Archive for the ‘Citi Building Megalith’ Category
inquisitive and malignant
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whenever the weather has been tolerable by one so accursed as myself, efforts have been made to get out and wave the camera about. In the shot above, ongoing construction of new bulkheads at Whale Creek captured my interests. There will be quite a bit of activity along this section in the near future, as the NYC DEP requires that a new channel be dredged which will allow their sludge boats to transverse the section of Newtown Creek between the East River and the Whale Creek tributary.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As part of the construction master plan for the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, the sludge tank at the East River will be decommissioned and the docking which currently feeds the after product of the plant to the sludge boats for further processing will be moved closer to their source on the Whale Creek tributary, which is just under a mile back from the East River. A new class of sludge boats is currently under construction, and will require a deeper draft than the Newtown Creek currently offers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One such as myself is excited by the prospect of dredging on the Newtown Creek, and the spectacular images such industry will present. Of course, I don’t live on the north side of Greenpoint, which will undoubtedly experience a less than admirable stench as the foul ichors which line the bed of the waterway are torn away from the bottom and exposed to both the air and to the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself.
Also:
Remember that event in the fall which got cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy?
The “Up the Creek” Magic Lantern Show presented by the Obscura Society NYC is back on at Observatory.
Click here or the image below for more information and tickets.
Project Firebox 55
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is fairly sure that this particular sentinel of the realm has been presented before, but I just like the shot. This scarlet centurion exists at the periphery of the Degnon Terminal and Sunnyside Yards A on Skillman Avenue, in the glorious industrial zone of the City of Long Island.
grisly alliance
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Omens abound, here in the Newtown Pentacle, if only one is sensitive enough to notice their presence. It is not enough to merely cast off the callous of vision which develops during repetitions of the daily round, instead one must listen carefully to the suffering land of Queens which bears the terrible burdens of historical indignity and modern aspiration. Somewhere beneath the concrete devastations of industry and the vainglory of the urban planners exists a variegated and buried wetland.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Once- salt meadows blessed with endless acres of coastal grass swayed in the Newtown breeze beneath the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself here, nourishing and maintaining a vast ecosystem. Birds existed in numbers great enough to blot out the sky, and the shallow streams and ponds sustained a teeming population of fish and invertebrates. When the Dutch came, they saw naught but swamps, and their English successors applied the term “Waste Meadows” to the place. It wasn’t until the period between the American Civil war in the 1860’s and the early 20th century, via the practice of landfill, that the area was fully opened for exploitation.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This unfortunate avian, observed alongside the Sunnyside yard, would be viewed by the dross masses as merely another casualty of the modern age. Your humble narrator, with his eyes dilated by the absence of sleep and the concurrent intoxication of caffeine, sees dire portent instead. Mesmerized Valdemar, whom Poe described, might be able to offer some compact meaning to such omens- but one as wholly inadequate as myself is unfortunately incapable of such interpretation.
otherwise unnavigable
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
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– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the top of a fifty three story sapphire dagger plunged into the neck of a Long Island dwells an impossible thing gazing down upon the human hive via a three lobed burning eye, except that such a thing cannot possibly exist and to suggest so is madness. How could an intelligence of malign intent exist in bodiless form, and be granted the rights and privileges of citizenship with few of the obligations concurrent with such status?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An ancient path, Jackson Avenue was once a trade route connecting the grist mills and farmlands further east with the docks and wharves to the west that allowed local merchants to trade with other cities along the East River. Over the years, it has seen mule paths give way to wagon, and street car, and eventually automotive traffic. Its purpose in modernity is unclear, a secondary truck route which allows passage from Queens Plaza to Hunters Point and the Pulaski Bridge, or a residential corridor destined for bistros and cultural institutions?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A recent surge of building activity in the area has forced your humble narrator to consider that a bit more time must be spent here in Long Island City this year, an area which had fallen off my radar a bit in the last year. Inattention had little to do with a lack of interest, instead my time was spent “working” the zones found along Newtown Creek in Maspeth and Bushwick, two other colonial era centers seldom mentioned by the “manhattancentric crowd.”
found unconscious
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whilst roaming about Long Island City recently, one has come to the realization that the long economic doldrums affecting and stultifying the rapacious desires of the Real Estate Industrial Complex have seemingly come to an end. A recent flurry of high profile constructions, demolitions of centuried warehouses, and industrial tumult points to this fact.
Accordingly, this means that several long standing structures are likely not long for this world.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator has little need for sprockets, bearings, or pulleys. However, this business on Jackson Avenue hosts a charming mid 20th century bit of signage which answers some need which dare not speak its name within me. A resume and history of “Century Rubber Supply” is beyond my capability or desire to delve into, and I’ve never shopped there, I just like their signage. Enormous construction efforts are underway all around the diminutive structure, and the rest of the block it occupies has shed itself of tenants.
In Long Island City, this indicates that the bell is tolling.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The malign ideation that dwells within the Megalith and its infinite army of acolytes seem to be on the right side of history. Sooner than later, one fears, the idiosyncratic wonders of Long Island City will soon be entirely replaced by shield walls of glass and steel.
Bland homogenization which stinks of the Crypto Fascist theories of LeCorbusier ruling the future is my fear, but that’s an opinion, and like the anus- everyone has one.
A singular question which will stain the lips of all the still unborn Queensicans of future times, I fear, will be: “where might I buy some sprockets?”. The very old folk who remember an earlier time will remain silent when their children offer this query, lest what else may have been lost is asked about.
The Newtown Pentacle 