Archive for the ‘Maspeth’ Category
strange narratives
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Work is under way on certain subjects of a rather esoteric nature around HQ this week. A good amount of my attention is being focused on the particular section of Newtown Creek bulkhead pictured above, an area whose street facing side adjoins 47th street between Grand Avenue and 58th road. This was part of the aluminum manufacturing operation conducted by the ALCOA corporation during the second world war, spoken of at length by the departed Frank Principe. A general call for information is put forward to surviving Maspethicans and Blissvilians for any information which they might possess on the area- contact me here if you’ve got any tales to tell about the place which you can share.
I’m aware that the “office” to the plant was on the corner of 49th street at 47-10 Grand Avenue, incidentally, and know a bit about the heavy FBI presence during the 1940’s which area wags commented upon contemporaneously.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Crossing over from Queens to the Brooklyn side of the bridge, where Grand Avenue transmogrifies into Grand Street, one finds first a large shipping hub commensurate with dozens of trucks and then the Charles J. King scrap metal operation. The truck yard, it seems, occupies the footprint of a factory which built and sold prefabricated houses- a novel concept in the early 20th century. They would assemble an entire dwelling on site and then ship it out via truck or rail to all points of the compass.
An operation of some size and reputation, this is another part of the story here in DUGSBO which is in the process of research and production.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Additionally, it would seem that the enormous Feldman lumber operation on Grand Street has been a lumber yard for literally more than a century- the business and parcel merely changing hands over the years. I’ve seen photos!
The process of discovering the history and presenting the same in a cogent fashion isn’t something which one commits to in the fashion of a police detective, at least not for your humble narrator.
It is odd sometimes, for the Newtown Creek seemingly does not like giving its secrets up easily, nor in a timely fashion that is suitable for publication.
The story of the place instead oozes out of the pages of wormy newspapers and elder tomes, suggesting rather than describing an answer to the eternal question- “who can guess, all there is, that might be buried down there?”.
Also- Upcoming Newtown Creek tours and events:
for an expanded description of the October 20th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
for more information on the October 27th Newtown Creek Boat Tour, click here
for more information on the November 9th Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show, click here
for an expanded description of the November 11th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
it shines and shakes and laughs
– photo by Mitch Waxman
How one has missed the filth and degradation. Rendering the urgency of returning to these places, lonely and swept by a poisonous fume called wind, and finding the lessons offered has been a source of great angst for your humble narrator. It is difficult to describe my personal experience with these lots and parcels, or defend my deep affection for something like the former Phelps Dodge property at Laurel Hill. This is a shunned place, avoided by all given a choice, yet one finds himself moving inexorably toward it after pinning cap to head and telling “Our Lady of the Pentacle” that “I’m going out for a walk”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There is little honey to be found here, unless one uses the euphemism favored by DEP employees for the material they handle. Everywhere is a concretized and apocalyptic post industrial landscape and active culture of garbage handlers and warehouse employees. Barren, the landscape enjoys only the crudest amenities. Street trees are quickly shattered by trucks, and a loose sandy gravel seemingly composed of powderized automotive glass reflects a weak and diffuse light transmitted by the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For one such as myself, a ghastly and shambling outcast scuttling about in a filthy black raincoat, the only thought a place like Maspeth Creek can evince is “Hallelujah”. Every suspicion about the truth of the great human hive is manifest here, and condemnation of society at large is readily at hand. Perhaps this is why I am so drawn to this forgotten valley of corrupted nature, as it mirrors the sickness in my own thoughts. An inch behind my eyes, I believe, is naught but black mayonnaise.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Maybe I am “all ‘effed up”, but to me, this is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. “Welcome to Newtown Creek”, say I, with hardly any sense or ironic humor or twee dispatch.
Also- Upcoming tours…
for an expanded description of the October 13th Kill Van Kull tour, please click here
for an expanded description of the October 20th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
for more information on the October 27th Newtown Creek Boat Tour, click here
for more information on the November 9th Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show, click here
for an expanded description of the November 11th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
monotonous whine
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Polyandrion, Calvary Cemetery welcomes, and all roads lead here. After vainglorious attempts at normalcy, laced with some latent desire to fit into society at large, your humble narrator returns at last to a true place. There is no facade here, in this latent psychic cauldron of thwarted ambition and manifest hubris. There are only the tomb legions, and the groundling burrowers, and an odd man in a shabby black raincoat wandering a hill once called Laurel.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Neglectful, a joyless and pitiless avatar of failed ambition has been ignoring this place for too long, occupied as it were with politicking and social engagement. A long season which has exposed many to my vast inadequacy during multitudinous tours and meetings is nearly at an end. To be seen by so many diminishes me, and frequent company on my walks obfuscates recognition of those patterns and curious relics of earlier times hidden in plain by torch bearing Dutchmen and buckskin clad Aborigines alike.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For the last several months, Calvary has been a place passed by, often gazed upon with the sort of fondness reserved for a matron aunt or an overlooked friendship. No longer is this the case, recent sojourns have proven both productive and fascinating journeys- or perhaps it is merely the season of the year? Queens is speaking to me again, and for the first time in months, intelligibly.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oddly, the ever present headphones worn while walking this path- literally as these shots were being captured- began playing Wagner’s “Flight of the Valkyries”. As this is a random classical piece, lost amongst the hundreds of hardcore punk and death metal songs contained in the same playlist. One considers this to be significant somehow, but often, small things seem important while wandering through the marble heart of the Newtown Pentacle.
Also- Upcoming tours…
for an expanded description of the October 13th Kill Van Kull tour, please click here
for an expanded description of the October 20th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
something disquieting
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Truly does one struggle against the darkness. A vast and slavering dog, it is checked and kept by sturdy chains with a stout collar, but it is always just a few steps behind. Were it let loose, the very pillars of the world would crumble and shake. Caged, a storm rages, with cyclonic fires whose winds carry exultations of lament- and all of hell follows in its wake. Better to get out than dwell upon existential angst, and visit that ribbon of urban neglect known as the fabled Newtown Creek, so off I went.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Witness, if you will, the sort of life which inhabits this debased waterway. Once common, wading birds like this (presumptively) Great Blue Heron have returned to the shallows and sediment mounds in recent years. While photographing this nearly cryptic specie, your humble narrator was approached by a private security man. Girding for the usual lecture given by the “rent a cops” of the Creeklands, I was instead pleasantly surprised when the fellow engaged me in conversation.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The guardsman claimed that he had witnessed a startling and unexpected mammalian apparition on more than one occasion at Maspeth Creek. The animal he described as inhabiting the shoreline cannot possibly be here, as it would defy all logic and sense. Dogs, cats, rats- even raccoons and coyotes have been reported with some frequency over the years. Their presence is logical, explainable, and entirely mundane. The security guard however, told me that he has seen a Beaver here. “A musk rat” I suggested? “No, a beaver”, he said.
something alarming
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another one of the little mottoes which one such as myself offers “it’s not good, it’s not bad, it just is”. Time spent wandering around the vast human hive, with it’s teeming multitudes and aspirants, has taught me that it makes little sense to adjudicate the values of others. That being said, whilst on a pastoral stroll across the rolling landscape of Calvary Cemetery, your humble narrator found himself in Section Five.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the shot I was seeking, the ennobled Kosciuszko Bridge, as seen from the vantage of Review Avenue and Laurel Hill Blvd. and from atop the high walls of Calvary. Coming to this spot, one noticed something odd- out of place- nearby.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Upon the ground was some sort of fruiting vine, set behind a small line of high grass and small shrubs.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Struck by the ideation that some accidental seeding might have taken place, unnoticed by the grounds crew, I looked around a bit.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s when I discovered that somebody had planted a little garden, here in an ancient cemetery.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Nearby, there were grapes growing as well.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s not good, it’s not bad, it just is. It’s also the sort of thing which really makes one question his own sanity, and thank all that’s holy that I’m able to photograph this as it is exactly the sort of story no one would believe. Tangential thoughts occur- speculations on the morbid nutrition enjoyed by these plants, suppositions about the water table they drink from (which is VERY much Newtown Creek), and other pleasant notions torment and tantalize. It’s not good, it’s not bad, it just is. It’s not good, it’s not bad, it just is. It’s not good, it’s not bad, it just is…
The Newtown Pentacle 