Archive for the ‘Citi Building Megalith’ Category
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.
crystal oblivion
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The other day I had the pleasure of some company on one of my little walks, Ms. Heather from NY-Shitty, and together we perambulated the hinterlands of Brooklyn- a no mans land between Greenpoint and East Williamsburg which has long been referred to as DUKBO in postings at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
This is a dusty, worn down, and fairly evocative place, crammed to the gills with industrial yards and century old mill buildings. A palpable evil lurks about the place, and the colour coats every surface. As a boy, when I asked my dad what was down there- he would turn pale, and demand promises that I never visit this area. This is the darkest of the hillside thickets found along the Newtown Creek, after all, legendary homeland of all that might go wrong under the American system of government.
Sorry Pop.
from the “Fellowship of the Ring” by Peter Jackson, et al.
Boromir: One does not simply walk into Mordor. Its black gates are guarded by more than just orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep, and the Great Eye is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire and ash and dust, the very air you breathe is a poisonous fume. Not with ten thousand men could you do this. It is folly.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There was a pretty good reason that I was in the neighborhood, which will be discussed in later postings, but we soon found ourselves traipsing along beneath the rotting steel of the Kosciuszko Bridge. This is a fairly dangerous place, from a pedestrian point of view. Trucks rattle by at full throttle, sidewalks (when they exist) exhibit broken concrete and pooled water. Hideously barbed weeds sprout from the shattered roadbeds, and from every abyss something or someone stares back suspiciously.
There is nowhere to run to, in this abattoir of hope- your best hope is to attempt to fit in.
This clip from the same director’s “Return of the King” neatly encapsulates the sort of day Ms. Heather and I experienced:
w
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Mad stories have been told to me by those who labor in the area about what transpires in the fuligin hours around these parts, tales which I am duty bound not to repeat. Suffice to say that certain “ethnic fraternities” and other “ad hoc associations” maintain a certain presence in this locale, the members of which desire privacy and the cover of night to pursue their crafts. Said privacy is zealously guarded, as much of the City has been denied them by the efforts of an alliance of regional and national law enforcement.
Even during the daylight hours, the sure knowledge of their presence informs and constrains my movements and actions, but I’m from Brooklyn and know that what lurks around these parts both demand and deserves “Respect”.
As I’ve been told in the past by members of these groups- “Don’t ‘eff around back here”. Additionally, scholastic and mainstream critics have accused me of describing this area as “Mordor”, and that its not that bad.
from wikipedia
Three sides of Mordor were bounded by mountain ranges, arranged in a rough rectangle: Ered Lithui, translated as ‘Ash Mountains’ in the north, Ephel Dúath, translated as ‘Fence of Shadow’ in the west, and an unnamed (or was possibly still called Ephel Dúath) range in the south. In the northwest corner of Mordor, the deep valley of Udûn formed the region’s gate and guard house. That was the only entrance for large armies, and was where Sauron built the Black Gate of Mordor, and later where Gondor built the Towers of the Teeth. Behind the Black Gate, these towers watched over Mordor during the time of peace between the Last Alliance and Sauron’s return. In front of the Morannon lay the Dagorlad or the Battle Plain.
Within this mountainous region, Sauron’s main fortress Barad-dûr formed its tower, at the foothills of Ered Lithui. To southwest of Barad-dûr lay the arid plateau of Gorgoroth, forming the region’s keep, and Mount Doom its forge. To the east lay the plain of Lithlad.
photo courtesy wikipedia-
Mount Doom and Sauron’s tower of Barad-dûr in Mordor, as depicted in the Peter Jackson film
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Of course, that’s a ridiculous charge.
When have I ever suggested that there is some disembodied evil, a great eye, lurking at the top of a tower that looks down over some ash blasted wasteland which has a river of poison flowing through it?
uncouth syllables
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The dark months of the winter offer few opportunities for me to go out shooting, as the times when “the light is good” are limited to an hour or two in the morning (I’m a late riser) and a similar interval in the mid afternoon. Luckily, during one of these narrow moments recently, I found myself in Long Island City in an area which I refer to as “the Fedora District”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The trick with light during the winter all comes down to the angle of the sun. The sky flung monoliths and tall slabs of masonry which distinguish New York City are illuminated in a harsh fashion during the winter months, resulting in deep shadow adjoining light blasted highlights. At the end and beginning of the day, however, the sun hangs low in the sky and provides long and cooly colored shadows interacting with bright and often orange illumination.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Miserably dim nevertheless, the sun appears bright to the human eye, but photographic pursuits betray its dimness. Sacrifices in image fidelity and the presence of visible grain brought on by high ISO settings annoy me, and the aforementioned darkness coupled with an omnipresent atmospheric haze force me to avoid the long depth of field and detailed clarity which I normally attempt to capture, so I focus in on the near rather than the far during the winter.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m one of those people who carries a camera everywhere I go, a practice which causes no end of annoyance to those whom I encounter on a daily basis. An obstacle which has been very difficult to overcome, now conquered, is the violation of the social normative which one encounters when whipping out “the rig” and clicking away in the midst of the vast human hive.
There are some, often members of various branches of law enforcement, who perceive my interest in recording the daily round as an act of aggression and suspicious at best.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The thing is, and allow me to wax a bit more rhapsodically than usual here, is that Long Island City as we know it today will be inextricably altered (as it already has been) within the next decade and that time grows short to record and document the transition. Will the future know about the gruff beauty of the place, or the delicate interplay of reflected sunlight upon centuries old wood, as they wander about an antiseptic landscape of glass and steel?
When the Sapphire Megalith is a relict, and the ever watching thing that dwells at its apex has grown senile and blind, will anyone remember what this place once was?
hewn rudely
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recently, your humble narrator was onboard a speeding vessel as it hurtled down the River of Sound (or East River as it’s known to modern residents). Turning from the jewel like facade of the Shining City called Manhattan, my thoughts turned to Long Island City and it’s burgeoning Tower Town neighborhood, known to ancient residents as Ravenswood and Hunters Point.
High above and distant from the water I was traveling across, an impression nevertheless grew in my mind that the monocular thing which cannot possibly exist in the spire of that Sapphire Megalith turned and fixed its gaze upon our tiny craft- an intuition of which of I am certain.
from “Laws of the State of New York, Volume 2“, 1870, courtesy google books
AN ACT to incorporate Long Island City.
Passed May 6, 1870; three-fifths being present
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:
TITLE I.
Section 1. All that part of the town of Newtown in city the County of Queens, included within the following boundaries, to wit: Beginning at the mouth of Newtown creek, on the east side of the East river, running thence easterly along the center line of said Newtown Creek to the westerly side of the Penny bridge (so called); thence northerly along the westerly side of the Bushwick and Newtown turnpike to the road on the southerly side of Calvary cemetery, known as the road to Dutch Kills; thence along the center of said last-named road on the southerly and westerly sides of Calvary cemetery as far as the boundaries of said cemetery extend; thence northerly along sajd cemetery to the center of the road leading to Green Point, on the northerly side of said cemetery; thence along said last-mentioned road to the intersection of the same with the road leading from Calvary cemetery to Astoria; thence easterly to the center of Woodside avenue ; thence northerly along the center line of said avenue to Jackson avenue; thence northeasterly along the center of the Bowery Bay road to low water mark in Bowery bay; thence westerly along low water mark to the East river; thence southerly along low water mark in the East river, to the place of beginning, shall be a city known as Long Island City; and the citizens of this State, from time to time inhabitants within the said boundaries, shall be a corporation by the name of “Long Island City,” and as such may sue and be sued, complain and defend, in any court, make and use a common seal and alter it at pleasure; and may receive by gift, devise, grant, bequest or purchase, and hold and convey, such real and personal property as the purposes of said corporation may requite.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The reputation endured by Long Island City in the 19th and most of the 20th centuries can hardly be described as desirable, as the historical record displays. The ancient home of graft, as it has been called, the hybrid assemblage of distant villages and towns into a single municipality which occurred in 1870 spawned a seemingly lawless community.
Tales of gambling dens, vice ridden hotels and inns, foreign born highwaymen, and an endless series of corrupt political organizations abound in contemporaneous accounts of the place.
from “Wallace’s monthly, Volume 8 By John Hankins Wallace“, 1882, courtesy google books
Ever since the enactment of the law against pool selling the police and judicial authorities of this city have been more or less persistent and successful in their attempts to suppress this form of gambling. Whatever charges of negligence and connivance may be brought against them, their services have been valuable and in a measure successful. This is evident from the fact that this particular form of gambling has been driven across the river into Queens County, Long Island, where the dirty scoundrels and their victims congregate to transact their nefarious business. Their protection there, by the local authorities, has been so thoroughly and even fiercely exposed by the daily press that an honest man don’t like to be seen crossing the ferry to Hunter’s Point, or Long Island City, as it is called. In the public estimation the place has become a moral lazaretto and in a choice of residence a man would not have much to choose between that and a smallpox hospital. But why should all this odium lie cast upon poor little tax ridden and rogue ridden Long Island City?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It is said that when Manhattan outlawed bare knuckle boxing, barges with rings and bleachers upon them appeared at Hunters Point and ferries would carry crowds from the larger city to so called “pugilist exhibitions”. Additionally, according to Comstock and other guardians of the public good, when horse parlors and pool betting (the modern day numbers racket) were similarly banned in the Shining City- a flurry of such activity began across the river at what we moderns would call Long Island City. All of this increasingly organized crime was nourished and populated by the transient customers of the Long Island Railroad and a concurrent Ferry station- again, I’m owing this to period reports from reliable (and multitudinous) sources.
Of course, in LIC, it was the mayor, coroner, police chief, and fire department who both (personally) owned and operated the back room casinos, whorehouses, and dens of iniquity. The LIRR bosses cared little, as long as local government did not get in their way, and the payoff demands were reasonable. It was only during the era of Patrick Gleason that things got out of hand and the LIRR finally had enough of it.
from Wikipedia
Gantry Plaza State Park is a state park on the East River in the Hunter’s Point section of Long Island City, in the New York City borough of Queens.
The 10-acre (4.0 ha) park first opened in May 1998 and was expanded in July 2009. The southern portion of the park is a former dock facility and includes restored gantry cranes built in the 1920s to load and unload rail car floats that served industries on Long Island via the Long Island Rail Road tracks that used to run along 48th Avenue (now part of Hunter’s Point Park). The northern portion of Gantry Plaza State Park was a former Pepsi bottling plant.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The days of the Rail bosses secretly pulling the strings here are long gone, their proudest achievements reduced to show pieces for the slavering pet of that thing which cannot possibly persist in the Megalith. Cherished and nurtured beneath the unblinking and fire sheathed eye of that which does not breath, nor sleep, yet hungers- this coagulation of industry and greed which it nurtures here is a tangled knot of labor unions, land speculators, and ambitious politicians. This pet- a drooling hound of limitless appetite and vainglorious aspiration has no name- but its malice and cold desire is clearly manifest in Tower Town and will soon spread along the waterfront south across Hunters Point and then into Brooklyn and beyond…
Allegorical references to “Fenrir the Wolf” would seem appropriate, but would be inaccurate- an ancient nomen for a modern threat…
For now, can we just refer to the force trapped behind the black gates of Western Queens as the “Real Estate Industrial Complex“?
from “A history of Long Island: from its earliest settlement to the present time, Volume 1” 1902, courtesy google books
It is noticeable that some of the deeds in the early part of the last century conveying lots at Hunter’s Point call it Long Island City. It continued to be a straggly, dreary, povertystricken place, with few settlers and these of the poorest class, until the Long Island Road, because it could not make the necessary arrangements in Brooklyn, selected it as the main terminus of the road. Since then it has steadily increased in population, and as the First Ward of Long Island City it rapidly assumed the lead in the destinies of that now happilv departed shade. Railway and manufacturing interests have steadily built up its population and added to its material resources, most of which, however, were mercilessly squandered by political intriguers.
the First Big Announcement
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator will be conducting a walking tour in Long Island City as part of the Open House NY Weekend on October 15 and 16. The tour will be approximately two hours in length, starts at 11 am, and will visit several of the amazing industrial landmarks which distinguish the Queens side of the Newtown Creek Watershed. Much of the walk will follow the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek. Reservations are required, which can be had by visiting the following link:
http://www.ohny.org/site-programs/weekend/programs/walk-down-newtown-creek
Oh, did I neglect to mention that this walking tour is free, as in gratis, as in no cost to you- Lords and Ladies?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the first of two big announcements, the second is still under wraps and I’m not able to discuss it at this point. Hopefully, within the next couple of days, I’ll be able to say more. Open House NY weekend is a citywide event, and there are multiple opportunities to do cool and unique things. Please check out the rest of their offerings, but you definitely want to come on this exploration of a hidden and neglected waterway which is found less than one mile from midtown Manhattan.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Bring a camera, of course, but I would be remiss if I didn’t advise you that broken pavement and largish puddles might be encountered- so proper (closed toe) footwear is advised. Additionally, this is as close to an urban desert as you are ever likely to find, so if you are one of the folks who likes to “stay hydrated”, bring a beverage along. Sparks deli on Borden Avenue will most likely be open, but one never can tell. Looking forward to seeing you along the Dutch Kills, and as always-
Want to see something cool?
Bring a camera, and ID…
Follow me…
The Newtown Pentacle 