Archive for the ‘Construction’ Category
tilted both
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After riding the Times Square Ferris Wheel, a humble narrator headed indirectly back to Queens. Along the way, I passed by a construction project occurring on West 47th street that involved using a crane to transport concrete to some unknown prominence high above.
Seriously, it never ends. Have you heard about the push by the Real Estate people to rezone midtown Manhattan because it’s not dense enough?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Union Guys generally hate it when I’m taking pictures of them working. They don’t like it in Queens and Brooklyn and all around Newtown Creek, where these trucks get loaded up, and they don’t like it in the City where the trucks get unloaded at the job site.
I don’t care what other people like or dislike anymore.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
About a block away, I was finally able to gain perspective on the scene, and see the crane. Manhattan always looks best from outside of Manhattan. The narrow streets and looming architecture lends itself to inky shadow and obscured views. Luckily, the construction guys had blocked off the street so I got to stand in the gutter – where I belong – and crack out a shot or two.
Enjoy your holiday weekend, lords and ladies, back next week with more wonders from the megalopolis.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
expatriated counterpart
Not being crass here, but it’s Tuesday.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just the other day, a series of “No Parking” placards were discovered as having been affixed to every possible surface on my block here in the Astoria section of Queens. The every surface part included the street trees, which is a personal peeve of mine.
On the assigned day, a group of people arrived with heavy equipment. I think they might have been Antifa, since they started towing any cars in violation of the placard announced edict. Ubiquitous are they, those rascals.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Antifa began cutting into the trees with power tools.
A great tumult was occurring up the block, but I couldn’t see what was happening past the bluish smoke likely emanating from a great bonfire of christian bibles which the leftist mobsters had brought. The smoke could have been coming from hot asphalt, but bible burning is far more likely. From the look of the atmospherics, Antifa had the books immolating. Organized, they are, these rascals.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Antifa is a word which starts with an “A,” just like Al Qaeda does, so there you go. Additionally, I heard from a friend named “X” who has another friend whose name starts with a “Q” that Antifa is in league with the Reptilian Bilderbergers and cooperates with those shadowy internationalists in a secret plot to redefine all of the world’s amphibians as genderless and to force America into drinking Soy Milk so as to devalue Cow Milk and thereby embarrass the sitting President. Once again, “Big Soy” is at the root of all things. I swear I saw Nancy Pelosi poke her head up out of one of the sewers to check on the progress of her secret army here in Astoria.
Where Antifa got all of this heavy equipment, obviously, boils down to one core fact – corruption, gender neutral salamanders, and Soy Milk go hand in hand.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Only an Antifa dump truck would bother to install a cover over its bin. What are they trying to hide? I’ll tell you what – they’re stealing our valuable asphalt and then air mailing it overseas to the Communists in China, using the Post Office. The reason they want you to wear a mask is that when everybody is masked, you’re anonymous, and just a number (of the beast). “Anonymous” is another leftie group which the TV tells me I’m supposed to be scared of, which also starts with an “A,” and so does the word “Asphalt.” You’re starting to see the connections now, huh? Suppose China is actually one huge guy, with the physical mass of half of the earth’s population. That’s scary too. When they say “China,” they mean him.
Have you heard about the other Antifa campaigns?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Antifa stole the ocean and freed the fish. Antifa has established a socialist moon base. Antifa has started partnerships with the Mexican Drug Cartels, the Muslim Extremists, the Social Justice Warriors, the Achievement Awards Recipients, Hillary Clinton, the “Libs,” and even the Demon Rats. Antifa has torn down entire mountains which offend them. Antifa is gay married to the sister of the guy who runs CNN, who is cousins with the salesmen at PayLess who sells Michelle Obama’s publicist shoes.
Antifa came to Astoria and stole my street. Now we have carnage, and rubble.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Man, I have got to start my right wing blog sometime soon. Cannot tell you how much fun it is to pick a faceless enemy and just make shit up about them on the fly. Sounds crazy? Not crazy enough is the rule if you want to pull in the angry old people. I got to experience some of the Qanon world recently, which is just spectacular in its viewpoint. It presumes a near omnipotent level of capability and competence amongst Government employees. I spend a lot of time around these sort of people, Civil Servants, I mean – here’s what I’ve learned.
These folks couldn’t tie their own shoes, let alone pull off any of the stuff that the more paranoid elements of our society ascribe to them. The photos in today’s post, wherein a supremely well coordinated and practiced group of NYC DOT workers mill the surface of a street in Astoria, is really is the best you can hope for in the Civil Service category.
Also, I’ve met some people who identify as Antifa, and they are kind of giant hippies that have no real understanding of the historical roots they’re pulling on. As the song says, you don’t need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, July 27th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
low toned
Holy smokes, the FreshDirect building is toast!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just at the point where one traditionally turns back towards HQ and begins the journey from the LIC Dutch Kills “zone,” I suddenly stopped in my tracks at the realization that I could see the sky. The gigantic building with yellow painted corrugated steel walls that used to house the FreshDirect operation here in LIC has been demolished. Tectonic!
This was a HUGE footprint building, five or six stories tall, with both refrigerated and shelf stable warehousing as well as several food preparation workshops. There were interior driveways large enough for multiple semi tractor trailers to reverse into, and smaller loading bays that could handle about ten or so of the FreshDirect local delivery trucks at the same time. Gone.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just as an aside for the thousands of people who have interrupted me while photographing over the years to ask “why are you taking pictures of that” while looking at me suspiciously and asking if I like hummus, this is exactly the reason. Creating some sort of record of what was there prior to it being replaced by something new. The “new” thing will have all sorts of government and corporate effort attached to it whose singular goal is the obfuscation of the site’s history. Ask the people in Queens Plaza if they know about the chemical factory, or lead foundry, which used to occupy the site of their shiny new condominium building. That’s the FreshDirect facility pictured above, as seen from a few blocks east.
A big part of the mission here at Newtown Pentacle is to create a record of this era of transition and rapid change in Western Queens for posterity which is independently held and not beholden to the political or business order. Whatever goes up on the site of that FreshDirect building… well… what used to be there?
Glad you asked.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The big historic factory here was owned by the American Druggist Syndicate, who made pharmaceuticals – so essentially a chemical plant. There were a couple of varnish factories as well, so petrochemical processing. Then a few of the smaller lots were occupied by metal working and refining companies involved mostly in iron working, so that means heavy metals and coal retort residues. The statement above comes from a cursory scan of a 1919 fire insurance map in my possession. Did the 20th century bring in plastics? Garbage handling? Good questions.
Right behind the FreshDirect lot is a set of tracks used by the LIRR which have been liberally doused with rodenticides and herbicides over the centuries, and the soil they sit on hosts lakes of PCB’S, PAH’S and other electrical insulating oils beneath the surface which has bled out of their trackside equipment. Newtown Creek itself is about 2,000 feet away from the Borden Avenue sidewalk pictured in the first shot of this post.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next couple of weeks at the start of the week of Monday, March 16th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates as we move into April and beyond, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
obscure foothold
It’s not you, it’s me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are things which puzzle me, such as why there aren’t an abundance of street lights at work found at the off ramps of the Queensboro Bridge in Queens Plaza. You’ve got pedestrian islands to facilitate foot crossings of the traffic lanes, and there are even bike lanes, but there are few if any lamps hung from the elevated tracks above the roads. This doesn’t make sense.
“Welcome to Queens, now go fuck yourself” really should be the Borough Motto.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Queens Plaza Park is what the Durst Organization is calling its 67 story tower, which is currently rising towards an eventual seven hundred and seventy five foot zenith. Future home to nine hundred and fifty eight apartments worth of people, right here in Queens Plaza, this will be one giant mother flower.
Hopefully one of the people who will be living here someday will allow me to take a few shots out of their window or off their roof deck or whatever. I’d like to get some shots from up there before we go full “Mega City One.”
I’m too old for that dystopia crap.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lastly, as you may have noticed by now, I’m in a fairly foul mood. There’s some people who need smiting, and others who need to be made an “example of” as a cautionary tale for others. It’s best to keep to myself for a bit, wandering through the concrete devastations in the dark, drifting with the night winds like a ghast.
Bah!
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
mustered up
Sometimes, they come back.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One found himself in Maspeth, just yesterday, whereupon discovery of a large industrial site’s demolition occurred. The site used to be a cardboard box factory (Star Corrugated Box Co. originally and then Cascades Containerboard), which had occupied this plot of land for several generations. The crews from Breeze Demolition were hard at work pulverizing the place, and coincidentally were replacing the plywood construction fencing surrounding it as I wandered by. It’s apparently a “big secret” as to who the new occupants of the land here will be.
I know the secret, and as loose lips sink ships…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
54-15, 55-15 and 56-19 Grand Avenue were acquired recently by a California based company called LBA Realty for $72 million. The deal involves a partnership with another realty company, RXR, to build a four story warehouse large enough for heavy trucks to drive up a ramp for loading and unloading. Statements from the developer indicate that this facility would be ideal for the “last mile” logistics of e-commerce companies. Hmmm.
Wonder what e-commerce company that might be?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This project represents a fairly frightening intensification of the truck traffic issues afflicting both Maspeth and East Williamsburg, I would mention.
I would also like to change the subject and mention the importance of large continental river systems to human civilizations. The Mississippi, Colorado, and Hudson Rivers come to mind here in North America, as does the Yang Tse and the Ganges in Asia. There’s the Nile in Africa, of course, and the Rhine in Europe.
I’m forgetting a big and important river, I think, one that runs through South America or maybe Seattle? What’s that one called again?
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours and Events
Thursday, July 25, 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Greenpoint Walking Tour w NYCH20
Explore Greenpoint’s post industrial landscape and waterfront with Newtown Creek Alliance historian Mitch Waxman.
Click here for ticketing and more information.
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
The Newtown Pentacle 