Archive for the ‘Brooklyn’ Category
Project Firebox 77
An ongoing catalog of New York’s endangered Fireboxes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s a busy corner in Greenpoint, Brooklyn that this alarm box offers coverage to. During the era in which the modern City was formed, and these alarm boxes installed, telephones were a luxury item enjoyed only by the rich. Common folk would hand out the phone number of a church, bar, or shop to friends and associates. The phone would ring and one of the throngs of kids playing in the gutter would be dispatched to find the intended party and draw them to the phone. Fire service was deemed too important to rely on such a complicated and third party laden scheme, and the alarm boxes were installed by the FDNY. The modern government of the City would like to see this system uprooted, claiming that since “everyone” has a cell phone with access to 911, why shoulder the expense?
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
The Insalubrious Valley– TODAY, 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.
boisterous sort
Who wouldn’t want to live in a yellow submarine?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent occasion brought your humble narrator to Pier 11 in Manhattan for an experimental excursion whose execution was meant to demonstrate the efficacy of a proposed ferry route between the Shining City and far off Coney Island. The organizers of the trip hired the fellow above to entertain whilst boarding. Personally, I prefer bagpipes to accordions- but that’s me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“Friends of Coney Island Creek Ferry Landing + Park” was the group which sponsored and promoted this run, and onboard were NY Harbor luminaries such as Dr. Roberta Weisbrod from Working Harbor Committee, and Metropolitan Water Alliance’s Roland Lewis (and MWA’s irascible and tireless Louis Kleinman) as well a host of others. The trip left from Pier 11 in Manhattan and proceeded to the infinity of Brooklyn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
City Hall would like to turn this Creek into a swampy wetland, but others wish to establish a route to Coney Island for tourists and Manhattanites to provide a notoriously moribund local economy with a financial shot in the arm. “Big Picture” stuff and above my pay grade, I came along mainly because I was curious if the Yellow Submarine had survived Sandy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Built by a fellow named Jerry Bianco as the Quester 1 and launched in 1970, the sub is discussed in some detail in this nytimes.com article, and our friends at Forgotten-NY have explored the subject in some depth as well. Mr. Bianco was interested in salvage operations on the sunken Andrea Doria wreck, but things didn’t work out.
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.
old but empty
Signs and portents, portents and signage.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The problem with literacy is that one is constantly bombarded with instructions, warnings, and messaging whilst moving about the megalopolis, the visual field carries an unavoidable flood of missives adjuring one to follow posted directives. Reading, for one such as myself at least, is an instant and unavoidable pathway directly into the brain. In a city like New York, everyone from the municipality to the neighbors enjoy leaving little notes around the place which are designed to alert, adjure, or advise.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Visual clutter has and will always be a part of urban life, the Romans probably had little chunks of carved rock hanging about reminding citizens to visit the Appian Way or to pick up after their slaves. There’s probably a cuneiform tablet in the British Museum which was designed to warn the citizens of Ur not to litter or face a fine, or a polychrome sketch adorning a cave wall in France that advises its audience to avoid the sticky situations around tar pits.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Having worked in the advertising industry for many years, your humble narrator is guilty of having helped to propagate this clutter, which is just part of the long list of things which I feel guilty about. The things I’d like to see on signs these days- missives such as “politicians are your employees,” or “don’t try to argue with cops on the street,” don’t seem to make it past the cutting room floor, of course.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, June 22, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
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.
decreasing confidence
Today’s post is about enormous things hidden in the mist.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wandering around during a recent spate of gray skies, your humble narrator found himself staring at the familiar geometries of Whale Creek at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant. Still, rainy days lend a surreal quality to the Newtown Creek and its tributaries. Alongside the futurist architecture and ongoing construction of the great sewer mill, it is impossible for one such as myself not to record such otherworldly scenery.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It is a strange compulsion, recording everything one might see. Some tell me that I hide behind the camera, comfortably isolated from interaction with others- which is always a painful and embarrassing experience fraught with unknown possibility and consequence. Thing is, look at the things which I see.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Deep regret exists in me that so many experiences over the years were not recorded in the manner that I employ these days. Places, people, experiences relegated to hazy memory and the dimness of time. Without a photo of some thing or event as evidence, how can you honestly say it happened?
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? June 2013 Walking Tours-
The Poison Cauldron– Saturday, June 15, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, June 22, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
The Insalubrious Valley– Saturday, June 29, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
wriggling out
Today’s post is about things that really suck.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As often described, one of the many odd things about your humble narrator is my ability to suddenly notice an incongruous pattern or subtle environmental alteration invisible to others.
Something that has popped up recently are a large number of vacuum trucks plying area streets. The crew hard at work in the shot above was cleaning a noisome and aromatic sewer found at the foot of the Pulaski Bridge in Hunters Point, and they seemed to be doing an admirably sucky job.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This truck sucks. It didn’t seem to be sucking in anything other than fuel at the gas station on the corner of Steinway and Northern, but it still had the potential to massively suck. It is, in fact, labeled as being a “Supersucker.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Greenpoint too, it seems, needs trucks that suck. Observed turning north onto West Street from Greenpoint Avenue with the Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory behind it, this massive machine seemed to possess a capability to suck harder than the other two, combined, could.
This odd predilection of mine, noticing hidden patterns and odd coincidences hidden around the blasted heaths of the Northern Brooklyn and Western Queens, often reveals things that just completely suck.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? June 2013 Walking Tours-
The Poison Cauldron– Saturday, June 15, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, June 22, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
The Insalubrious Valley– Saturday, June 29, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
The Newtown Pentacle 