Archive for the ‘Manhattan’ Category
Power and glory
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For some reason, whenever the NYPD is observed executing one of these drills, it actually makes me nervous. Logic demands such operations of course, their omission as a tactic would be irresponsible, but it reminds me of the truth of our world- and that the paramilitarization of the civilian police across the nation is a cause for concern. This was Union Square, incidentally, about a block from Tammany Hall, Manhattan.
from nytimes.com
It goes something like this: On a typical block in, say, Midtown Manhattan, as many as 80 police cars quickly stream in out of nowhere, in neat rows, their lights and sirens going. The drills seem to take place on blocks with restricted parking, and each car executes a fast back-in parking job against the curb.
shining city
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Gantry Plaza State Park, along the waterfront in the Tower Town section of Long Island City, offers fine panoramas of the shield wall of Manhattan’s east side. Some of my friends tell me that Long Island CIty is best exploited photographically in the early morning, when the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself is still in the east, illuminating the Shining City. For me it’s sunset.
from nysparks.state.ny.us
Gantry Plaza State Park is a 12-acre riverside oasis that boasts spectacular views of the midtown Manhattan skyline, including the Empire State Building and the United Nations. Enjoy a relaxing stroll along the park’s four piers or through the park’s manicured gardens and unique mist fountain. Along the way take a moment to admire the rugged beauty of the park’s centerpieces – restored gantries. These industrial monuments were once used to load and unload rail car floats and barges; today they are striking reminders of our waterfront’s past. With the city skyline as a backdrop and the gantries as a stage, the park’s plaza is a wonderful place to enjoy a spring or summer concert or to enjoy the Macy’s Fourth of July fireworks display.Recreational facilities include basketball courts, playgrounds, handball courts, and a fishing pier with its own cleaning table.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The funny thing, of course, if that if a 19th century citizen of the independent cities of Long Island City or Manhattan were to observe the modern scene- their first question would be “What happened to all the ships and factories?”.
from fordham.edu
Shipyards lined both the Manhattan and Brooklyn banks of the East River. In the heyday of New York’s port, the ships being built were primarily square-rigged crafts made of wood, especially oak. The raw materials for ships were readily available on the mainland and the labor force in New York did not lack members, especially during the 19th century, when immigrants were pouring in from Europe en masse. While Europeans experimented with the building of iron ships, Americans perfected the art of building the wooden ship.
Renowned for the quality and style of the ships it manufactured, the Port of New York was also known for the sheer quantity of ships that were built there. The East River was the most concentrated area of shipbuilding in the United States. The three greatest shipyards of the East River were probably the Webb-Eckford yard, the Bergh-Westervelt yard, and the Brown-Bell yard. These produced some of the most famous ships and made a fortune in the business, but they represent only a small fraction of the multiple and diverse shipyards dominating the East River.
Commercial yards made up a vast majority of the East River shipbuilding industry, but the government also took advantage of the area to establish a shipyard. The New York Naval Shipyard was established on the site of a former mercantile shipyard, located on the Brooklyn bank, in 1801. It built and outfitted approximately 100 vessels during the War of 1812 and was called upon again during the Civil War to build nine-gun steam sloops and eight-gun side-wheel double-enders. Established by John Quincy Adams, the New York Naval Shipyard continued to build ships well into the 20th century, until it was finally abandoned in 1966.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The East River was once bursting with industry, and was lined by docks. Famously dangerous, the docks of New York and its corollary municipalities were the first melting pot. When a ship’s cargo was being unloaded and a new one loaded, a process that might take as long as a week, the crews of itinerant sailors would pass the time in flophouses and bars which lined the waterfront. Established society shunned the waterfront, with its temporary populations of tattooed sailors and the mongrel contagion of ideas and exotic possibilities they carried with them.
from earlysda.com
At about 8 o’clock P. M., two lines of people were formed to march each side of the street. Wax candles, about three inches in circumference and four feet long, were now lighted, and given into the hands of each man in the procession. The corpse, which was richly dressed, and adorned with fresh flowers, was placed in a little basket with four handles, four little boys carrying it. It looked like a sweet little child asleep. The procession, with the priest ahead of the child in the middle of the street, and two long lines of men with lighted candles on each side, was rather an imposing sight in the dark night. The walk was about one mile and a half, to an ancient-looking stone church in the upper town. As we passed into the church I saw one of the flagging stones of the floor raised up, and a small pile of bones and dirt beside it. The consul told me the little child was to be put in there. The child was set down by the altar. The priest occupied but a few moments in speaking, then took up a long-handled cup or ball, perforated with holes like a grater, through which, as he uttered a few words, he sprinkled the child with what they call holy water, some of which, whether by accident or otherwise, feel on us who stood at the head of the procession. After this part of the ceremony, all but the child returned in order with the procession. Mr. Harden, the consul, on returning, told me how the child would be disposed of. Two black slaves would strip it of all its clothing, cover it with quick-lime to eat off its flesh, then pound it down in that hole with the other bones and dust, until the stone would lie in its place again. They would have its clothing for their labor. Thus, in this dilapidated charnel-house, and place for divine worship, they disposed of their dead. I was told that Paraiba was one of the oldest towns in South America, being of nearly three hundred years’ standing.
After disposing of our cargo here, we invested our funds in hides and skins, and sailed for New York. After a pleasant and prosperous passage of some thirty days, with the exception of cold, freezing storms on our coast, we arrived at the quarantine ground several miles below the city of New York about the last of March, 1826. As we had no sickness on board, I was allowed the privilege on Sunday of taking my crew with me to hear service at the Dutch Reformed church. This was the first religious assembly I had met with since I covenanted to serve God, and I enjoyed it much. It seemed good to be there. In a few days we were relieved from quarantine, and I was made glad in meeting my companion and sister in New York. My brother F. took my place on board the Empress for another South American voyage, and I left for Fairhaven, to enjoy for a season the society of my family and friends, after an absence of some twenty months.
weird perfumes
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned earlier, my search for information on the questionable death of a merchant from Massachusetts named Gilman has led me to some of the stranger wards of our great city. On this day, a cursory questioning of caretakers at Old St. Patrick’s pointed me in the direction of a certain Chinese mystic who occupies a run down walk up flat some 4 stories above Henry Street in New York’s bustling Chinatown.
from wikipedia
Henry Street is a street in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It runs in a northeasterly direction one-way eastbound from Oliver Street in the south and west, passing underneath the Manhattan Bridge and on to Grand Street in the north and east. The poor condition of immigrants living in squalid tenements on Henry Street and the surrounding neighborhood in the late 19th century prompted nurses Lillian Wald and Mary Maud Brewster to found the Henry Street Settlement in 1893. In recent times, Henry Street continues to be an immigrant neighborhood and has been absorbed into an expanding Chinatown.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A self described healer who claims mastery over the orgone, or Qi as the Chinese call it, he was a disagreeable fellow. Rebuffed in my attempts to gain any knowledge from him, the old man admonished me to stop looking for this Gilman, lest I find something out that I don’t want to know.
from wikipedia
Although the concept of qi has been very important within many Chinese philosophies, over the centuries their descriptions of qi have been varied and may seem to be in conflict with each other. Understanding of these disputes is complicated for people who did not grow up using the Chinese concept and its associated concepts. Until China came into contact with Western scientific and philosophical ideas (primarily by way of Catholic missionaries), they knew about things like stones and lightning, but they would not have categorized them in terms of matter and energy. Qi and li (理, li, pattern) are their fundamental categories much as matter and energy have been fundamental categories for people in the West. Their use of qi (lifebreath) and li (pattern, regularity, form, order) as their primary categories leaves in question how to account for liquids and solids, and, once the Western idea of energy came on the scene, how to relate it to the native idea of “qi”. If Chinese and Western concepts are mixed in an attempt to characterize some of the problems that arise with the Chinese conceptual system, then one might ask whether qi exists as a “force” separate from “matter”, whether qi arises from “matter”, or whether “matter” arises from qi.
pitiful monomania
– photo by Mitch Waxman
East Broadway, in New York’s Chinatown, shot from the Manhattan Bridge.
I had other, mundane reasons for being in Chinatown that day, but my search for Gilman had led me to Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral in search of clues to the whereabouts of the enigmatic Massachusetts man’s grave at Calvary Cemetery.
from wikipedia
East Broadway is a two-way east-west street in the Chinatown and Lower East Side neighborhoods of the New York City borough of Manhattan. East Broadway begins at Chatham Square (also known as Kimlau Square) and runs eastward under the Manhattan Bridge, continues past Seward Park and the eastern end of Canal Street, and ends at Grand Street. The western portion of the street is primarily populated by Chinese immigrants (mainly Foochowese from Fuzhou, Fujian), while the eastern portion is home to a large number of Jews. One section in the eastern part of East Broadway, between Clinton Street and Pitt Street, is unofficially referred to by residents as Shteibel Way, since it’s lined with approximately ten small synagogues (“shteibels”).
passive inconspicuousness
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Walking down the Bowery one evening, crossing Delancey. This was recently the heart of darkness in New York, a mere 20 years ago, a desolation row of flop houses and addiction. It is stunning to see its modern incarnation, sitting at the end of the Williamsburgh financial corridor.
from wikipedia
Delancey Street is one of the main thoroughfares of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, running east from the Bowery to connect to the Williamsburg Bridge to Brooklyn. It is an eight-lane, median divided street.
Businesses range from delis to check-cashing stores to bars. Delancey Street has long been known for its discount and bargain clothing stores. Famous establishments include the Bowery Ballroom, built in 1929, Ratner’s kosher restaurant (now closed), and the Essex Street Market, which was built by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia to avoid pushcart congestion on the neighborhood’s narrow streets. As the Lower East Side becomes gentrified, more upscale retail and nightlife establishments have moved in.
Delancey Street is named after James De Lancey, Sr., whose farm was located in what is now the Lower East Side.
The Newtown Pentacle 