Archive for the ‘newtown creek’ Category
In the cold waste 3
This is the 163rd posting of the Newtown Pentacle, last one of 2009, and just about 6 months into this little project. Halfway through writing this, I had to evacuate the building due to a fire in another apartment. NYFD was prompt and performed their work in the normal fashion. Thanks Guys, and Happy New Year… now on with the dirge, apostasy, and dire prophecies…
Gondor, or Manhattan- from recently completed sections of Gantry Plaza State Park – photo by Mitch Waxman
The new East River Parks are magnificent and welcome additions to the waterfront, a tony garland showcasing the shining shield wall of Manhattan, and a value adding loss leader for landlords to dazzle the prospective Tower People with. Queensbridge Park was similarly awe inspiring upon its completion in the 3rd incarnation of Ravenswood, until things went horribly wrong in the Housing Complex it was designed to serve and the vain optimists in City government lost interest in funding it.
Today, its bulkheads are collapsing into the river and the muddy ball fields and patchy lawns are shoddy at best. Perhaps the experiences of the Tower People will be different as the calendar pages roll by, here in the Newtown Pentacle.
From the Wheelspur Yard road crossing beneath the Pulaski Bridge – photo by Mitch Waxman
The story of Long Island City, as one proceeds south, is told in steel and concrete. Leave the modern world, which is possible in Long Island CIty, and see the apotheosis of victorian aspirations. The industrial past of the 19th century, whose cracked pavement and toxic inheritances define the modern era, can be accessed merely by crossing the street. By 2020, the Manhattan Skyline will be hidden behind even more Tower Condos, and Hunters Point will accommodate some 5,000 new housing units. Hotels and Parks are also planned.
All the while, the City is closing Queens Fire Houses and Hospitals.
LIE from the Pulaski Bridge – photo by Mitch Waxman
Surmount the Pulaski Bridge, but do not touch it with your bare skin. From here, the early and mid 20th century is visible. Witness a steel highway- Robert Moses’s LIE soaring over “the empty corridor“. It once carried the terrified middle class away from a troubled mid and late 20th century New York, in the manner of some open artery, creating the vast populations of suburban Long Island. It also blighted and depopulated western Queens, turning the valuable industrial land it shadowed into empty warehouses and abandoned brick lots. For the last half of the 20th century, Long Island City and the surrounding communities became ethnic ghettos and crime infested wards of municipal indifference. In this mid century midden, the rats ruled, and rat kings ruled over all.
Open air warehouse at Newtown Creek – photo by Mitch Waxman
And then there is the Creek. The Newtown Creek. I have a lot of purple prose fun with the Newtown Creek- these quotes are culled from various postings-
“I’d rather drink a glass of that queerly coloured effluviam which flows lugubriously through a crucible of dictatorial capitalism called the Newtown Creek.”
“just a little bit of the chemical recipe that produces an anaerobic broth like that found in the Newtown Creek”
“VOC’s are amongst the primary pollutants fouling the waters of a nearby cautionary tale called the Newtown Creek.”
“and indeed- swirling within a nearby cataract of tears called the Newtown Creek”
“which I attribute to the possibly mutagenic qualities of the chemical pollution of that nearby extinction of hope called the Newtown Creek.”
“languidly across that gelatinous slick of black water- called the Newtown Creek- triggered its horns”
“The secular spectacular merely whets the appetite of your humble narrator for the open skies and sacred vantages found along those unhallowed backwaters of an urban catastrophe called the Newtown Creek.”
“The motive engines of the Pulaski began grinding in those deep pilings sunken on both sides of that vexing mystery called the Newtown Creek”
” is powered, fed, and flushed by that which may be found around a shimmering ribbon of abnormality called the Newtown Creek.”
“flabby jowled, staring eyed, scaly group which had been tormenting me- and whose apparent leader was a young girl carrying a curiously polydactyl cat whose aspect “I did not like”- were running off in the direction of that stygian cataract called the Newtown Creek”
There is actually nothing funny about the Creek, its a sobering subject, but I do my best to keep things light. One of the maddening facts though, is that the open air warehouse observed above, is designated to become a City Park as the Hunters Point South phase of the Queenswest development gets rolling in 2010.
Still Waters Run Deep – photo by Mitch Waxman
The EPA comment period on the issue of “superfunding the creek” has just ended, and as expected, the Oligarchs of Manhattan have rendered their opinion that the Creek should remain under their jurisdiction.
Did you think, honestly, that City Hall is going to cede control over a 4 x1 mile strip of Brooklyn and Queens to Washington without a fight?
That’s what Superfund means, the feds TAKE OVER, for as long as it will take to clean up the mess. They will fine whoever they want to for whatever they want to, issue orders that MUST be followed by commoner and king alike, and will not take “NO” or “That isn’t possible in this climate” as an answer. In the case of the Newtown Creek, the estimates for completion of project (at the medium estimate) are 30-45 years (45 years ago in 1963, John Kennedy had just been assassinated in November and LBJ was president). A river of federal money will flush out the Newtown Creek, but the tide is going to hit the masters across the river in Manhattan.
Our fellow citizens in the Western States have been chaffing under the authority of the EPA for a long time, which has created an electoral preference for smaller and less intrusive government policy amongst the citizenry. A lack of “institutional memory”, a disturbing modern trend easily blamed on a 4th estate owned and operated by real estate interests, is a smoking volcano.
Your Humble Narrator – photo by Mitch Waxman
It is the end of a year of change- but all years are “years of change”. New York, and the United States on the whole, continue their trend toward apathy and quasi-fascism.
- The rich are always right- for by virtue of their fortunes they are proven so
- Our enemies are all around us- and we must consider which rights to trade away in the name of security
- Endless is war, with new fronts opening in Northern Africa and the Far East as we speak (did you notice how fast the story of “the underwear bomber” came together?)
- The burdens of the social contract suddenly seem to be too much to bear as the Baby Boomer population begins to retire.
Ceasar is just a few years away now, and will choose to reveal him or her self shortly- and offer clarity and purpose to the masses- who will love their Ceasar, along with the bread and circuses.
And all the poisons in the mud will leach out.
In the cold waste 2
from Vernon Blvd., Queensboro – photo by Mitch Waxman
Despite fingertips bleached to parchment white by biting wind and polar conditions, the cold waste beckons, and your humble narrator perseveres.
The relict shores of Ravenswood’s 3rd world persist in atavist glory at Vernon Blvd. and 44th drive, near the Gordon Triangle, which is what passes for a city park in this stronghold of the Oligarchs.
Brutal realities confront one here, 1 and 2 family homes still can be found, abutting vast victorian mill buildings converted to warehouse duty in the early 20th century. Fingerprints, left by the fattened digits of the masters, greasily smear across the neighborhood- every “available” sign on a relict warehouse is a signal of avarice and intent.
Taxis parked – photo by Mitch Waxman
At 46th avenue, the brick horizon opens, and a glimpse of the shining city is offered. Soon, this viewpoint and vantage will be occluded by yet another high rise spire, a warehouse offered to white collar laborers. Where will the unwashed who cook- and clean- and build- live and work when this 3rd world is gone- ground beneath the jeweled heel of progress?
The children of these new residents- where will they play and go to school? What will happen to the fragile infrastructure of 19th century streets, where wounds to the modern asphalt reveal victorian cobblestones? Why is the municipality not requiring the construction of new subway stations and schools, or at least sewers, from these Oligarchs for the rapacious profits they will garner from these grand projects?
Soil remediation tent – photo by Mitch Waxman
All the poisons in the mud will leach out, in the end.
The parable is exemplified at Anable Basin, at 5th street, where a second attempt at remediating the industrial history and unmentioned past of Ravenswood and Hunters Point is underway. This extant of the QueensWest development, whose previous metastasizes eradicated the historic district between the LIRR powerhouse and the LIRR Gantry docks, is troubled by environmental concerns that have postponed the plans of the masters.
Lessons learned there have been incorporated by the municipal chamberlins and chancellors, to avoid such expensive delays in a newer and larger project called Queens South just beginning at Hunters Point.
Megalopolis and Brownfield – photo by Mitch Waxman
Home sweet hell, New York City, the vast human hive.
The cement goddess is mother and home, school and prison, always a battleground- it produces children who are survivalist predators. When we walk the earth, New Yorkers are tigers amongst simpler peoples who didn’t have to endure living with… other New Yorkers.
There is a mind set amongst the rich in New York, and there always has been, that the poor can be saved by example- by having the poor live “as we do”. All of the afflictions of poverty can be alleviated- if not cured. Progressive Reformer or New Law Tenement or Urban Renewal or Gentrification or Upzoning, call it what you want- but Caesar is building the new Roman slums in an entirely inorganic fashion. This neighborhood used to be an industrial center, and then a junkyard, and that’s the reason why the ground is poison.
The industrial revolution happened. Here.
Testing Wells- May 30, 2009 – photo by Mitch Waxman
I am not a fan of vertical tower dwellings whose price of entry is designed to bring a non homologous population into an existing ethnic neighborhood as I can predict what will happen a generation or two from now, but I don’t own the land.
True ownership allows untrammeled discretion- if I own a car, I can set it on fire if I wanted to. If I own a house, I can knock out all the walls if I wanted to. If I could erect a forty story statue of my little dog Zuzu directly across the river from the United Nations building- that would robotically defend the city against giant Cat or Squirrel attack of course- it would be my business- because its my property. Why, though, would the City of New York instead encourage me to build an apartment house on a contaminated site instead of accepting the nature of the place and dedicating it to some acceptable usage? Could it just be the installation of a certain demographic and tax bracket into an overwhelmingly low and middle income neighborhood would benefit the status quo over in Manhattan?
Again, I’m just some guy, who doesn’t own anything. They’re rich guys, and in modern America, rich means you’re right- so what does it matter what I think?
Waste Barrels- June 29, 2009 – photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been haunting this place for a while.
Fascinating little project they have going on, which has actually activated some community activism amongst the new residents of Long Island City- the Tower People. Not bad folks these Tower People, on the whole, despite being a denigrated group referred to with smirks and winks by long time LIC’ers. Degreed and lettered professionals on the whole, they are a legion of bankers and lawyers who exist in the warren shadows of Manhattan’s financial district and turbulent midtown by day, but they turn Long Island City from a neighborhood into a dormitory.
A narrow enough lensing of the past can create causality from coincidence, but if you think that Battery Park City or Jersey City is city planning at its best, you’re going to love the new Long Island City.
Brownfield Work Site – photo by Mitch Waxman
The only buy-in for the community at large to enjoy are the production of riverfront parklands, which are remarkable, from which you may admire Manhattan while ignoring Queens stretching out behind you.
A recent article found at Queenscrap describes the cost of maintaining NYC parks at an astounding $10,000 per acre. Using this metric, Calvary Cemetery would need to raise $720,000 per year for groundskeeping, the average suburban golf course would have yearly expenditures measured in the millions, and a midwestern farm would incur costs in the tens of millions to maintain their lands let alone harvest them. I do believe that the journalists out there should take a close look at the Parks Dept. if this number is accurate. Just to be clear, as acreage is an old fashioned measurement not used commonly in the urban setting, that’s a square which is 208 feet and 8 inches on a side. The riverfront parks associated with Queens West will cost as much as $100,000 per acre.
Brownfield Work Site – photo by Mitch Waxman
9.5 acres, and owned by Rockrose Development (which has recently transformed itself into another corporate entity), this is the future home of four residential towers. As of April 2008, some 80,000 tons of contaminants had been removed from the site at a cost of $31 million. Standard Oil sited an oil refinery here in the 1860’s, and the soil is contaminated with Benzene, Petroleum Distillates, and volatile organic chemicals whose detected presence – in trace amounts- would cause the regular NYFD to evacuate and call in their HAZMAT teams.
Additionally, generations of untreated sewage and industrial pollution swirl and mix with the water table of the East River in the deeply cold gravels and blackened mud beneath the place. Sources also reveal that the “clean fill” being used to replace the contaminated substrates that were removed in the remediation process emanates from the tunnel being bored out from under the East River by the “East Side Access” project.
Who can guess, what it is, that still may lie hidden down there?
Brownfield Work Site – photo by Mitch Waxman
All the poisons in the mud will leach out, in the end.
In the cold waste 1
from Vernon Blvd., Queensbridge Park – photo by Mitch Waxman
Fearful that I’ve drifted too far into the prurient and macabre aspects of the Newtown Pentacle, haunted by notions that infected me at Calvary and Zion, my wanderings of late have been familiar and “safe” ones along well traveled streets. Of course, with the arrival of winter, I have been burdened by the many layers of insulation my frail physique commands.
Simple coastal walks, through the soot choked brutalities of northwestern Queens, along the East River. Above, Queensboro thunders away , thrumming out ultrasonic scalar waves in the manner of some vast steel cello, with its eternal vehicle and subway traffic a bow etching against concretized fret boards.
from Vernon Blvd., Queensbridge Park – photo by Mitch Waxman
Through the mist appears the shield wall of Manhattan. Everything in Queens looks toward Manhattan.
Ravenswood, as it was and is known, once was home to mansions and in the early 19th century- luxury yachts docked at its private piers. The noveau riche who lived here were captains of local industry in Long Island City (which at the time was a series of individual villages) whose bellies had become swollen by the profits found in exploiting a thriving, natural, and wholesome body of water called the Newtown Creek.
from Vernon Blvd., Terracotta House and Queensboro Bridge – photo by Mitch Waxman
Further south, beyond the cacophony of Queensboro and its harmonic influences, the last remnant of Ravenswood’s second incarnation as manufacturing center lies in ruin.
After the millionaires, and after a period of their former estates being used as asylums and charity hospitals, came the factories. Unclean, 19th century industry’s only regulation and obligation was to profit. Municipal corruption and indifference to the environment allowed this second iteration of Ravenswood to pollute unbound by sense or statute.
When the 2nd Ravenswood went the way of all flesh, in the early-mid 20th century, the politicians and the banks were waiting.
from 43rd road – photo by Mitch Waxman
The city planners and their cabal of banking interests grabbed what they could by eminent domain and by condemning entire neighborhoods in the name of “urban renewal“, creating “the welfare state” and the Queensbridge Houses, along with thousands of similar “complexes” of public housing which rewrote the map of entire boroughs and even distant satellite cities. The blighting effect of siting these massive silos of poverty on the surrounding communities- however- manifesting the radical crypto fascist architectural theories of LeCorbusier– was an unintended consequence. The third incarnation of Ravenswood.
Megalith from 9th street – photo by Mitch Waxman
When the Megalith was erected, a watchtower for some unholy thing that neither breathes nor lives yet hungers, it signaled the beginning of the Fourth World of Ravenswood. Manufacturing, which somehow survived the 20th century in Long Island City, does not fit the residential and financial business model of this 4th world. Ravenswood will be a gallery of towers, splendid and shining, facing toward the center- toward Manhattan. This corporate version of Ravenswood, the ultimate dream of LeCorbusier.
Queensboro from 9th street – photo by Mitch Waxman
One thing though, concerning this 4th world, which that thing in the Megalith and all the others like it, have not calculated is –
All the poisons in the mud are sure to leach out…
Mt Zion 6- Crystal Oblivion
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Awakening from the dead faint which had ended my ruminations on those oppressions suffered by both Jew and Roma in a war torn exemplar of peasant ignorance and malign oligarchy which is the European Peninsula, your humble narrator noticed the gloaming of late afternoon settling upon the centenarian graveyard and realized that one way or another- an escape must be hazarded from the oblivion of Mount Zion cemetery if I ever desired to return to the yellow brick lanes of Astoria.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The curious singsong chant of those odd children had stopped, and echoing along the tombstones was the sound of wholesome and cheerful laughing. From my vantage, I could discern that the first group of children were fleeing from a second, whose colorful clothing and raven hair marked them as the picturesque crowd I had spotted earlier on 53rd avenue. The flabby jowled, unblinking, scaly group of youths which had been tormenting me- and whose apparent leader was a girl carrying a curiously polydactyl cat whose aspect “I did not like”- were running off in the direction of that stygian cataract called the Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Regaining my composure, I realized that I had found the highest spot in Zion, and watched as the group of dark haired and festively adorned children jeered the fleeing “others”. I turned for a moment, looking south toward Brooklyn, along the gates of a Sanitation Dept. Garbage truck depot. This is a lonely spot, tragic and shunned.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Populated by graves of children, often stillborn, this is the highest point of elevation in Mt. Zion by my estimation. I resolved to make my way for the gates, and felt an eerie tiredness take over me. Cemeteries are uncomfortable places not because of the omnipresent reminders of mortality, but because they remind us that anonymity is the ultimate fate of nearly all of us.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All they were, and had done, and built- the ultimate meaning of themselves- led to centuried silence and the anonymity of the tomb. I’ve been asking myself, lately, why I’ve been so compelled to spend my time with them, instead of amongst the living. A lot of wise old jewish grandmothers are buried here, and my own would say that this recent pursuit is “no good for you, go see a movie instead”.
She also told me, when I told her I intended to follow a career in visual arts, that “all I wanted was to be a bum in the village with a needle in my arm”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Mission Statements – 1 – Breaking character
One of my quasi mystical opinions is that by telling a story, transmitting the lore of civilization from one generation to another, you keep the subject of the story alive- in a sense. We know the story of Beowulf, and Christ, and Churchill. In my ham handed and alliterative patois of pop cultural imagery and historical allusion, this notion of “telling the hero’s story” (with the “hero” being the working class) is part of my motivation behind these explorations. In a sense, I fancy myself as C-3PO telling the story of Luke and Leia to the Ewoks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Mission Statements – 2 – Horns and Dilemmas
A vast and shining monument to future archaeology is what I see the Cemetery Belt of western Queens and North Brooklyn as, awaiting the end of living memory and improved imaging technology. Vast dilemmas of conscience often plague me as I make the “selects” from the hundreds of shots I’ll gather at just one of the many locations explored at the Newtown Pentacle. That’s an identifiable face, or corporate trademark, or the ridiculous laws which require the owner of a skyscraper to approve the publication of an image of their structure. The graveyard stuff is touchy, and I attempt to only show graves of those who died well out of “living memory”, which is a flexible topic for me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Mission Statements – 3 – Contradictions and Logic
Problematic, because it’s self defined, my “living memory” concept is roughly this- if the stone is older than the second world war- I consider it fair game and part of the public record. Saying that, if you’ve seen a gravestone of a relative in one of my shots that you’d really rather not have public, contact me and it’s pulled (I’m not a dick)- just know that the shot was chosen for either its odd qualities or historical significance (like the O’Brien monument in Old Calvary), or because it’s a beautiful piece of sculpture that was chosen to illustrate the esthetic or political milieu of an era I’m trying to describe. Any editorial implications of the accompanying quoted references (from abc.com, in italics) or “humble narrator” copy should be discarded as the product of a sick, cowardly, and weary man who is “all ‘effed up”. No one will visit my grave, Lords and Ladies of Newtown, except to gloat and defecate.
I also never trespass, enter onto Railroad properties uninvited, or use transportation of any kind other than my feet when I’m out on one of my little missions. Kissing the right posterior and being “nice” offers tremendous access to these places, “legally”, and brings insight and opportunity. Why make trouble?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back to the post:
When I passed out of the ancient cemetery, through the western section’s gates, I saw that group of gaily dressed children who had chased off those menacingly mutant urchins that had caused me to faint three times as I hid in the shadows of this garden of obelisks.
One of the oddest moments of the day occurred when a waste hauler’s truck sped down Maurice Avenue at top speed, occluding my view of them for a few seconds, during which they disappeared. Puzzled, I scuttled back to the waiting arms of Astoria, and the entire way I thought I heard the creaking agony of wooden carriage wheels.
Mt Zion 5- Sunken Houses of Sleep
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Steeling myself for the inevitable humiliating encounter with those oddly menacing children who seemed to be waiting for my reemergence on Maurice Avenue, I moved down the hill from the 58th street side of the burial grounds.
Older than my years, vast psychological inadequacies and shameful physical “episodes” render your humble narrator a helpless emotional cripple. Even the thought of direct confrontation with that which may exist around the Newtown Creek- or because of it- is enough to make me lightheaded and coat my skin in cold sweat. Staying out of sight, I broke into a dogtrot instead of my usual scuttle, and continued along the central artery of Mount Zion Cemetery. On the hill is the DSNY’s gargantuan Queens West Garage complex and an accompanying garbage incinerator.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The counterpoint of a Jewish Cemetery next door to an industrial incinerator is obvious and exhibits poor municipal siting, conversely this is probably an ideal location for such industry. Western Queens is the backbone of New York City, from a metropolitan industrial complex’s point of view.
Airports, railroad yards, maritime facilities, petrochemical storage and processing, illegal and legal dumping, sewer plants, waste and recycling facilities, cemeteries. The borders of the Newtown Pentacle’s left ventricle are festooned with heavy industry and the toll taken on the health of both land and population is manifest. A vast national agglutination of technologies and a sprawl of transportation arteries stretching across the continent are all centered on Manhattan- which is powered, fed, and flushed by that which may be found around a shimmering ribbon of abnormality called the Newtown Creek.
from jhom.com
The lion motif was common in the ancient Middle Eastern civilizations as a battling, fighting and attacking force. In the Bible, the lion is portrayed as both capable of destroying and punishing, and of saving and protecting. In ancient Jewish art we find the lions in this protective role, guarding the Holy Ark or at the entrances to the chapel, as in the sculpture of the ancient synagogues at Sardis (in Asia Minor), Horazin and Bar’am (in Palestine), and in many mosaics dating from the early Byzantine period.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
But that’s the “why” of how these people came to be buried in America, of all places.
They weren’t coming to be free (that’s Roosevelt talking), most of them, except to be free of poverty and warfare.
In 1894, when Mrs. Chasnov, (pictured below) was born, the last Tsar of Russia took his throne succeeding his father Tsar Alexander 3. Anarchists were tossing bombs in European capitals, and in New York City- the “Robert Moses” of the 19th century, Andrew Haswell Green, formed the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society.
In 1894, the last known antichrist was only 5 years old, and lived near Linz.
from wikipedia
The stele, as they are called in an archaeological context, is one of the oldest forms of funerary art. Originally, a tombstone was the stone lid of a stone coffin, or the coffin itself, and a gravestone was the stone slab that was laid over a grave. Now all three terms are also used for markers placed at the head of the grave. Originally graves in the 1700s also contained footstones to demarcate the foot end of the grave. Footstones were rarely carved with more than the deceased’s initials and year of death, and many cemeteries and churchyards have removed them to make cutting the grass easier. Note however that in many UK cemeteries the principal, and indeed only, marker is placed at the foot of the grave.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the generation that “it” happened to.
Not these people, of course, who were safe in America- but their cousins and parents and friends who had stayed back in ancient Europe. They saw the Great War play out, displacing millions, and thought that at last the eternal struggles between Hapsburgh and Austrian and Turk and Frenchman and Russian had sorted themselves out.
It wasn’t just Jews, or Irish, or Italians- even the Roma came to America to find work. And the skills possessed by the Cunning Folk were older than the narrow streets of Rome, or the impenetrable complexity of the New York of its time- London, or even the lost city of pillared Irem in the pathless deserts of Arabia.
from nytimes.com
Maspeth is named for the Mespat Indians, who originally settled near what is now Mount Zion Cemetery, on the neighborhood’s edge. In 1642, the first formal colony was established in the area, though conflicts with Indians caused settlers to flee east into what is now Elmhurst.
Mount Olivet Cemetery boasts a much-cherished Manhattan view, and Nathanael West, who wrote “Miss Lonelyhearts” and “The Day of the Locust,” is buried at Mount Zion.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In Europe, hatred of the Hebrew race has some understandable historical underpinnings. The Moorish and Turk governments employed Jews as officials and clerks, often assigning them as tax collectors to the serf and freeman villages of their conquests. After a period of time, when the islamic tide had been pushed back by Russian, German, Pole, and especially the Wallachian and Hungarian states, the Jews were left behind.
When Peter the Great settled Jews in the so-called “Pale”, it was meant to be a punishment for the Szhlactas and Boyars (Barons and Dukes) who had opposed him. Ultimately, anti-semitism is a political thema which took root and transformed into something cultural.
Hatred of the Roma, though, is something else entirely.
from junipercivic.com
In the vicinity of Mount Zion and lower Calvary cemeteries were swamps. Frogs, polywogs, goldfish were plentiful among the tall cattails and were sport for young boys. Punks were plentiful among the cattails, the plump brown ones were cut down, dried in the sun and when lit gave off an aromatic scent that was not only pleasing to the smell, but was said to keep away mosquitoes which were a nuisance.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lingering at the suggestively open door of a tomb, trying to ignore the singsong chant of those menacing children, your humble narrator began to once again feel light headed.
also from junipercivic.com
A short distance away along Maurice Avenue, was a Gypsy Camp. A core group of gypsies lived there permanently and others came from far and wide to visit. Colorfully dressed in gypsy regalia, they danced, sang, and partied, cooking suckling pigs on spits over roaring fires and living in ramshackle huts and tents. For them a carefree existence, but I must admit, for the local lads and lassies a somewhat frightening scene and we watched from afar. When a member of the tribe died, the wake was most often held in Vogel’s Funeral Parlor which was located on Grand Avenue opposite the main entrance to Mount Olivet Cemetery. Gypsies from all around the country would come to pay their respects, especially if the deceased was a member of the Royal family.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Metal working, particularly copper smithing, that’s what the Ludar- or as the modern Croats and Bosnians call them- the Rudari- were famed for and that’s most likely how they ended up in Maspeth. That and their skill in training animals.
Ever wonder why the annual tradition of the Circus trains coming to LIC and Maspeth, with its spectacle of Elephants marching through the Midtown Tunnel, started? The Rudari were animal trainers, as well as being copper workers. The metal shaping work was an inheritance- Rudar means miner- which is what this tribe of Roma was forced to do during their enslavement to the princes of Europe. After their suffrage, they became trainers of bears, monkeys, and horses for circuses.
All this continued in America.
Incidentally, in Romania, the Rudari were known as the Ursari. The royal potentate that ruled over them was the Voivode of the Wallachian Throne, seated high in the Carpathian Mountains, and in the 15th century- that throne was occupied by Vlad Tepes.
Dracula, as known in the west, and the gypsies mentioned in Stoker’s book were the Ursari, or Rudari.
from wikipedia
Following the immigration waves of the 19th century, Maspeth was home to a shanty town of Boyash (Ludar) Gypsies between 1925 and 1939, though this was eventually bulldozed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just what kind of place is this Newtown Pentacle, anyway?
That’s the last thing I thought, another “very bad idea”, before I passed out again in another dead faint.
The Ludar, or “Romanian Gypsies,” also immigrated to the United States during the great immigration from southern and eastern Europe between 1880 and 1914. Most of the Ludar came from northwestern Bosnia. Upon their arrival in the United States they specialized as animal trainers and showpeople, and indeed passenger manifests show bears and monkeys as a major part of their baggage. Most of de Wendler-Funaro’s photographs of this group were taken in Maspeth, a section of the borough of Queens in New York City, where the Ludar created a “village” of homemade shacks that existed from about 1925 to 1939, when it was razed. A similar settlement stood in the Chicago suburbs during the same period.
