Archive for the ‘East River’ Category
reptilian devils
I want to believe…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The world would be so much more interesting if all the nutty and paranoid stuff was true. How I do wish that the Queen of England was actually a human alien hybrid, that Kennedy was killed by the CIA and a cabal of militarists, that Area 51 was anything except for a place where exotic fighter jets and stealth aircraft are tested. “Chem trails,” “banksters,” and the rest of the fantasy scenarios are all built around an elaborate mythology that paints the government of the United States as some great machine which operates with impunity and precision.
Have you actually interacted with the government? Try it out, and that should sunder all notions of the “hidden hand.” These people can barely tie their shoes, cannot keep a secret, and are more concerned with getting approval for overtime than they would be in conspiring with alien overlords (unless they were hiring). If anything, officialdom would start applying for grant monies to form committees to study the alien overlords.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For the last week or so, I’ve been telling people I meet that “Holy Crap, just the other night, Obama himself kicked in my door looking for guns to take.” The general reaction has been either “well, at least he did something” or “it took him long enough.” I don’t have any guns – I’m more of a blunt force trauma guy – but the point I’m trying to make is that the whole notion of this sort of conspiracy is sophomoric.
Try arranging a lunch date for five people to meet up at the same time and place, purposely excluding someone inside your social circle. The excluded person WILL find out about it, and loudly proclaim their resentment. Magnify that out to any topic associated with conspiratorial secrecy and do the math.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve always believed that the reason people cling to conspiratorial fantasy is the utter banality of real life. Perhaps it’s the nihilist philosophy that I cling to, which renders everything I experience as shades of cold gray. If you were a member of some cabal, there would have to be some sort of bank account associated with it to cover costs and handle payroll. There would be paperwork which someone would have to administer, and an excel spreadsheet generated to track the project.
Even Mafiosos and ISIS keep paper records. Nixon did, and that’s what did him in. Ollie North did. Bill de Blasio does. There’s no such thing as a secret if somebody other than you knows about it.
Upcoming Events and Tours
Saturday, June 25, 10:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek,
with Brooklyn Brainery. Click here for more details.
Sunday, June 26, 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour,
with Atlas Obscura. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
gray city
It’s complicated, man…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator is known for his somewhat quixotic inflections of mood by those who know him privately. It’s not exactly “manic depressive” in the clinical sense, but it often doesn’t seem far off. With me, it’s more “happily content and patient / consumed with red hot anger and resentment.” I don’t know why, maybe my parents loved me too much, or not enough. Can’t say.
Either way, I’m often a hot mess and the only way out of feeling bad is to get out and do something. Work, hard work, is the answer to almost every problem – as I see it. In many ways, I’m a lot like that horse Boxer from Orwell’s “Animal Farm.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Since nothing grinds my gears worse than a summer cold, an experience which I recently suffered through, one has been hitting the terrestrial pavement and the deck plates of boats as hard as I can for the last couple of weeks in pursuance of working harder. Now, the odd thing is this – I haven’t been to the Newtown Creek.
Normally, Newtown Creek is my happy place. Also, being exposed to that waterway bolsters my immune system and generally keeps me from getting sick and or contracting a summer cold. Oddly, however, I haven’t felt Queens calling for me to go there in a few weeks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s not that I’m bored with the place – far from it. There’s just some little bird chirping away inside my “happily content and patient / consumed with red hot anger and resentment” state of mind that’s saying “explore” and is thinking about the far horizons.
Upcoming Events and Tours
Saturday, June 25, 10:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek,
with Brooklyn Brainery. Click here for more details.
Sunday, June 26, 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour,
with Atlas Obscura. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
shaken open
From Hells Gate… in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The titular centennial for the Hell Gate bridge, one of the prides of Astoria, will be occurring shortly. Accordingly, the “powers that be” hereabouts have begun to gather and plan for a community celebration. A meeting was called recently, and one marched over to the forbidden northern coast of Queens to participate. This particular meeting was the moment when the centennial efforts got serious, as none other than Peter Vallone Sr. was in the room. If you don’t who that is, or what it means when the great man himself is present, you don’t know much about Astoria.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As is my habit, I left a LOT earlier than I needed to, and walked to the meeting location “the long way.” The “short way” takes about 25-30 minutes, the “long way” is a meandering but somewhat photogenic path that’s more like 90 minutes. My chosen path would, I hoped, allow me to catch some maritime traffic taking advantage of the flood tide on the East River for transiting to the north and east. I wasn’t disappointed, but I’ll show you that later in the week. That’s a Dann towing company tug in the shot above, incidentally.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The “long way” involves me walking from HQ on the south eastern side of Astoria, where we share borders with Woodside and Sunnyside, down Broadway and then following the East River north in the direction of Astoria Park. That’s where I encountered this scene above, which is a great example of why I love living in this neighborhood.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“I like the way you think” is what I told the fellow in the Lay-Z-Boy on Shore Blvd. I also assured him that if he were to run for elected office, he could count on my support. He encouraged me to take his photo, incidentally, as his innovative notion of what a “folding chair” is was something wonderful.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ll show you some of the maritime traffic I spotted along Hell Gate in a post later on this week.
Upcoming Events and Tours
Saturday, June 25, 10:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek,
with Brooklyn Brainery. Click here for more details.
Sunday, June 26, 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour,
with Atlas Obscura. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
ecstasy of nightmare
Wandering the waterfront, that’s me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s a shot of Long Island City in the shot above, as seen from North Henry Street in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint. The tug Sea Lion is towing barges of recyclable materials from the City of New York’s Newtown Creek dock. This is my kind of waterfront, incidentally, full of maritime industrial activity with dramatic urban back drops.
The skyline behind the Long Island Expressway’s “Queens Midtown Expressway” truss bridge over Dutch Kills is brand new, the modern corridor of a brave new world.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Down on the East River coastline of Long Island City, derelict docks are found. This spot is comparatively far north and west of the mega developments happening along Jackson Avenue and at Hunters Point. This is at the end of modern day 44th drive, which I’m interpreting a century old map as having once been called Nott Avenue. Presuming I’m reading the map correctly, this is the former border between the Queensboro Freight Terminal to the north (whom these docks likely belonged to) and a Standard Oil petroleum facility to the south back in 1919.
There’s a restaurant or two found hereabouts these days, and a couple of large footprint municipal operations.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not a waterfront shot, technically, but the LIRR operations at Hunters a Point always had the water in mind – and hey – I kind of like the shot.
Upcoming Events and Tours
Saturday, June 25, 10:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek,
with Brooklyn Brainery. Click here for more details.
Sunday, June 26, 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour,
with Atlas Obscura. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
hellacious tide
My mother used to call me “the complaint department.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A buddy of mine once described his ideal job as “freelance unsolicited criticism.” He posited that he’d walk into a bank, let the manager know that the velvet ropes leading to the tellers were arranged incorrectly, and then submit a bill for his services. I’ve always liked the concept, although to be fair, my buddy’s nickname is “Special Ed.”
Pictured above, a view of lower Manhattan from the Wallabout in Brooklyn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Unsolicited criticism number 1 is offered to my fellow riders of the NYCTA Subway system. For the love of god itself, use your freaking headphones when you’re playing a video game on your phone while riding the train. It’s bad enough that I’m being subjected to evangelist Korean guy and to jazz busking. Do I really need to listen to the stupid beeping and blinging that your game is making?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Unsolicited criticism number 2 is also aimed at my fellow riders of the Subway system. I am certain that allowing me to exit the freaking train will not, in fact, cause you to not be able to get onboard. Pushing past someone like me, a veteran of 1980’s NYC’s punk scene, means that you will – in fact – find yourself bouncing off of a stranger whose elbows are far sharper than yours. The worst offenders on this subject are found at the 59/Lex stop. Do you really want to experience the “people moving” techniques I learned in 1980’s mosh pits?
No?
Then wait your turn and let me get off the train before you enter it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Unsolicited criticism number 3 and 4 are offered in the shot above.
First, the solar powered garbage cans that the urban planning geniuses of Pratt University have been placing around Lower Manhattan and the tony sections of North Brooklyn. Let those words roll out of your mouth – “solar powered garbage cans.” Do you have a fossil fuel powered garbage can in front of your house, lords and ladies? Was this a problem that needed solving?
Secondly, the giant pit you see above – according to the NYPD personnel I asked about it – used to be a subway grate on Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan. It seems a truck driver decided to use the sidewalk to bypass a parked car and discovered that a sidewalk grate wasn’t designed to carry the weight of a truck.
Fellow New Yorkers – NYC streets are color coded. Black pavement is for vehicles (including Bicycles, Delivery bikes, and trucks). Gray pavement is for pedestrians, baby carriages, and “not vehicles.” Stay the feck off the sidewalk.
Bah.
Upcoming Events and Tours
Saturday, June 25, 10:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek,
with Brooklyn Brainery. Click here for more details.
Sunday, June 26, 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour,
with Atlas Obscura. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 