Archive for the ‘Calvary Cemetery’ Category
sober and solitary
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The other day, your humble narrator was seeking adventure and illumination amongst the mouldering tombstones and oil soaked sands of Blissville. This is an industrial stretch, closer to DUGABO than it is to DUKBO, with the cyclopean walls of Calvary Cemetery defining the northern side of the street and an unbroken facade of industrial buildings and warehouses on the the south, which is also the direction in which the fabled Newtown Creek might be found by those that seek it out.
This is formerly one of the most loathsome stretches of the Creeklands- home to oil works, distilleries, and fat rendering plants.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the gates of what was once the vast rendering plant of Van Iderstines, a noxious industrial combine which was reviled by its neighbors during the century it squatted squamously upon this spot, this artwork was observed. This was no mere graffiti scrawl, instead this was an affixed installation, one which was obviously prepared elsewhere.
Content and subject matter are curious… and more than curious…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator grew interested upon noticing the presence of the double helix in the design, and the labeling which is meant to indicate the various amino acids which DNA is composed of. The “genetic code” as it is called, is actually represented by just four letters representing the chemical nucleotides which form the “double helix”- G,A,T, and C.
The four bases found in DNA are adenine (abbreviated A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T)
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A secondary piece was hung nearby, this one showed greater restraint than the first, but absent the chaotic charisma of the first.
Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if the fences and gated properties of the Newtown Creek waterfront became a sort of guerrilla gallery for local artists. Imagine mile after mile of bizarre conceptions and twee fever dreams installed in the dead of night by a virtual and quite fey army of artists. Not “tagging”, of course, just tacking up something on paper whose impermanence was part of its very composition. Do the art on rice paper or something that will just turn to pulp when it rains.
A friend of mine once did an ad agency mailing for some “green” client, and her gimmick was to use paper into which flower seeds were embedded at the paper mill (and it was printed using soy inks, of course), and you were meant to just plant the advertisement in a pot after reading it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Being the sort of damaged individual that you’ve come to expect me to be, Lords and Ladies, an attempt was made to decode this particular painting. It soon became apparent that expertise in organic chemistry would be required to profoundly critique it, something which it would be foolhardy to attempt. A cursory scan of the various formulae revealed that some of these are indeed actual chemical descriptors for amongst other things- restriction enzymes.
The usage of the infinity symbol and the other text is a mystery to me, but overall I liked the art.
ALSO, this Friday:
My own attempt at presenting a cogent narrative and historical journey “up the creek” is up coming as well-
Your humble narrator will be narrating humbly on Friday, February 24th at 7:30 P.M. for the“Ridgewood Democratic Club, 60-70 Putnam Avenue, Ridgewood, NY 11385” as the “Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show” is presented to their esteemed group. The club hosts a public meeting, with guests and neighbors welcome, and say that refreshments will be served.
The “Magic Lantern Show” is actually a slideshow, packed with informative text and graphics, wherein we approach and explore the entire Newtown Creek. Every tributary, bridge, and significant spot are examined and illustrated with photography. This virtual tour will be augmented by personal observation and recollection by yours truly, with a question and answer period following.
For those of you who might have seen it last year, the presentation has been streamlined, augmented with new views, and updated with some of the emerging stories about Newtown Creek which have been exclusively reported on at this- your Newtown Pentacle.
For more information, please contact me here.
What: Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show
When: Friday, February 24th at 7:30 P.M.
Where: Ridgewood Democratic Club, 60-70 Putnam Avenue, Ridgewood, NY 11385
Magic Lantern Show in Ridgewood
Your humble narrator will be narrating humbly on Friday, February 24th at 7:30 P.M. for the “Ridgewood Democratic Club, 60-70 Putnam Avenue, Ridgewood, NY 11385” as the “Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show” is presented to their esteemed group. The club hosts a public meeting, with guests and neighbors welcome, and say that refreshments will be served.
The “Magic Lantern Show” is actually a slideshow, packed with informative text and graphics, wherein we approach and explore the entire Newtown Creek. Every tributary, bridge, and significant spot are examined and illustrated with photography. This virtual tour will be augmented by personal observation and recollection by yours truly, with a question and answer period following.
For those of you who might have seen it last year, the presentation has been streamlined, augmented with new views, and updated with some of the emerging stories about Newtown Creek which have been exclusively reported on at this- your Newtown Pentacle.
For more information, please contact me here.
warnings and prophecies
2011’s Greatest Hits:
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In January of 2011, while walking along in knee deep snow, your humble narrator happened across this enigmatic and somehow familiar item sitting in a drift at the NYC S.E.M./Signals Street Light Yard of the DOT at 37th avenue near the Sunnyside and Astoria border. It looked familiar to me, but I didn’t recognize it for what it was until sharp eyed reader TJ Connick suggested that this might be the long missing Light Stanchion which once adorned the Queensboro Bridge’s Manhattan landing.
These two posts: “an odd impulse“, and “wisdom of crowds” discuss the discovery and identification in some detail.
Some good news about this iconic piece of Queens history will be forthcoming, but I’ve been asked to keep it quiet for the moment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In February of 2011, “Vapour Soaked” presented a startling concurrence of comparitive detail for the discerning viewer, when the shot above was presented in contrast with a 1920’s shot from The Newtown Creek industrial district of New York City By Merchants’ Association of New York. Industrial Bureau, 1921″, (courtesy Google Books).
Admittedly, not quite as earth shaking as January’s news, but cool nevertheless. I really like these “now and then” shots, expect more of the same to come your way in the future.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In March of 2011, “first, Calvary” discussed the epic (for me) quest to find a proverbial “needle in a haystack” within First Calvary Cemetery- the grave of its very first interment, an Irish woman named Esther Ennis who died in 1848. I have spent an enormous amount of time searching for this spot, where Dagger John Hughes first consecrated the soil of Newtown.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In April of 2011, the world lost one of its best people and my official “partner in crime”, Bernard Ente.
He was ill for awhile, but asked me to keep the severity of things quiet. He passed in the beginning of April, and one of the last requests he made of me (along with “taking care” of certain people) was to continue what he had started along the Newtown Creek and all around NY Harbor.
This was when I had to step forward, up my game, and attempt to fill a pair of gargantuan boots. Frankly, I’m not even half of who he was, but I’m trying. That’s when I officially stepped forward and began introducing myself as a representative of Newtown Creek Alliance, and joined the Working Harbor Committee– two organizations which Bernie was committed to. I’m still trying to wrap my head around his loss.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In May of 2011, while attempting to come to terms with my new roles in both organizations, it was decided that a fitting tribute to our fallen comrade would be the continuance of his annual “Newtown Creek Cruises” and the date of May 21 was set for the event. An incredible learning experience, the success of the voyage would not have been possible without the tutelage of WHC’s John Doswell and Meg Black, NCA’s Katie Schmid, or especially the aid of “Our Lady of the Pentacle” and the Newtown Pentacle’s stalwart far eastern correspondent: Armstrong.
Funny moments from during this period included the question “Whom do you call to get a drawbridge in NYC to open for you?”.
During this time, I also became involved with Forgotten-NY’s Kevin Walsh and Greater Astoria Historical Society’s Richard Melnick and their ambitious schedule of historical tours.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In June of 2011, the earliest Newtown Creek Chemical Factory which I’ve been able to find in the historical record, so far, was explored in the post “lined with sorrow“- describing “the Bushwick Chemical Works of M. Kalbfleisch & Sons”.
Additionally, my “Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show” was presented to a sold out and standing room only crowd at the Greater Astoria Historical Society.
This was also the beginning of a period which has persisted all year- in which my efforts of behalf of the various organizations and political causes which I’m advocating for had reduced my output to a mere 15 or fewer postings a month.
All attempts are underway to remedy this situation in 2012, and apologies are offered.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In July of 2011, another Newtown Creek boat tour was conducted, this time for the Metropolitan Water Alliance’s “City of Water Day”. The “Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show” was also performed at the Admiral’s House for a packed room.
Additionally, my so called “Grand Walk” was presented in six postings. This was an attempt to follow a 19th century journey from the Bloody Sixth Ward, Manhattan’s notorious Five Points District, to Calvary Cemetery in Queens. Once, this would have been a straightforward endeavor involving minimal connections of Trolley and Ferry, but today one just has to walk. These were certainly not terribly popular posts, but are noteworthy for the hidden and occluded horde of forgotten New York history which they carry.
From the last of these posts, titled “suitable apparatus“- “As the redolent cargo of my camera card revealed- this “Grand Walk”, a panic induced marathon which carried your humble narrator across the East River from St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in Manhattan into Williamsburg and up Grand Street to Maspeth and the baroque intrigues of the Newtown Creek– wound down into it’s final steps on Laurel Hill Blvd.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In August of 2011, “the dark moor” presented intriguing aerial views of the Newtown Creek Watershed, and “sinister exultation” shared the incredible sight of an Amtrak train on fire at the Hunters Point Avenue station in Long Island City. “revel and chaff” explored the aftermath of Hurricane Irene in LIC’s Zone A, and an extraordinary small boat journey around Dutch Kills was detailed in: “ponderous and forbidding“, “ethereal character“, “pillars and niches“, and “another aperture“.
This was an incredible month.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In September of 2011, a posting called “uncommented masonry” offered this declaration:
” By 1915, there approximately 40,000 automotive trucks plying the streets of New York City.
What’s surprising is that 25% of them were electric.
Lords and ladies of Newtown, I present to you the last mortal remains of the General Electric Vehicle Company, 30-28 Starr Avenue, Long Island City– manufacturer of a substantial number of those electrical trucks.”
I’m particularly fond of this post, as this was a wholly forgotten moment of Newtown Creek and industrial history which I was able to reveal. Organically born, it was discovered in the course of other research, and I believed at the time that it was going to be the biggest story that I would present all year about Blissville.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In October of 2011, a trio of Newtown Creek Tours (two public and one for educators) were accomplished. The public tours were full to capacity, as were the Open House New York tours I conducted on the 15th and 16th of that Month. Also, the Metropolitan Water Alliance invited me to photograph their “Parade of Boats” on October 11th, and I got the shot below of the FDNY Fireboat 343.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In November of 2011, a visit to Lovecraft Country in Brooklyn was described in “frightful pull“, and “vague stones and symbols” came pretty close to answering certain mysteries associated with the sky flung Miller Building found at the foot of the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge in Brooklyn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A December 2011 post titled “An Oil spill… in Queens” broke the news that petroleum products are seeping out of the bulkheads of Newtown Creek, this time along the Northern shoreline, which lies in the Queens neighborhood of Blissville.
Rest assured that your Newtown Pentacle is on top of the story of “the Blissville Oil Spill”, lords and ladies of Newtown, and will bring you breaking news as it develops in 2012.
ecstasy and horror
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Although mysticism and the esoteric are dismissed casually (except for the dogma of organized religious denominations, of course, whose every fantastic claim of metacognition and supranormal “logic” is widely accepted as “gospel”), both the syncretic belief systems of foreign born peasant magick and long held folk superstitions are as much a part of the landscape of Western Queens and North Brooklyn as the concrete and steel which form it. The colonialists who conquered the western tip of Long Island were positive that witches, ghosts, and curses existed. Perhaps they were right, and perhaps we disregard their viewpoint at our peril. To wit, check out a posting which appeared here two years back- describing a haunting in Astoria.
The White Lady of Astoria, from a Halloween two years previous.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Personally witnessed, the vast cemeteries which distinguish and define western Queens and form the so called “Cemetery Belt” offer nocturnal privacy and ritual sanctity to 21st century sorcerers and other bizarre conjurors. Strange altars, burnt offerings, odd bits of symbolically knotted cord are so often observed by your humble narrator in these centuried polyandrions that scarce mention is made of them. One of the more obtuse and bold practitioners of the mystic arts used a certain hilltop in St. Michaels cemetery here in Astoria for rites that seemed to be tied to a lunar schedule for better than a year.
Pale Garden gathered together a series of postings on the weird activity at St. Michael’s Cemetery.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Found on a hill of Laurels, nearby that Lethe of New York City which is known as the Newtown Creek, First Calvary Cemetery was consecrated by the Archbishop of the Romans- Dagger John Hughes- in 1848. Visitors are warned not to spend too much time here, lest that which cannot possibly exist notice you. Sensitives and psychics avoid the place, for it is a font of buried ambition, and those who lie here refuse to be forgotten. Sanctified ground, the odd ceremonies which are observed at St. Michaels cannot take place here, due to the power of Dagger John’s wards, but still certain old world traditions and their leave behinds are observed in lonely corners and atop wind swept hills.
Remember the witch knots at Calvary, which were described in “Triskadekaphobic Paranoia“?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The high art of a prelate like Dagger John, or the disgusting practice of degenerates like Aleister Crowley find commonality in highly intellectual and overtly ritual observances. Peasant magick, however, whose tradition stretches back to the debauchment of slavery and the colonial oppression of the aboriginal cultures of the Americas may be observed everywhere one goes. Whether it is the “blue eye” talismanic wards of the Hellenes or the corner store Botanica of the Latinos, peasant magick surrounds and infiltrates our modern communities. Not long ago, this altar of handmade artifice was observed.
Little Memories described the odd altar encountered on Broadway and 43rd street in Astoria.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator grows increasingly concerned that the dime store spiritualism of pop culture “ghost hunters” is propagating both an acceptance of unblinking credulity and “magical thinking” in our culture. Skepticism and high standards of proof are required for extraordinary claims, and pseudo scientific methodology masks the propagation of a mystical world view which has led the nation to the current circumstance which threatens not just our personal liberty but the very existence of constitutional republicanism. Don’t forget that the last President of this Republic started a war based on the notion that his personal Deity had put him in office to do so. Accordingly, one morning I set out for Calvary Cemetery with the intention of capturing a “ghost photo”.
Scenes familiar, and loved presented what might be a “ghost orb” or “dust” at Calvary Cemetery’s Almirall chapel.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Happy Halloween, folks, and if you’re looking for me today- I’m heading down to the Newtown Creek and will be searching high and low for all evidences of the Blissville Banshee.
I’ll be listening to this on my headphones, and would remind you that the old adage “The best trick of the Devil is convincing you that he doesn’t exist” is most often repeated by scurrilous and ambitious prelates trying to convince the gullible that their particular avatar of divinity does exist.
disjointed jargon
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whilst marching past the sky flung and quite cyclopean walls of First Calvary Cemetery, which form the border between life and death along Review Avenue here in Queens, your humble narrator found himself stricken with certain longings for times past. Not the usual longings, borne of long nocturnal studies into the occluded and dim history of the fabled Newtown Creek and environs, but instead a desire to return to that moment in time when it was all new to me- just a few years ago. Far have my solitary marches across the concrete desolations of the Newtown Pentacle taken me from that original path.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When that hellish green flame of revelation was first lit, before I found out about Conrad Wessel and Cord Meyer and had no idea who Michael Degnon or Dagger John might be, the wonderland of Newtown Creek was merely another industrial area which had fallen on hard times and the sort of place which I always found myself wandering through. As a kid, it was south Brooklyn and the maritime era leave behinds which adorn Jamaica Bay. These days I’m conducting tours of the area for academic and political crowds, and speaking extemporaneously on the historic ramifications of it. Fear has risen in me that I’m losing my focus.
I almost walked past this glob of risible decay without photographing it, for instance.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent inundation, which has been typical for the storm addled year of 2011, has saturated the low lying alluvial plain around the Creek and betrayed its past as wetlands. Accordingly, anything lying on an open patch of dirt immediately becomes soaked. I couldn’t tell you what this glutinous mass with a vaguely fibrous texture once was, but I am oh so glad I was still capable to notice it. The thing about the Newtown Pentacle, a term coined to describe the pentangular geographic distribution of the early European colonies in western Queens and Northern Brooklyn, is that the devil is always in the details.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Microscopy upon any subject often obscures the larger themes surrounding it, in essence when you follow Alice down the rabbit hole, you forget that the shire still lies without. The pile of discarded newspapers in the shot above, which are curiously and analogously arranged in the shape of a fallen man, obscured a bag of pots and pans. Repulsively filthy, one of the cooking pans was filled with human excrement.
Curiously, the pans were in the approximate location that a pelvis might be found on a human.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It has been painful to stand in public, as to be seen by so many diminishes me. Duty, however, demands that I tell the story of this place, no matter the personal cost.
This Sunday, the public tours of Newtown Creek will be departing from Pier 17 at South Street Seaport. The afternoon session is already sold out, but a few tickets are still available for the morning one. Heavily discounted (and I would point out that I have zero financial interest in the tours) at $10, due to a grant from NYCEF fund of the Hudson River Foundation, these will most likely be the last chance for the general public to see the Newtown Creek by boat until the spring.
And your humble narrator is anxious to get back out on the streets and find more mystery globs of risible decay, altars of unknown and foreign gods, and the graves of both Battle Ax Gleason and “he who must not be named”…
The Newtown Pentacle 