Archive for the ‘Blissville’ Category
decreasing wind
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Foaming, your humble narrator was scuttling his way to Brooklyn recently when sonic evidence of certain titanic exertions, whose only source could be a locomotive engine at work, penetrated through my ever present head phones.
On this particular afternoon, nearby the so called “Bliss Tower” along those tracks of the Long Island Railroad which snake along beneath the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge in a nameless section of Queens, once known as Blissville but which I describe as DUGABO, it was a NY and Atlantic freight operation which was raising the ruckus.
from anacostia.com
New York & Atlantic Railway began operation in May 1997 of the privatized concession to operate freight trains on the lines owned by Long Island Rail Road. The railway serves a diverse customer base and shares track with the densest passenger system in the United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My headphones were not playing Norwegian Black Metal, nor late 80’s NYC Hardcore. They were not transmitting one of my many H.P. Lovecraft audio books, the soundtrack from the first Omen movie, or any of my usual playlists of childish anthems and guitar driven ballads.
Instead, the audio files I was enthralled by were podcasts, specifically Dan Carlin’s “Wrath of the Khans” series, which is presented episodically at his Hardcore History show.
If you’re not listening to Dan, you’re missing out.
from wikipedia
There is an urban legend that Julius Caesar specified a legal width for chariots at the width of standard gauge, causing road ruts at that width, so all later wagons had to have the same width or else risk having one set of wheels suddenly fall into one deep rut but not the other.
In fact, the origins of the standard gauge considerably pre-date the Roman Empire, and may even pre-date the invention of the wheel. The width of prehistoric vehicles was determined by a number of interacting factors which gave rise to a fairly standard vehicle width of a little under 2 metres (6.6 ft). These factors have changed little over the millennia, and are still reflected in today’s motor vehicles. Road rutting was common in early roads, even with stone pavements. The initial impetus for the ruts probably came from the grooves made by sleds and slide cars dragged over the surfaces of ancient trackways. Since early carts had no steering and no brakes, negotiating hills and curves was dangerous, and cutting ruts into the stone helped them negotiate the hazardous parts of the roads.
Neolithic wheeled carts found in Europe had gauges varying from 130 to 175 centimetres (4 ft 3 in to 5 ft 9 in). By the Bronze age, wheel gauges appeared to have stabilized between 140 to 145 centimetres (4 ft 7 in to 4 ft 9 in) which was attributed to a tradition in ancient technology which was perpetuated throughout European history. The ancient Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians and Greeks constructed roads with artificial wheelruts cut in rock spaced the wheelspan of an ordinary carriage. Such ancient stone rutways connected major cities with sacred sites, such as Athens to Eleusis, Sparta to Ayklia, or Elis to Olympia. The gauge of these stone grooves was 138 to 144 centimetres (4 ft 6 in to 4 ft 9 in). The largest number of preserved stone trackways, over 150, are found on Malta.
Some of these ancient stone rutways were very ambitious. Around 600 BC the citizens of ancient Corinth constructed the Diolkos, which some consider the world’s first railway, a granite road with grooved tracks along which large wooden flatbed cars carrying ships and their cargo were pulled by slaves or draft animals. The space between the grooved tracks in the granite was a consistent 1.5 metres (4 ft 11 in).
The Roman Empire actually made less use of stone trackways than the prior Greek civilization because the Roman roads were much better than those of previous civilizations. However, there is evidence that the Romans used a more or less consistent wheel gauge adopted from the Greeks throughout Europe, and brought it to England with the Roman conquest of Britain in AD 43. After the Roman departure from Britain, this more-or-less standard gauge continued in use, so the wheel gauge of animal drawn vehicles in 19th century Britain was 1.4 to 1.5 metres (4 ft 7 in to 4 ft 10 in). In 1814 George Stephenson copied the gauge of British coal wagons in his area (about 1.42 metres (4 ft 8 in)) for his new locomotive, and for technical reasons widened it slightly to achieve the modern railway standard gauge of 1.435 metres (4 ft 8.5 in).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Normally, the media I consume is not something I think people would be interested in, at least that’s been my experience in real life. A recent conversation with Kevin Walsh of Forgotten-NY fame, wherein that intrepid explorer queried me about where to find some of these Lovecraft audio files which are so often mentioned, forced me to reconsider that maxim. Accordingly, since its a holiday weekend and you might have some free time, here you go.
The Atlanta Radio Theater Company is great. The website… their stuff is available as mp3’s at itunes and others, so go hunt them down.
The astounding H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.
ARTC made a better Dunwich, by my taste, but HPLHS did both “Mountains of Madness” and “Shadow Out of TIme” better and they made a freaking “Call of Cthulhu” silent movie as well as the unbelievably great “Whisperer in Darkness” film. Dark Adventure Radio Theatre just rocks.
Huge talents, a podcast performed by two of its associates is HPPodcraft.com.
Incidentally, just like the LIRR Engine 102 featured in yesterday’s post, today’s NY&A engine is an EMD SW1001.
from wikipedia
The EMD SW1001 was a 1,000-horsepower (750 kW) diesel locomotive for industrial switching service built by General Motors’ Electro-Motive Division between September 1968 and June 1986. A total of 230 examples were constructed, mainly for North American railroads and industrial operations.
The SW1001 was developed because EMD’s SW1000 model had proved unpopular among industrial railroad customers, as the heights of its walkway and cab eaves were much greater than those of earlier EMD switcher models. The overall height was similar, but the SW1000′s roof was much flatter in curvature. Industrial railroads that only operated switchers often had facilities designed to the proportions of EMD’s earlier switchers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Gold standard, the best of the best unabridged readings are from Audiorealms, featuring narrator Wayne June. Flat out readings of the Lovecraft Texts by professional voice talent in a studio. Genre defining, these are commercial works which really deserve support. Buy em, highest Mitch Waxman ratings- lengthy, mellifluous, well worth the hard slaved money. Six volumes, covering all the really good stuff. I think I got them through iTunes, although audible.com has them for sale.
The unmentionable Jeffry Combs reads “Herbert West Re-Animator.”
Additional mentions for theatrical productions of “Call of Cthulhu” and “Lurking Fear,” pro recordings from “back in the day,” when audio books were released on things called “audio cassettes.” Check out lovecraftzine.com for a list of free downloads which includes these two gems.
Archive.org is hosting Maria Lectrix‘s readings of “The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath.“ Free, and open sourced, go get em. Poke around at archive.org, by the way. This isn’t the only Lovecraft audio there- look for “Herbert West: Reanimator” and others.
from nyc.gov
Greenpoint Avenue is a four-lane local street in Queens and Brooklyn, running northeast from the East River in Greenpoint, Brooklyn to Roosevelt Avenue in Sunnyside, Queens. The Greenpoint Avenue Bridge, also known as the J. J. Byrne Memorial Bridge, is located approximately 2.2 km from the mouth of Newtown Creek. The bridge is situated between Kingsland Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and Review Avenue in the Blissville section of Queens.
impersonal investigator
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Often does a certain conflict arise within me regarding Calvary Cemetery and the various tales unearthed there which are then presented at this, your Newtown Pentacle. On the one hand, vainglory states that by speaking about the departed, and telling some part of their story, the interred are in some way kept alive.
In other cases, and this is typified by a soul chilling email received around a year ago which had the subject line “why is my grandmother’s grave featured in your blog?,” offer credence to my fears that a certain line is often crossed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator subscribes to the bardic viewpoint which believes that a hero or villain is only dead when people stop talking about them, which is why Ghenghis Khan, Alexander Magnus, and Adolph Hitler are immortal.
There is another point of view, of course, which dictates that what happens at the cemetery stays at the cemetery. While researching the Early family, in whom my interest was sparked merely by the centuried integrity of their monument, this waters of this conflict bubbled forth.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not much is out there about the Early’s, not an obituary nor a requiem or even a trail of legal bread crumbs. Specialists in Irish genealogy might be able to reveal more than I, but that’s not really the point. From a moral and ethical point of view, should the dead just be allowed to just keep their secrets?
Attempts have always been made, around NP HQ, to present historical necrologies in the best of all possible lights, as much out of respect for heirs and descendants as for the desire to not speak ill of the dead. One attempts to remain cold, clinical, and impersonal when constructing these narratives.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Conflicted, one nevertheless forges on in the attempt to create some sort of visual record of Calvary Cemetery, the great polyandrion of the Roman Catholics in New York City. All that can said of the Early clan is what is inscribed upon the stone- that it acknowledges the memory of the matron Ellen Mc Collough who died at 75 in December of 1893, a 21 year old woman named Rose who died in 1872, and finally the presence of the earthly remains of Mary Early who left the mortal coil in March of 1902.
The monument is a fine piece of carving, which has robustly weathered a century of exposure to the elements.
potent interest
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A carven forest of infinite sorrow and cosmic loss, Calvary Cemetery here in Queens often brightens the mood of one such as myself.
Deeply jaundiced by the acts and betrayals of the living, a humble narrator has little choice but to reacquaint himself constantly with an era when honor and the keeping of ones word was the masculine ideal. Unfortunately we live in a debased age, wherein petty monsters are allowed to terrorize the townsfolk freely. Such creatures stalk every century of course, but in ours, the acts of vengeance one may enact against an opponent are considerably circumscribed by custom and law.
You just can’t punch a guy in the nose and be done with it anymore.
from wikipedia
The first burial in Calvary Cemetery took place on July 31, 1848. The name of the deceased was Esther Ennis, having reportedly “died of a broken heart.” By 1852, there were 50 burials a day, half of them were poor Irish under seven years of age.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Moral conundrums such as the one described above were less important than finding a meal for most of the 19th century Catholics who were buried here. They mostly died young, they died poor, and they most often died from avoidable diseases brought on by bad water, poor sanitation, and chronic malnutrition. Most were illiterate, violent, and alcoholics (by modern standards), and the only people looking out for them were their priests.
That “50 burials a day” number in the wiki quotation above represents an interesting organizational question to me. Around the beginning of the Civil War, the technological resources that the Roman Catholic Church would have had access to in performing these interments is easily explained as the sort of gear you’d see in a Cowboy movie- horses and wagon, pick ax, shovels and spades.
That’s a lot of digging, better than eighteen thousand graves a year, which would require a lot of cheap labor.
18,000 funerals a year also indicates a lot of clerical work, performing ceremonial functions for the cemetery itself and organizing the ritual schedules of mass and other votive tasks for funeral goers at the cemetery chapel.
from fordham.edu
In the 1840’s a massive number of Irish-Catholics immigrated to the United States. By 1855, there were over 200,000 Irish in New York City. British land policies, which sought to sweep the Irish peasants off their land, were compounded by the devastating potato famine of 1845 to 1847. A rot attacked the potato crop, on which the Irish population had become dependent. About 2 million people perished. The Irish often arrived in America with few material possessions and were forced to live in squalor.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As detailed in the past, the first service conducted here, for Esther Ennis in 1848, was conducted by the legendary Archbishop “Dagger” John Hughes.
Hughes was a charismatic firebrand who turned the Archdiocese of New York into a powerhouse player in education, real estate, finance, and politics within a single generation. Based in Manhattan, Hughes’s Archdiocese appointed the official chaplains of the Calvary Cemetery, once a prestigious position to hold. No evidence of a modern chaplain, although there must be some modern prelate who oversees the place, was discovered upon casual inspections.
The monument in today’s posting is that of one such chaplain of Calvary Cemetery.
from wikipedia
On April 8, 1808, the Holy See raised Baltimore to the status of an Archdiocese. At the same time, the dioceses of Philadelphia, Boston, Bardstown and New York were created. At the time of its establishment, the Diocese of New York covered all of the state of New York, as well as the New Jersey counties of Sussex, Bergen, Morris, Essex, Somerset, Middlesex, and Monmouth.
Since the first appointed bishop could not set sail from Italy due to the Napoleonic blockade, Fr. Kohlman was appointed administrator. He was instrumental in organizing the diocese and preparing for the Cathedral of St. Patrick to be built on Mulberry Street. Among the difficulties faced by Catholics at the time was anti-Catholic bigotry in general and in the New York school system. A strong Nativist movement sought to keep Catholics out of the country and to prevent those already present from advancing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lords and Ladies, gaze upon the inscription marking this marble as the monument of the First Chaplain of Calvary Cemetery, Rev. Patrick Hennessy.
This column, decorated and inscribed with iconography denoting the burial place of a Roman Catholic Priest, has stood here in section 3 since 1861. It adjoins two other monuments recently described at this, your Newtown Pentacle- the Connell obelisk from “whispered warnings,” and what turned out to be the Jeanne Du Lux and John P. Ferrie monument from “anxious band” and “doubly glad.”
from 1876’s “The visitor’s guide to Calvary cemetery, with map and illustrations” by J. J. Foster, courtesy archive.org
REV. PATRICK HENNESSY, Late Chaplain of the Cemetery, on which are the usual priestly insignia.
In the rear of the monument are statues representing ” Faith,” ” Hope,” and ” Charity,” angels in kneeling posture, and many others. Marble vases containing blooming flowers are scattered around, somewhat relieving the bare aspect of the ground, which is paved with small square-cut flagging, in which is a door leading to the vaults beneath. The whole plot is surrounded with substantial rails of marble.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
According to the quotation above, there is a subterranean vault which lies forgotten below the very spot upon which I stood while shooting the closer in photos which appear above.
Such occluded knowledge and latent danger is nepenthe, of course, for one such as myself. References gleaned from study of ancient tomes indicates that Rev. Hennessy actually lived within the gates of the cemetery itself, but that comes from a single source and is therefore not 100% reliable. If accurate, however, the structure would have been found at the foot of the hill which Section 9 sits upon.
One suspects that unlike myself, who is a vast physical and psychological coward known for his fits of shrieking laughter and terrifying pauses, an Irish priest from the New York of 1861 would have found little problem with straightening his back up and punching some rogue right square in the nose.
an obituary published on January 28 of 1861, found at the NYTimes archive, discusses the passing of Rev. Hennessy
HENNESSY. — At his residence, on Long Island, on Saturday, Jan. 26, Rev. PATRICK HENNESSY, in the 51st year of his age.
His funeral will take place from the Church at Calvary Cemetery, at 10 o’clock A.M., this day, (Monday.) 28th inst. His friends, and the reverend clergy, are respectfully invited to attend.
lost perspective
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back and forth, forth and back.
On yet another of my perambulations twixt ancient Greenpoint and Astoria, the path which presented itself carried me down Greenpoint Avenue and upon the loathsome expanse of the Long Island Expressway did I find myself staring aghast at. Shivering from chills which were not atmospheric in origin, a humble narrator feverishly crossed the pedestrian pathway between the on and off ramps, an island of safety in a sea of automotive sharks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the northern side of the street, yet another singular and abandoned example of the cobblers art was discovered.
Individual shoes are noticed nearly everywhere these days, by one such as myself, so much so that it seems as if some sort of sinister game might be afoot. Is there be some sort of registry for such matters? Some sort of federal list? Can an amputated consumer product such as a shoe be traced back to an owner? Detective fictions opine that this is the case, but who can guess?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wild speculation rules my reactions to these abandoned shoe sightings, lending fuel to flights of blasphemous fancy and outrageous possibility. Commonalities in the sightings of these orphaned singlets include their presence on out of the way, commonly traveled but seldom walked, streets. Most examples seem gently used (with the exception of the damage on the example today,) and that they are conspicuous.
There doesn’t seem to be a bias toward either the left nor right model.
ornate and exotic
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Maddeningly, lucky captures like the ones featured in today’s posting have been pretty rare for me of late, but here’s three from the proverbial “right place, right time.” Whilst crossing the devastations of Laurel Hill last week, enroute to a meeting in Brooklyn, those dense atmospheric conditions which had all but occluded the visual presence of Manhattan, just an hour earlier, suddenly cleared up. The burning thermonuclear eye of god itself omnipotently bathed the accursed earth in its radiation, driving away the rain laden clouds.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, I was skulking and scuttling the periphery, along an obscure pavement, of the polyandrion of the Roman Catholic Church- called Calvary. Bearing witness to this sudden explosion of majesty and inadvertent stage lighting, for one such as myself, was fraught with danger. Having grown increasingly nocturnal over the winter months, your humble narrator let slip an audibly fearful hiss when that light- which had traveled 93 million miles in seconds and was aimed directly at me- struck my shadow tempered skin. At once, I was moving eastward- and toward safe harbor in the perennial shadows of DUKBO (Down Under the Kosciuszko Bridge Onramp) scuttled I.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, as it was late in the day, this luminous event was short lived and the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself now floated low to the horizon in the northwestern sky. Enormous volatility in the air and surrounding cloud systems lent an effusive quality to its emanations, which oddly framed the so called Freedom Tower- a megalith nearing completion on the site of national tragedy and aspiration. To one such as myself, however, such things are better left for others to contemplate, enjoy, and discuss. There is no place for me in the company of others. My place is here, along the Newtown Creek, and amongst the tomb legions.
The Newtown Pentacle 