Katie M. Callahan was meant to inherit the paternal fortune, provided she bear offspring, but unfortunately she left this mortal coil before her father. The story of the execution of the will has survived the passage of 101 years.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The will Cornelius left behind stipulated that his properties be sold off and the proceeds divided amongst several individuals but the primary beneficiary was the Archdiocese itself. Records of a lawsuit persist in the historic record which state that the Church and other heirs would have preferred the deed to the midtown Manhattan properties rather than the cash, but a judge ruled in favor of Cornelius’s estate and Mr. Callahan’s stated wishes. Even 101 years ago, retaining Manhattan Real Estate was seen as a better investment than selling it, I guess.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A good amount of looking around revealed little else about the Callahans, although they were obviously people of high station and attainment. Cornelius, as stated above, was the chair of the Building Committee for the Archdiocese of New York during a historical period when it was at its nadir- politically and financially speaking. This was an era of church building, parochial campus expansion, and an age when the Irish (in particular) ruled over the City. Mr. Callahan would have overseen a small army of construction workers, suppliers, and itinerant laborers in his professional capacity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You never know who you might run across at Calvary Cemetery. The Original Gangster, a King of Ireland, the Abbot, or even the Newsboy Governor. This is where Tammany Hall lies, dreaming but not dead, alongside those huddled masses who legendarily yearned to breathe free. Wandering its emerald devastations, one can barely hope to comprehend the transmogrification accomplished by those interred here. They found a city of two and three story wooden buildings, and within a generation or two, altered it into the heroic shape of modern day New York City.
Have a happy Faunalia, lords and ladies, and embrace your loved ones, for the Mayan Apocalypse draws nigh.
glassy eyes
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
17 days to the Mayan Apocalypse, and for a preview of things to come- turn to the loathsome shoreline of the Newtown Creek at Hunters Point in Long Island City. These shots are from a few days after Hurricane Sandy. There isn’t normally garbage hanging from the trees here- one of the fellows I was with commented “check out the Sandy Christmas Tree”. Normally, there may be some wind blown detritus about, but this is incredible.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This piece of construction equipment, I was told, was wrecked by the flood water. It did seem pretty rusty, but heavily used machines often are. What distinguished it was the fact that it was just hanging open, and normally a mechanism like this is locked up tightly to guard against vandalism and theft. As a resident of Queens, you will often see heavy equipment just driving down the street- backhoes, earth movers, cranes. There is no absolute law in Queens, instead permutation and interpretation rule, and anything is probable at any given moment. It would not surprise me to see a space shuttle towed by a van going down a one way street, on its way to a scrap yard.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the working guys from a nearby property told me that the water was about four feet high around this spot. The real flood was down near the LIC Crab House which apparently suffered major damage from the surge tide.
exhausted form
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
18 days till the Mayan Apocalypse, and only 20 until Festivus on the 23rd (there’s also that Christmas thing a couple of days later, but the holidays are really all about the end times and feats of strength). Apprehension is alleviated by looking back at photos of earlier times. These shots are from last year, gathered while wandering around Manhattan in April.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If your humble narrator was some artsy fartsy “photographer” type, an attempt would be made to describe street photography and its many virtues. Misanthrope, I detest crowds of anti savant shoppers and demimonde tourists, eschewing any interaction with the great human hive unless absolutely necessary. A meeting at the Working Harbor Committee offices drew me to the City this day, and I decided to give this street photographer thing a whirl.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve met people who wander around looking for fights, pre focus their cameras and then shoot blindly in Times Square, all sorts of techniques are employed in this pursuit. Personally speaking, I like taking pictures of poop floating in antifreeze green water in Brooklyn and Queens, so I’m qualified to decide if this sort of thing is wholesome or not.
Look- a fireman with a drum.
unseen fingers
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We only have nineteen days left until the end of the world on December 21 when the Mayan Calendar’s 13th b’ak’tun ends, and if you’ve got apocalypse problems, the FDNY Fireboat Three Forty Three is the sort of tool you will need to make it through the storm. I’ve talked a bit about this ship in the past, in the posts “growing ferocity” and “betwixt the horns“.
In another posting describing another model of Fireboat– “The Bravest”, a lecture conducted by an FDNY Harbor Unit commander- Chief James Dalton of the Marine 6 unit– which I had attended was mentioned.
Information passed on in this weeks Maritime Sunday posting is gleaned from the copious hand written notes I scribbled down during that lecture. Any errors will be due to my own confabulation of transmitted fact.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Three Forty Three is 140 feet long, and built for speed. Its flared bow allows it to cut through waves, and has a relationship to the engineering of the past, present, and future models of the Staten Island Ferry– height wise. The Marine Unit works with and utilizes land based fire companies to combat fires, and the boat is designed to accommodate and transport as many as thirty lubbers. The bulkhead is designed to flood and drain itself, which allows the boat to adjust its vertical height.
As seen in the shot above, however, it’s the monitors which amaze.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Monitor is what you call the high pressure water hose nozzle on a fireboat, and Three Forty Three has six. 5,200 gallons per minute, the main one of the fore is capable of 17,500 gpm alone. The monitors at the corners of the boat also serve as a self protection system, and operate as foggers to defeat radiant heat. In addition to water, they can also access and deploy two 1,600 tanks of fire retardant foam. There are also four manifolds which allow conventional fire hoses to be attached to the pumps, and connections are found for FDNY standard three inch and NJ five and twelve inch equipment.
Everything described is remote controlled from the hermetic wheel house.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Below deck is an interagency municipal command center connected to an esoteric series of sensors and electronic systems. Situational awareness is the purpose of a lot of what happens on the lower deck. There is also the engine room, which outputs an inconceivable 8,000 HP to either the pumps or the four sixty inch variable pitch propellers which provide motive actuation. There is also a crane with a man basket and a monitor, and a 17 foot launch for rescues. Additionally, there are capstans which can be used for towing or anchoring at various locations onboard.
A hearty, and awe stricken, Maritime Sunday shout out is sent to the crew of the Three Forty Three, who will surely ride out the Mayan Apocalypse and probably end up saving the world.
amused irritation
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– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator loves his conspiracy theories and crackpot notions.
Accordingly, as we only have a single score of days left until the end of the world on December 21 when the Mayan Calendar’s 13th b’ak’tun ends, I thought it important to tie up a few loose ends before the Apocalypse gets rolling. First off, the portents are painted all over the 20th century, if you care to look.
Also, as a note, the calendar stone which most websites seems to be using to illustrate the story- this one for instance, is actually Aztec (it’s the sun stone of Tonatiuh, silly).
Aztecs and Mayans are wildly different groups, comparable European populations would be Germans and Greeks, and Asian would be Mongol and Khmer.
in 1920, H.P Lovecraft saw his short story “Polaris” published in the December issue of an amateur publication called “The Philosopher”- an excerpt:
“Slumber, watcher, till the spheres,
Six and twenty thousand years
Have revolv’d, and I return
To the spot where now I burn.
Other stars anon shall rise
To the axis of the skies;
Stars that soothe and stars that bless
With a sweet forgetfulness:
Only when my round is o’er
Shall the past disturb thy door.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Galactic Alignments, coupled with the return of our solar system to the same spot it occupied some 226 million years ago– part of Sol’s galactic year, provide much fodder for those eager to meet their maker. Doomsday enthusiasts like to point out that this was the age of Dinosaurs, but they stuck around until 65 million years ago, so whatever hellish condition which is waiting for us- down the road- is still a pretty long way off.
This is 21st century America, where science and logic are a shunned belief system rife with disturbing assertions that challenge medieval superstitions and mythologies. You’ve only got 20 days to get that bunker set up in your apartment, best get to Home Depot before the lines get too long.
Apocalypse. Scary. Go buy stuff- Guns. Food. Store water and fuel. Feel better.
on December 1st, 1948, Australian Police opened what would become known as the Taman Shud case in Adelaide.
Around the same time as the Inquest, a tiny piece of rolled-up paper with the words “Tamam Shud” printed on it was found deep in a fob pocket sewn within the dead man’s trouser pocket. Public library officials called in to translate the text identified it as a phrase meaning “ended” or “finished” found on the last page of a collection of poems called The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The theme of these poems is that one should live life to the full and have no regrets when it ended. The paper was blank on the reverse and police conducted an Australia wide search to find a copy of the book that had a similar blank reverse but were unsuccessful.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As New York has recently undergone its own form of apocalypse, in tune with the Assyrian mythos which predict the worlds end as an oceanic flood (accompanied by the return of the chaos dragon Tiamat and her horde of battrachian children rising to devour the land and all of its dwellers), it would be hoped that we might be able to avoid the end times fever which will certainly sweep across the planet. Remember- only 20 days left…
It’s 12/1/12- only 28,800 minutes, or 480 hours, left. If you divide 480 by the number of the beast- 666- you get the number 0.720720720720720. That probably means something important for the forthcoming Mayan Apocalypse, huh?
Why 666, do you ask?
Also, on this day in 1947, Aleister Crowley died at Netherwood. There is no such thing as coincidence, at least according to science, which deems it statistically unimportant.
