Archive for the ‘Pickman’ Category
rustic words
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recoiling from recent company and time spent amongst the Manhattan elites, your humble narrator retreats into one of his little hobbies, locating and attempting identification of the various hatches observed to be adorning the pavement while aimlessly wandering through the megalopolis.
Contact with the landed gentry and officialdom of that tarted up island on the Hudson often reminds one of the jiggling jowls, legendary flatuence, and debased self obsession of those outrageous and decadent baronial lords found in eighteenth century Germany- resulting in and causing class rage to bubble up within this kid from working class Brooklyn.
from wirednewyork.com
The Manhole Cover Lady maintains an air of mystery. She lives alone in a studio apartment, where her files and photographs — “highly organized,” she says — leave no room for pets. She declines to reveal her age, which is about 50, because she sees herself as “ageless.” She also does not want her borough of origin made public. “Just say I’m a native New Yorker,” she says.
But she makes no secret of her crusade to save the ancient manhole covers, coal-chute covers and vault covers that dapple the city surface by the hundreds of thousands, some of them still-active portals to the netherworld. She estimates that a good 10 percent of the 400 covers featured in her book — “Designs Underfoot: The Art of Manhole Covers in New York City” — have already been paved over or tossed away since its publication in April.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Thin skinned, opinionated, and -by all accounts- at least half mad, I often react to stimuli in uncommon ways.
For example: having dinner at an otherwise elegant and top notch U.S. Parks lodge restaurant on the rim of the Grand Canyon with the long suffering “Our Lady of the Pentacle” a few years ago, the evenings entertainment drove me into similar turf. A quartet of Native American dancers were presented, including two children. Now, this was obviously a “show biz” family which was likely earning good coin for the gig, but I found the scenario of having these Indian kids dancing for a roomful of pale faced conquerors uncomfortable at best.
Frankly, the analogy that came to mind was that this was a minstrel show, or a bunch of Jewish kids dancing merrily to entertain the Nazis. As mentioned, my world is strangely colored, and filtered through a strange and often disturbingly dark glass.
from wikipedia
Hasty generalization is a logical fallacy of faulty generalization by reaching an inductive generalization based on insufficient evidence — essentially making a hasty conclusion without considering all of the variables. In statistics, it may involve basing broad conclusions regarding the statistics of a survey from a small sample group that fails to sufficiently represent an entire population. Its opposite fallacy is called slothful induction, or denying the logical conclusion of an inductive argument (e.g. “it was just a coincidence”).
Context is also relevant; in mathematics, the Pólya conjecture is true for numbers less than 906,150,257, but fails for this number. Assuming something to be true for all numbers when it has been shown for over 906 million cases would not generally be considered hasty, but in mathematics a statement remains a conjecture until it is shown to be universally true.
Hasty generalization can also be a basis for racist beliefs and prejudices, in which inferences regarding a large group is based upon knowledge of only a small sample size of that group.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oddly enough, or logically, every inhabitant of the corridors of power wants to tell me what Newtown Creek is like- followed by their grandiose plans for it. They throw around buzzwords like sustainable, or “green”, peppering their conversation with dire prognostications about climate change and rising sea levels. Cocktail party environmentalists all, few of them have ever visited the watershed and would rather die than visit Queens, let alone Brooklyn.
To the elites of Manhattan, the population and geographic centers of New York City matter little, as long as whatever they flush or throw away disappears reliably down the drain.
from wikipedia
A cognitive bias describes a replicable pattern in perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality. They are the result of distortions in the human mind that always lead to the same pattern of poor judgment, often triggered by a particular situation. Identifying “poor judgment,” or more precisely, a “deviation in judgment,” requires a standard for comparison, i.e. “good judgment”. In scientific investigations of cognitive bias, the source of “good judgment” is that of people outside the situation hypothesized to cause the poor judgment, or, if possible, a set of independently verifiable facts. The existence of most of the particular cognitive biases listed below has been verified empirically in psychology experiments.
Cognitive biases are influenced by evolution and natural selection pressure. Some are presumably adaptive and beneficial, for example, because they lead to more effective actions in given contexts or enable faster decisions, when faster decisions are of greater value for reproductive success and survival. Others presumably result from a lack of appropriate mental mechanisms, i.e. a general fault in human brain structure, from the misapplication of a mechanism that is adaptive (beneficial) under different circumstances, or simply from noisy mental processes.
occasionally titanic
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Obsequious sarcasm will no doubt greet this posting, given the notion propagated by area wags that the Newtown Creek watershed is irrevocably poisoned, but early last week an expedition was mounted along the bulkheads whose express goal was to count and identify those avian lifeforms which inhabit its legend haunted shores.
Organized by the Newtown Creek Alliance Executive Director herself, our small party met in the wee hours of the morning at a coffee shop familiar to all residents of Long Island City and sallied forth.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Two field experts consented to this mission, both familiar with the mores of ornithological clade and classification. Our group visited several sites which have often displayed a surprising diversity of birds, and over the course of our little expedition they described eleven distinct specie.
Every time that your humble narrator attempts to name a bird, corrections flood in, and accordingly this link is offered to the birdsbugsbuds.com blog by Shari Romar (who was one of the folks who undertook this trip) for genus, family, or common name. Additionally, Ross Diamond wrote a description of the day at this Newtown Creek Alliance page (wonder who that weirdo in the red baseball cap is, standing on the fence like he owns the place).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the spots decided on for this mission was obvious, as the multiple decade long abandonment of the Maspeth Creek tributary by industrial interests has resulted in the formation of significant “habitat” along its wooded shorelines. Cursed by a large CSO (Combined Sewer Outfall) at its terminus, Maspeth Creek often exhibits large slicks of garbage, fats, and other sediments which find their way into the wastewater flow. Nevertheless, the decaying shorelines provide ample purchase for coastal grasses and other marsh plants to grow.
This vegetation, in turn, offers hiding places for small fish and crustacea which attract birds.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Maspeth Creek has been, and often still is, used as an illegal dump- of course. These sunken automobiles are de facto “iconic” Newtown Creek shots, and often photographed by thrill seeking urban explorers- including your humble narrator.
What made my morning, however, was the cormorant hunting in the waters amongst them. As described in earlier posts, and by all accounts, there is a startling diversity of benthic and littoral life to be found here- in waters recently described by at least one NY State environmental official as “anoxic, and a dead sea”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Firmly held, your humble narrator clings to the belief that if the human infestation could only forget about finding new ways to exploit Newtown Creek and it’s tributaries- whether it be burning garbage to generate electricity, or the installation of vast new populations along its shores, or just finding a way to not have raw sewage belch filth directly into the water every time it rains– that nature itself would and could perform the necessary remediation of its poisons.
Adaptation and the evolutionary process, rather than some cold and industrial methodology, might be all that is required.
On the other hand, some mutant race of atavist cormorants might arise from the Newtown Creek, leading to the extinction of mankind itself so maybe we should just pave over the place- as suggested by certain members of the aforementioned community referred to as “area wags” at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
Project Firebox 45
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Appearing suddenly, in the manner of some disemboweled hollywood revenant, this soldier of the realm stands proudly at the border between residential and industrial sectors in eastern Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
certain villagers
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent business brought me to the Greenpoint section of infinite Brooklyn, which offered your humble narrator an opportunity to get high.
Pop cultural references aside, what that meant was a trip to the roof of the so called Pencil Factory, and the chance to slide my lens around the unobstructed vista of the alluvial plane which lies between Newtown Creek, the former Bushwick Creek, and the East River.
from wikipedia
An alluvial plain is a largely flat landform created by the deposition of sediment over a long period of time by one or more rivers coming from highland regions, from which alluvial soil forms. A floodplain is part of the process, being the smaller area over which the rivers flood at a particular period of time, whereas the alluvial plain is the larger area representing the region over which the floodplains have shifted over geological time.
As the highlands erode due to weathering and water flow, the sediment from the hills is transported to the lower plain. Various creeks will carry the water further to a river, lake, bay, or ocean. As the sediments are deposited during flood conditions in the floodplain of a creek, the elevation of the floodplain will be raised. As this reduces the channel floodwater capacity, the creek will, over time, seek new, lower paths, forming a meander (a curving sinuous path). The leftover higher locations, typically natural levees at the margins of the flood channel, will themselves be eroded by lateral stream erosion and from local rainfall and possibly wind transport if the climate is arid and does not support soil-holding grasses. These processes, over geologic time, will form the plain, a region with little relief (local changes in elevation), yet with a constant but small slope.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The pencil factory of the Eberhard Faber company, recently converted to luxury apartments, from above. Often has it occurred to me that this most be how the elites of Manhattan perceive the North Brooklyn and Western Queens communities, as if from above and with the perspective of Olympians.
from nycgovparks.org
The native Keshaechqueren originally inhabited this part of Brooklyn. Dutch mercantilists and farmers, arriving in 1638, rapidly developed it into a hub of seafaring commerce. In the 1850s, the community swelled with new residents, of primarily Irish and English descent, when two ferry lines began regularly scheduled runs from the Greenpoint coastline to Manhattan’s East Side. With the almost simultaneous addition of big businesses like the shipbuilding firm Continental Iron Works and fuel provider Astral Oil Works, Greenpoint began to compete on a national level with older naval foundries in Boston and Norfolk.
From the decades following the Civil War through the 20th century, Greenpoint’s population has steadily grown. In the early 1950s, the community began to suffer strain as several waves of immigration met with limited economic opportunities in the neighborhood.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The red building in the right of the shot, for instance, houses one of my favorite saloons in this section- also known as the “Pencil Factory”. They serve hard cider in a pint glass with ice during the summer, and that’s what’s known as “local knowledge”. Can’t see that from up here.
Of course, this angle of view precludes one from understanding the truth of these places, the life and cultural norms of the street, and reduces the population housed therein to statistical groups with the status of mere tenants (from a macro historical and sociological point of view) in a “district”. This isn’t a district, this is a neighborhood.
Hmmm, I guess these Eberhard Faber folks must have been a big deal.
from nyc.gov
The company first opened a factory in Manhattan near 42nd Street and the East River in 1861 as the U.S. branch of Germany’s A.W. Faber Company, a pencil manufacturing company dating to the mid-18th century. In 1872, Eberhard Faber, the great grandson of the company’s founder, moved the operation to Brooklyn after the Manhattan plant – the first pencil manufacturer in the United States — was destroyed by fire.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shapes on the far horizon in the shot above are all in Queens, and the dark dome of vegetation are those trees fed by the morbid nutritions of Calvary Cemetery. The reason why this part of Greenpoint Avenue is so wide is that it was built to accommodate the street car lines going to and from Calvary, which met the ferry docks not too far from where the so called “transmitter park” is found today.
from “A history of the city of Brooklyn By Henry Reed Stiles” courtesy google books
The Green-point Ferries are from the foot of Green-Point Avenue, Brooklyn, E. D., to the foot of East Tenth and East Twenty-Third streets, New York. The first named route was established in 1852 (lease dated 1850), by the efforts of Mr. Neziah Bliss, of Green-Point; and was soon transferred to Mr. Shepard Knapp, being now held by G. Lee Knapp. The Twenty-Third street route was established in 1857, and held by St. Patrick’s Cathedral, per G. Lee Knapp. Rent of the Tenth street ferry, $1,300, and of the Twenty-Third street, $600 per annum, both expiring in 1874.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Remains of the Greenpoint Terminal Market, immolated just a few years ago, persist on the riverfront. They await the application of venture capital and the blade of earth moving equipment, and will begin a conversion to towers of steel and glass.
Soon, one will not be able to see the spectacle of the Shining City of Manhattan from Greenpoint, except via regulated and officially decided “sight lines” or “visual corridors” offered by gaps between high rise apartment buildings- or if you happen to live in one of them.
Just like in Long Island City.
from the “DIGEST OF SPECIAL STATUTES By THE CITY OF NEW YORK” courtesy google books
1865: This act incorporates the Green Point and Calvary Railroad Company, and authorizes the construction of a railroad, to be operated by horse power only, from at or near the Green Point and Tenth street ferry, at the foot of Green Point avenue, in the city of Brooklyn, thence along Green Point avenue to Green Point avenue plank road, across the bridge over Newtown creek; thence easterly along said road to the easterly side of Calvary cemetery at or near the point where the, said road intersects the main road leading from Calvary cemetery to Hunter’s Point; thence to Central avenue; thence along Central avenue and Commercial street to Franklin avenue, to Freeman street, to Washington street, to the place of beginning.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One view which will remain unoccluded for the foreseeable future, of course, is that which is enjoyed by some hideous thing which cannot possibly exist or lurk within the cupola of a Sapphire Megalith in Long Island City.
Such an entity- with its singular and unblinking eye casting about rapaciously, a global army of loyal acolytes and fanatic employees, and a desire to devour all the wealth that there is, was, or ever will be- this hungry and impossible thing which would be “too big to fail”- were it not entirely mythical- what perspectives on the transformations of North Brooklyn could it offer from atop its hildskjalf?
Of course, such paranoid wonderings often occur, when one spends his time getting high in Greenpoint.
from nyc.gov
Greenpoint is generally defined as the district bounded by North 7 Street on the south, the East River on the West, Newton Creek on the north and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway on the east, corresponding approximately to the area of ward 17 in the 19 century. th
Once also known as Cherry Point, Greenpoint, got its name from the eponymous spit of grassy land that extended into the East River near the foot of what later became Freeman Street. The name came to designate all of the 17 ward when Greenpoint, Bushwick, and Williamsburg were joined to Brooklyn in 1854. At that time, the 17 ward was home to approximately 15,000 inhabitants. A sandy bluff, over one hundred feet high in some parts, overlooked the shoreline between Java and Milton Streets, but it was leveled before the middle of the 19 century for use as building material and landfill both in New York and locally. The original Greenpoint spit disappeared between 1855 and 1868 when the western half of the blocks along the once white sandy shoreline west of West Street were created by landfilling. During this period, the blocks west of Commerce Street between Ash and Eagle Streets were also created or in the process of being filled.
breakers lacerated
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last Saturday, after conducting a walking tour of Dutch Kills for a group of enthusiasts, your humble narrator found himself walking up 35th street, and upon arriving at the street’s intersections with both 38th avenue and Northern Blvd.- I was moving past the titan Packard building.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Engaged in conversation with Our Lady of the Pentacle, who helped out with the tour, I suddenly felt as if someone might be throwing crumpled up bits of paper at my back. Spinning around to confront my attacker, this swarm of bees was observed.
It had been bees bouncing off my back!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the things I’ve learned about Queens is this- if something “should be done or said”, no one is going to do it, so you’d better do it yourself. Our Lady of the Pentacle sighed at this point and walked up the block to find a shady spot to sit down while I crossed the street and yelled “BEEs” at anyone who approached this spot.
After many years of marriage to one such as myself, she knew that the following would take a while and she might as well get comfortable.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I called 911, and told the operator that there were a lot of bees swarming on the same corner as a subway stop, and was told that that’s not an emergency and that I should call 311. With a hearty “yes ma’am” I hung up and called 311.
The operator listened to my description of the situation, and asked me if I had contacted the property owner about the situation.
Attempting to explain that I was attempting to report a dangerous situation here on the streets of Queens, she interrupted me and chided that “I wasn’t letting her talk”. There no way, of course, that this situation would have been dealt with differently if I was calling about such a situation in say… Manhattan.
She continued that “bees are part of nature and that the City of New York doesn’t mess with nature”.
