Archive for the ‘Astoria’ Category
July 4th Fireworks from Astoria roof
– photos by Mitch Waxman
Couldn’t see much, as the river Astoria lies upon is the East rather than Hudson, where the big fireworks show was. Got a few shots, but most of the visible action was rising up all around me from Astoria.
From Astoria Park, fireworks show, June 30 2010
– photos by Mitch Waxman
An FDNY fireboat shooting Red White and Blue water in between the Triborough and HellGate Bridges, followed by a cool tugboat, and then a fireworks display framed against the latter bridge. Happy 4th of July!
bazaars in the dusk
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Mrs. Softee is lonely during the torrid nights, and wonders for whom her man plays his song, knowing that Mister Softee is no damn good.
One of the many occupations enjoyed by your humble narrator (who started working at 7, shining shoes in a mafioso barber shop in 1980’s Brooklyn) was as a Good Humor man. I drove one of the old fashioned trucks, the kind with the little door on the back, and wore the white uniform with a little change maker on the belt. I’ve also worked as a dish washer, pancake cook, supermarket cart and bag boy, aquarium service man, film store clerk, corporate drone, drawn and written comic books, been a fine art mover, advertising studio technician, photo retoucher- once I even took a job shoveling a seven foot by 20 foot pile of dog shit into plastic bags.
Good Humor man is still my favorite.
from wikipedia
Good Humor is an American brand of ice cream novelties sold from ice cream trucks as well as stores and other retail outlets. Originally, Good Humors were chocolate coated ice cream bars on a stick, but the line was expanded over the years to include a wide range of novelties. The Good Humor company started in Youngstown, Ohio during the early 1920s and covered most of the country by the mid 1930s. Good Humor became a fixture in American popular culture, and at its peak in the 1950s, the company operated 2,000 “sales cars”.
In 1961, Good Humor was acquired by Thomas J. Lipton, the U.S. subsidiary of the international Unilever conglomerate. Profits declined when the baby boomers aged and costs increased because of labor issues, gasoline and insurance. The company sold its fleet in 1978, but continued to distribute its products through grocery stores and independent street vendors. By 1984, Good Humor returned to profitability. Starting in 1989, Unilever expanded Good Humor through its acquisition of Gold Bond Ice Cream that included the Popsicle brand. Four years later, Unilever bought Isaly Klondike and the Breyers Ice Cream Company. Good Humor-Breyers is now a large producer of branded ice cream and frozen novelties with nine plants around the country.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A two man operation, the little white truck had actual bells which you’d ring while the other guy drove. It was a one man truck, but for safety reasons, was staffed by two. We’d drive around our route in Canarsie, ringing the bells and drawing the attention of children- who would begin a St. Vitus dance at the merest hint of the sound. Part of the job was to drive slow, allowing the kids to beg for money from their parents, who were generally arranged on folding chairs in front of their homes drinking red wine from a soda glass with floating ice cubes. Vulnerable to their kids, single dollars would be produced and their progeny would jet toward our position, which was mid block, to allow maximum sales. A good night would witness kids a couple of blocks away at the curb waiting.
Ka-chinng.
goodhumortrucks.com has some restrictions attached to their content, so I’m not going to provide the cursory quotation here, but will instead direct you to click here to see what a Good Humor Truck looked like.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One night, my friend- whose great claim to fame at that time was that he was able to grow a full mustache- pointed out that Mr. Softee had entered our route and was pilfering sales from us by advancing to that next block and arriving there while we were serving the strawberry shortcake, chocolate eclair, toasted almond, and creamsicle pops from our freezer on the first. We instituted a chase, screaming over the roar of our engine, and soon found ourselves in a high speed chase on the service roads which follow the course of the Belt Parkway (which allowed no commercial vehicles). Of course, Ice Cream trucks of the era lost much of their potential motility to the compressors which kept the goods frozen and we never actually got moving much faster than 35 mph. Past Kings Plaza, Sheepshead Bay, Coney Island, Bay Ridge, and under the Gowanus- Mr. Softee evaded us- but we endeavored to serve our revenge cold.
Cold is best, when you’re a Good Humor Man bent on beating Mr. Softee to a pulp.
from wikipedia
Mister Softee is a United States-based ice cream truck franchisor popular in the Northeast. It was founded by William and James Conway (Oct. 30, 1927 – May 28, 2006) in 1956 in Philadelphia. It is one of the largest franchisor of soft ice cream in the United States. It has about 350 franchisees operating 600 trucks in 15 states. The company is headquartered in Runnemede, New Jersey. It is still run by the Conway family; James Conway, Jr. is now President.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Mr. Softee lost us somewhere around Williamsburg (a horrible part of town in the 1980’s), and our efforts at vengeance were stymied. Nearly out of fuel, with steam rising threateningly from under the hood, we were forced to swallow our pride and mourn the profits lost. Our adolescent hearts did not consider the confectionary disappointment of the children of Canarsie.
The pattern that we had established, my friend and I, was that he would pick up the truck at the yard and return it for a greater share of the night’s take. He would pick me up at my parent’s house and drop me off at the end of the shift, but as we were quite close to the yard, that night we went together.
That was the first night that I helped bring the truck back to its yard, and although I didn’t know it at the time, it was the first time I entered storied Greenpoint and experienced that ribbon of sense shattering abnormality called the Newtown Creek.
from amny.com
Mister Softee isn’t just dispensing vanilla ice cream this summer, he’s also trying to dish out soft-serve justice to cone-head wannabes.
Mister Softee distributors aren’t soft or sweet when it comes to rogue franchisees who routinely rip off the company’s trademarks without paying the licensing fees.
They hire private investigators to tail imposters and send the U.S. Marshals Service to tow offending trucks. They even spend tens of thousands of dollars every year to sue about 40 truck owners for lifting the cone-head logo, the white-and-blue color scheme and the jingle.
“These guys are mobile,” said Peter Bouzio, the Mister Softee distributor for the Bronx and Manhattan. “It’s an uphill battle.”In midtown Thursday, an ice cream truck called “Softee Treats” infringed on Mister Softee’s trademark, according to the company’s lawyer.
“I’m not Mister Softee, nowhere on my truck does it say Mister Softee,” shouted the ice cream vendor, who declined to give his name.
tyranny of the now
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whenever I notice that employees of Con Ed have opened the street and descended into their hidden vaults- especially on a hot summer day- I can’t help but remember the Astoria blackout of 2006. A week long event of flickering lights and municipal indifference, it exposed the ancient skeletal superstructure upon which the modern city’s flesh hangs, and shattered the mythologies of the “now”.
Something about having witnessed blue light and yellow smoke pouring out from manhole covers changes the way you think about the City, and to quote an old 1980’s aphorism- “people just walk around like they’re safe or something”.
from wikipedia
The cause of the outages – which was undetermined for five days – appeared to be the company’s decision to continue supplying power to the 400,000 people serviced by twenty-two feeder cables after ten of them had failed, overloading the remaining twelve. After these were repaired, a manhole-to-manhole inspection and repair of smaller cables which had also burned took place. Consolidated Edison was due to make an initial status report, regarding the outage, on August 2, 2006. Data submitted by Con Edison in August, 2006 indicated that the failed feeder cables had been in service an average of 16 years, with the oldest failed cable 59 years old.
For the official CONED report on the event- which is a highly technical document, click here
Double-crested Cormorant, I presume?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A common sight on the East River and other NY waterways are the diving antics of Cormorants. Breeding colonies of them can be found at several locations- notably U Thant and South Brother Islands. Your humble narrator, amongst other inadequacies, is no expert on ornithology but a bit of research has led me to believe that this is a juvenile Double Crested Cormorant.
from wikipedia
The Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus) is a member of the cormorant family of seabirds. It occurs along inland waterways as well as in coastal areas, and is widely distributed across North America, from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska down to Florida and Mexico. Measuring 70–90 cm (28–35 in) in length, it is an all-black bird which gains a small double crest of black and white feathers in breeding season. It has a bare patch of orange-yellow facial skin. Five subspecies are recognized.
The Double-crested Cormorant is found near rivers, lakes and along the coastline. It mainly eats fish and hunts by swimming and diving. Its feathers, like those of all cormorants, are not waterproof and it must spend time drying them out after spending time in the water. Once threatened by use of DDT, the numbers of this bird have increased markedly in recent years.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A diver, the Cormorant feeds on invertebrates like crabs, or vertebrates like fish, and frogs. It swallows its prey head first, after flipping the unfortunate critter into the air. It is said that there is a specie of cormorant which is trained by both Chinese and Japanese fishermen, who affix a metal ring about the captive bird’s neck to discourage swallowing, to accomplish their industry. Apparently, this is a global phenomena.
from heraldryclipart.com
In England, according to Willoughby, they were hoodwinked in the manner of the “Falcons”, ’til they were let off to fish, and a leather thong was tied round the lower part of their necks, preventing them from swallowing the fish. Whitlock tells us “that he had a cast of them manned like Hawks, which would come to hand.” He took much pleasure in them, and relates that the best he had was one presented to him by Mr Wood, Master of the Cormorants to Charles I. (Thomas Bewick’s British Birds-1826). The Cormorants have been used as symbols of nobility, indulgence, and in more modern times a totem for fishermen and a bountiful catch.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When the Cormorant goes into one of it’s dives, it might go as deep as 25 feet and be underwater for as long as a minute. This particular specimen was diving at Hells Gate, on the East River. One marvels at the idea of training a Cormorant to carry some sort of low light camera to the shattered bottom of Hells Gate, with its current swept carpet of wrecked ships dating back to Dutch times.
from web1.audubon.org
The Double-crested Cormorant is the most numerous and widespread North American cormorant. This large, dark waterbird is the only cormorant that occurs in large numbers inland, near fresh water, as well as on the coast. Cormorants (from the Latin for “sea crow”) are often seen floating low in the water, neck and bill raised, or perching upright near water to dry their outstretched wings.
The Newtown Pentacle 