Archive for the ‘Long Island City’ Category
common superstition
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Things have been relatively quiet over in St. Michael’s cemetery of late. The declaration refers to the lack of occultist activity, documented in earlier posts, at a certain spot which is high on a hill that has served some unknown individual in the past as an altar- likely in accordance with one of the syncretic Afro Cuban religions adhered to by many of the new neighbors in Queens who hail from the Caribbean and South American locales.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The week before Halloween, and Sandy, your humble narrator walked over to the polyandrion and surveyed the scene. By all appearances, there was little to report, with the exception of extraordinarily deep ruts in the ground thereabouts. By all appearances, it seemed that something quite heavy stood here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The ruts were in a roughly tripodal configuration, with a fourth that was not quite as deep. Other than this puzzling series of indentations, no bottles of fluid nor the presence of melted candles was detected. How I would love to set up a camera nest in a nearby tree on the night of a full moon, and witness what this unknowable cultist gets up to, but one does not hang around in cemeteries after the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself has set into the western sky. Not here, in the Newtown Pentacle.
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ache horribly
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Down Under the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge Onramp, or DUGABO as I call it, on the Queens side of the loquacious Newtown Creek, is found south of the tracks of the Long Island Railroad. A largish industrial footprint, whose boot heels were dug into the swampy soil as early at the 1830’s, both describes and damns the area. The ghosts of fat renderer and yeast brewery alike haunt the spot, as does your humble narrator.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wandering around down here recently, this intriguing bit of graffiti was observed. I’ve seen such markings before, over on Dutch Kills Street nearby Queens Plaza. It’s unusual mainly because of the figurative nature of the illustration, most area graffiti tends to be gang oriented, typographical in nature, or features the usage of a stylized and highly practiced logo or “tag”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Deeper meanings and interpretation are best left to curators and wonks, but I for one like the drawing. The text betrays the twee irony of the hipsters, in my opinion. Always remember, lords and ladies, I go to these places so you don’t have to.
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slight remainder
Notice: the November 9th Magic Lantern Show with Atlas Obscura is cancelled for now. We hope to reschedule for sometime during the winter. Observatory, where the event is scheduled to take place, has been damaged by Hurricane Sandy and flooding.
Alternatively, it has been decided to move forward with this Sunday’s Newtown Creek “SideTour” Poison Cauldron walking tour in Greenpoint, details are found at the bottom of this posting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Having moved through one of my regular “routes” from Astoria to Greenpoint to catalog the so called lower reaches of the Newtown Creek, it was time to return via another well explored and familiar pathway back to Queens. Over the Pulaski Bridge, into Long Island City, and ultimately up Skillman Avenue back to my neighborhood. On the Pulaski, I noted that one of the many undocumented sailboats which enjoys free berth on the Queens side had sunken, as you will discern in the lower right corner of the shot above.
The other locations and concurrent postings in this series exploring the post Hurricane Sandy conditions found around the Newtown Creek are Borden Avenue Bridge in open place, The Dutch Kills turning basin in dark moor, Calvary Cemetery in solid stones, The Maspeth Plank Road in sinister swamp, The Grand Street Bridge in shallow mud, English Kills in stranger whence, and Blissville to Greenpoint in vaguer recollection.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Descending down into Queens via the Pulaski stairs, where an eerie quiet was experienced. Again, this section of my survey was accomplished on Sunday the 4th, coincidentally the day which the NYC Marathon would normally have been conducted and ran across the Bridge, and the guys with the dirty fingernails who are the motive force in LIC had been hard at work cleaning up for the better part of week at this point.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Evidence of sedimentation escaping the Creek’s bulkheads was apparent, evinced at street corner sewer grates as in the shot above. That sidewalk isn’t wet, that’s oil. An unrelated trip just two days ago revealed the corner to be in the same condition, but this is the definition of “wrong side of the tracks” down here and the larger City has bigger problems right now than some piddly corner hidden away in an industrial backwater.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Stalwart, the Long Island Rail Road yard at Hunters Point was in fine fettle, despite the orange hue which their rails had taken on, no doubt due to immersion in salt water. This was a commonality shared by all rail tracks observed around the Creek which were flooded, but remember that the historic facility at Hunters Point has survived through flood and fire since 1870, and that Sandy was hardly their first rodeo.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The big story down here, beyond the flooding in the residential sections of Tower Town along 2nd and Center Streets- which I am not going to discuss- was the flooding of the Midtown Tunnel. According to the AP and WCBS, as well as official statements from the MTA, the water in the Queens Midtown Tunnel flooded in from the Queens side and emanated from Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Anecdotal stories transmitted to me described Dutch Kills breaching its banks and flowing down Borden Avenue which met with surge waters that rose over the bulkheads from the Creeks junction at East River. So far, no photos or video of the flooding have reached me. I understand that large scale pumping operations are still underway, and that the tunnel is now passable but only by buses.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This flooding of the Midtown Tunnel is the reason why the Long Island Expressway is being diverted onto local streets after Greenpoint Avenue (at least as of a couple of days ago) and describes one of the larger casualties of Hurricane Sandy in western Queens. We got fairly lucky around these parts, as compared to southeastern districts like the Rockaways and Howard Beach.
Again, in the shot above, notice that fresh orange patina on the tracks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Noticing the large piles of trash along the rail tracks, conversation was struck up with a local woman named Marti. She maintains a small community garden alongside the fence line and revealed that she had been cleaning this mess up for days with the help of a few sympathetic laborers. All of this flotsam ended up plastered along the fence from the westerly flow moving down Borden Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The businesses along Borden, as mentioned in the first posting in this series, all experienced flooding in at least their basements. Enormous losses of vehicles and equipment notwithstanding, they were back at work on this day.
Of course, this is what Long Island City does, which is getting back to work.
Upcoming Newtown Creek tours and events:
Note: there are just 4 tickets left on this one, which is likely the last walking tour I’ll be conducting in 2012.
for an expanded description of the November 11th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
solid stones
Notice: the November 9th Magic Lantern Show with Atlas Obscura is cancelled for now. We hope to reschedule for sometime during the winter. Observatory, where the event is scheduled to take place, has been damaged by Hurricane Sandy and flooding.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Continuing our survey of the Creeklands in the immediate wake of Hurricane Sandy, Hank the Elevator Guy and I entered venerable Calvary Cemetery in Blissville. Truly, I did not expect to see what was evident there, which was virtually zero impact from the storm.
Not a downed headstone nor anything larger than a fallen tree limb betrayed the tumult.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not sure of how this was possible, given the exposure and high elevations of the place. Wherever you are along the Newtown Creek, the highest natural elevations visible are Calvary (Laurel Hill) and the hill next to it (Berlin). It is certainly the highest point between Flushing Avenue in Ridgewood and the East River, and is an unstructured hill well planted with trees.
The majority of the monuments merely sit upon the ground and have no foundation other than a stripe of poured concrete.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One truly expected to find the place laid low, with grounds crews attempting to right the stones and clear away fallen trees. How strange. It is almost as if someone was looking out for the cemetery and steering the destruction away from it. Sunnyside, which is at a slightly lower declination than Calvary, suffered massive losses of trees. So did Maspeth proper which is at an even higher elevation.
I guess Dagger John knew how to pick a piece of land…
dark moor
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As part of the survey of places around Newtown Creek impacted by Hurricane Sandy which your humble narrator knows that no one else cares about, mainly because they’re in Queens, and after leaving the Borden Avenue Bridge Hank the Elevator Guy and I drove over to the Dutch Kills turning Basin at 29th street. The smell here, a mix of raw sewage and petroleum, was overpowering. There was some street flooding, but this is fairly normal for 29th street. As mentioned, nobody cares as it’s Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I wasn’t expecting to see much destruction back here, as the sea walls and bulkheads were set up in an earlier time of maritime industrial dominance and weren’t “built short” to accommodate kayaks or enhance the experience of park attendees. This is the end of Dutch Kills, by the way, and is a somewhat relict waterway with no maritime customers extant in the modern day. The terrestrial based industries all along Dutch Kills were busy pumping water and dragging soaked inventory out to dumpsters while I was there.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Accordingly, the large CSO’s at the end of the canal deposited a noticeably higher amount of flotsam and jetsam than normal, and the water was particularly foul. Again, this is a normal occurrence after any storm event. When Queens flushes a toilet during a thunderstorm, it’s contents end up here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One wishes that it could be said that all of this garbage was deposited by the actions of flooding, but again- this is normal. The dumped materials definitely seemed to have been moved around a bit by high water, but in Queens illegal dumping is an art form and Dutch Kills is its Guggenheim.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The water was in horrible shape, that’s raw sewage you’re looking at, collecting at the bullheaded shore and behind the two sunken fuel barges which have been decaying back here as long as anyone can remember. From my vantage, I couldn’t see any of the petroleum slicks seen a few blocks away at Borden Avenue, but I could smell them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hank the Elevator Guy and I returned to his trusty truck, and we headed off for other spots to survey. Next up was Calvary and then Maspeth Creek, and finally English Kills. All three spots will be discussed and revealed over the next few days at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
The Newtown Pentacle 