Archive for the ‘Broadway’ Category
obstructing surface
Astoria, land that I love, stand beside her…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Generally speaking, your humble narrator is a misanthrope, avoiding the company of other people. When I say I’m a street photographer, I mean that I literally like taking pictures of unpopulated streets. People tend to clutter up my shots and are best avoided. Other people who describe themselves as “street photographer” focus in on the humans as they scurry about the hive and make trouble for themselves, whereas I’m a bit more interested in the hive itself. Still, in the name of breaking things up and “doing the opposite,” every now and then I wave the camera around at folks to see what I might get.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured above is the bland homogeneity of a street fair imposed on the vibrant diversity of Astoria the other day. These street fairs are traveling corporate circuses, selling foodstuffs which the Mayor would probably attempt to outlaw for the amount of fat and salt they distribute to the unsuspecting Astorians who so desperately need the dietary guidance of the oligarchs and elites of Manhattan. I remember when the current form of these events took shape back in the 1990’s- with the “as seen on TV” products, sunglass vendors, and mozzarepa stalls. It always seems to be the same players, who noisily sweep in and suppress sales for local shop owners for a day, all the while running gasoline powered generators to power refrigerators and lights. The worst are the DJ booths, with throbbing club music broadcast to a neighborhood which had its fill the night before.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The fellow pictured above is one of our local “Crows,” a metal collector who scours the streets for anything shiny which might be salable to the scrap metal industry, and he opted for an al fresco lunch directly beneath my vantage. He’s a tragic and scorned figure in the neighborhood, part of a huge immigrant population of single men who arrived in Queens from foreign quarters looking for work, often witnessed lying prone on the sidewalk after a bout of drinking. Latino, the neighborhood refers to all of these characters as “the Mexicans,” although there is no guarantee that this is where he’s from. I could ask, of course, but that would get in the way of my general misanthropy.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
Glittering Realms– Saturday, August 3rd, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, August 10, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– Saturday, August 17, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
any limit
Do you smell that?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Waiting for a train, and I mean a specific train of a certain line rather than just whatever might be headed toward Manhattan, entails acceptance of the fact that one must endure several pneumatic blasts of powderized rat droppings carried in the slipstream of more frequently serviced lines.
Mold, bacterial specie, and fumes generated by decaying electrical switches (as well as other more esoteric bits of equipment) are also incorporated in this refreshing torrent of miasma. Welcomed, as the static mass of air down under Broadway in Astoria (and in the subway system citywide) is a concatenation of horrors, an unmoving and highly humid jelly of stink and reprobate contamination which is at least set into a sort of motion by the action of piston leaving concrete cylinder which one might describe as a breeze.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The gentleman in the shot above noticed, as did I, certain queer movements down upon the tracks as some squamous army marched about in the fetid trickles of sewage running and pooling about in the intervals betwixt the train propelled clouds of pneumatically driven stink.
A plague of rats has tormented the neighborhood found between the Steinway and 46th street stops along Broadway for several months now, conditions accelerated and excaberated by the phenomena which is derogatorily referred to as “Bloomblight” by area wags. Named for the current Mayor, the term refers to a building lot which has been cleared of structures but has been left as an open pit while awaiting building development, in complete disregard for the safety and domestic tranquility of existing residents. Two such plots have lain open on Broadway, between the two stops, for quite awhile.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Puff after puff of vomitous stink and poisonous air follow these trains and bathe riders in contaminant particulates- and between these arrivals and departures- one is treated to a different sort of commute- that which is enacted by the nightbreed rodents.
One wonders if this vermin habitation and community, whose true size is seldom glimpsed or only ever hinted at, marches to and from Manhattan on a daily schedule as we do? Do they have some potentate there, as we do, to whom allegiance is expected? Are there rats who stay local, proclaiming the glories of their outer borough and quite subterranean lair, as we do? Do they brag about the quality and diversity of restaurant garbage in Queens?
Is there a rat 311 which they can call to complain of traps and poisons?
After all, lords and ladies, as above so below- and who can guess, all there is, that might be buried down there?
Want to see something cool? Upcoming Walking Tours
Modern Corridor– Saturday, July 13, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, August 10, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– Saturday, August 17, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
heavy grief
Today’s post is all about perspective.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s going to be hot today, so it’s time to think about staying frosty. The historic low temperature for June in New York City was set in 1972 when it was just 46 degrees. It’ll feel like double that at solar maximum today, so I thought that scenes from the snowpocalypses of recent memory might offer some comfort. Stay cool, kids.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Personally speaking, I unfortunately will be out all day in the direct gaze of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself. A busy series of Newtown Creek related intervals will carry me back and forth and forth and back from hallowed Astoria to hoary Greenpoint. One could always feign stomach illnesses, “nobody argues with diarrhea” as I always say, but I actually desire to fulfill my on site obligations- it wouldn’t be cool to back out at the last minute, you might say I was “being cold” and I wouldn’t want to be frozen out of future opportunities.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I am not at liberty to discuss what I’m doing in the morning yet, which will entail getting up just after sunrise, but suffice to say that I’m going to the last place you’d expect me to today. You might even say that you’d expect a cold day in hell would be more likely than what my actual plans are. Suffice to say that I’ll be wearing protective clothing despite the heat, which will include long sleeves, gloves, and a hard hat as well as steel toe boots. Stay frosty, lords and ladies, and to quote a certain popular television show- remember that winter is coming.
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
The Insalubrious Valley– Saturday, June 29, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
Modern Corridor- Saturday, July 13, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets on sale soon.
inexplicably weaker
Today’s posting comes direct to you from Astoria, Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just a short posting today, a couple of scenes recently recorded here amongst the blessed slopes of raven tressed Astoria. The couple shown in the shot above were observed on Steinway Street, taking an afternoon nap on one of the many new benches recently installed. Scenes reminiscent of the one above are the reason that the Koch administration removed this form of street furniture around the City in the first place, back in the 1980’s, as I recall.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Strongly contrasting with the first shot is this amazing hot rod Corvette parked just a few blocks away nearby Northern Blvd. Upon observation of this well appointed automobile, a humble narrator began to gibber and jump with acrimony over the fact that it is not his. It is high time that I have a midlife crisis, and this car would fit the bill for my last grasping attempts at youthful abandon. I would call it the Mitchmobile, and would be heard loudly and atonally singing “na na na Na Na, Wax-man” whilst touring the Newtown Creek at a thousand miles per hour.
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
The Insalubrious Valley– Saturday, June 29, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
Modern Corridor- Saturday, July 13, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets on sale soon.
habitual association
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It is childish for me to believe in anyone or anything beyond myself, it seems. In truth, the number of good men I have known in my life can be counted on one hand, and I do not consider myself one of them. Do not think that this handful are or were saints, they just held to a code of ethical behavior and behaved in a consistent fashion with their moral compass. History teaches that such men are few and far between, of course, and that the vast majority of those within the human hive are merely degenerate refugees from the monkey tribe- cowardly, bestial, restive, and capable of nothing but criminal and personal defilement.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I have always believed in certain principles, attempted to adhere to some sort of personal code. Rules are rules, and one of mine is “Say what you do, and do what you say.” Watching those incapable of such turpitude wriggle and splash in the ooze would afford me amusement, were I an evil man. If religion or the rule of law were my trip, condemnation and punishment would be all consuming passions- but all I ever aspire to be is a good man, and seeing those who should know better transgress this threshold between right and wrong just makes me sad.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are things you do not wish to invoke upon yourself. You never want to say any phrase containing the word “fuck” to an on duty New York City Police Officer, for instance, nor get into a drinking contest with Russians or Koreans. Never date a woman who is named after a luxury car, and if you find a dusty book of incantations in some cabin in the woods- do not read from that book aloud. You have no idea what it is you might call into existence.
Upcoming tours:
The Insalubrious Valley– Saturday, May 25, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
The Poison Cauldron- Saturday, June 15, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets on sale soon.
Kill Van Kull- Saturday, June 22, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
The Newtown Pentacle 