Archive for the ‘animals’ Category
wholly beneath
Detestation of the water lizard, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“There’s so many of us” is a choral from a song by the LA Punk band Fear, specifically their “Lets Have a War” anthem.
One is reminded of this ditty continually, and as I often find myself chiding narrowly focused members of the municipal governing class during meetings concerning the Newtown Creek situation – and effect upon the waterway of ongoing population loading of North Brooklyn and Western Queens – you have to think holistically about the “system.” The old adage about a Butterfly fluttering its wings in Borneo triggering a series of random atmospheric reactions which eventually result in an Atlantic hurricane often seems to apply. What’s one more truck? C’mon, it’s one truck…
What apocalyptic effect is just one more apartment house going up in Hunters Point, or Flushing for that matter, going to have? Who cares? That’s Corona, don’t you live in Astoria? Worry about yourself. Mind your own business.
That’s what people say, and I respond “think holistically.” That truck has to cross a bridge and drive down local streets, then it has to reverse out. Every truck trip is two truck trips, and it doesn’t just go through Greenpoint – but Bushwick and or Maspeth too. Maybe even Astoria, if it’s headed for the bridge.
The political districts of Western Queens and North Brooklyn serve to carve up the real estate development scenario and make things seem like the rising residential towers are individual examples of a series of an isolated and unconnected series of projects – not some vast littoral construction site that stretches out for a few miles – along the east river and between the Queensboro and Williamsburg bridges. It’s exciting to see the future taking shape, I guess, in the same way that a kitchen fire is exciting.
There is meant to be no cumulative relationship whatsoever between the Greenpoint Landing and Hunters Point South developments, which are separated by the Newtown Creek and connected via the G line subway. The 7 line crowding in Queens is (politically speaking) a Jimmy Van Bramer issue, the impending L line shutdown in Brooklyn a Steve Levin problem. When the L shuts down, MTA will be adding an additional car to the G and they plan on directing the L passengers to Court Square – where they’ll transfer to the 7.
Then they’re both going to have the same problem, the first of many such issues which the interconnected mega development of the east river coastline of Long Island is going to present.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The reason I haunt the transit corridors is precisely because that’s where you can discern the size and scope of the enormous build out that’s occurring across the boroughs and Queens in particular.
If you ride the 7, you are well aware that the entire transit corridor is booming with new construction, from its eastern terminus in Flushing right through Roosevelt, Corona, Jackson Heights, Woodside, Sunnsyide, and LIC, to its western terminus in Manhattan at the “Hudson Yards” megaproject. The so called “international express” is packed to the gills with commuters the whole way, even late at night. The City’s answer to mass transit congestion has been the creation of bike lanes. Bike lanes aren’t a bad idea by any means, but they don’t address the issues of how people will “get there from here,” and they leave an awful lot of older and disabled people behind.
You have to think holistically about the route of the 7, and the municipal needs of the people who are intended to inhabit all of these newly minted “deluxe apartments in the sky.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Holistic, as in totality, informs and instructs. Despite the tens of thousands of new neighbors – and to my knowledge – there are no new fire houses, hospitals, or police stations being planned or built along the corridor and route of the 7. We’re getting every last dollar out of the Bowery Bay sewer plant in Astoria, going strong since 1939, but there isn’t a new one in the works to handle the tens of thousands of new toilets being installed in Queens. Neither the Cops, nor DSNY, seem to be staffing up either.
In many ways, we could really benefit from the advice and talents of the late Robert Moses at this stage of the game. Moses thought holistically, and no matter what he built – there was a park attached to it. Did you know that the difference between expressways and parkways is that the latter has wooded shoulders that count as “parks”? That’s one of Moses’s, who was some kind of evil genius. If Superman was real and lived in NYC instead of Metropolis, Moses would have likely been his Lex Luthor.
Or we can extend the bike lanes into the subway stations, as “There’s so many of us.”
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
pathologically sensitive
Dead things, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shots in today’s post are grotesque, so apologies are offered to the sensitive, but I seem to encounter a lot of dead things when marching about. It’s mentioned that this is the conclusion of my depressive week here at the Pentacle and that next week I plan on being absolutely manic. I also plan on the first week of November being an obsessive, compulsive, and quite disordered one.
What can I tell you, I’m all ‘effed up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Thing about running around places (as a note, the first shot in today’s post was from Sheepshead Bay) like the Newtown Creek watershed is this – if you think it’s some kind of playground and you can do or say whatever you want, you could easily end up like the quasi recognizable squirrel smear pictured above. The squirrel didn’t think it was a playground, mind you, rather it likely reckoned that the neighborhood rules governing the surrounding urban environment applied in the creeklands. It didn’t count on getting squished by a multi ton truck which was hurtling along well at over the “Vision Zero” speed limit. The squirrel, like certain government employees, probably didn’t think that a truck might be barreling along at that speed, because that would be illegal. Government employees actually believe that the law applies and will be followed by the citizenry, in the absence of enforcement. Naive, the squirrels.
If you live in the trees, stay in the trees, and stay off of the street because you don’t understand the rules of the road.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Newtown Creek is as serious as a heart attack, lords and ladies, and the cops only patrol here when they have to. More often than not, they won’t even get out of the car. It’s just us down here in the street, me and the dead things and those dark forces, so when you sit around in your Manhattan apartment – think about that.
Me and the dead things don’t have somewhere else to call home, and Newtown Creek isn’t our hobby.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
scarcely envisage
The future is smaller than you’d think it is, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Since I’m in a bit of a Kafkaesque mood today, I figured I’d run a few pictures of some bugs I’ve met over the years. Bugs are like little war machines, and I’ve never been able to understand why the MIT types go to such pains reinventing the wheel when building robots and drones instead of just following nature’s solution. Why build one big hard to replace war robot when what you really want are a swarm of little cheap guys to do your nefarious bidding?
Also, bugs like that wasp pictured above might be a lot easier to enslave than you’d think. Imagine, what could you get done with an army of millions of ants doing your bidding? You’d certainly be able to “move that rubber tree plant,” despite the pop cultural aphorisms. If we could get control over the Termites, they could potentially build homes and cities for us.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“Big Agra” is what my environmentalist buddies would call a company like Monsanto, who are the ExxonMobil of planting things and feeding animals. I’m sure they’ve got a staffer working on changing the preferences of this butterfly specie, or that one, so that instead of liking to visit and fertilize Milkweed or other pest crops, they would instead prefer to visit rye or wheat stalks. They’re also likely working on military applications for their butterfly technology. Butterflies who spy, or Butterlfies who disseminate toxins to an enemy’s fields?
Imagine a United States Marines Tactical Butterfly unit. I’d like to think the insect’s wings would be a camouflage pattern.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Weaponizing the bees and hornets would likely be the easiest thing to do. Everything I’ve ever read about bees suggest that just like termite mounds and ant nests, you have to consider the hive as being the living organism rather than consideing members of the community as individuals. A bee, or ant, isn’t very formidable on its own. When their Queen excretes the right sequence of pheromone triggers, however, the hive operates as a single organism. What you’re looking at above is actually a single cell of a far larger entity, programmed by an intelligence not its own to perform a task.
I would hope that the Marines get the tactical Butterflies, and that the Army gets the weaponized Bees.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
down slanting
Here today and gone tomorrow, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator, as previously stated, needs a vacation.
Actually, it’s a change of scene I require. My daily rounds often take me to locations which are awe inspiring, or terrifying, but ultimately I’d like to see and record something different – just for a change of pace. Kittens? I just don’t know anymore. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, as the pundits opine, and I’d like to photograph something entirely absent of tugboats, industrial squalor, and sewer plants – just for a minute, mind you. Maybe a walk in the woods or something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The good news is that after this weekend’s Open House New York tour is concluded one will be free on the weekends again. I’m thinking about following the lead offered by Ratso and Joe Buck in the Midnight Cowboy movie and buying a random bus ticket at Port Authority and seeing where Greyhound might want to take me for a day trip.
Of course – knowing my luck, I’ll randomly end up in industrial Newark or Philadelphia, or some rust belt city in western New York. You can take the boy out of the superfund site, but…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Perhaps it’s just ennui. Bah.
Winter is coming, and ultimately, Carthage must be destroyed.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
lurking place
It’s all so exciting, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The funny thing, for me and perhaps for you, is that today and tomorrow’s posts aren’t the ones I originally intended to present. There are two perfectly fine posts in the unpublished folder which are completely written and formatted and ready to go, but for some reason I just didn’t want to release them into the wild this week. Really can’t tell you why, other than they continue a recent theme rattling on about “the looming infrastructure crisis due to real estate development” which has been explored in recent weeks – so instead – a few pix from a recent walk around LIC. I need a vacation, I really do.
That’s an “at grade” crossing of Borden Avenue which the Long Island Railroad has been using since the 1870’s pictured above. There are just a few of these “at grade” interactions between automotive traffic and rail in NYC, and the Queens side of Newtown Creek is where you can find several of them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The cupola of LIC’s sapphire megalith was just peeking out over a couple of squamous warehouse buildings on Borden Avenue, a bit further to the east. Despite the unlikely presence of some inhuman “thing” up there, which greedily stares down upon the world of men with a three lobed burning eye, I often utilize the megalith as a navigation tool while moving through some of the distaff areas surrounding the Newtown Creek.
You can easily see this building from as far away as Staten Island.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Throwing my feet around in the area I have christened as “the empty corridor” beneath the Long Island Expressway, which is observationally and historically a fine choice for illegal dumping, this somewhat adolescent cat greeted me recently. One of the interesting things I’ve been noticing of late is that site managers all over the Creek are setting up shelters for the ferals and encouraging them to hang around.
I’ve inquired with a few people on this subject and the reasoning behind the effort boils down to that hiring an exterminator to control rodents is quite expensive, and encouraging a “staff” of onsite 24 hour exterminators to take up residence isn’t. Same logic that farmers use, actually.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 