Archive for the ‘Broadway’ Category
mute clue
It’s National Chocolate Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned yesterday, one seems to have been hanging around in Astoria quite a bit recently. The long walks from the ancient village which a humble narrator is known for undertaking, carrying one from Astoria in North West Queens to all sorts of distant locales, require a bit of time to undertake and a variety of factors have limited the open windows of time needed to commit them. Fear not, for vast overland crossings through the concrete devastations are being planned and will be embarked upon shortly, whereupon description of said events will be presented at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
Just in the name of getting some exercise, for myself and the camera alike, I’ve been perambulating about in a roughly two mile circle from HQ for the last few weeks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The world is a scary place. It’s full of wildly unpredictable people, some of whom just might be a part of some sadist doomsday cult who seek the world’s end. Others are just stupid, and you can see it on their faces when they try to think about something. The other day on the train, I sat there watching some woman visibly thinking. Her brow beedled, she silently mouthed words, and was apparently either rehearsing or reviewing an argument she either had lost or will lose when she has it. Occasionally, she would pull out her phone and fire off a text missive, which was angrily stabbed out with her digitus tertius or “curse” finger. Lip reading informs that she was upset at somebody she knew who had said hello to her “ex.” She kept on mouthing the word “ratchet.”
She had her two kids watching the display, one of whom was licking the subway seat. There really is no hope.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Astoria is decidedly carnivorous, as a rule. Don’t get me wrong, “we gots our vegans ’round here’s,” but most of the people you meet in the neighborhood talk about some kind of meat when you ask “what’s for dinner?” I know I do, but when I came across this display of half pig in a butcher shop window, one became entranced by its gruesome spectacle and the illusion of some monstrous face screaming in terror.
Pareidolia (/pærɪˈdoʊliə/ parr-i-DOH-lee-ə) is what it’s called when your brain perceives facial structures in inanimate objects. According to studies of the psychological phenomena, if you’re like me and you see “faces” in a LOT of inanimate objects and every cloud reminds you of some esoteric critter, it’s sympomatic of a highly neurotic personality type. Me, neurotic?
Who knew?
Upcoming Tours and events
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek Walking Tour,
with Atlas Obscura – Saturday, September 23rd, 11 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Join us on the wrong side of the tracks for an exploration of the hidden industrial heartlands of Brooklyn and Queens, with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
mental complexity
It’s National Chocolate Milkshake Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My daily walk for the last few weeks, due to certain constraints on schedule and other obligations, has been decidedly local in nature and a humble narrator has seldom found himself less than an hour from HQ before its time to turn around and head back. As I enjoy the distinct pleasure of living on the southern side of Astoria, Queens – this isn’t that big a burden. Lurking, in fear – after all – around Western Queens is one of my favorite activities.
There’s always something interesting happening here in the ancient village.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over on Steinway Street’s intersection with 34th avenue, there’s a mid sized construction job going on. A former one story furniture store is being converted over to a multi story residential dealie. The iron workers have been busy at this corner all summer, doing their thing, and a whole crew of local lords and ladies have been observed entering and leaving the job site in their bright yellow vests since last winter.
I know that to some calloused eyes this is “gentrification” occurring, but it’s hard to argue against creating both a bunch of construction jobs and some new housing units that are so close to the 34th avenue side of the Steinway Street stop on the R and M lines. Y’know, no form of housing is “affordable” unless you’ve got an opportunity for gainful employment and the chance to earn a living from it. That is, unless your idea of “affordable” involves the redistribution of earned wealth from someone else’s pocket into yours.
Just saying.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On this particular day, a crane was delivering steel beams and the union guys were crawling all over the skeleton of the new building. I can tell that they’re Union, as you’ll notice all of the safety equipment they’ve got on display. If this was a non Union job, these cats would be sporting baseball hats instead of hard hats, and the safety harnesses they’re wearing would be absent or made of duct tape.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
They seemed to know their business, these fellows (I think they’re fellows at least, as I wasn’t close enough to discern sex), and after snapping out a few shots I moved on. My half way point destination for the afternoon walk was set to be Queens Blvd. in Sunnyside, where an easterly turn would be undertaken towards Roosevelt Avenue and a return back to Astoria’s Broadway in the 40’s would be accomplished via Woodside Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Walking south down Steinway Street, where it transmogrifies into 39th street at Northern Blvd., one encountered this little assemblage of compound signage. It somehow fit my mood, and current worldview.
You people scare the hell out of me.
Upcoming Tours and events
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek Walking Tour,
with Atlas Obscura – Saturday, September 23rd, 11 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Join us on the wrong side of the tracks for an exploration of the hidden industrial heartlands of Brooklyn and Queens, with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
true conditions
It’s National Salami Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On this day, in 70 AD, the Romans sacked Jerusalem. In 1776, the very first submarine attack on a warship occurred in New York Harbor when the Turtle attached a time bomb to the hull of HMS Eagle. In 1860, Garibaldi entered Naples and began the process of creating the modern day Nation of Italy. In 1921, the first Miss America pageant was held in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Over in San Francisco back in 1927, inventor Philo Farnsworth demonstrated the first television signal. Benjamin, the last of the thylacines, died alone in a Tasmanian zoo in 1936. In 1940, the Nazis began the London Blitz, and in 1978 Rock and Roll drummer Keith Moon kicked the bucket.
The cool car pictured above was spotted in Greenpoint, incidentally. I was out one night conducting a walking tour of Newtown Creek and happened across it. The graffiti is what drew me in.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After conducting the walking tour, one set upon his path back towards the rolling hills of almond eyed Astoria, but had to pass through the concrete devastations of Hunters Point and Queens Plaza in order to do so. It was a nice night, and I decided upon walking home. On my way, I passed by the Queens Midtown Tunnel and captured this shot.
The funny bit – to me at least – about the current efforts by the State of New York to elimate toll booths in favor of electronic tolling is that no one thought about what happens on the Manhattan side of the tunnel. I’ve been noticing massive traffic backups on the Long Island Expressway since they instituted the new system, which was meant to ease traffic and smooth the commute for the 80,000 or so daily vehicle trips through the tunnel. The toll booths had the effect of causing traffic to pulse through the toll plaza four or five at a time, but now the traffic just snakes into it. The head of the snake emerges into the City and is met by traffic lights on second avenue. Those traffic lights are now the de facto governors of how fast traffic can flow through the tunnel, and on the 71 miles of the Long Island Expressway found to the east of it.
The military guys and gals have a word for this sort of thing – it’s “FUBAR.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back in Astoria, it was preternaturally dark when I arrived home, but this sort of thing doesn’t bother my little dog Zuzu. She operates by smell and sound, my dog, and as we engaged in her evening saunter and as she performed her investigative sniffing, I was growing increasingly apprehensive for some reason.
My pineal gland was twitching with latent horror.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As we swung back around onto Broadway and made our way back towards HQ, a large group of teenaged men were riding their bicycles down the block in a pack. According to a report I saw on the local CBS TV news, events such as this are to be viewed in a menacing light and feared. I found it menacing simply because they’re all teenagers. Darned kids, with their bicycles and the hip hop, engaging in group activities without first obtaining police permits or parental approval. Chaos!
There should be a curfew for anyone under the age of thirty, I tell ya. Damn kids.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Bicycles such as the ones pictured above are a fairly modern invention, but some scholars attribute the first bike design to a sketch by one of DaVinci’s students in 1534. The first verified appearance of bicycles was in the 19th century, specifically in 1817 Germany with the “dandy horse.” These were “running machines” which were operated sans pedals or chains. The velocipede era saw the addition of pedals to the front wheel, but it wasn’t until 1863 that a french engineer came up with what we’d recognize instantly as a bike – with pedals and a chain driven rotary crank. What you’re looking at in the shot above are 21st century variants of what was introduced as the “safety bicycle” back in 1885. John Dunlop introduced the pneumatic tire in 1888. In 1889, the diamond shaped frame of the modern bike was introduced, in a model that also folded. The modern multi geared bike, which included a “Derailleur” mechanism on the chain, came on the scene at the start of the 20th century. Everything since has simply been refinement of the design.
Teenagers, however, have always been dangerous and unpredictable. Curfew!
Upcoming Tours and events
Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour, with Atlas Obscura – Saturday, September 9th, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Explore NYC history, hidden inside sculptural monuments and mafioso grave sites, as you take in iconic city views on this walking tour, with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
three divisions
It’s National Spumoni Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Gaze ye wicked, and despair, for today’s solar eclipse heralds a new dark age! when the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself is occluded by the heathen Moon… well… let’s just say things are going to be getting pretty metal this afternoon. My understanding is that you’ll start seeing it go dark around 1:20 p.m., with the eclipse peaking at precisely 2:44 p.m. and the whole thing is meant to be over and done with by 4 p.m. That’s a two hour and forty minute window during which the dead might rise, Satan’s abominable court will hold authority upon the Earth, and an interval during which cats and dogs will live together peaceably will occur.
The lords and ladies pictured above have warned us, and they did it on Steinway Street no less. That’s democratizing the “word,” I tell ya. Repent, for the time of tribulation is nigh! Nigh I tell you, nigh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few people asked me where I’d be photographing the eclipse from, and they shuddered at my answer that I’ll be hunkered down and deep underground in the bunker we set up for the Mayan Apocalypse a few years ago.
So many unlikely things have occurred this year… the odds of there being a triffid swarm clacking down the LIE in search of prey blinded by staring into the sun, or the dead rising at Calvary… the mind boggles at the possibilities. My biggest worry actually revolves around the holy rollers, whose emergent flat earth proselytizing and general supranormal belief system might be threatened by the celestial display, losing their collective minds and starting a riot.
I don’t need no eclipse glasses, yo. I’ve got my tin foil hat to protect my delicate eyes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I do live in a neighborhood which has a “hells gate” after all, here in Astoria, Queens. That’s why I’ll be in the bunker.
Tribulation!
Upcoming Tours and events
DUPBO Newtown Creek Walking Tour, with NYCH20 – Thursday August 24th, 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Explore Greenpoint and Hunters Point, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
America’s Workshop Newtown Creek Walking Tour, with Atlas Obscura – Saturday August 26th, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Explore the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek in Long Island City, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
walled gardens
It’s National Raspberries and Cream Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s almost as if the Apple corporation had designed the modern day Subway system. Interoperability between distinct devices is painful to achieve without spending a ridiculous amount of treasure and time, and legacy equipment is likely to be “bricked” every time the system software is updated. The fact that – after nearly fifty years of being run by a common management team – nobody has come up with the bright idea of creating a common operational standard between the IND and IRT lines… it boggles.
The current plans which are being offered by political operatives of all stripes as a “fix” for MTA is simply to pour more money on this trash fire of a management team so that they can continue doing things EXACTLY as they’ve been doing them for a century, rather than planning for a future state of good repair and regular service. I argue that this strategy is analogous to paying August’s rent for your drug addict brother without some sort of commitment that he enter rehab. We’re just maintaining the current dysfunction without doing anything about the core issues that cause the problem. We, the public, are the MTA’s management team’s co-dependent.
How do you change a light bulb in a ceiling lamp when you’re sitting in a chair? The MTA’s answer would likely be to appeal for funding to lower the ceiling, whereas I say that you should think about standing on the chair instead.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
IND and IRT subways are contained within the same system, but have distinct hierarchies of management and procurement. There’s also the Long Island Railroad, Metro North, NJ Transit, and PATH systems which operate in vertical silos. None of these distinct commuter railways operate in a manner which would allow interoperability or the sharing of resources between them. The only thing they share, operationally, is track gauge (the rails themselves).
Going back to the Apple analogy, which is designed to rake as much cash out of the customer as possible – “Sorry, your older iPad can’t talk to your new iPhone after that last software upgrade, unless you also buy an iWatch, so you should just buy a new iPad which won’t be able to sync with your iCloud until you buy a new MacBook and you’ll need to buy an overly expensive dongle cable to connect it to the new iPhone with.”
You can’t get better service on the subway until we expensively modernize the… (sound familiar)? Once we install those new digital CBTC switches… That’ll fix everything… or it’ll just kick the can down the road. Just pay your brother’s rent so he has a safe space to shoot up, otherwise he’ll end up on the street…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Right now, we have to pay the rent for our junkie brother, just to keep the system rolling. What I’m proposing though, is that we need to start thinking about the NYC transit network of fifty years from now. As it currently stands, what would be rolling through the (probably flooded by sea level rise by 2067) MTA tunnels will look surprisingly like what’s there now. The MTA needs to start thinking about a long term plan, instead of just responding to this emergency or that one.
The Dope from Park Slope wants to tax millionaires, the Governor wants to tax everybody. Joe Lhota says that he needs close to a billion dollar’s worth of band aids just to keep the system running. They all want to fund a junkie, or just replace their old iPhone and hope it works better than the last model.
Upcoming Tours and events
Brooklyn Waterfront Boat Tour, with Working Harbor Committee – Saturday August 12th, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Explore the coastline of Brooklyn from Newtown Creek to Sunset Park, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman, Andrew Gustafson of Turnstile Tours, and Gordon Cooper of Working Harbor Committee on the narrating about Brooklyn’s industrial past and rapidly changing present. – details here.
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek Walking Tour, with Newtown Creek Alliance – Sunday August 13th, 11 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Explore the hellish waste transfer and petroleum districts of North Brooklyn on this daring walk towards the doomed Kosciuszko Bridge, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
Two Newtown Creek Boat Tours, with Newtown Creek Alliance and Open House NY – Wednesday August 16th, 5 p.m. and 7 p.m.
The neighborhoods surrounding Newtown Creek are home to the densest collection of these garbage facilities anywhere in the city and collectively, the waste transfer stations around and along Newtown Creek handle almost 40% of the waste that moves through New York. Join Newtown Creek Alliance’s Mitch Waxman and Willis Elkins to learn about the ongoing efforts to address the environmental burden that this “clustering” has caused. – details here.
DUPBO Newtown Creek Walking Tour, with NYCH20 – Thursday August 24th, 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Explore Greenpoint and Hunters Point, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 