Archive for the ‘Pickman’ Category
incessant mixings
It’s National Coconut Torte Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s about three thousand commercial air flights on any given day in the NYC area. This includes helicopters, all three airports, even the sort of goofy water plane you see in the shot above. One such as myself has no desire, or ability, to leave “home sweet hell.” NYC is where everybody else is working to get to, but if you’re born here, that’s already been all sorted out.
Personally speaking, I’d like to just get out of Astoria for a few days, but back to back colds in March and a pulled abdominal muscle at the end of February have kept me on the bench, and the injured list. Into each life a little rain must fall and all that, but jeez…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The good news is that my infirmaties have allowed for catching up on a lot of television shows which all my friends have been rattling on about. One can highly recommend the Marvel “Daredevil” show on Netflix, which purports to be set in Manhattan’s Hells Kitchen but which is shot in Greenpoint, Bushwick, and especially Long Island City. Long time readers of this – your Newtown Pentacle – will likely be thrilled seeing “The Man without Fear” duking it out with an army of Ninjas in LIC’s Degnon Terminal nearby LaGuardia Community College.
In many ways, it confirms something I’ve always believed might be occurring on the rooftops of LIC, but you’d need some sort of aircraft (or maybe a drone) to witness it. The Marvel Netflix series are largely being produced at the Broadway Stages company based in Greenpoint, so it’s an easy reach to see why LIC looms so large in it. Also, Manhattan’s west side doesn’t really look like NYC anymore, due to the real estate craze.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just because a humble narrator switched gears and stopped writing and drawing comics a few years back doesn’t mean that my childhood fascinations have abided. I can also recommend to you Marvel’s “Doctor Strange” film. What does all this have to do with a blog devoted to the history of Newtown Creek and the communities surrounding it?
Nothing, but you’re going to need something to do when that blizzard hits us.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
bleary eyed
It’s National Crown Roast of Pork Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Death – the fear of same, avoidance of said state, and the unavoidability of both circumstances stains my waking hours. Science fiction scenarios involving the transfer of my brain into some electrode laden jar both tempt and torment, as it would needlessly lengthen my existence but offer an extended period of time in which to annoy others. Thing is, everywhere I go, death is already there. Newtown Pentacle HQ is located in a rental apartment in Astoria, and shortly after moving in my landlord and his wife came by for dinner. We chatted, and enjoyed a bottle of wine together, but he refused to answer my query as to whether or not anyone had ever died in my then new domicile which is about a century old (I like to know if its likely a specter or just a rodent making that mysterious noise in the middle of the night).
It’s more than likely, in NYC, that somebody has kicked the bucket in your place if it’s over a certain age. Real estate interests preclude the discussion of such matters, as the reputation of haunted premises tends to depress potential profits by lowering the rental threshold. Nobody wants to live in a haunted house.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This haunted realtor hypothesis of mine is how I explain the relative lack of supernatural lore enjoyed by New York City as compared to other eastern cities of proportionate size and commensurate age. Boston seems to have a ghost in every single home, as does Albany, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, Atlanta, St. Augustine, and especially New Orleans. New York City, on the other hand, saw its first great fortune arise around the Real Estate industry (The Astors). Realtors and property owners have always enjoyed a somewhat unique socioeconomic status in this megalopolis of ours, and accordingly, they control the newspapers. To this day, the number one class of advertisers in any City oriented publication involves real estate. The conspiracy theory I suggest is that there has been a tacit and centuries long agreement between editors, journalists, and the folks who ultimately pay their salaries not to report on poltergeists, phantoms, or noncorporeal bogeymen.
Famously, the most expensive real estate in New York City – in terms of price per square foot – is found in cemeteries. Four square meters in the ground can run you hundreds of thousands of bucks. No wonder ghosts would prefer to just squat inside some living person’s walls, alongside the rat skeletons. I’m actually surprised that the real estate guys haven’t figured out a way to monetize that gap of a few inches which is sandwiched between the slat boards and drywall.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For years, one has joked that when the EPA finally begins dredging out Newtown Creek that NYPD will be closing half of its open missing persons cold case files. I wonder how many human remains came spilling out of the old factory and tenement walls which were demolished in recent years in LIC and Williamsburg. Ever wonder what that weird smell in your apartment was, or where it was coming from? Presumed it was a dead mouse?
It makes one wonder, and more than wonder.
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curious sequel
It’s European Day of the Righteous, in the European Union.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As a note, last week I decided to play around a bit with my camera, in the cause of doing “the opposite of what I normally do.” All of today’s shots were shot with my night lenses set wide open to f1.8. Why? Why not? Gotta mix things up every now and then. I had nothing else to do anyway, as I was early for a meeting in LIC and was just hanging around killing time.
The thing in the sapphire megalith finds everything we mortals do funny.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A curious access – or manhole – cover was spotted along Jackson Avenue at a former Taxi depot which has recently been vacated. No doubt, this site will soon host a gigantic apartment building, of course. The creed on the manhole cover is “NYCTS” which likely indicates it as the property of the MTA (NYC Transit System).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Having little to do and no where else to go, one headed over to the crumbling 51st avenue footbridge in anticipation of watching a LIRR train go by. Given the current expectations of joy which one such as myself expects, this was a rather exciting prospect, and when the railroad’s signal arms descended over Borden Avenue, I was all a twitter.
This is pretty much all I’ve got these days.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the LIRR 7100, and unless I’m mistaken – it’s one the 836 electric M7 electric multiple units that the MTA bought from the Bombardier company and which started service in 2002. It’s moving from the Hunters Point Yard to the Hunters Point Avenue station, after crossing under the Pulaski Bridge and across Borden Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Presuming that I’m correct in naming it as an M7, the train is powered via a non proverbial third rail, just like the NYCTA subway system. I hung around for a little bit and watched the train pass by, as I was still quite early for my meeting.
It was all kind of depressing, actually.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Long Island City has grown so significantly in recent years that this, along with all the other lonely spots which I used to indulge my innate and deep sense of isolation in, was quite crowded. The 51st avenue footbridge which I was squatting upon had a steady stream of pedestrian traffic flowing over it.
Your humble narrator was in the way, as I am in many situations and scenarios.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The LIRR train continued on to the Hunters Point Avenue station where it picked up people who had somewhere to go. I had somewhere to go for a change, so I flopped out the big lens for the small one and headed over to my meeting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The thing in the megalith doesn’t care how any of us feel, just so you know.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
mouldering bulk
It’s National Canadian Bacon Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“Blowing it to bits” is a bit of an exaggeration, as offered by NYC’s tabloid headline writers (and the Governor of New York State), referring to a recently offered plan by the NYS DOT regarding the controlled demolition of the Kosciuszko bridge. Really… this isn’t going to be like the end of the movie Diehard, if anything it’s going to be a bit more like the end of Fight Club.
Documenting this project has been a long standing project of mine – this 2012 post tells you everything you could want to know about Robert Moses, Fiorella LaGuardia, and the origins of the 1939 model Kosciuszko Bridge. Just before construction started, I swept through both the Brooklyn and Queens sides of Newtown Creek in the area I call “DUKBO” – Down Under the Kosciuszko Bridge Onramp. Here’s a 2014 post, and another, showing what things used to look like on the Brooklyn side, and one dating back to 2010, and from 2012 discussing the Queens side – this. Construction started, and this 2014 post offers a look at things. There’s shots from the water of Newtown Creek, in this June 2015 post, and in this September 2015 post, which shows the bridge support towers rising. Additionally, this post from March of 2016 detailed the action on the Queens side. Most recently, here’s one from May of 2016, and one from June of the same year. Here’s one from August of 2016, and finally the December 2016 one.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The NYS DOT held two meetings this week, one of which I attended, in which they described their plans. First – the central truss removal plan no longer involves the usage of maritime cranes. What their engineers described instead was the construction of four temporary towers which would support machinery which they described as “strand jacks,” which would lower the central truss down to couple of waiting flat top barges. Welding torches would be used to sever the truss’s links to the bridge superstructure, after the strand jacks are attached to support its weight. The truss will be lowered and secured to the barges, whereupon tugboats would guide it westward out of Newtown Creek, and across the harbor to New Jersey where its steel will be recycled.
They indicated this process would play out sometime around the end of April or the beginning of May. The DOT folks were quite vague about specific dates, saying that these were probable time frames but that they couldn’t commit to specifics at this point in time. This is problematic for me, personally, as I’m in the process of negotiating for boats to do Newtown Creek tours this summer, and the procedure described above includes the closure of the creek to all traffic for a couple of days. Worry, worry.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are two steel towers on either side of the Newtown Creek, which the engineering people indicated would be removed using conventional means (torches and cranes). Beyond the two steel towers, there are 21 spans supported by concrete piers – 10 in Brooklyn and 11 in Queens – which support roadway sections that range between large 230 foot long and 800 ton units and smaller ones that are 120 feet long which weigh in at 2-300 tons. These sections are the ones that DOT and the contractor partnership working for them are proposing to use the explosives on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The explosives used, and it should be mentioned that the very conservative FDNY Explosives Unit was present and participating in the discussion, would be shaped charges. What that means is that these things are essentially copper bars with high explosive material attached. The charges are placed at critical structural points on the bridge sections, and when their detonation is triggered, the copper chops right through the steel like a knife through butter. The sections which the explosives will be attached to will be “wrapped in filter fabric and conveyor belting equipment,” as they told us. It’s all very complicated.
The detonation will introduce structural deficits into the bridge sections, which will cause them to collapse in a controlled manner, effectively dropping straight down with little or no flyaway debris. There will be dust on impact with the ground, of course, which is a bit of a concern but the engineers say they have techniques to control that too.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Vibration from the dropping sections – which again, weigh anywhere between 200 and 800 tons – is a concern, and the engineering folks described a series of dampening and avoidance technologies and techniques to handle that. These involved building engineered soil berms with internal steel structures, digging trenches, and so on. To be honest, I’m a bit concerned about what will amount to a seismic event, given the proximity of Calvary Cemetery and the somewhat ancient building industrial stock of West Maspeth and Eastern Greenpoint, but the FDNY guys seemed cool with it all.
As I said during the meeting – “If an FDNY Deputy Chief told me to go jump off the bridge, I’d probably listen to him or her,” but I have a more than normal level of respect for the FDNY’s opinions. One of the guys speaking at the meeting was a deputy chief, as a note.
As you may notice from the shot above, and the reason this whole demolition story is flying around, is that the DOT and their contractors are nearly done with constructing the eastern half of the new bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The 200,000 units a day of vehicle traffic carried by the Brooklyn Queens Expressway will soon be rerouted onto the new bridge, at which point the old bridge is irrelevant and in the way. A twin of the new bridge will then be erected on its footprints. As often mentioned in the past – this western side of the new span will include a pedestrian and bicycle path.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In West Maspeth, once called Berlinville, you’ll find the sections of the roadway sitting on truck trailers and awaiting insertion into the span. Based on what I’m seeing, they should be installed shortly, and my guess would be that sometime in March the new span over Newtown Creek will be complete.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One thing which I’m looking forward to in 2017 is a promised walk with the DOT over the new bridge shortly before traffic is rerouted. They’ve been a little vague as to when this will happen, but they have said repeatedly that it will occur. As a note, those are the tracks of the Lower Montauk branch of the LIRR, and a section of them known historically as “Deadman’s Curve.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Anywho, that’s your Kosciuszko Bridge replacement project update for the first quarter of 2017, see you on Monday at this – your Newtown Pentacle – with something completely different.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
double steps
It’s both National Pig Day, AND it’s concurrently National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To start, one is not entirely sure why it is that our culture ever abandoned the paper grocery bag in favor of the plastic ones, but I have my suspicions that something inhuman was involved with the decision.
I remember the transition… when the paper grocery bag was used as the core and a plastic bag as the outer shell… sometime during the late 1980’s. Paper bags, which made for a fine series of secondary uses such as school book covers and drawing paper, were phased out entirely by the 1990’s. Today, we can’t get rid of the things. Given the nature of the recycling industry, which is always desperately seeking new customers for paper pulp and the like, wouldn’t it make a bit of sense for our elected officials to embrace the return of biodegradable paper bags made from recycled cardboard and paper? Wouldn’t that enrich their constituents and donors in the waste handling industry, nourish the recycling economy, and help end the plague of flyaway plastic carrier bags? This used to be an industry absolutely owned top to bottom by the Orthodox Jews of Brooklyn, incidentally, rather than foreign plastics factories. The old brown paper bags would just melt away in the rain, you may recall, whereas the somewhat immortal plastic ones have become wind blown nuisances.
I’m talking to you Simcha Felder, or @NYSenatorFelder, if you like. I’m watching you, since you were opposed to doing away with the plastic ones, as to what your solution is to this problem.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Speaking of watching – that all knowing thing which cannot possibly exist in the cupola of LIC’s Sapphire Megalith, which stares down upon the world of men through its three lobed burning eye, has been on my mind of late. It does not breathe, nor sleep. “Too big to fail” is how occultists might refer to it, but all that one can say confidentially about it cannot be repeated in open parlance for fear of angering its global army of mortal acolytes. Anarchists and regulators have attempted to control or destroy it over the two and change centuries after the thing first revealed itself in 1812, but it is beyond the power of mortal man to do anything but annoy the thing in the megalith.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are occult constructs which might attempt to explain it. Its material origins lie with the Astor family, but the modern incarnation is strictly the work of the Rockefellers. There comes a moment in an Oligarch’s life when they ask “is this all there is?” and the path to perfidy opens before them. Just as Dr. Dee found his place beside the throne of England, and Cagliostro found himself in elevated positions in both Papal Rome and Versailles, the idyll of the wealthy often leads to occultism and the harnessing of “things” better left unknown.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Famously, the Sapphire Megalith of Long Island City encompasses 54 stories. Four of those floors are below the ground, 50 above. Rumor has it that there are unacknowleged levels which extend below the ground, so is it “as above, so below”? The Jewish Pentateuch (or Torah) is divided into 54 weekly sections. There are 54 volumes in the the Buddhist Tripitaka, and the word wisdom appears some 54 times in the New Testament of the Christians. In the I Ching, the number 54 is indicated via the Kwei Mei hexagram, indicating that (under the conditions which it denotes) any action undertaken will be evil, and in no way advantageous.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The inhuman thing which lurks within the cupola of the Sapphire Megalith of Long Island City would have no time for any of this mortal occultist claptrap, of course, if it actually existed.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 