Archive for the ‘Calvary Cemetery’ Category
Tales of Calvary
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hallowmas, or All Saints Day, is coincident with the running of the NYC Marathon’s tumult laden course. The secular spectacular merely whets the appetite of your humble narrator for the open skies and sacred vantages found along those unhallowed backwaters of an urban catastrophe called the Newtown Creek. Calvary Cemetery– dripping in centuried glory- sits incongruously in an industrial moonscape stained with a queer and iridescent colour. It’s marble obelisks and acid rain etched markers landmark it as a necropolis of some forgotten civilization.
Today, I determined to ignore the psychic effects of the graveyard, which are both palpable and remarkable. Resolving to climb to the highest point on this Hill of Laurels, my aim was to discover whose grave would occupy such a socially prominent spot. Secretly, I hoped to discover some celebrity or famous mobster’s resting place. Instead I found the O’Brien’s.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Let me mention, before I begin this vulgar display of information gathering and dissemination, that this was hard won knowledge. If anyone has additional info they’d like to share, please contact me.
The difficulties one encounters when using modern search services to inventory a common personal or place name, especially ones that might overlap a mediacentric figure or location whose modern incarnation has obliterated all other definitions, are numerous. In the case of one William O’Brien, a VERY common name, narrowing things down is a daunting task. O’Brien died in New York City, apparently, as He’s buried in Calvary. O’Brien is an odd spelling of a common hibernian nomen, and indicates a certain direction to look toward. Still, finding an Irishman who died in 1846 New York wouldn’t be easy. I kept looking, slavishly.
Who was William O’Brien?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I went down the list of names, searched with quotations, ampersands, and “or”s. Tacked on the “died xx, xxxx”. Nothing. “Disappeared from history”, thought your humble narrator, “Balderdash!”.
A couple of leads on the O’Brien patriarch William seemed to point to a career in finance and politics, but the O’Brien in those stories was some kind of Irish nobility, and that just couldn’t be right. These people were buried at the top of the hill in Calvary, but there’s no way that an Irish noble was going to be buried in Queens. My searching did turn up a potential address for the O’Brien clan, in Manhattan at 19 Washington Square North, via this link to an obituary page for Robert, from 1902 at nytimes.com. Concurrence found.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
from nyc-architecture.com
By the time Abbott photographed the venerable houses at the northwest corner of the Square, Old New York’s foothold was slipping. Although not built until 1952, an apartment house was planned in 1929 for the Rhinelander properties, east of nos. 21-26, and shortly after Abbott’s photograph, nos. 7-13 were gutted and renovated as apartments. The photograph documented the beauty of the old facades but also revealed incipient change. Nos. 22 and 23 (center) were shuttered with “for sale” signs affixed to them. At the west end of the block (left) was the 16-story Richmond Hill Apartments. The leaves of a tree in Washington Square Park, softly framing the left and top edges of the photograph, give a romantic air to this otherwise sharp-focused view of fading elegance.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When searching for the combined term William O’Brien and Robert Pardow, this 1901 pdf at the Library of Congress turned up. William O’Brien Pardow? Who was Robert Pardow, and again- who was William O’Brien?
William O’Brien Pardow was the key to this conundrum… and away we go…
from nytimes.com
THOUSAND MOURN FOR FATHER PARDOW; Women and Children Weep During Funeral Services for the Noted Jesuit Priest. ALL SEVERELY SIMPLE Poverty and Humility, to Which the Order Is Pledged, the Keynote — Four Bishops Present.
When Archbishop Farley began the low mass for the repose of the soul of Father William O’Brien Pardow in the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, in East Eighty-fourth Street, yesterday, every seat in the edifice was filled, the aisles were crowded, and thousands stood for hours outside the church to see the coffin bearing the beloved rector of the Jesuit Church borne to the hearse…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The name Pardow is an anglicized version of a family name that indicates both a Norman heritage, and long service to the French as part of the Irish Brigades. The original family name is reported as either “De Par Dieu” or “De La Pore”. The first Robert Pardow arrived in New York City in 1772 with his wife and six children. Her name was Elizabeth Seaton, and the family business they started would be the first Catholic newspaper published in the City, called the Truth Teller. He had two sons, Gregory and Robert. Both studied with the Jesuits in England. Gregory became a member of the Society of Jesus, and Robert returned to New York’s social elites and died in 1882.
Robert was married to Augusta O’Brien, daughter of William O’Brien. And, it was “that William O’Brien”, as it turns out. The kings of Ireland, it seems, lie in Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is actually where everything goes off on a crazy train.
The O’Briens of County Clare are a troublesome lot, given to displays of heaven shaking martial prowess, if the mood suits them.
Legendary foemen of the English Crown, they have gathered unto themselves vast power and influence which continues to the present day. The hereditary title of the Chief of the Name is “the O’Brien, Marquess of Thomond and Baron Inchiquin”. They’re also the direct descendents and heirs of Brian Boru, the semi legendary King of Ireland.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
William O’Brien, 2nd Marquess of Thomond and the Baron Inchiquin, forfeited his title and came to New York around 1800 for political reasons. He started a banking house, supposedly located at no. 58 Wall Street (modern no. 33), with his brother John. He married Eliza(beth) and had an undetermined number of children. Augusta was his eldest daughter, and the family story follows her union with a young and recently returned to New York Robert Pardow- on its unyielding journey toward the emerald devastation of Calvary Cemetery, here alongside the noisome Newtown Creek.
from wikipedia
In 1847, faced with cholera epidemics and a shortage of burial grounds in Manhattan, the New York State Legislature passed the Rural Cemetery Act authorizing nonprofit corporations to operate commercial cemeteries. Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral trustees had purchased land in Maspeth in 1846, and the first burial in Calvary Cemetery there was in 1848. By 1852 there were 50 burials a day, half of them the Irish poor under seven years of age. By the 1990s there were nearly 3 million burials in Calvary Cemetery, the cemetery was also used for the film The Godfather for the funeral of Don Corleone.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Pardow’s had two boys and three girls- William, Robert, Julia, Pauline, and Augusta.
The matriarch of the clan, Eliza, survived her husband William by 36 years and died in 1882. She even survived her daughter Augusta, who died in 1870.
Click here for a description of Eliza’s funeral in 1882 at the NYTimes. The Mass was led by her grandson- William O’Brien Pardow, S.J.- now a firebrand Jesuit orator- and was attended by one archbishop, 2 bishops, and Mayor Grace– amongst others.
from wikipedia
Opposing the famous Tammany Hall, Grace was elected as the first Irish American Catholic mayor of New York City in 1880. He conducted a reform administration attacking police scandals, patronage and organized vice; reduced the tax rate and broke up the Louisiana Lottery. Defeated the following year, he was re-elected in 1884 on an Independent ticket but lost again the following year. During his second term, Grace received the Statue of Liberty as a gift from France.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Of the five children, 4 joined the Roman Catholic clergy, and all attained high office in their various devotions. Robert and William joined the Jesuits, sisters Pauline and Augusta (junior) joined the Society of the Sacred Heart. Both sisters became Mother Superiors, and William became an ecclesiastic rock star in the days of the Third Great Awakening. His sister Julia remained “in the world”.
That Julia had children, or that this branch of the O’Brien clan persists, I cannot confirm.
As a note, their uncle- Gregory Pardow– who had become a Jesuit whilst his brother Robert was courting Augusta O’Brien- was the founding Rector of the first Catholic Church in Newark N.J. – St. John’s.
from wikipedia
The number of Roman Catholics in Continental United States increased almost overnight with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the Adams-Onís Treaty (purchasing Florida) in 1819, and in 1847 with the incorporation of the northern territories of Mexico into the United States (Mexican Cession) at the end of the Mexican American War. Catholics formed the majority in these continental areas and had been there for centuries. Most were descendants of the original settlers, dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries, benefiting in the Southwest, for example, from the livestock industry introduced by Jesuit priest Eusebio Kino in 1687. However, U.S. Catholics increased most dramatically and significantly in the latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th century due to a massive influx of European immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Germany (especially the south and west), Austria-Hungary, and the Russian Empire (largely Poles). Substantial numbers of Catholics also came from French Canada during the mid-19th century and settled in New England. Although these ethnic groups tended to live and worship apart initially, over time they intermarried so that, in modern times, many Catholics are descended from more than one ethnicity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The grandson of a great man, William O’Brien Pardow distinguished himself in his vocations. He offered spiritual retreats to clergy and commoner alike, and attendants often remarked on the priest’s incisive intuition and razor sharp rhetorical skills which made him the center and arbiter of conversation. He made the rounds of polite society, and often spoke at parlour meetings of the social elite. Many of the references I found about him were on Society pages, located a blurb or two below discussion of Mrs. Vanderbilt’s latest scandals or gossip about the scandalous meetings of Dutch Cotillion Societies.
Quoting freely from the 1879 edition of a Justine Bayard Cutting Ward biography of William O’Brien Pardow, grandson of William O’Brien found at archive.org
“The lives of men are written,” said Father Pardow, “their biographies press down the shelves of our libraries, yet when you have read the biography of the greatest of men, what do you know of the man himself? You know what this, that, or the other man thinks about him, but you know nothing of the real life of that man, nothing of his interior life which the eyes of God alone can penetrate. About that life you know absolutely nothing.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pardow had an interesting mind, and focused on education in many of his sermons. He preached an eleventh commandment “Thou shalt learn to read and write” as the cure for society’s ills.
Again, quoting freely from the 1879 edition of a Justine Bayard Cutting Ward biography of William O’Brien Pardow, grandson of William O’Brien found at archive.org
William Pardow came of a race of warriors, the O Briens of County Clare. Many an ancestor had fought and died for a principle, and from Brian Boru, the warrior king, down through the centuries, the military tradition keeps recurring in almost every generation. Among the officers of the Irish Regiments in the French army we find the names of many an O Brien, bearing the proud titles of Marquis of Thomond, Earls of Inchiquin, and Barons Burren. When in 1800, William O Brien sought the New World, he did so as the result of an unselfish struggle for a principle. Pure patriotism had led him to identify himself with the cause of the United Irishmen; as a result he for feited his title of Inchiquin, sold his property, and set sail for New York. There he established a successful banking house, but though the ocean lay between him and his beloved country, he never wavered in his loyalty to his own people and their cause, and it is characteristic of the man that when, many years later, he was offered the agency of the Bank of England, the loyal Irishman would have none of it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The family business was finance- and as I’ve mentioned earlier in this post- references to no. 58 Wall Street as the address for it, which- I am told- would correspond to the modern numbering n0.33. That would put it on or near the site of the modern New York Stock exchange. If anyone reading this has any information on the O’Brien banking operation that they can share, please contact me, as it’s a missing piece of this particular pie.
And again, quoting freely from the 1879 edition of a Justine Bayard Cutting Ward biography of William O’Brien Pardow, grandson of William O’Brien found at archive.org
Many a man or woman is defeated by ease who would have flashed forth under persecution with the heroism of the martyr. In the more complex struggle against the imperceptible encroachment of a lax moral code, Augusta Pardow stood firm. She brought up her children with almost military discipline, grounding them firmly in the nobler qualities which such training brings out, courage, obedience, and devotion to a cause outside of self. She needed no punishments, it would appear, to enforce her will, for her children realized from the first the principle of authority and its source. It was a point of honor to obey.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The world of the O’Brien’s was sketched out by novelist and next door neighbor Henry James, check out ephemeralnewyork’s post on James here.
And one last time- quoting freely from the 1879 edition of a Justine Bayard Cutting Ward biography of William O’Brien Pardow, grandson of William O’Brien found at archive.org
The framework of his active life may be outlined with a stroke of the pen. It has but slight signif icance. The scene of his early experience and early mistakes was the Church of St. Francis Xavier, where he was appointed on his return from Europe. In 1884 he was made socius, or secretary to the provincial; in 1888, instructor of tertians at Frederick, Maryland; in 1891, rector of St. Francis Xavier s College in New York City; in 1893 he was appointed provincial of the Maryland- New York Province and held the position until 1897, when he was attached to Gonzaga College in Washington as professor of philosophy and preacher in the church, going from there to St. Ignatius Church in New York. In 1903 he was once more appointed instructor of the tertians, this time at St. Andrew-on-Hudson near Poughkeepsie. In July, 1906, he was elected delegate from the province to the general congregation at Rome, which met to elect a new General for the Company of Jesus. While in Rome, he fell ill, but recovered sufficiently to take his place in the congress. Upon his return to the United States a few months later, he was attached to the Church of the Gesu in Philadelphia; in the autumn of 1907, was made rector of the Church of St. Ignatius in New York City, where a little over a year later he died.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hey, you never know what you’re going to find out here, at Calvary Cemetery.
Who can guess all there might be, buried down there, in that poison loam which is the heart of the Newtown Pentacle?
Maspeth? Laurel Hill? Where am I?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The angles found between neighborhoods are perilous and enigmatic, here in the Newtown Pentacle. Denigrated and given over to commercial interests, these areas which are neither here nor there- tick nor tock- exist outside of the normal rules that govern the more wholesome and presentable villages that surround them. Just to the south and east lies storied Maspeth, due south is centuried Greenpoint and colonial East Williamsburg, north is venerable Sunnyside and luminant Astoria.
The hill one climbs- the shot above is looking up said hill, and the one below is its counterpoint– was called Laurel in those days when august titans like Neziah Bliss strode the earth with omnipotent confidence in the future. So close to the Newtown Creek’s industrial heartland and Calvary Cemetery, one gains an impression of an undefinable sickness hanging about every malformed plant and pollution streaked brick. Hints of its former glory can be detected by observing an ornate cornice of finely carved masonry, or in proud cast iron logotypes found in rusted pilasters, atavistically claiming a structure for a long bankrupt company or proud individual proprietor.
There is a colour about the place. A queer iridescence, neither black nor white, which is the same sort of colour found in the Newtown Creek. It is not a terrestrial colour, the colour… is like something from outer space.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
43rd street continues its murderous and poorly graded ascent over the sickly hill, its sidewalk and street scribed with automotive fluids and petroleum residues. At the bottom of the hill is where copper was burnt out of its ore matrix using powerful acids for over a century. In previous explorative descriptions of the larger context of this place, I described a pathway around and into Calvary Cemetery and beyond. This exploration intersects with that one, and with another describing the Maspeth Plank Road.
This colour, it pollutes, and it has a smell- something metallic- like the sensation of licking a battery.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Late, too late, had I set out for my journey through this place. The barking of hungry dogs and the scurrying of small things which, for the sake of my sanity, we’ll call rats- could be heard from behind the gates and within the very walls of the shuttered properties. I realized that, immersed as I was in my historical musings, I was completely alone on this street- there was no traffic. Always nervous and possessed of a weak psychological constitution which makes me prone to paranoid fantasy and physical cowardice, I decided to seek out the safety of companions and quicken my steps.
The effusive colour of the place, stronger now as I ascended Laurel Hill, was playing on my nerves. In my mind, I felt a growing warmth which was puzzlingly dry- and somehow cold as well- a disorienting and very bad idea forming in my mind. The colour.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Seeking a guidepost, the obsequious spires of Manhattan could be seen rising over Calvary. With the BQE onramp for the Kosciuzko Bridge thrumming- in rythmic sense impacts- as vehicular traffic pulsed over the rough hewn and pitted slabs of masonry from which the road surface of that busy highway carried by the bridge is built, I had a moment of clarity and somewhat regained my senses. The odd colour, it was visibly not present over -or in- Calvary, whose plants and trees sway accordingly to the direction of the wind, not against it. A fever overtook my thoughts and I feared one of my “episodes” was beginning.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Resting for a moment by a garbage bin whose inner sounds filled me with a malevolent premonition, I noticed that people actually do live here. Lovely, well cared for, and huge houses can be witnessed on 43rd street.
A testament to the character and resiliency of Newtownicans- these holdouts of a time when hard men and ironclad women bit into life with shining teeth, live in the middle of an area reviled and shunned by most. This is at most 2-3,000 feet from either Phelps Dodge and Calvary, and within shooting distance of an industrial waterfront fallen on hard times. Only those who move into the new housing units proposed for Hunters Point will be able to boast of living closer to the bulkheads of the Newtown Creek.
Except for this guy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the summit of the hill, whose attainment by a physical specimen as poor as myself is a breathless experience, a highway cloverleaf cuts 43rd street off at 54th avenue- and the road offers a right hand turn that continues to climb higher. Especially prevalent here, the colour adorns the illegally dumped truck and automobile tires and variegated forms of construction debris that accompany all dead end streets in western Queens. Squamous little bushes adorn the curblines, and potholes mark the asphalt. In those cavities, cobble stones are illuminated by the merciless Newtown sun, revealing an earlier world which our modernity increasingly seems to be a cheaply wrought imitation of.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Following the erratic and illogically sharp curve of the 54th ave., which matches the arc of the highway that has precedent right of way- and cuts this area off from the surrounding communities- the colour persisted.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Be sure to look all around you here. Spectacular views of Manhattan are to the west, and you are standing pretty close to the top of the hill.
At this elevation, we are actually looking right over Long Island CIty and the Newtown Creek which are close to or at sea level.
I have always lived in terror of some seismic event or industrial accident disturbing the vast deposits of the subaqueous Methane Clathrates in the New York Bight. This potential petrochemical replacement for oil is so plentiful in the waters surrounding New York State that many energy companies are exploring methods of economically harvesting it. The Saudi Arabia of these undersea “ice which burns”, incidentally, just happens to be the northeast coast of North America. Were there to be a sudden upwelling of these frozen gases, it would trigger a tsunami wave that would flood New York City’s lowlands in a way that would dwarf… well- it has happened in the past.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Relict building stock abounds, but remain occupied. I attempted conversation with an area resident found on a different block, a skeletal man in his early 40’s, but noticed that the colour seemed to be dancing around in his eyes and his complexion was wan and jaundiced. I asked him- Is this Maspeth, or Laurel Hill? In a nervous whisper, he informed me that he didn’t know- then glanced over his shoulder into a house- and asked me if I knew that he knew that I know that he knows that I know that he knows I was a cop.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I said “yes”, and moved along. I’m not a cop.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Everything I saw here was eaten away at by that damned dry cold hot colour- a queerly iridescent patina so familiar to those inveterate observers of the Newtown Creek and its environs.
Who can guess what this home of former style and antiquarian taste saw- its joyous weddings and births, the tragedy of its funerals and disease. How many families welcomed their sons home from war, or sent their daughters off to college from this place? What heroic immigrant struggle played out between the clapboard walls? And when did this colour begin to manifest itself here, and why?
I cannot believe it just fell from the sky one night.
Whatever happened here, its all gone. Lost to time and dissolution and the tyranny of the silent tomb. Like so much of our Newtown history, these tales will be unremarked and forgotten.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Still looking for Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Bushwick, Maspeth, Astoria, LIC, Elmhurst, Newtown Ghost Stories- by the way- Halloween is coming. Send anything you’d like to share to me privately through this address. I’ll contact you back and we’ll arrange details, you’re as anonymous as you’d like to be. Developing a multi witness one right now, which folks in the 40’s along 34th avenue and Broadway in Astoria have described. Have you seen “her”?
Astoria to Calvary 5- the bitter end
Altissima quaeque flumina minimo sono labi
The deepest rivers flow with the least sound
47th avenue – photo by Mitch Waxman
In the first installment of this photowalk–
we scuttled through western Queens – descending from Astoria down to Northern Blvd.
In the second,
we lurked, fearfully, down vestigial 37th avenue – past an anomalous municipal building and fortress church.
In the third,
we marched defiantly into the Sunnyside, and were thunderstruck by the colossus Sunnyside Rail Yard.
In the fourth,
ruminated on the Boulevard of Death, and gazed upon Aviation High School.
Today, we arrive at Calvary, and suddenly connect with several other posts. Witness…
47th avenue Street Sign – photo by Mitch Waxman
Leaving Aviation High School behind you, Newtownicans, continue up the hill that 36th street transverses. Look to your right, where the western end of 47th avenue is blocked by the Sunnyside Yard – and you will collide with an older post here at the Newtown Pentacle- “Dutch Kills- or let the photos do the walking“.
47th Avenue – photo by Mitch Waxman
The nearby corner of 47th st. and Van Dam St., which skirts the shadowed valley of that great hill in which Calvary Cemetery is embedded, is where the New York State Queensboro Correctional Facility is located. Just a few blocks beyond the gaol at 29th street is the Dutch Kills tributary of the Newtown Creek.
A spectacular riot played out here and in many other New York City Jails in 1970, in response to the poor conditions found in the State and City corrections systems of the 1960’s presaging the Attica riot in upstate New York. This event (and other problems he had in Queens) foreshadowed the jaundiced legacy that Mayor John V. Lindsay‘s political career would be remembered by, and the riots were organized and led by the Black Panther Party and Young Lords.
There are many jails here on the Queens side of the Newtown Pentacle, notably Rikers Island, a seething asp caged just off the shoreline of ptolemaic Astoria.
from time.com
The worst jail crisis in the city’s history began at lunchtime four days earlier at the 95-year-old Branch Queens House of Detention for Men. Inmates snatched keys from unarmed guards and made a frantic dash through the halls, unlocking cells all the way. The rioters turned on faucets to flood several floors, set fire to furniture and bedding, heaved debris and an eight-foot wooden bench out of broken cell windows. In a new political twist, they also hung the flag of the black liberation movement from a top-floor window. Over the next three days, more riots flared at other city jails, including the Tombs. In all, more than 2,500 inmates joined the rampage and seized 32 hostages—all for the sake of airing their grievances.
36th street, moving up toward Laurel Hill – photo by Mitch Waxman
The proclivity of the ground will take a sharp upturn here, and one becomes increasingly cognizant of the natural lay of the land- with its boulderized hillocks rising from sand and muddy clay- and its formation by the glacial actions of the Wisconsin Ice Age.
from geo.hunter.cuny.edu– An intriguing description of the strata found in the New York Bight.
from wikipedia
The island’s tallest natural point is Jayne’s Hill near Melville, with an elevation of 400.9 feet (122.2 m) above sea level. Long Island is separated from the mainland by the East River, which is actually not a river, but a tidal strait. Long Island Sound forms the northern boundary of the island.
48th Avenue – photo by Mitch Waxman
48th avenue terminates at 30th street, a block from the Dutch Kills. 36th street is about to end too, when we reach the top of the hill. A forbidding stretch of unlettered warehouses describes 48th avenue as it slopes down the morraine carved declination, barren and treeless.
36th street, Antennae- photo by Mitch Waxman
Between 48th and Hunters Point Avenue- you will find more warehouses, a very impressive broadcast antennae, and a gigantic charismatic church operating out of an altered workhouse.
36th street, St. Raphael on Horizon – photo by Mitch Waxman
At the corner of 48th street, St Raphael’s comes into view. Ahem, sorry but now’s when I reveal a few more of our hidden connections:
Cross 36th street at Hunters Point Avenue and Continue all around Calvary Cemetery in “Walking Widdershins to Calvary“
excerpt from July 31, 2009
-photo by Mitch Waxman
Click here to preview this photowalk in a google map
Hunters Point avenue intersects with the ancient course of Greenpoint Avenue at the degenerate extant of Long Island City. The Queens Midtown Expressway also comes back down to earth here, feeding Manhattan vehicular traffic to all points east. This is a very busy intersection, so be mindful of traffic, as fellow pedestrians are rare.
As with anyplace else in Queens you’d want to see, Forgotten-NY has been through here before. Click here for their page on Blissville and Laurel Hill.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
St. Raphael’s R.C. Church is on Greenpoint Avenue in a neighborhood called (atavistically) Blissville. A wooden frame building was built for St. Raphael’s in 1867, and served as the mortuary chapel for the newly built Calvary Cemetery. The current gothic influenced structure was completed in 1885, and has served both Calvary and the surrounding community since. This is one of the highest points in these parts, and the church steeple often acts as a reference point when negotiating the byzantine tangle of streets around the Newtown Creek. The architect is rumored to have been Patrick Keeley.
Enter Calvary Cemetery in “Calvary Cemetery Walk“
excerpt from August 5, 2009
-photo by Mitch Waxman
Just across the street from the site of the former LIRR Penny Bridge station. Easily accessed via the street, upon crossing the gates of Calvary, one will find a staircase carven into the hill by whose ascent the Newtown acropolis may be obtained. Cresting over the surrounding neighborhoods, and soaring over theNewtown Creek’s former wetlands, Calvary Cemetery keeps its secrets buried in centuried silence. Looking south toward Brooklyn, the Kosciuszko bridge approach of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway looms over its passage, carrying millions of vehicles over and across the necropolis of New York City.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
Phantoms of what could have been haunt Calvary, roaming in soliloquy amongst the avenues of nitredripping marble. The 1918 superflu and an earlier cholera epidemic staffed the ranks here with both the sacred and the profane. St. Patrick’s in Manhattan used this place for the interment of New York’s best and brightest. This is where the ossified remnants of the men who died battling the traitorous slavers of theConfederate South can be found in the Newtown mud. In subterranean vaults of marble and basalt, and within leaden coffins, these gentlemen– the ultimate product of an age of victorian aspirations- lie in putrid splendor, alongside the occasional merchant and immigrant whose life savings were traded to purchase their final resting place.
Pass by Calvary Cemetery and into Maspeth and the Newtown Creek in “Dead Ends, A short walk from Maspeth to Calvary“
excerpt from July 29, 2009
However, we are on the industrial side of town- down by the Newtown Creek- where the sins of our fathers continue to haunt modernity.
This is where we left off on July 16th- at the corner of 56th road, between 48th and 50th streets in Queens. This is an insanely dangerous patch of road running through a literal industrial backwater, so be careful. Last time we walked down the Maspeth Plank Road toward Brooklyn, today we’re going another way- tracing the course of the Newtown Creek on the Queens side for a while.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
From the vantage point above, look to your right, and you’ll see the Kosciuszko bridge. Head in that direction, which is roughly northwest and toward Manhattan. You’ll be walking down 56th rd. for a little while. The sidewalk on the Creek side is fairly non-existent, so cross the street. Watch out for trucks. Why was I here on foot, you ask?
Astoria to Calvary 4… or planes, trains, and automobiles
Just in case you want to refer to a google map
Skillman Avenue Firebox- photo by Mitch Waxman
(forgotten NY has lamp posts- I got Fireboxes- click here)
In the first installment of this photowalk– we began scuttling through western Queens – descending from Astoria into the milieu of 19th century teutonic progressivism- and found a long forgotten relict of the 1920’s gilded age.
In the second, we lurked, fearfully, down vestigial 37th avenue – past anomalous municipal building and fortress church.
In the third, we marched defiantly into the Sunnyside, and were thunderstruck by the colossus Sunnyside Rail Yard.
Skillman Avenue, Sunnyside Yards- “stitch panorama” photo by Mitch Waxman
Not too far from here (around a half mile east) on Skillman Avenue, during a smallpox epidemic in 1899, the city fathers built a large frame wooden building commonly referred to as “the Pest House”. This is a place of unexpected detail and obscured history, with layers upon layers of significance. I’ve read about the Sunnyside Yard, and observed it from its rotting fenceline, but I’m sorry to say that I cannot grasp the place. Its just so immense, such a huge subject. As in accordance with Newtown Pentacle Policy on such subjects- the history of the FDNY for instance, experts must be referenced and deferred to.
from pefagan.com
In 1899 we had a smallpox epidemic in both Queens and Manhattan boroughs, of which Long Island City had its share of victims. In order to take care of those so afflicted a large frame building was erected in the center of what is now known as Skillman Avenue, a few hundred feet west of Old Bowery Bay Road. In Woodside and on the opposite side of Old Bowery Bay Road, Louis Sussdorf occupied a large mansion. He didn’t like the idea of a wagon (not an ambulance) carrying smallpox patients making the turn opposite his gate on its way to the so-called pest house. Mr. Sussdorf went to court and tried to obtain removal of the pest house but was unsuccessful. Shortly after the epidemic ceased, Mr. Sussdorf died and as the funeral cortege passed through the gateway on his premises the pest house burst out into flames and was burned to the ground.
36th street and Skillman Avenue – photo by Mitch Waxman
99 years ago, Skillman Avenue was still farmland.
here’s a NYtimes article from 1910 discussing the nascent development of the area surrounding the Sunnyside Yards
36th street Taxi Depot – photo by Mitch Waxman
36th street, as one moves in a roughly southern perihelion, displays an industrial neighborhood. On your right will be a fascinating multi-story taxi garage festooned with arcing ramps- reminiscent of a plastic toy service station I played with as an innocent. Its curvilinear shapes and utilitarian use of reinforced concrete suggests mid 20th century design and construction.
Curious characters- mohammedans, hindoos, and other representatives of the distant orient mill about- either waiting for a work shift to begin- or just finishing up the hypnagogic 12-16 hours behind the wheel maintained by New York’s fleet of Taxi drivers. Strong coffee and the acrid smell of tobacco hang redolant upon the air, and if one passes at an opportune time- groups of these men can be found kneeling on scraps of carpet as they perform their religious devotions while facing far off Mecca in answer to the call for prayer– heard playing from car stereos. Such adherence to tradition would be remarkable in a an American born Newtownican, and it speaks of a continuity to old world wonders.
36th street Factory – photo by Mitch Waxman
Religion in Long Island City was and is the business of business. 19th and 20th century industrialists with their twin creeds of efficiency and profit built this place. The curious and satisfying esthetics of the area are accidental, a byproduct of utility. A growing but still small number of brave souls decide to live down here in tony condominiums, amongst the effusive whir of city-bound traffic and the hectic and noisome trainyard. For much of the last century, the reverse was true, with vast populations fleeing these neighborhoods for the safety and comforts of Long Island, Westchester, and New Jersey.
36th street looking northwest at 43rd Avenue- photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve coined a phase for the feeling one gets, walking these streets in the off hours when the workers who normally populate the area are enjoying their restful rustications, “a feeling of desolate isolation”. I crave such esoteric intuitions, and the loneliness of wandering a landscape whose very existence is predicated on concentrating large populations into industrial mills and factories. As I’ve mentioned in the past, my headphones are almost always in operation on these long pedestrian ambles, and audiobooks are usually my preferred company. Richard Matheson, Joseph Campbell, and particularly H.P. Lovecraft are often my companions as I walk upon the earth and view the splendors of Newtown. I also bring along a couple of early Black Sabbath albums, and just for kicks- the soundtrack to the Omen movies.
43rd avenue looking southwest – photo by Mitch Waxman
Continuing toward the fungus torn ground of Calvary, due south, the grinding noise of the Boulevard of Death penetrates through my headphones. I won’t remind you to safeguard as you cross the massive arterial thoroughfare, for signage attesting to traffic fatalities (and their number) adorns many of its crosswalks- as do tiny roadside shrines memorializing those not loquacious enough to respect the flow of automobiles moving toward the nearby Queensboro bridge.
36th street and Queens Blvd. – photo by Mitch Waxman
Queens Boulevard is one of those places that New Yorkers just take as a given. A massive structure which carries elevated subway service from Manhattan, and allows vehicular traffic egress to and from the great city to all points east, Queens Blvd. is properly viewed as an engineering marvel and modern day Appian Way.
from wikipedia:
Queens Boulevard was built in the early 20th century to connect the new Queensboro Bridge to central Queens, thereby offering an easy outlet from Manhattan. It was created by linking and expanding already-existing streets, such as Thomson Avenue and Hoffman Boulevard, stubs of which still exist. It was widened along with the digging of the IND Queens Boulevard Line subway tunnels in the 1920s and 1930s, and some speculated the plan was to transform it into a freeway, as was done with the Van Wyck Expressway. The city actually did propose converting it in 1941, but with the onset of World War II, the plan was never completed.
The combination of Queens Boulevard’s immense width, heavy automobile traffic, and thriving commercial scene made it the most dangerous thoroughfare in New York City and earned it citywide notoriety and morbid nicknames such as “The Boulevard of Death” and “The Boulevard of Broken Bones.” From 1993 to 2000, 72 pedestrians were killed trying to cross the street, an average of 10.2 per year, with countless more injuries. Since 2001, at least partially in response to major news coverage of the danger, the city government has taken measures to cut down on such incidents, including posting large signs proclaiming that “A Pedestrian Was Killed Crossing Here” at intersections where fatal accidents have occurred and installing more road-rule enforcement cameras.
from Queens Blvd. – photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve always felt the Roman comparison is apt for this interconnected series of bridges and structures called Queens Blvd., due to the visual impact of the design of the elevated subway tracks- an aqueduct thrusting down the center of the great road, and the manner in which it connects so many disparate communities together as one.
from nycroads.com
HISTORY OF QUEENS BOULEVARD: Originally called Hoffman Boulevard, Queens Boulevard dates back to the early years of the twentieth century, when the road was constructed as a connecting route between the new Queensboro (59th Street) Bridge and central Queens. In 1913, a trolley line was constructed from 59th Street in Manhattan east along the new boulevard.
During the 1920’s and 1930’s, New York City began a program to widen Queens Boulevard. The project, which was conducted in conjunction with the building of the IND Queens Boulevard subway line, widened the boulevard to 12 lanes in some locations, and required a right-of-way of up to 200 feet. Once completed, local and express traffic flows were provided separate carriageways.
EXPRESSWAY PLANS: In 1941, the New York City Planning Department recommended that an expressway be constructed along eight miles of Queens Boulevard (NY 25) from the Queensboro Bridge in Long Island City east to Hillside Avenue in Jamaica. The City’s plan for the highway was as follows:
This highway is the major approach from Queens, Nassau and Suffolk to Manhattan. Its conversion to an express highway could readily be accomplished by the construction of grade separation structures at the more important intersections, and by improved mall treatment to close off access to the express roadways from minor streets.
As part of the project, the express lanes of Queens Boulevard were depressed in the area of Woodhaven Boulevard and Horace Harding Boulevard (later developed as the Long Island Expressway), while the local lanes were kept at grade level.
However, the plan to upgrade Queens Boulevard to an expressway was delayed by the onset of World War II, and ultimately, was never implemented. In the postwar era, Robert Moses, the arterial coordinator for New York City, shifted attention to creating an express route between the Queens-Midtown Tunnel (now under the jurisdiction of his Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority), Queens and Long Island. First proposed as improvements to the Queens-Midtown Highway and Horace Harding Boulevard, the route evolved as the Long Island Expressway (I-495).
According to the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT), Queens Boulevard now carries approximately 50,000 vehicles per day (AADT). In recent years, speeding motorists who exceed the 30 MPH speed limit and jaywalkers have created a lethal mix along densely populated stretches, prompting officials to enact tough measures against both offending groups.
from Queens Blvd. – photo by Mitch Waxman
A major commercial strip as well as a transportation artery, one observes all sorts of colorful chicanery and the craft of advertising at its basest operating along the strip. Many restaurants, gas stations, and bodegas operate along Queens Blvd. I would suggest a stop for supplies, as we’re about to head into another barren industrial moonscape.
Aviation High School – photo by Mitch Waxman
On Queens Blvd.’s southern shore you will observe Aviation High School (this is the 36th street side). I highly suggest that you detour onto 35th street at this point.
context:
Before the second world war, New York City had two classes of secondary education available. School administrators would determine, based on performance in primary school and all too often ethnicity, if one would continue on a scholastic or vocational tract. These often arbitrary and prejudiced reckonings would determine future social class and professional options, damning otherwise sound minds to a lifetime of labor based on an assumption of stereotypical ethnic predestination (the irish cop, black laborer, jewish lawyer, the white doctor, and the female nurse).
The “identity politics charismatic leaders” of the 1950’s and 60’s pointed out the unfairness of this policy and the racial and class stratification it enforced, and the vocational schools joined in the current curricula during the mayorality of John Lindsay. Aviation is a holdout from that era, although it is now listed as “specialized“.
from schools.nyc.gov
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
Our state-endorsed Career and Technical Education program provides students with a world-class education. This unique curriculum prepares students for a New York State Regents Diploma and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification as Aircraft Maintenance Technicians, leading to exciting and lucrative careers in the aerospace industry. Inherent in this, we create an educational culture that instills respect, self-discipline and strong intellectual values in meeting the demands of today’s colleges and universities. Our world-renowned reputation for academic and technical excellence reflects Aviation High School’s tradition, mission and commitment to its students, their future and the future of the aerospace industry.
Aviation High School – photo by Mitch Waxman
The United States military has been very generous to the students at Aviation High School, and the shop yard found on 35th street houses a few things that you don’t expect to find along Queens Blvd. That’s a plane I can’t positively identify- but I think it may be some iteration of the WW2 Japanese Zero. The Revell scale model airplane kits I was obsessed with building and painting in my adolescent years have taught me nothing. Knowledge anyone?
UPDATE 8/29 – A netownican to the rescue, I don’t have permission to identify this person as yet, but it is from a trusted source
…the sharktoothed plane you can’t positively identify is not a Mitsubishi Zero. It’s a North American T-6 Texan, an advanced training aircraft used by the U.S. military during World War II.
You’re not completely off base with your Zero comparisons, though. Know the old movie about Pearl Harbor, “Tora Tora Tora”? All the Zeros in that film are actually modified T-6 Texans, which could be bought as surplus for ludicrously cheap prices when the war ended. Real Zeros are as rare as hens’ teeth, since most of them were either shot down, left to rot on abandoned airstrips or scrapped in Japan.
Aviation High School – photo by Mitch Waxman
This plane, a United States Marines Corps Harrier- donated by the Corps itself- is dedicated in the name of Capt. Manuel Rivera, Jr. – the first American casualty during 1992’s Operation Desert Storm. Capt. Rivera was an alumni of Aviation High School.
AND WRONG AGAIN!!! The same source from above says
The jet aircraft is a Douglas TA-4 Skyhawk, the trainer version of a Vietnam-era attack plane.
Hallen Steel Factory – photo by Mitch Waxman
Hallen Steel is directly across the street from Aviation. This is their website, they seem to be some sort of metal working facility. I just really like the way their front yard looks. They are very prepared for what we here at Newtown Pentacle refer to as a “night of the living dead type situation”. Given my druthers, there’s a scrap yard I know in Greenpoint that would make a better shelter against the massive infestation of flesheaters that New York would surely produce, but Hallen is closer. I also like the guard towers on the George Washington Bridge for similar duty.
We are crossed by “the cemetery belt”, after all.
What, you never thought that one through- zombies in New York? I once did a 64 page BW comic about it, called Deadworld:Necropolis.
47th avenue – photo by Mitch Waxman
Sorry for the sporadic updates last couple of days, late summer delights and professional obligation have kept me offline. Next up, we finish the walk to Calvary…
Headed for the grave… or Astoria to Calvary 3
Just in case you want to refer to a google map.
43rd street and 37th avenue -photo by Mitch Waxman
In the first installment of this photowalk- we scuttled through western Queens, which is the northern ventricle of our Newtown Pentacle- descending from the heights in Astoria into the milieu of 19th century teutonic progressivism- and then stumbled in front of a long forgotten relict of the 1920’s gilded age in the 20th.
In the second, we lurked, fearfully, down 37th avenue and found an anomalous municipal building which does not exist- as well as a fortress church.
Today, we enter a place of vine encumbered trees which abut vast fields of machinery, and we shall gaze upon an unforgettable sight. But first, we must cross the angles found between neighborhoods, crossing a bridge and avoiding its troll- only to stand revealed in the dappled light of the Sunnyside.
43rd street and 37th avenue, make a left -photo by Mitch Waxman
A desperate precipice, whose slimy walls- comically adorned with painted signs declaring that “these walls are under video surveillance” drip with an obsidian jelly whose composition is a cocktail of fecund decay and petroleum byproduct. The prodigious twin elevated tracks of the LIRR define the eastern borders of industrial Long Island City, residential Astoria, and the vernal lanes of Sunnyside. Make the left on 43rd street, and proceed into its fuligin shadows. These tracks are critical infrastructure for the forthcoming East Side Access project.
Crossing the angles between spaces -photo by Mitch Waxman
To your right is a turnaround track for the one and 3/4 mile long Sunnyside Yard, and a stout fence which bars entry to the great railhead. An odd smell hangs in the air, mildewed garbage and long dead pigeons mixed with an ozone smell from the vast electrical works beyond the fenceline. Also, there is a human smell. In a few pockets, here and there, you will observe signs of an unclean and debased occupation.
I will refer you to this document, found at nyc.gov, specifically to section Q80 for the development plans being discussed for the Sunnyside Yard after the East Side access project is complete. Its implications are staggering.
Next paragraph, incidentally, is where the Newtown Pentacle steps squarely upon one of “the third rails” of modern politics…
Homeless camp by Railroad -photo by Mitch Waxman
First- this is not a rant or anything- just personal observations and opinions
As part of the recent migration enacted by those born south of the United State’s border with the ancient nation of Mexico, a large population of spanish speakers have emerged in the Newtown Pentacle within recent years. Whereas the vast majority of those involved in this 21st century diaspora are following in the solid familial and social traditions typified by those fabled “ethnic waves” of immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries which are the foundation of our modern city- camp followers, debased mendicants, and criminal organizations have also followed the huddled masses that have made the arduous journey to “El Norte”. Just like similar characters followed populations of workers and poets, during earlier times. Such hubris and hope is the immigrant’s song.
This “dark side” of our new countrymen, which is unapologetically visible, colors the perception of area residents about the new neighbors. Hard working former peasants who have often assumed jobs of the most menial type, this population of Latinos are adopting the familiar immigrant patterns- large families living in crowded apartments, ethnic concentrations coagulating around a certain neighborhood or subway stop, a vibrant and overtly public street life, and an uphill battle with the institutional and linguistic barriers to financial security and class mobility that are familiar stories to any 2nd or 3rd generation Italian, Jew, or Boricua.
“The street signs are in Spanish over there” is heard often when referring to nearby Corona, arousing the spectre of the United States’s greatest sin- social class based racism and its bloody consequence. The same could have been said about my father’s old neighborhood in Borough Park, transposing Spanish with Italian or Yiddish- or modern Astoria with usage of the Greek language.
Homeless camp by Railroad -photo by Mitch Waxman
Careful observation of the baser individuals who poison the reputations of this new group, often found in an alcohol fueled stupor on one’s stoop or sidewalk, leads me to recall the Hobo culture of the 20th century (which plagued the American rail system for much of its history, until the age of containerization). Cruel and malicious, the nickname attached to these pathetic individuals (in Astoria, at least) is “Los Caballeros“.
A particularly daring trio of these men made camp in the backyard of a vacationing octogenarian acquaintance recently. This distinguished woman, whose father was one of the original residential developer-builders of this area in the 1920’s, was forced to invoke the massive powers of the NYPD to evict them from her property upon returning from a long trip abroad. All over the area- broken hip flask bottles of discount liquor and half eaten meals can be observed, casually discarded on sidewalk and stoop, public sleepers are not sought- but easily found, and encounters with inebriated gatherings of debased men in the dark of night are becoming a common experience.
A statement of opinion and “I grew up in NYC during the 80’s” wisdom from your humble narrator is “there is a difference between being homeless and being a BUM”.
Like much of the addled and disingenuous public dialogue exchanged between the citizens of the City of Greater New York these days, the word “homeless” is part of an agenda of orwellian newspeak and sociological engineering propagated by an academic class which speaks from the safety of gleaming towers and air conditioned offices in Manhattan.
(I distinctly remember when the term was first coined in the 1980’s, and it was no longer polite to call them Bums (drunks or addicts) or Tramps (nutjobs). It was decided by these professor/doctor types to distinguish between the drunken and pitiless vagrant, and the “down on her luck single mother who was sleeping on a steam grate with her two children by Grand Central” meme. These sort of images, while actual, were used to illustrate- on a national political stage- how the disastrous fiscal policy called “Reaganomics” had led America astray. The term “homelessness” has stuck on as a polite society catch all, and describes a varied crowd of people whose problems run the gamut of human experience, not a homogenous population with a one size fits all solution. This was also before hyphenated american naming conventions became standardized in 1988).
Such gentle and obtuse manipulations of the political landscape is not applicable to conditions found upon the mean streets of New York City, however, and sadly- in the end it will most likely fall to the tender mercies of the NYPD to decide the fate of these “Caballeros”. Just like it always does, in the end.
Bum -photo by Mitch Waxman
The particular troll (anyone who lives under a bridge can be described as a troll, even those who live in the tony condos of DUMBO) is an aberrant creature whose skin has been rendered to leather from exposure to the sun. I was glad to see him asleep, and gingerly walked past him, as sleeping dogs should be allowed to lie. In other crossings of this angle between neighborhoods, he has been aggressive with me and demanded I pay a toll to cross. A natural victim and physical coward, what choice could I make, and I gave the mocking troll his due- a handful of my hard earned coinage. I don’t condemn his type, just him. He is a jerk.
Enough with the opinions, back to the walk…
43rd street from 39th Avenue -photo by Mitch Waxman
When you have passed the two rail bridges, you will see 39th avenue, which offers a titanic vista of Manhattan (this is actually a block or two away from 43rd street, looking west, just for the record). You have also just entered the lovely neighborhood called Sunnyside Gardens.
from nyc.gov
Sunnyside Gardens is a predominantly residential area encompassing part of 16 blocks following the city’s traditional grid street pattern within the larger Sunnyside neighborhood of Queens. Located between 43rd and 52nd streets, Queens Boulevard and Barnett Avenue, Sunnyside Gardens was developed between 1924 and 1928 by the City Housing Corporation and designed by architects Clarence Stein, Henry Wright, and Frederick Ackerman and landscape architect Marjorie Cautley based upon the English Garden City model. The neighborhood is comprised of roughly 600 two-story row houses in combinations of one-, two, and three-family units grouped in clusters of 10 to 12 around a series of courts containing common gardens, in addition to eighteen apartment buildings, two community parks and neighborhood stores. The common gardens account for over 70 percent of the lot area and are a primary defining feature of the site plan, offering residents light, air and greenery.
In 1974, Sunnyside Gardens, along with Fresh Meadows in Queens, Parkchester in the Bronx, and Harlem River Houses in Manhattan, were designated Special Planned Community Preservation (PC) Districts to protect their distinctive character and site plans. General purposes of the Special Planned Community Preservation District are:
(a) to preserve and protect the Special Districts as superior examples of town planning or large-scale development;
(b) to preserve and protect the character and integrity of these unique communities which, by their existing site plan, pedestrian and vehicular circulation system, balance between buildings and open space, harmonious scale of the development, related commercial uses, open space arrangement and landscaping add to the quality of urban life;
(c) to preserve and protect the variety of neighborhoods and communities that presently exist which contribute greatly to the livability of New York City;
(d) to maintain and protect the environmental quality that the Special District offers to its residents and the City-at-large; and
(e) to guide future development within the Special Districts that is consistent with the existing character, quality and amenity of the Special District.
and of course- Forgotten-NY has been through here as well.
Sunnyside Gardens, 43rd street -photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ll be returning to Sunnyside Gardens in later posts, but today, we’re heading for the comforts of the grave.
Skillman Avenue and 43rd street- make right -photo by Mitch Waxman
At the corner of Skillman Avenue, turn right. Skillman avenue can be a dangerous place, traffic wise, so do be careful as you move along it.
from the Sunnyside Chamber of Commerce
The Sunnyside community is located in the Borough of Queens, just a few minutes from the Queensboro Bridge and the Queens Midtown Tunnel. We are one of the most trafficked areas in the city. More cars pass through our commercial district of Queens Boulevard (Sunnyside’s restaurant row) each day than most neighborhoods see in a normal week. Located between the long-established communities of the Blissville area of Long Island City and Woodside, our unique location makes us easily accessible to Manhattan and only 15 minutes by train to Times Square or the Empire State Building.
People in our area can often reach the theatre district faster then those living in some parts of Manhattan. Sunnyside is convenient, centrally located, and a great place to live, as long-time residents are quick to tell you. It’s believed Sunnyside got its name back in 1850 when the railroad built a station across from the Sunnyside Roadhouse Hotel.
“Sunnyside is a neighborhood in northwestern Queens, lying within Long Island City and bounded to the north by the Sunnyside Yards, to the east by Calvary Cemetery and 51st Street, to the south by the Long Island Expressway, and to the west by Van Dam Street . The area is named for a roadhouse built on Jackson Avenue to accommodate visitors to the Fashion Race Course in Corona during the 1850s and 1860s. A small hamlet was built between Northern and Queens boulevards and became known as Sunnyside. Most of the land was low-lying and therefore cheap; from 1902 to 1905 the Pennsylvania Railroad gradually bought up all the land south of Northern Boulevard between 21st and 43rd Streets. The entire area was leveled and the swamps filled in by 1908 and the yards opened in 1910. The Queensboro Bridge opened in 1909 and from it was built Queens Boulevard , which ran to the center of the borough through Sunnyside, where streets were built along the boulevard. Sunnyside Gardens (1924-29), a complex of attached houses of two and a half stories, with front and rear gardens and a landscaped central court, was on e of the nation’s first planned communities, hailed for its innovative design by such scholars of urban life as Lewis Mumford (a onetime resident). During the following years the neighborhood became middle class, and largely Irish. During the 1940s and 1950s its large apartments enticed many artists and writers and their families to leave their cramped quarters in lower Manhattan , and the area became known as the “maternity ward of Greenwich Village .” Sunnyside during the 1980s attracted immigrants from Korea , Colombia , Romania , and China , though on the whole fewer immigrants than some of the surrounding neighborhoods in northeastern Queens . The Sunnyside Railyards are used by the Long Island Rail Road , Conrail, and Amtrak. The Knickerbocker Laundry nearby is a striking example of art moderne architecture.”
Vincent Seyfried, Encyclopedia of New York City , Edited by Kenneth T. Jackson. New Haven , Yale University Press. 1995
Hike New York signage -photo by Mitch Waxman
When Alexander M. Bing, of Bing & Bing, began to develop Sunnyside, there were no “Hike New York – Long Island City” signs. These plaques are everywhere, and point out directions and distances between the area’s various attractions. They are a bit “off the radar”- but here’s the scoop:
The Public Art Fund and artist Richard Deon placed 44 of these signs around Long Island City in the early 90’s to encourage people to walk around the area and take in the wonders of the place.
Hey, that’s what I do, and yes, when I started these pestilential exercises which became explorations- I did use these signs as markers and waypoints. Success, Mr. Deon.
As I wandered off the path set out by these esthetes, I began to realize that none of these signs point at the Newtown Creek- only at Manhattan and its cultural tendrils.
Here’s a Nytimes.com article on the signage
Moakyang Presbyterian Church -photo by Mitch Waxman
Moak Yang Presbyterian is a small church on Skillman Avenue, which was recently renovated after an emergency closure by the Dept. of Buildings siting a sagging brick wall. Moak Yang translates as “Good Shepherd” I am told, and the Pastor is the Reverend Byung Ki Song. I don’t speak Korean, yet another failing of my weak intellect, but here is their website. I entered the same URL into google translate and saw evidence of a wholesome and prospering church whose agenda and programs would be familiar to any 19th century New England Yankee- even one from Providence.
Vestigial sight line to the East River -photo by Mitch Waxman
Until recently, a sign proclaimed this lot alongside the church as being General Motors property, and it lay fallow for all the time I’ve known it. The tangle of weedy growth and rat middens that were the site’s only residents have been supplanted by a parking lot for delivery vans. If you catch the day just right, you can actually see all the way to the East River- looking over the shallow and marshy hills of Astoria from here, with both Triborough and Hells Gate Bridges in the distance.
Skillman Avenue and 39th street -photo by Mitch Waxman
(this photo was run once before here at Newtown Pentacle- here’s the blurb it ran over in this post)
Sunnyside Yards, this street corner is actually on a bridge over the yards- notice the change in elevation at lower left- still around 30-50 feet (10-15 meters) over the tracks– The structure at horizon is another road bridge over the yards. –3 exposure HDR photo by Mitch Waxman
The “big show” that is Long Island City officially begins at 49th street, when the pretense of being a neighborhood ends- and the unforgettable panorama of the East River Metroplex becomes visible. A sound will escape your lips, something like “whoof” or a “wo”, assuming you make it here before noon when the sun will be at your back and the Manhattan Skyline glitters like an enormous jewel. 39th street is Steinway street on the other side of Northern Blvd, and what you are standing on is no sidewalk- but a bridge over the titan Sunnyside Yard.
Remember- almost everywhere in the center of New York City, the ground is actually the roof of another structure- sewer, subway, or cellar- or series of structures.
from wikipedia
Sunnyside Yard is a large coach yard, a railroad yard for passenger cars, in Sunnyside, Queens in New York City.
When built by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) at the beginning of the 20th century, Sunnyside was the largest coach yard in the world. The yard served as the main train storage and service point for PRR trains serving New York City. It is connected to Pennsylvania Station in Midtown Manhattan by the East River Tunnels.
Currently, the yard is owned by Amtrak, but it is also used by New Jersey Transit. The shared tracks of the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) Main Line and Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor pass along the southern edge of the yard. Plans for the LIRR East Side Access project to build tracks to Grand Central Terminal would have those tracks diverging in the vicinity of, or perhaps through, the Sunnyside Yard.
Northeast of the yard there is a balloon track which is used for “U-turning” Amtrak and NJ Transit trains which terminate at Penn Station. Leading eastward, this balloon track switches off at the southernmost portion of the yard. It then turns left under the LIRR/Amtrak tracks, turns left once again, and merges with the Sunnyside yard track to turn the train west toward Penn Station.
Skillman Avenue -photo by Mitch Waxman
For such an important facility, the security at the Sunnyside yard is abyssmal. This, for instance, is the security fence on Skillman. Graffiti observed along the tracks and the numerous reports of urban explorers speak to the time and opportunity afforded trespassers- who ignore the dangers of crossing active tracks, electrified rails, and all sense of personal safety. Let’s be clear- without special training and equipment- you can easily get killed down there. I also think its the greatest unused location for a motion picture I’ve ever seen.
click here for trainsarefun.com’s LIC and Sunnyside yard page (with historical photos and maps!!!)
Skillman Avenue -photo by Mitch Waxman
Anywhere you point a camera on Skillman Avenue, you will find a great shot. The only hassles I’ve ever had here (a deserted street on the weekends, especially holidays) were from union guys asking me what I was doing, which wasn’t really a hassle. They were pretty cool, they were just checking I wasn’t “an environmentalist” trying to jam them up. Amtrak security rolls by, but never stops to ask questions. Cops breeze by and don’t even slow down as they pass your humble narrator while he is using a tripod.
Here’s what one of the MTA’s architects proposes for the far end of the Yard.
New York City skyline and Sunnyside Yard from Skillman Avenue -photo by Mitch Waxman
Not that long ago, this was the most important place in Queens, and the gateway for freight into Manhattan from all points east. It is still a critical part of the transportation infrastructure of New York City, but the empty factories- and worse- the subdivided ones speak to the economic might which was won, and has since been lost around the Sunnyside Yards.
Skillman Avenue -photo by Mitch Waxman
Quoting from one of Newtown Pentacle’s earlier posts– and yes, I know the Degnon terminal is at the other end of the Yard close by the Dutch Kills:
Astoria and Sunnyside provided a large number of the 16,000 employees who worked here at the Degnon Terminal, almost all of whom belonged to labor unions. These were jobs “with benefits” like health insurance or paid vacations, a rarity before the late 1970’s. The shells of the titanic companies like Adams (Beeman) Chewing Gum, and Sunshine Biscuits line the streets surrounding the yard, but modernity has largely cut their links to it.
Turn Left on Skillman Avenue at 36th street -photo by Mitch Waxman
Wow, some walk so far. Dutch Kills is so close, and so is the residential section of Long Island City… but we need to make a left on 36th street and south toward the Boulevard of Death…
The Newtown Pentacle 