Author Archive
appy-polly-woggies, droogs
A bit of a family emergency is underway at the moment, mumsies is ill once again, and my attentions are being directed in that direction. I have a neat post in the works that will appear over the weekend, and which will surely greet you on Monday Morning.
In the meantime- congrats go out to a few dear friends of the Pentacle- Ms. Shitty, QueensCrapper, and Mr. Forgotten-NY– for their recent kudos from the Village Voice. Well deserved, and its about time that their contributions to our collective soul get recognized.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Tales of Calvary 10- The Hatch
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator, amongst other failings, has a certain preference for the grandiose statuary of the late 19th and early 20th century at First Calvary Cemetery here in Queens. Baroque expressions such as these appeal to the comic book fan in me, looking for all the world like a Jack Kirby or Jim Steranko rendering. One half expects a concrete angel to… well, I stray…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The southern section of First Calvary, found atop the cyclopean masonry observed on Review Avenue, offers glimpses of the Newtown Creek and panoramic views of industrial Brooklyn. Framing the open horizon of marshy western Queens and the forges of Brooklyn is the Kosciuszko Bridge, heroically carrying a vehicular river called the Brooklyn Queens Expressway over the infamous cataract. The elevation of these walls is actually quite high, an arcing and non euclidean structure which must be 2 to 3 stories at its apogee.
Am I overestimating? Check out this shot from the “street level” declination, aimed at the downward slope from halfway down Review Ave.–
And the shots below are from the other side of it, the topside of the wall.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You won’t find the grandiose tombs or obsequious monuments to the famous on this side of First Calvary. This is where the “regular people” are buried- in their multitudes- in neatly defined rows of plots. The northwestern sections of Calvary, where the main gates are, and the northeastern- along Laurel Hill Blvd.- (both “High Ground”) are where you can find the princes of the 19th century city. Here, along Review Avenue, is where the middle and working class rest.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My reasons for coming to this section must remain hidden, for now, suffice to say that I am still hunting for the grave of a man named Gilman (see “Tales of Calvary 7” for more speculation on this mysterious merchant from Massachusetts). Enjoying the relative quiet, I noticed one of the concrete pillboxes which I’ve also alluded to in earlier posts. These structures are all over Calvary, are often padlocked, and have aroused no small amount of curiosity in your humble narrator.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Several conjectures -an access point to buried family mausoleums, a storage unit for groundskeepers, some sort of equipment shed- have assailed me as I observed these structures with their heavy iron lids and stout cement construction. An avid devotee of the macabre, I’ve often wondered aloud about just what is is that may be down there.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This particular structure, as you can see, had been left unlocked. In fact, its heavy lid was just resting on the cement and its hinges had long ago stopped functioning.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Nudging the lid back a few inches, a better than six foot drop was observed, which put its bottom some 4 feet below the surface as observed in the shot above. I activated the camera flash and illuminated quite a bit of airborne dust when the camera performed its intended action. As you can see, there were two modern shopping carts and part of a lamp down there. Puzzling- not for being trash, but… for… why, how, when, etc. You’d expect shovels or spades, but shopping carts and a lamp?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Were I still the youthful and robust physical specimen I once was, I might have more to say about this, as I would have entered the yawning mystery for a closer look. However, as an aged physical coward and feckless quisling given to emotional stupor and irrational panic, the miasmal odor of the open hatch drove me backwards and I nearly passed into one of my episodes. Fighting off a faint, I labored to close the heavy lid and made for the Penny Bridge gates found on Laurel Hill Blvd. to escape the implications of that smell, which reminded me of an aquarium in need of filtration.
What can it be, that might be down there?
Astoria Tumbleweeds
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The tumbling remnants of happier times rolls about the ancient village of Astoria, and can be observed in many windblown places. These urban tumbleweeds are predominantly disposed of, according to custom, before the second week of January. The majority of these shots were taken in the first week of the new year. The vast amount of trash is atypical for this block, as holiday feasting and present opening produce an abundance of urban waste.
from nyc.gov
Collections will take place beginning on Monday, January 4, 2010 through Friday, January 15, 2010 .
Residents are encouraged to put out their discarded trees at curbside as early as possible during the collection period.
DSNY asks residents to remove all tree stands, tinsel, lights, and ornaments from trees before placing them out for collection. DO NOT place trees in plastic bags. Trees will be chipped into mulch that will be distributed to parks, playing fields, and community gardens throughout the city.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As longtime readers of this site know, I’m fascinated by New York’s infrastructure and the scale of endeavor it represents. Constantly amazed not by what the City screws up, but what it actually gets right. The extra tonnage of holiday trash, much of it paper, is just absorbed off the sidewalks without much fanfare.
The xmas trees, however, seem to be the last to be collected, which allows the wind to take them where it wants to go. Just today, during the last week of January, I saw one swirling about on the corner and there were a couple over by the local park (which is a perennial target for dumping of household trash from illegally converted area apartments).
from wikipedia
It was around Christmas 1851 when a farmer in the U.S. state of New York’s Catskill Mountains, Mark Carr, began a journey with two oxen drawn sleds toward New York City with a crop of Christmas trees in tow. When he arrived in New York the first Christmas tree market was born, from which he sold all the trees. Though Christmas trees have been sold commercially in the United States since Carr’s 1851 journey from the Catskills, the first American Christmas tree farm was not established until about 50 years later. Until then, most U.S.Christmas trees were simply harvested from forests.
from nytimes.com- click here for an article from 1880 about Mr. Carr
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Like the tumbleweeds in some stereotypical western movie, the last vestiges of ChristmAstoria just roll along and out of frame. I like to think that there’s a wall somewhere near Flushing Bay that they all pile up against, but probably not. The weather will reduce them to wireframes by Valentines Day.
from ci.nyc.ny.us
Christmas Tree Collection –
Citywide Christmas tree collection is also an important part of the Departmentʼs recycling program. In January 2008, approximately 160,250 discarded Christmas trees were collected by dedicated tree trucks over a 12-work day period, January 3 through 16, 2008. Two (2) primary disposal sites were utilized: Fresh Kills and Wards Island.
All trees delivered to Wards Island were chipped by the Department of Parks and Recreation. This joint agency partnership in processing trees proved to be extremely successful. In Fresh Kills a private company, under contract to the Department, chipped the trees.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The sad specimen above was my own humble tree. Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself often choose the “Charlie Brown” tree for our holiday decorations.
from christmastree.org
MYTH #9: Real Christmas Trees end up in landfills.
BUSTED: Christmas Tree recycling programs are available nationwide, and many are quite creative. A farm-grown Christmas tree is 100% biodegradable, so it can be used for all kinds of things in nature, from mulch to erosion control. Fake trees?….see Myth #4 above. People often lament the sight of Christmas trees at the curb after Christmas…but they don’t realize that many communities have curb-side pick up as part of their recycling program. They’re not “being thrown in the trash” or ending up in landfills. They’re waiting to be put into the recycling program.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Tumbling Tumbleweeds by Sons of the Pioneers- Click here for the song
I’m a roaming cowboy riding all day long,
Tumbleweeds around me sing their lonely song.
Nights underneath the prairie moon,
I ride along and sing this tune.
See them tumbling down
Pledging their love to the ground
Lonely but free I’ll be found
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.
Cares of the past are behind
Nowhere to go but I’ll find
Just where the trail will wind
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.
I know when night has gone
That a new world’s born at dawn.
I’ll keep rolling along
Deep in my heart is a song
Here on the range I belong
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.
Back on the Case
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The latest batch of photos are finally finished and uploaded at flickr, most of which were shot in the last month or so. Regular postings will resume within a day or two, and your humble narrator continues to suffer the stinging embrace of winter, here in the frozen heart of the Newtown Pentacle. A ridiculous collection of insulating garments, reduced to rags by constant use, adorns my withered body and restricts movement. Just to satisfy my curious nature, I recently stepped on a bathroom scale before and after preparing for a walk, and discovered that my cold weather gear added 30 pounds to my weight- making me look like a character from a Terry Gilliam movie.
This ludicrous assortment of fleece sweatshirts, long underwear, and overcoats offers me “cover” however, as there’s little chance private security or the NYPD would notice or harass an apparently homeless man walking the fences of the Newtown Creek. When they see the camera, though, the jig is up and I’m soon explaining “what I’m up to” to another armed 24 year old from Long Island with a badge. This sort of encounter has become increasingly rare in the last year, but it still happens- and I remind the intrepid photographers amongst you to always carry ID and remember to call the young officer “Sir”. NYPD responds to polity, usually, and if you’re a gentleman they will generally realize you’re “harmless”. Never call a New York City Police Officer “dude”, respect the badge, if not the person.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The cauldron of Astoria street life is at low simmer momentarily, as the hoodlums of the ancient village find the cold abhorrent. Our local fraternal youth organization has reorganized itself under a new “nom de guerre” and they seem to getting ready to announce their presence to the larger community this spring and summer, when- I’m sure- they will discover a few things about Queens street life. One of their lesser officers, a 90 pound weakling and runt of the litter, has been proclaiming “a storm is coming”. Their new branding incorporates the “M” word, which is never spoken aloud here in Queens, and I’m sure that certain older and long extant elements of the community will attempt to enforce rights to their intellectual property before the springtime thaw. At any rate, the local constabulary has been picking away at their loose structure and for the the moment at least- no one is dealing weed on my stoop as they’ve all landed on juvie probation.
The funniest quote from one of these kids, a 15 year old Algerian immigrant who is more “lummox teddy bear” than he is “stone cold gangsta” is that he wants to quit high school early and join the Marines. It seems that school has too many restrictions, and he thinks that the Marine Corps will offer him more freedom to pursue his interests.
Sigh.
Astoria Slice
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Observations and commentary on the ever shifting urban milieu called Pizza:
Pizza is the fruit of choice for the lifelong New Yorker, a greasy elixir that nourishes the soul. A proper slice is an avenue through which salvation may be found- sort of a cheesy eucharist.
There are borough based niceties known to sophisticates- the overloaded and enormous slices of Manhattan and the Bronx, the crunchy crust and sparse cheese found in “the Queens slice”, the perfect ratios and oil dripping sauce of the Brooklyn and… Staten Island slice. There’s also the fancy “wood burning oven” sort offered by places like “John’s” in the village, of course, but that’s a little “fine dining” if you ask me. There are further specific qualities to each borough’s slice, but I won’t bore you.
Careful observation and sampling of the goods over a four decade long study has led to the following observation- As the ethnic tides of immigration into New York have waxed and waned, the character of New York Pizza has picked up influences gathered from other world cuisines, no doubt because of who is actually cooking the stuff. Moving from the characteristic pentateuch of borough based stylings into a generic citywide slice which owes much to the influx of Latin American labor into the formerly southern Italian dominated kitchens, I’ve noticed a shift in flavor and delivered product. Don’t mistake me, not saying its bad or good, just saying that it is.
The pie above is a June 2008 specimen from Gino’s on Broadway here in Astoria, which has since undergone a change in ownership and staff. Shortly after the pizzeria changed hands, the composition of their product changed noticeably, taking on the new citywide standard- which I call Pizzadilla. The pun is based of course on the Mexican fare called Quesadilla, which modern New York Pizza is beginning to resemble.
The Mozzarella (which is pronounced MOOTSARELLAH, not MMAHTSSARELLA by the way) is less fatty than it should be and the sauce has far less olive oil used in in its recipe. A proper slice- according to me- should drip an orange oil and need to be blotted at the apogee of the fold, it should also nearly sunder its crust when folded. Pizza should also NEVER have ham or pineapple… just what the hell is wrong with you people? The new Ginos also offers the single funniest menu item I’ve ever seen on sale in a Pizzeria- the Salad Slice (which is indeed a slice of pizza with a salad piled onto it).
Newtown Pentacle readers who find themselves on Steinway Street between 30th and 31st should direct their attentions to Rizzo’s, which is a prime example of the “Queens Slice”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
