Archive for the ‘DUPBO’ Category
this impression
Name a phobia, and I probably exhibit symptoms of it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m afraid of anything meant to represent a sentient being, so Automatonophobia is on my list, As is Algophobia- which is what my fear of pain is called. One presents Frigophobic symptoms when a fear of cold flares to life, which usually happens to me between the months of November and March. Globophobic fits keep me away from any public event wherein balloons will be displayed, especially ones which are yellow. I’ve never liked being touched, but rampant Haphephobia relegates one to a horrid and crumpled mass of quivering defeat whenever someone brushes past on the subway and makes physical contact- no matter how casual. These conditions are all quite debilitating, and I demand pity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Obsessions and compulsions notwithstanding, the work must come first. Nyctophobia must be denied, for what is there to fear about the dark that isn’t also there during the day? For those who suffer from an inverse affliction- a fear of the sun known as Heliophobia, the night is nepenthe. I believe that the non medical term “panphobia,” or the fear of everything, best describes my outlook. Despite this, a humble narrator dares both the fuligin night and the emanations of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself, but does remain scared of all that might be hidden, out there, in plain sight.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lengthening shadows and shortened intervals between dawn and dusk indicate strongly that the wheel of the year has turned once again to Halloween. Fundamentalists of modern times decry this most Christian of holidays as “the devils night,” lambasting the celebration of manifest fear and terror as antithetical to their limited interpretations of biblical narrative. One such as myself, however, prefers to embrace the army of phobias and trooping night terrors as they gambol along with the goblins and ghasts.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
known gods
It certainly has been quite an interesting life.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
No man is a failure who’s got friends, or so they told George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Homespun aphorism and Capraesque cliche notwithstanding, I would argue that having the wrong friends is a wholly different sort of failure which far outweighs the dollars and cents of conventional success. A loner, malcontent, and altogether difficult and argumentative know it all- your humble narrator’s few acquaintances tolerate my presence, but only in small doses.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You’ve got to use it or lose it, but what if you never had “it” in the first place? One such as myself, bereft of natural advantages such as speed, grace, strength, or athletic prowess on any level knows full well the shame of fumbling, stumbling, and or striking out. The only advantage possessed by me is a rat like cunning, although given my standing amongst the humans it would be logical to presume that I would make a poor specimen of Rattus rattus.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Like some ancient mariner lost upon the storm tossed waves go I, lashed to the frozen deck of a broken life. My wants and desires are nonexistent beyond the purely existential issues of food and shelter, as I have long ago given up pursuit of material success. There is no plan, things just happen, and the daily round is just a series of dull events. Your humble narrator is not at all driven by avarice, vainglory, or ambition in the ways that most are. Just think of me solely as the battered, the disabused, the disenfranchised, and always an outsider- if you feel the strong urge to categorize or quantize me.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale soon.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
bulging eyes
In today’s post, preternatural darkness.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Today’s post is as close to live blogging as I get, as these shots were all captured less than 16 hours ago. Your humble narrator attended a meeting of the estimable Newtown Creek Alliance yesterday, one which was set to occur at the sewer plant in Greenpoint. After the conclave, nobody offered me a ride back to Astoria so I ended up walking home again in the dark. The roll on garbage truck pictured above was spotted on Greenpoint Avenue and was fortuitously lit by the head lamps of passing vehicles.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Escorting Newtown Pentacle’s far eastern correspondent Armstrong to the train station at Greenpoint and Manhattan Avenues, I decided to pick a tremulous course toward the Pulaski Bridge. The section of Greenpoint nearby the Pulaski seems to have been in the grip of a wave of violent crime this summer, something which area wags attribute to the recent opening of a large homeless shelter which the City placed in the neighborhood. A vast physical coward and feckless quisling, paranoid wonderings were omnipresent as I mounted the bridge and headed for Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lurking in fear, I shambled and scuttled past the shinier residents of Greenpoint as they headed home, and came across this always amazing view mid span. That’s the infamous Newtown Creek down below, its poison waters gurgling and splashing tepidly towards Bushwick from the East River. The Shining City of Manhattan offers why I call it that in this shot.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday- September 21, 2013
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills Walking Tour with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Saturday- September 28, 2013
Newtown Creek Boat Tour with the Working Harbor Committee- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
abysmal descent
I’ve got 99 problems, here’s three.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At least once a day, and moreso as the years have advanced, your humble narrator finds himself unable to maintain consciousness and suddenly finds himself unconscious. During these intervals of helpless autonomic writhing, vast hallucinations occur, and immediately upon reacquiring cogency an enormous disorientation is experienced. Physical symptoms, apparent to all witnesses, include a display of clumsiness and overt muscle stiffness. Additionally, unpleasant expulsions of waste products are urgently required upon a return to regency over the body, which is worrying. This has been happening to me since early childhood, and one wonders how long this condition will last.
I endeavor to increase the resiliency of my psychological infrastructure.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The tender pink envelope in which my viscera and skeleton are contained has- on more than one occasion- been found punctured, blistered, crushed, torn, or slashed open by environmental interactions. Additionally, enormous nervous system signal activity, which I understand as being commonly called “pain”, has been generated by this skinvelope when overexposed to the damaging radiation which emanates from the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself. This too is a problem which has afflicted me for decades.
It is my goal to install some sort of armor about myself, before the next assault is offered.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Little trust exists for my perceptions, either, as I’m all ‘effed up. Some sort of damage exists in the wiring between those sensors which adjoin the outside world and which transmit environmental data into the skull with its underpowered central processing unit. Inability and organic weakness cause one to experience odd intuitions and bizarre ideations, no doubt due to limits and defects in the CPU’s wetware. Perhaps this is why I slavishly record everything I see, an attempt to visually catalog and contain those torrents of information which assault and inform, and explain away that which is witnessed.
Were it only possible to fix and fortify the brain.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, August 10, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– Saturday, August 17, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
trivial impressions
Walking in DUPBO, Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp, in today’s post.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
A dish has two sides, as my dad would remind me whenever my chores included washing dishes, as does my beloved Newtown Creek. The well documented Brooklyn side in Greenpoint teems with eager humans, all of whom wish for a day when a cleaned up Newtown Creek will offer them a playground for kayaking and horticultural pursuits. No critique of such aims is offered or implied by the statement, it just “is.” The Queens side, however, is largely ignored.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
To be fair, folks in Greenpoint can find digs that are less than a block away from the waterway, while over in Queens the population centers are a good distance back from the bulkheads. Most of the waterfront property is cordoned off by corporate fence lines, rail tracks, and highways. The neighborhoods of the northern bank also tend to be clustered around transit arteries like Northern or Queens Boulevards. Additionally, the human infestation here in Queens seems to prefer not to think about Newtown Creek, considering it Brooklyn’s problem.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
This drives a humble narrator near to insanity, of course, as the Newtown Creek derives its name from the Queens side and it is one of the three primary reasons that Long Island City became the “workshop of America” by the “WW1” phase of the second Thirty Years War during the 20th century (1- LIRR, 2- East River, 3- Newtown Creek). The scene pictured in today’s post, incidentally, is part of the FreshDirect truck fleet in DUPBO. FreshDirect, like most of the companies based along the Creek these days, ignores the three advantageous reasons for basing themselves here- rather they’re here simply for proximity to the Midtown Tunnel and access to Midtown Manhattan.
The Newtown Pentacle 