Archive for the ‘Pickman’ Category
mural history
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wandering around Calvary Cemetery is often a revelatory experience, and while perambulating through the hallows of Section 9 the other day, the shock of sudden recognition nearly laid me low. While scanning the monolith studded landscape for certain things which cannot be mentioned, the name of one of history’s most famous New Yorkers suddenly appeared before me.
Steve Brodie… The man who jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge and lived to talk about it.
Steve Brodie, photo courtesy Wikipedia
also from wikipedia
Steve Brodie (December 25, 1861 – January 31, 1901) was an American from New York City who claimed to have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and survived on July 23, 1886. The resulting publicity from the supposed jump, whose veracity was disputed, gave Brodie publicity, a thriving saloon and a career as an actor.
Brodie’s fame persisted long past his death, with Brodie portrayed in films and with the slang terms “taking a Brodie” and “Brodie” entering the language for “taking a chance” and “suicidal leap.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There weren’t just three major newspapers in 1886, there were hundreds, and the proto “media” ate up Steve Brodie’s story, turning him into a celebrity. From all accounts, Brodie found every advantage offered by fame- opening a swank saloon on the Bowery and starring in a popular play about his exploits.
He would always be known as the “bridge jumper”.
from nytimes.com
A tall, slim man, who looked very much like an overgrown street boy, stood talking to a young woman at the New-York end of the Brooklyn bridge a little after 2 o’clock yesterday afternoon. He bade her good-bye and kissed her.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The scourge of the 19th century was “consumption”, or as we call it “tuberculosis”, and Brodie took ill. Like other “lungers”, it was thought that the dry air of the southwest would aid him in fighting the affliction and he packed off for San Antonio in Texas.
That’s where he died.
from nytimes.com
The body was taken to Calvary Cemetery for burial. A crowd of 500 or 600 men, women, and children, attracted by curiosity remained in the streets during the services at the house, and many of them followed the funeral cortege to Ninety Second Street Ferry on its way to the cemetery.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It is a real shame that someone has decided to pry the probable white bronze marker from the monument, which would have occurred in the empty oval space directly above the names and dates which remain. Such is the case though, and there are many instances of such theft not just at Calvary but at all the cemeteries which comprise the cemetery belt of western Queens.
It’s pretty low to steal from the dead, in one humble narrators opinion.
An interesting analysis of whether or not Mr. Brodie actually made his jump was published by “The Day” in 1986. Click here for the article by Larry McShane.
Steve Brodie, photo courtesy Wikipedia
ALSO, this Friday:
My own attempt at presenting a cogent narrative and historical journey “up the creek” is up coming as well-
Your humble narrator will be narrating humbly on Friday, February 24th at 7:30 P.M. for the“Ridgewood Democratic Club, 60-70 Putnam Avenue, Ridgewood, NY 11385” as the “Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show” is presented to their esteemed group. The club hosts a public meeting, with guests and neighbors welcome, and say that refreshments will be served.
The “Magic Lantern Show” is actually a slideshow, packed with informative text and graphics, wherein we approach and explore the entire Newtown Creek. Every tributary, bridge, and significant spot are examined and illustrated with photography. This virtual tour will be augmented by personal observation and recollection by yours truly, with a question and answer period following.
For those of you who might have seen it last year, the presentation has been streamlined, augmented with new views, and updated with some of the emerging stories about Newtown Creek which have been exclusively reported on at this- your Newtown Pentacle.
For more information, please contact me here.
What: Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show
When: Friday, February 24th at 7:30 P.M.
Where: Ridgewood Democratic Club, 60-70 Putnam Avenue, Ridgewood, NY 11385
demoniac alteration
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Fiery concatenation and syncopated horror haunt my steps whenever visting DUKBO.
Sarcastic and conceit laden, the label I give to this place is nevertheless apropos, for it is very much Down Under the Kosciuszko Bridge Onramp.
Welcome to DUKBO on the Brooklyn side of Newtown Creek- beneath the thrice damned Kosciuszko Bridge. It’s the sort of place which might best be described as either an “M1 industrial zone” or as a “literal hell on earth”.
Either way, it has been like this around here since around the Civil War.
from Harper’s weekly, Volume 38, 1894- courtesy Google books
AN INSALUBRIOUS VALLEY.
The city of Brooklyn, having purged itself of the malodorous political institutions that were so long a blot upon its southern border, might well turn its attention to some nuisances of a more literally malodorous kind that flourish along its northern border, a detailed description of which will be found in another column of the Weekly’. It appears that in an early day the valley of Newtown Creek, which is the boundary between Kings and Queens counties, was selected by various manufacturers as an eligible site for the location of factories. The location was then far on the outskirts of the city, and no doubt quite unobjectionable. A great variety of institutions were set iu operation here, including those useful and necessary but unpleasant factories whose purpose it is to transform the animal refuse of a city into merchantable produce. The gases generated by these factories had an odor almost unendurable, as any one can testify who was accustomed to travel on the Long Island Railroad from the Thirty-fourth Street ferry in years gone by.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Elucidating on J. Rosenberg’s “model tallow rendering factory”, or the infamous Night Soil Dock of Conrad Wissell, or the extant nightmares of the Kings County Chemical works would be superfluous if describing the 19th century industries located on either side of the Newtown Creek as “dirty”.
They were good guys, who at least attempted to reform their industrial practices. It was the smaller operators in the distillery and fat rendering trades who were truly vile, at least according to the historical record.
Describing the transport and storage of rotting butchers scrap, animal waste, rotten eggs, and dead horses- all of which sat stinking in the summer sun while waiting to be weighed by the rendering plant bosses- or envisioning the attendant plagues of insect and rodentine vermin which followed these redolent piles (whose numbers were checked only by the acid rain and those environmental calamities which were caused by unregulated petroleum and chemical interests) from points all over the cities of Brooklyn, Long Island City, and New York would surely be a form of macabre and historical pornography.
However, that’s what the businesses here used as raw materials.
from The Sanitary Era, Volume 1, 1887, courtesy google books
Newtown Creek — No city in the Union has so foul a pest hole at its boundaries as Brooklyn. The sludge acid discharged from the works of the Standard Oil Company seems to possess an ominous potency for stirring up the sewage in the creek, and its black and thickened current seethes with bubbles of sulphuretted hydrogen. The shores, banked with this acid and with nameless filth, empoison the atmosphere at low water, while every rising tide seems to free a new supply of sludge. When to the oil industry is added the manufacture of fertilizers and a plenitude of pigs along Queens County shore, the sources of supply for a great nuisance or a grievous plague are discernible to all but official eyes and nostrils. Newtown Creek should be filled up, though not with sludge acid, and the nuisance makers removed to a distance. Our, Health Commissioner is authority for the statement that “You might as well try to fight the devil as the Standard Oil Company.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There have always been jobs here, the sort of jobs which those who cannot find employment in conventional occupations covet. Topical observation of the area reveals the modern presence of scrap yards, abattoirs, warehouse and trucking concerns, and light manufacturing facilities. Of course, the gargantuan National Grid property is nearby, but that’s a horse of a different shade.
There are a LOT of scrap yards in this little slice, this angle between the neighborhoods of Greenpoint and East Williamsburg, which creates a concentrating point for heavy metals. Of course, this is still preferable to the lagoons of sludge acid and animal waste which distinguished the place 100 years ago.
from The City record, Volume 6, Part 4, 1878, courtesy google books
Newtown Creek for many years has been a source of nuisance. It receives the contents of several of the large sewers ot Brooklyn. From above Penny Bridge to the East river are factories of various descriptions, oil refiners, fat inciters, gut cleaners, distilleries, car stables, super-phosphate factories, ammonia works, varnish works, and last, but not least, immense piles of stable manure, stored for future shipment, the refuse from all of which runs into the creek, and polluting the waters to such an extent as to have killed all the fish.
At low tide acres of land, covered to the depth of several inches with fat, the refuse of the oil-stills, are exposed. At high tide the oily portion of this refuse floats on the surface of the water, still giving forth its characteristic tarry odor. To add to this, many oil works, when the storage tanks are full, run their waste alkali and even their sludge-acid into the creek; in the latter case giving rise to the well known sludge smell.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Faceless, those who labor here find themselves stained with “the colour”, an iridescent sheen permeating the Creeklands that no known detergent can easily remove. These laborers are exposed to precipitate from the endless truck and automotive traffic passing by on the highway and bridge above, a dusty particulate rises from tire shattered roadways, and the very air they breathe is a poisonous fume of industrial chemicals and spent fuel. Live poultry concerns, some quite large, maintain depots here as well. The birds, like the workers, quickly display the colour.
This colour is like no earthly hue, rather it is like something from out of space, and a stark contrast to the Shining City of the western horizon just a few miles away.
from nytimes.com
THE NUISANCES MUST GO; Gov. Flower Says that Newtown Creek Must Be Purified. FIVE FACTORIES ORDERED CLOSED Private Business Not to be Allowed to Jeopardize the Health of Brooklyn and Long Island City
proper turns
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Once upon a time, this wasn’t the proverbial “wrong side of the tracks”, rather this was the center of town. 18th century residents would ask “what on earth could have happened to Maspeth Creek” were they able, and “where is the Town Dock which DeWitt Clinton himself used- where is it”?
What happened?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
19th Century residents and passerby would inquire what disaster occurred, that Haberman’s and Nichols Chemical and all of Berlin and Blissville have disappeared and been forgotten? What has happened to the great factories, the mills, and the hustle and bustle? Where have all the railroads gone, can one paltry freight line actually be charged with servicing all of Newtown Creek?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For your humble narrator, a good place to ponder this sort of question has always been the Clinton Diner.
This little oasis has hosted a full group from a bus tour I helped conduct, acts a central meeting point for all sorts of Newtown Creek functions, and has provided a much needed cup of coffee and clean rest room to a half frozen yet quite humble narrator on more than one occasion.
It’s also sitting pretty much on a shoreline that Maspeth Creek once flowed past.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Accordingly, a “Happy Valentine’s” day shout out to the Clinton Diner is offered today.
It would be meaningless to offer you shots of its interior as it has been featured more than once in the cinema. Witness below the trademark dolly shot of Martin Scorcese in Goodfellas… The window booth that DeNiro and Liotta are sitting in is the one with the “Go Giants” signage in the shot above.
And a happy valentine’s day greeting is offered to you as well, lords and ladies… or a giddy Lupercalia.
The Clinton Diner is found at 5626 Maspeth Ave., Maspeth, NY 11378-2248 (718) 894-3475
traitorous somnolence
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On one of the lonely transmigrations which your humble narrator famously engages in, actually vast pedestrian journeys across the concrete desolations of Western Queens, the walk up 58th street- the former Betts Avenue of colonial era Newtown- might be the loneliest of all. Rimmed by polyandrions of gargantuan acreage, this street hosts no sidewalk to speak of and one must pick ones way in the manner of some roadside mendicant. It is a valley whose cliffs are the masonry walls and iron gates of cemeteries.
This neighborhood is neither Woodside nor Maspeth, it is the angle found between them.
A personal preference is marked for the Eastern side of the street, which follows the stout iron of Mt. Zion’s fences.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The former home of the so called Maspeth Gypsies, a tribe of Romani whose expulsion by Police in the early 20th century is spoken of in hushed whispers by the Centenarians of ancient Maspeth, Mt. Zion is a cemetery set aside for adherents of the Hebrew faith. It is located across the street from the vastness of 3rd Calvary, a Catholic cemetery. Mt. Zion seems crowded, due to the Hebraic tradition of installing a single occupant in a grave, unlike the Roman Catholic institution across the street.
Its residents, at least in this section of the cemetery, are long gone- most of the stones speak to their passing away in a time period long before even rumors of a Second World War became extant in the community.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Peeking through the rotting iron of the fences while trudging along the other day, your humble narrator noticed this small offering hidden away between the cast iron palisade and the first row of graves (or last, were you within the parcel).
Similarities to other instances of peasant magick at St. Michael’s Cemetery in Astoria which have been detailed in prior Newtown Pentacle postings should be remarked upon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Probably “Afro-Cuban” in origin, the possible etymology of this odd tableau is betrayed by the presence of the Cigar. Tobacco plays a large ritual role in the so called syncretic faiths of Latin and Caribbean religions, and the manufactured item is often used as an offering to the Orisha or Loa- as a symbol of sacrificial wealth or as an embodiment of the virility or power of the magick worker.
Of course, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, as the oft quoted (and incorrectly attributed) Freudian saying goes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The aluminum pan leaning against the monument contained a burnt offering of some kind, which appeared to be a textile wrapped around something occluded from view, and mingled with a piece of thin wood or perhaps the shell of a coconut which has been cut into some sort of odd shape.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A closer shot of the arrangement. It would appear that some sort of accelerant was used to accomplish the combustion, something that would have burned off quickly like liquor. The fabric seems charred or singed more than immolated, as if the flames were extinguished quickly.
Of course, your humble narrator is no fire inspector nor arson investigation expert (or an authority on afro-cuban syncretic religious practices for that matter), so these callow observations should be considered mere speculation.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is not the first time which arcane leave behinds have been personally observed along this wall, which you’ll notice is constructed out of tombstones. A photo has been run here of a hand carved mortar and pestle which contained an odd ashy substance. The image dates back several years which implies that acolytes and devotees of whatever these forces which are being invoked here, in the heart of the Cemetery Belt, have been at work for a very long time.
One wonders, and more than wonders- could the so called Maspeth Gypsies tell us a thing or two about these legend haunted lowlands found at this angle between Woodside and Maspeth?
cryptical books
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just to affirm that your humble narrator is a multi disciplinary geek, whose nerd credentials cross into multiple devotions and subjects, today’s post takes us to the Hudson River and specifically- Esopus Island. An unremarkable spit of rock sticking out of the water not far from Kingston, Esopus nevertheless is a touchstone for high weirdness.
If these shots were taken in 1918 rather than 2010- one would have seen a bizarre Englishman crawling along the shorelines painting “Do What Thou Wilt Shall be the Whole of the Law” and “Every Man and Every Woman is a Star” on the stony outcrops in red.
from wikipedia
Crowley began another period of magical work on an island in the Hudson River after buying large amounts of red paint instead of food. Having painted “Do what thou wilt” on the cliffs at both sides of the island, he received gifts from curious visitors. Here at the island he had visions of seeming past lives, though he refused to endorse any theory of what they meant beyond linking them to his unconscious. Towards the end of his stay, he had a shocking experience he linked to “the Chinese wisdom” which made even Thelema appear insignificant.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The self proclaimed “Great Beast” himself, Aleister Crowley spent much of the First World War in New York City, and the wild speculations that he was acting as an agent of British Intelligence during this time just might hold some water. In 1918, that horrible man decided on a “great magical retirement” (he had run out of money and driven at least two women to alcoholism and madness), shaved his head, and borrowed a tent and canoe from one of the many friends whom he cuckolded.
Here’s an image from a postcard depicting Esopus Island in 1907. In his diaries, Crowley called it Oesopus.
from wikipedia
Aleister Crowley (/ˈkroʊli/ kroh-lee; 12 October 1875–1 December 1947), born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other fields, including mountaineering, chess and poetry. In his role as the founder of the Thelemite philosophy, he came to see himself as the prophet who was entrusted with informing humanity that it was entering the new Aeon of Horus in the early twentieth century.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Crowley arrived on the island with scant supplies, and was known to have made a trip back to New York at least once to secure needed items. Local farmers, concerned and curious about their new neighbor, brought comestibles to the odd fellow- a charming and neighborly Yankee tradition. Curiously, the hermit spent his time mediating and translating an ancient Chinese text for his own amusement.
Crowley reported that he experienced an epiphany here, something that would overshadow even his own mystical revelations. Which brings us back to H.P. Lovecraft. For two people who are never supposed to have met, Lovecraft and Crowley had a LOT of friends in common.
from dec.ny.gov
Atlantic sturgeon are the stuff of myth and legends. They are the largest fish to regularly inhabit the Hudson River, reaching 10-12′ in length and weighing in excess of 350 lb. They are a primitive-looking and wonderfully adapted estuarine creature belonging to an order of fishes whose evolutionary origins reaches back at least 100 million years. Sturgeon grow very slowly, taking as long or longer than humans to reach maturity, and rivaling us in longevity, surviving 50 years or more in the wild. The river channel around Esopus Island, up to 60 feet deep, is a known congregation area for adult Atlantic sturgeon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Supposedly-
It would seem that one of the simple Yankee farmers who brought Crowley food and provisions was one Paul Rhodes, who would later become a correspondent and friend of Mr. Lovecraft. Rhodes created the only contemporaneous cinematic adaptation of one of Lovecraft’s tales- “The Other Gods” which was screened just once in 1924 for Mdm. Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society.
This should be taken with a grain of salt, as I haven’t been able to find independent confirmation of this timeline and it might be modern imposture. Regardless, witness the short film at the links below- if you dare.
