Archive for the ‘NY 11103’ Category
Project Firebox 88
An ongoing catalog of New York’s endangered Fireboxes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It is disturbing to encounter a Firebox which adjures one to appeal to extra dimensional entities for succor and assistance, but this unit found on Astoria Blvd. South and the equivalent of 72nd street does just that. The Grand Central parkway to its back, this scarlet scion stands alongside St. Michael’s Cemetery.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday- September 21, 2013
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills Walking Tour with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Saturday- September 28, 2013
Newtown Creek Boat Tour with the Working Harbor Committee- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
clumsy modification
I call thee vibrant and diverse, names by which thou shalt be known.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Bland and homogenous, the rest of New York City must be a wasteland ruled by a monolithic uniculture wherein all speak the same language and subsist on a flavorless protein paste. Woe to the quartet of other boroughs, for Queens has locked up all the color and intrigue, and it is both illegal and immoral to cook with curry or cumin in Staten Island or the Bronx. We got all the peppers out here as well, so enjoy your bland gravies Manhattanites.
I have come to this realization the last time somebody in the City reacted to the unexpected news that I live in Astoria with the ubiquitous “I love Queens, it’s so vibrant and diverse, and I was in Astoria sometime in the 70’s when I had Greek food.”
By the by, the two kids in the shot above had a small table with signage that read “everything, a dollar.”
from wikipedia
Astoria is a middle class and commercial neighborhood with a 154,000 population in the northwestern corner of the New York City borough of Queens. Located in Community Board 1, Astoria is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to three other Queens neighborhoods: Long Island City, Sunnyside (bordering at Northern Boulevard), and Woodside (bordering at 50th Street). Astoria is patrolled by the New York City Police Department’s 114th Precinct.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To begin with, Astoria ain’t all that Greek anymore, they’ve largely moved on and are renting out restaurant space to the highest bidder. The section I live in is equal parts Croatian, Brazilian, Mexican, Ecuadorean, African American, and everybody else is a product of the old 20th century melting pot. The societal engineering that drove my grandparents to speak heavily accented english is gone, and the best way to describe the modern system is to reference the old testament.
This “vibrant and diverse” thing drives me crazy, something that is touted by Manhattan liberals who live in vertical affluence and believe what Time Warner Cables’ NY1 tells them and who haven’t visited Queens since that time in the 70’s they went out for Greek. Get to Queens and talk to somebody who doesn’t look like or agree with you, cliff dwellers.
from airbnb.com
If you’re looking for great Greek food or an exotic microbrew, look no further than Astoria. This northern Queens neighborhood exudes a youthful charm and welcoming attitude. In Astoria, mom-and-pop shops snuggle up to humble townhouses whose residents address one another by name. Strikingly diverse groups of people intermingle with appreciative ease in this laid-back neighborhood’s various culinary destinations and quiet streets.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Some of our vibrancy is expressed in illegal dumping, the native art form of western Queens. To wit, recently observed is yet another iteration of the single shoe phenomena on Broadway nearby the 46th street stop on the R. I’ve written about this a couple of times, and am not altogether convinced that there isn’t some amputee serial killer at work in the neighborhood. Vibrant diversity, however, would explain the presence of a population of peg legged sociopaths.
from oddshoefinder.com
Welcome to Oddshoefinder.com, a free site that connects people with odd shoes with people who need odd shoes! Many people with feet of different sizes buy one pair of shoes for each shoe size and use only one shoe from each pair, leaving a closet full of unused shoes. The purpose of this site is to help you get those shoes out of your closet and put money into your pocket.
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek – Saturday, August 24, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
carven into
Getting back home is what its all about.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My travels routinely find a humble narrator in far flung corners of the megalopolis which are remote from the north western corner of Queens wherein one dwells. Whatever event has carried me to these impossibly distant locations, it is paramount in my mind that I need to get back home to Queens and Our Lady of the Pentacle and my little dog Zuzu. Often will I find myself, as above, on a Staten Island Ferry looking through the ridiculously long transit tunnel which will provide me with a solution to this problem.
They used to carry cars on these boats, y’know, now this section is just for bicycles.
from nytimes.com
Deckhands said Ms. Bayer, sitting at the wheel of the car at the head of a sleepy line of drivers, appeared to have dozed off as the ferry lumbered across the harbor, just as the sun was turning the sky into a pink and orange patchwork of clouds. But as the ferry approached the terminal on Staten Island and the crew lowered the black metal gate, the deckhands said, Ms. Bayer was apparently jolted awake. The car began rolling, but the John F. Kennedy was not yet in the dock.
”It took off like a rocket,” said Kevin Hennessey, a deckhand. ”It was like something out of the movies.”
The first mate, Mickey Mardikos, said the car screeched ”and she went flying through the gate.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
With all the track work and repairs occurring on the weekends, it can be a real hassle getting to and from Queens. Ironically, I live not more than a mile from the transit hub which is Queens Plaza, but getting from Lower Manhattan to this spot on a saturday can often entail multiple transfers and “thinking on your feet.” Recently, it took me around a hour and forty five minutes to get from the Staten Island Ferry Whitehall terminal to Astoria, a distance I could have walked in around two and half hours.
Incidentally, the chronology quoted does not incorporate waiting for the train(s) to arrive, nor walking to and from the stations- it’s actual “on the train time.” Adding this time in makes taking the train anti competitive to just hoofing it. The closer you get to Queens, the more barriers and “gotchas” you hit.
from wikipedia
Queens Plaza is a plaza located on Queens Boulevard, between North and South Plaza streets, in Long Island City, Queens. The plaza is overlapped by an elevated railway transit (which was constructed in 1914), with the Queensboro Bridge starting on the western edge. It has a subway stop for the E M R trains at the Queens Plaza station below ground along the eastern edge, and the 7 <7> N Q trains at the Queensboro Plaza station above the west central part of the plaza on elevated tracks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Many have commented to me that I should just “accept the things I can’t control” and roll with it. It’s “nobody’s fault” and this necessary series of repairs are just a part of life in the big city.
I always respond, while ruminating on how much I’d rather be at home amongst the rolling hills of almond eyed Astoria, that moving around within Manhattan remains a cakewalk. It’s the connections with Queens that always seem to be problematic. Politicians offer that there is always the East River Ferry, which leaves you off at second street in LIC in the middle of nowhere at Hunters Point and runs on an hourly schedule during the weekend. They then say “Citi Bike” as if it means something.
May I offer that there is no such thing as a weekend in NYC anymore, and that anything which keeps me away from Our Lady of the Pentacle and my little dog ZuZu is sure to draw my ire?
Also, it is H.P. Lovecraft’s birthday today, he would have been 123 years old had he joined with Father Dagon and Mother Hydra in the cyclopean and many-columned street of Y’ha-nthlei, the subaqueous city of the Deep Ones.
from wikipedia
Homesickness frequently occurs when one travels and may be exacerbated by unfamiliar environments or foreign cultural contexts. Homesickness is especially common in youth. Young people may experience a sense of dread, helplessness, or separation anxiety on their first day of school, summer camp, or on a protracted summer vacation away from the family. Many first-year students at boarding schools or universities also experience homesickness. Some new members on military basic training and members on missions or deployments might also experience it.
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek – Saturday, August 24, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
naturally prompted
The trains coming, hurry up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Perambulating across the blessed hills of almond eyed Astoria the other day, testing out my new lens (the Sigma 18-35 F 1.8 DS), a humble narrator suddenly perceived an ear splitting howl coming from on high. The elevated tracks on 31st street carry the N and Q service to and from Manhattan, offering Astoria’s huddled masses egress into the Shining City of Manhattan. One thing these tracks are not is quiet.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself, along with our little dog Zuzu, live along the R line which is fairly cradled by the earth. Occasionally, happenstance or track work or just the urge to mix up my commute, I find myself on the elevated tracks. The views from up there can be stellar, but unfortunately the MTA has had to install sound blocking fences at the stations to calm the frayed nerves of those who live along 31st street. A busy commercial corridor, 31st street is also a primary approach to the Triborough Bridge and the Grand Central Parkway for traffic leaving Queens Plaza from the Queensboro Bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Its a funny thing, as Astoria is one of the few places in the central core of NYC that still looks like New York. Greenpoint has this quality as well, but the prime directive these days seems to be to obliterate any of the uniquely “New Yawk” elements of the cityscape in favor of a bland homogeneity and a mirror glass frontage which is built to the edge of the property line. Often have I wondered if this is caused by having a Boston transplant serving as the Mayor, who has hired a staff of Midwesterners and Southerners to serve as planning executives.
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– Saturday, August 17, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek – Saturday, August 24, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
express purpose
Scenes from a short walk across a long Borough.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There is a notion afoot, amongst the Real Estate crowd and the urban planners, that Western Queens is somehow “under utilized” and needs to become more urban. This ideation was obviously formed by those who sit in air conditioned Manhattan office buildings who have never actually visited Queens for any reason other than to go to the airport or have only driven through it on their way to the Hamptons.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When all the transportation infrastructure was rammed through Queens in the first half of the 20th century, this was largely an agricultural area. That’s why it was so easy to site the bridges and elevated subways and tunnel out here in the first place. Large lots of land which were easily purchased from a single buyer is a developers dream. Once all the steel and cement was in place, however, Queens grew exponentially. No kid from Astoria or Woodside will tell you he or she grew up in “the country.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recently, someone asked me what I thought of the current notion of turning Western Queens into some sort of Silicon Valley style digital hub and business incubator.
The idea is compelling, given the massive floor space and stout construction which the former factory buildings that distinguish the area, but I asked “what will these companies be connecting to?”. Astoria in particular is a hodge podge of wires carelessly maintained, with electrical and data cables spanning the streets. The utility poles which these wires are hung on are notoriously and precipitously overloaded, causing the them to bend and bow.
Does this look like the infrastructure that will draw a google or apple data center to the neighborhood, or does it remind you of some third world shithole in which one or two favored companies were granted a permanent franchise?
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– Saturday, August 17, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek – Saturday, August 24, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
The Newtown Pentacle 