Archive for the ‘Manhattan’ Category
nightmare phrase
Midtown, Manhattan.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator is taking a short break this week, and you’ll be greeted with single shots when visiting this – your Newtown Pentacle. Trust that I’m out and about gathering new tales to tell and photographs to display.
Upcoming Tours and Events
June 9th – Exploring Long Island City – with NY Adventure Club.
Long Island City is a tale of two cities; one filled with glittering water-front skyscrapers and manicured parks, and the other, a highly active ground transportation & distribution zone vital to the New York economy — which will prevail?
Tickets and more details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
hereditary predilection
Queens is mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
No more. The Mayor’s plan to warehouse New York City’s most vulnerable citizens in a neighborhood of warehouses, two blocks from the Newtown Creek Federal Superfund Site and one block from the Long Island Expressway – thereby creating a two to one ratio of actual residents to homeless shelter residents in the Blissville section of Long Island City – seems to have become the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. No more. The needs of the elites of Manhattan do not outweigh the needs of Queens. No more.
On Tuesday last, Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer grilled DHS Commisioner Stephen Banks about this plan at City Hall, and community members gathered on the steps of City Hall in protest over the Mayor’s plan. Assemblymember Cathy Nolan sent her representative David Agioloro to show her support for the cause. No more.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Monday last, at Gracie Mansion, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney joined with the Blissville Civic Association to protest the Mayor’s plan at the gates of the Manhattan mansion he lives in. Western Queens’s elected officials stand in solidarity with Blissville, as does Brent O’Leary of the Hunters Point Civic Association, Senator Michael Gianaris, and your humble narrator. No more.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Next week, as a note, the NYS DEC will be presenting their findings regarding the Blissville Seep – where oil has been migrating into the waters of Newtown Creek from the Queens side bulkheads less than a mile from the Mayor’s three homeless shelter. Their informal presentation on the former Queens County Oil Works of Charles Pratt will take place on Thursday, May 24th at the NYS DEC offices on 21st street in LIC.
No more.
Upcoming Tours and Events
June 9th – Exploring Long Island City – with NY Adventure Club.
Long Island City is a tale of two cities; one filled with glittering water-front skyscrapers and manicured parks, and the other, a highly active ground transportation & distribution zone vital to the New York economy — which will prevail?
Tickets and more details here.
May 17th – Port Newark Boat Tour – with Working Harbor Committee.
For an exciting adventure, go behind the scenes of the bustling Port of NY & NJ on our Hidden Harbor Tour® of Port Newark! Get an insider’s view of the 3rd largest port in the nation, where container ships dock and unload their goods from around the world. See how the working harbor really works and learn about what all those ships and tugs do. See giant container terminals, oil docks, dry dock repair, and more! Tickets and more details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
venous dissections
Beginning, middle, end.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I always like to remind people that there’s a bridge on both sides of Flatbush Avenue. You’ve got Leo Moiseff’s showstopper on the north side spanning the East River – the Manhattan Bridge – but everybody always forgets about the one on the south side – the Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge. Given that the latter was a particular “feature” in the old neighborhood, as it allowed us Brooklyn hooligans access to Queensican Riis Park and the Rockaways, since it spends its time spanning Jamaica Bay.
I tell everybody I’m from Canarsie, because that’s a place most people have heard of in southeast Brooklyn. Technically speaking that’s true, I went to high school on the western fringe of Canarsie, but where my parents put down roots was actually an “angle” between neighborhoods called Futurama. Yes, Futurama.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Flatbush is the Brooklyn neighborhood everybody has heard – or hoid – of. Pictured above is the graveyard of the Dutch Reformed Church, which HP Lovecraft vandalized, at Church and Flatbush Avenues. In the background is Erasmus High School. To the south and east of this spot in Flatbush is Flatlands. If you made a left or eastbound turn on Flatlands Avenue, you’d have Crown Heights to the north (or left) until you got to Ralph Avenue. At Ralph, looking to the south (or right) you’d find the neighborhoods of Futurama, Georgetown, Old Mill Basin, Bergen Beach, and Mill Basin. Once you cross Ralph Avenue and continue eastwards on Flatlands Avenue, you’re in Canarsie until you get to Pennsylvania Avenue near Starret City and then you’re in East New York.
Futurama was a housing development built in the late 1950’s on landfill surrounding Paerdegat Basin and Jamaica Bay, as are the neighborhoods of Georgetown and (new) Mill Basin. The particular spot which my parents chose to settle was equally distant from the terminal stop of the L line at Rockaway Parkway and the terminal stops of the 5 and 2 Lines at Brooklyn College. It was a good two to two and a half mile walk in either direction for the subway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The southern end of Brooklyn, and of Flatbush Avenue, is at the Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge. It’s a vertical lift span installed over the water at the behest of Robert Moses back in July of 1937. When it opened, it was the largest specimen of this sort of bridge on the planet. Just over the bridge on the Queens side is Breezey Point and Riis Park.
As mentioned, there’s two bridges on Flatbush Avenue.
Upcoming Tours and Events
June 9th – Exploring Long Island City – with NY Adventure Club.
Long Island City is a tale of two cities; one filled with glittering water-front skyscrapers and manicured parks, and the other, a highly active ground transportation & distribution zone vital to the New York economy — which will prevail?
Tickets and more details here.
May 17th – Port Newark Boat Tour – with Working Harbor Committee.
For an exciting adventure, go behind the scenes of the bustling Port of NY & NJ on our Hidden Harbor Tour® of Port Newark! Get an insider’s view of the 3rd largest port in the nation, where container ships dock and unload their goods from around the world. See how the working harbor really works and learn about what all those ships and tugs do. See giant container terminals, oil docks, dry dock repair, and more! Tickets and more details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
saturated fat
Manhattan, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last week, a humble narrator found himself in Lower Manhattan, moving on foot betwixt the rivers. Having debarked a boat nearby Houston Street on the Hudson which I’d been on since the morning, my next obligation involved Long Island City and one decided upon involved walking crosstown to connect up with the NYC Ferry’s East River route via Pier 11 at the foot of Wall Street. Along the way, my camera was clicking away at whatever happened to catch my eye. The scene above, a well preserved example of the former mercantile empire which NYC was once at the center of, exhibited the tepid level of what passes for street life and activity in the sections of NYC which are the Crown Jewels of gentrification. Urban planners hate the chaos and tumult of actual street life, and would offer this section – defined by the Holland Tunnel – up as a success story.
It’s Laight Street, if you’re morbidly curious.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over on Worth Street, a rather large “works” project is underway involving the rebuilding of the road itself. Luckily, this has scratched away the occluding asphalt which disguises the “works” of the City, exposing the veins and arteries of the metropolis for inspection by one such as myself. The area surrounding this trench is the heart of the Legal Industrial Complex in Lower Manhattan. Shadowing of the public way was provided in this particular spot by a fortress like Federal building. It should be pointed out that they don’t seem overly concerned with creating protected bike lanes in this part of the City.
I was following a path that inevitably led to the East River, and as mentioned, moving diagonally across Lower Manhattan.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Manhattan Municipal Building at 1 Centre Street was renamed in 2015 for former Mayor David M. Dinkins by our current Mayor, who was his protege. Given how startlingly awful the administration of the former executive was, it’s stunning that anything at all is named after him in NYC. There’s a been an attempt at rehabilitating his image in recent years, stealthily led by the current Mayor and his acolytes. Plastering names of former politicians on public buildings is red meat for those currently in office, it should be mentioned. I refuse to call Triborough or Queensboro anything other than their proper names until the Brooklyn Bridge is renamed for Michael Bloomberg or David Patterson. Accordingly, it’s the Manhattan Municipal Building, not the David M. Dinkins municipal building.
Luckily, my steady scuttling got me to the ferry on time, and I arrived in LIC at the appointed hour. Unfortunately, one developed a blister on the second little piggy (or index toe) of my left foot during the walk.
Upcoming Tours and Events
June 9th – Exploring Long Island City – with NY Adventure Club.
Long Island City is a tale of two cities; one filled with glittering water-front skyscrapers and manicured parks, and the other, a highly active ground transportation & distribution zone vital to the New York economy — which will prevail?
Tickets and more details here.
May 17th – Port Newark Boat Tour – with Working Harbor Committee.
For an exciting adventure, go behind the scenes of the bustling Port of NY & NJ on our Hidden Harbor Tour® of Port Newark! Get an insider’s view of the 3rd largest port in the nation, where container ships dock and unload their goods from around the world. See how the working harbor really works and learn about what all those ships and tugs do. See giant container terminals, oil docks, dry dock repair, and more! Tickets and more details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
frightful vistas
On this day in 1931, the Empire State Building opened for business.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Empire State Building was completed a month and a half ahead of schedule, no doubt due to the influence of the “official” head of the project’s influence. A mostly ceremonial and political position, former NYS Governor Al Smith was nevertheless the boss. The real players in the construction of the icon were an investor group led by Louis G. Kaufman, Ellis P. Earle, John J. Raskob, Coleman du Pont, and Pierre S. du Pont.
John J. Raskob was the prime mover, however. Everything and everybody else on the project were just political window dressing or finance.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Empire State Building was designed by William F. Lamb, of the architectural firm Shreve, Lamb and Harmon. The actual construction of the thing was accomplished under the oversight of the Starrett Brothers and Eken, Paul and William and James Farley’s General Builders Supply Corporation handled material delivery and deployment. John W. Bowser was the construction superintendent of the project, and structural engineer for the building was a fellow named Homer G. Balcom.
The plan for the Empire State Building was presented to the public on January 8, 1930. The entire operation, which included demolishing the old Waldorf Astoria which stood on the site, was accomplished in 16 months. The actual erection of the Empire State began in March of 1930.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just the facts; the Empire State Building rises 1,860 steps from the first to the 102nd floor, and it’s said to weigh 365,000 short tons (331,122 t). It encloses an internal volume of 37,000,000 cubic feet, and its exterior is covered in 200,000 cubic feet of limestone and granite. Construction of the tower incorporated ten million bricks, 370 short tons of steel, 1,172 miles of elevator cable and 2,000,000 feet of electrical wires. The building has a capacity for 20,000 tenants and 15,000 visitors. To the 102nd floor, Empire State is 1,250 ft tall, but is 1,453 feet 8 9⁄16 inches when you include its 203 ft pinnacle.
According to official records, the construction cost 7 lives, but contemporaneous socialist newspapers claimed that 42 deaths occurred during construction.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Personally speaking, I can tell you that the easiest way to say “New York City” in a photograph is to frame the Empire State Building into it. One of the “seven wonders of the modern world,” and for much of the twentieth century the tallest structure on earth, Empire State Building was the first of the “super talls,” although the Chrysler Building did technically arrive on the scene first. It’s pretty commonplace to see skyscrapers these days, but the significance of the Empire State Building to the generation that saw it rise – at the astounding pace of 4 1/2 stories a week – cannot be overstated.
For that NYC generation, who were either immigrants or the children of immigrants, the future had arrived.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When the generations of immigrants who pulsed into NYC during the high tide years of emigration – the 1850’s through the 1920’s – arrived here, what they found were a few grandiose structures like the Woolworth Building or the odd church or cathedral, but these were the exception. Manhattan had unpaved streets which pigs roamed around at night, and the building stock in NYC was squat. Tenements spread out in every direction, punctuated by occasional six to eight story industrial or office buildings.
Up until the 20th century – ship masts, industrial chimneys, Trinity Church’s steeple, and the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge formed the skyline.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For those of us who grew up in NYC, the Empire State Building was always aspirational. It represented “the City,” where we’d make our fortunes someday, escaping the humiliations and constraints of the blue collar neighborhoods we were born into. When returning from someplace else, spotting the Empire State Building was a signal that home was near.
Happy 87th Birthday, old fella.
Upcoming Tours and Events
May 12th – Exploring Long Island City – with NY Adventure Club.
Long Island City is a tale of two cities; one filled with glittering water-front skyscrapers and manicured parks, and the other, a highly active ground transportation & distribution zone vital to the New York economy — which will prevail?
Tickets and more details here.
May 17th – Port Newark Boat Tour – with Working Harbor Committee.
For an exciting adventure, go behind the scenes of the bustling Port of NY & NJ on our Hidden Harbor Tour® of Port Newark! Get an insider’s view of the 3rd largest port in the nation, where container ships dock and unload their goods from around the world. See how the working harbor really works and learn about what all those ships and tugs do. See giant container terminals, oil docks, dry dock repair, and more! Tickets and more details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 