Archive for the ‘Queens’ Category
admixture or connection
Busy, busy, buzzy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another one of those annoyances which distract one from productive pursuits is a certain inclination corporate America has developed in the last few years. It seems that just as our elected and municipal officials seem to have largely forgotten whom their constituents actually are, so too have our corporate entities developed a lack of understanding as to what the nature of the “customer/services provider” relationship entails. A certain amount of pique, therefore, drove my steps as I headed over to a storefront outpost of a certain bank which has enjoyed collecting the fees associated with my various bits of financial business for nearly three decades in order to identify myself. The fact that they were able to reach me on the phone, and send me mail, was immaterial.
It seems that some new set of internal rules which their drones had determined as being necessary to safeguard the world from terror was missing from my account information, and it was the duty of the customer (me) to come to them and dot their “i’s” and cross their “t’s.” The consequences for not doing so would be dire, with accounts closed and an inability to remove my limited funds from their institution without supplying them with the information which they so recently decided was required anyway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It should be mentioned that the account in question was opened in 1987, an era when a young Joe Piscopo taught America how to laugh and Saint Reagan was in office down in Washington. Upon arriving at the bank, the manager I sat down with (they don’t wear suits and ties anymore, these bank managers. Rather it’s corporate branded polo shirts) was informed that since his institution was wasting my time in a vociferous fashion, so too would this process take as long as it possibly could for him. I apologized in advance and got started.
One launched into an extensive conversation about the history of colonial Woodside and Maspeth, the trade relationships between the Nieuwe Stadt and Boswijck colonies along Newtown Creek during the Dutch colonial period, my thoughts about the current Mayor, and my opposition to the Mayor’s proposed Sunnyside Yards development. Discussion of the current state of the Mets, where to get a good egg sandwich in Astoria, and the relative merits of the Marvel Cinematic Universe ensued.
After wasting after forty minutes of the gentleman’s time, I decided that I was satisfied and supplied him with the requested paperwork. He disappeared into the back room to make photocopies for their files and then returned telling me “you’re all set.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Happily ensconced in the comfort of knowing that my accounts were not going to be frozen for the sin of not supplying 2015 era information to the institution back in 1987, one found himself wandering back in the general direction of HQ for around 15 minutes. That’s when my phone rang, and the manager announced that his photocopier had malfunctioned. A second trip to the bank was then called for, and this time I opted not to take it easy on them.
Using my tour guide voice to ensure that everybody in the bank, and likely in neighboring store fronts, could hear me – a long soliloquy began. This time I covered subjects ranging from the Rockefellers to LeCorbusier, mentioned a few bits about Robert Moses and the construction of the Whitestone Bridge, the declining quality of Italian style food in Western Queens, and how much enjoyment I find watching “The Strain” television show on the FX network which tells the story of a vampire takeover of NYC. Ending with the analogy that large financial institutions like the one I started a checking account with back in 1987 are in fact the true vampires of our modern age, I was handed back my paperwork and told “you’re all set.”
You waste my time, I’m going to waste yours.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
debased patois
America’s Workshop, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Marching involuntarily down Borden Avenue in LIC recently, one decided to head east on Review Avenue towards Calvary Cemetery. Along the way, the striking architecture of the Queens Midtown Expressway section of the larger Long Island Expressway caught my attention. This section of Borden Avenue rose out of a swamp shortly after the Civil War, originally manifesting as a courdoroy or plank toll road for horse and ox carts. Its purpose was to connect Hunters Point with upland farms in Maspeth (Borden… as in dairy) “back in the day.” This is the sort of thing you’ll hear about if you come on tomorrow’s “13 Steps around Dutch Kills” tour, btw, with ticketing links found at the bottom of the post.
At any rate, one elected to head in a generally easterly direction, leaving the great steel expressway which was installed over Borden Avenue in 1939 by the House of Moses behind.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Part of the old General Electric Vehicle complex was demolished a couple of years back, and as is the case with many of the “development” properties in this section of LIC, the lot sat dormant for a while. Construction has started up on the property, which I believe is going to host yet another self storage facility.
One could not help notice the hookup to a fire hydrant which the construction guys on the lot had set up, as it was geysering a spray of water into the afternoon sun.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The good news is that this is a part of town which could really use a good wash, or at least a nice rinse. The bad news is that the water in this hose was under serious pressure – fire fighting pressure, as it were – and an uncountable amount of water was escaping from the hydrant system. This, no doubt, reduced the amount of water available for… y’know… fire fighting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The hydrant itself was burbling and gushing as it fed the construction hookup, feeding a small but growing pond on Review Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The water was ultimately being fed into this unknown device, which seemed to be some sort of hydraulically driven piston. Can’t tell you what it’s purpose was, but it made a sound which I can try to describe as “shish clack whirrsh clang shish.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sensing the presence of humans moving around behind me, one noticed that the geyser of water was serving another purpose on this warm afternoon in LIC. The pause that refreshes, indeed.
So, whatcha doing tomorrow morning? Want to come along on the walking tour I’m conducting with Atlas Obscura of the Dutch Kills tributary of the fabled Newtown Creek? The weather should be perfect, btw, and quite similar to today. Ticketing link is just below.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
August 8th, 2015
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills – LIC Walking Tour
with Atlas Obscura, click here for details and tickets
curious pacts
The great anniversary, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It all started in the Belgian Congo, over in Africa, when a fellow named Robert Rich Sharp discovered the deposit near a little town called Shinkolobwe.
The Union Minière du Haut Katanga, a Belgian Mining Company, assumed control over the resource and began to refine the material into something useful. It was something unique, this mineral deposit at Shinkolobwe, and the mine was soon producing ore materials that were 65% pure. Other global deposits of the stuff, discovered and exploited later in the 20th century, were considered major finds if they held 5% pure ore, and Shinkolobwe is described as a “freak occurrence in nature” by minerologists. The Belgians owned the Congo, and UHMK held a virtual monopoly on the rare elements found within the colony. Refineries were set up in Shinkolobwe, and both the town and the mine were excised from maps and official mention.
When the Second World War broke out, Belgium fell before the German Blitzkrieg, but the UMHK had already stockpiled some 1,200 metric tonnes of refined ore in the United States. It was stored in New York City, where UMHK had warehoused it on Staten Island, beneath the Bayonne Bridge. On the 18th of September in 1942 – Edgar Sengier, the head of UMHK, had a meeting with United States General Kenneth Nichols.
Nichols purchased the 1,200 tonnes of refined uranium from the Belgian Company, which was already in America and warehoused on Staten Island, and arranged for another 300 tonnes of the stuff to be shipped across the Atlantic from Shinkolobwe for usage by the War Department of the United States. This transaction ultimately caused the death of some 66,000 people, and the maiming of at least 70,000 more, a scant three years later on this day in 1945. Thousands more died on the 9th, but that’s another story.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The military project General Nichols represented was started in 1939, eventually employing more than 130,000 people and costing nearly US $2 billion (about $26 billion in 2015 dollars). There were four known major deposits of the precious ore in 1940: one in Colorado, one in northern Canada, Joachimstal in Czechoslovakia, and Shinkolobwe in the Belgian Congo. Joachimstal was in German hands. The Canadian and American deposits were quickly nationalized, and the Congo mother lode was soon held firmly by British interests.
Across North America, dozens of industrial plants were built and got to work.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
History is full of “what if’s.” What if Charlemagne had refused the title of Holy Roman Emperor? What if John III Sobieski didn’t break the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683? What if Chingis Khan had never invaded the Middle East? What if the Japanese Empire didn’t attack Pearl Harbor and force the United States into the Second World War? One can speculate…
Eventually, the U.S. would have intervened in Europe. Simply put, the English and French owed billions in war debts from the First World War to American banks, and the U.S.A would have been forced to intervene simply to protect its interests. The Pacific was considered an American and British lake back then, and the Phillipines were a de facto American colony in the 1930’s – so it was only a matter of time before the Japanese Empire and the United States would find themselves in one conflict or another.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Like the European Powers, the Japanese understood what “total war” meant in the age of industry. Their miraculous conversion, in just one century, from Medieval backwater to industrial superpower had already resulted in Japanese forces utterly dominating and annihilating both German and Russian armies in one sided conflicts. Their naval strength was staggering, and by the 1930’s their armies made short work of capturing the infinite resources of China. Pearl Harbor was meant to be a decapitating blow, clipping the Eagle’s wings.
There are mistakes in history, blunders of epic scale, and Pearl Harbor ranks up there with the Khwarazm Shah telling Chingis Khan to go fuck himself. The America that the Japanese empire attacked wasn’t the one we know today, full of soul searching and unsure of itself – rather it was the country which had produced Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, and especially John D. Rockefeller.
It had also produced Robert Oppenheimer and General Leslie Groves, whom General Kenneth Nichols worked for.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The ore purchased from the Union Minière du Haut Katanga by General Kenneth Nichols, which was scratched out of the earth in the Belgian Congo’s Shinkolobwe mine and stored in a warehouse on Staten Island, was uranium. The United States of America used that ore to refine and produce Plutonium in a massive industrial complex which it built in just six years. On September 18th, 1942 – the fate of two Japanese cities was sealed when the ore came passed into the hands of the Manhattan Project, which came to fruition on August 6th in 1945.
Seventy years ago today – a device named Little Boy carried that ore, mined from Shinkolobwe and stored in Staten Island, over a city called Hiroshima in Japan.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
August 8th, 2015
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills – LIC Walking Tour
with Atlas Obscura, click here for details and tickets
unknown things
114th precinct, I’m talking to you.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Broadway in Astoria is a lovely stretch of small shops and restaurants which are enjoyed by the largely working class population found hereabouts. Sure, there’s noise, bad actors, crime and all that – no different from you’d find along any commercial strip in the City of Greater New York but our local gendarme does a pretty reasonable job of keeping a lid on things. Luckily, Astoria is somewhat self policing, and there’s so much going on at all times that no one thing can ever really become a paramount concern.
What we’ve got a lot of, however – which the local Bulls inexplicably overlook – is public drunkenness and vagrancy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At 42nd street and Broadway, where you’ll find Tsigonia Paint, a colony of alcoholic vagrants has set up shop and have been present in this area for several years. Once upon a time, there were three of them, which became six, and now there’s around twenty regulars. Before any of you Columbia University people crawl up my back and announce that your liberal sensibilities are offended by this post, or opine that I’m some sort of caveman, let us first define the fact that these fellows aren’t homeless – they are in fact bums. How do I know this? Because unlike those of you in the Ivory Towers of scholastic solemnity, I’ve actually talked with them and learned their names and stories. The fellow in the shot below who is standing up is a tragic figure named Andres, for instance.
Not a week goes by that somebody in the neighborhood doesn’t have to threaten to call the police to get these guys to vacate a residential driveway, stoop, or doorway. For most of us it’s common practice to just step over them as they sleep one off. They inhabit this corner, and you’ll observe them composing a small fraction of the day laborer population that hangs around Tsigonia Paint hoping to pick up work. Nothing wrong with that, of course, a man has to work. These guys, however, aren’t here to work – except on their buzz.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve sat and watched patrol car after patrol car roll right past scenes like the ones depicted in today’s post. It has been pointed out by me to various neighbors and elected officials that this is the sort of thing which can kill a neighborhood. Government people have said to me that these drunks will not be arrested, and that the best I could hope to happen is that the cops will harass them a little bit in the hopes of getting them to move on.
One corrosive effect that the presence of these fellows in the neighborhood has created is generally transmitted to other Spanish speaking immigrants, 99% of whom are not just productive but SUPER productive members of the community, which is an ugly consequence.
Since it seems to be completely fine for drunks to congregate hereabouts, a population of heroin addicts has recently claimed the corner of 41st street and Broadway (at the Queens Library) for their turf. That’s what I mean about “corrosive effect” btw.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shots above and below you’ve seen before, lords and ladies. The fellow in the shot below was personally rescued by your humble narrator back during the epic cold snap in February, when he fell asleep in front of my house and was turning blue as he froze to the sidewalk in front of HQ. A quick call to 911 saw FDNY arrive and take him off to Elmhurst Hospital. I ended up having to help the two EMT’s get him onto the stretcher, as he was fighting them.
NYPD? Never showed, not on their radar.
Is it legal to get drunk and pass out on the streets of Astoria with an open bottle of booze in your hand?
How about shitting in the street? Is that ok as well?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Seldom am I confrontational with NYPD officers, I would point out. Whatever the current political vogue is regarding them, I nevertheless have a terrific amount of respect for the badge and personal relationships with both on duty and retired officers inform as to how much crap they have to endure during any given workday.
Why, however, doesn’t this obvious “Quality of Life” issue merit their attentions? Is it because of Compstat? Is it something political? Is this some of that “vibrant diversity” that all the politicians go on about at work?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What shreds me is that people have to walk their kids around these vagrants, and explain to them why some man is drunkenly crapping between two parked cars. For these kids, this sort of thing is normal.
114th precinct, I implore you to do something about this problem before we begin to slide further back into the chaos of the 1980’s. I promise that I will vote for anybody else than the current Mayor in return.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
August 8th, 2015
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills – LIC Walking Tour
with Atlas Obscura, click here for details and tickets
no worse
The world is not as it should be, rather it is as it is and always has been.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When a humble narrator was a boy, there were quite a few “doomsday scenarios” in play. Existential threats included the probable outbreak of a global thermonuclear war fought between the United States and the Soviet Union and the so called “population bomb” which was meant to cause mass starvation (predictions included the deaths of over 60 million Americans due to food shortages – a third of the population at the time). There was also an ozone hole which was meant to BBQ farm and city alike, an atmospheric phenomena whose formation was blamed on the presence of certain chemicals in aerosol hair spray cans. Additionally, an ice age was thought to be just around the corner, one which would depopulate the northern hemisphere and force humanity to cluster about Earth’s equator.
Slightly lower on the scale – but still terrifying – were threats posed by the rise of violent crime, disestablishmentarianism, and the rise of narcoterrorism. The world was ending, so say your prayers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a whole set of existential worries afoot these days – sea level rise, global warming, the rise of religion based terrorism, etc. Since these terrors are routinely explored in mainstream media, there’s no reason to repeat them as I’m sure you’re quite familiar with the various story lines. There’s a lot of drums that get beat upon by the “usual suspects.”
For those on the so called “left” – any factory or mill is by definition “satanic.”
For those on the so called “right” – the natural world is merely a collection of unharnessed natural resources.
The lefties want to see strict regulatory controls enacted on business, capital, and seek to curtail personal liberties in the name of protecting populations whom they have decided are vulnerable. The righties wish for an unfettered business environment, cessation of tax and regulation, and to curtail personal liberties in the name of protecting themselves. Both poles see society as teetering on the brink of destruction. Some predict a second American Civil War as being just around the corner.
Both sides populated by absolutists, who are dwellers in ivory towers. One set of towers is found in academia, the others on Wall Street. Both forget about the rest of us.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are no Mongol armies about to ride over the hill and force our village to submit to their yoke. If there were, these Mongols would meet the United States Marines, or the Russian Spetsnaz, or the British SAS and there would soon be no more Mongols. It’s no secret that the biggest problem encountered by the United States military in its recent wars was how to fight a war in which you don’t exterminate the entire population of any given country and instead just target the bad guys.
Superman would have to consciously pull his punches when apprehending bank robbers. One good punch from the big guy could reduce a human’s head to a spray of red mist, and his gaze could easily immolate. Criminals in Metropolis would seldom need to be reminded of what they’re dealing with. Neither would the ones in Gotham City.
The lefties would want Superman or Batman jailed for vigilante activity, and the righties would want them to go overseas and slaughter some Mongols.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Personally, I find both arguments pedantic. There are so many things commonly agreed upon, that are actionable, which get lost in this ideological tug of war that it actually depresses me. Don’t throw litter and garbage into the street? Be nice to each other and don’t call people ugly names? Don’t feign political naïveté? Don’t call yourself a “progressive” when you don’t understand what that means?
Maybe I’m just getting old.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Maybe everybody else is right, and the Mongols are in fact coming to get us – or we should celebrate their vibrant diversity. The division between the two points of view is exactly the sort of thing which wily old Chingis Khan would have expolited. The Khans viewed themselves as appointed by God itself to rule mankind, and Chingis often referred to himself as “God’s curse.” The Mongol term for submission and peace used the same word.
The Khans would send a rider to the village gates before an attack, who would pronounce the following (the actual quotation is lifted from a letter sent to Pope Innocent IV, in 1246, by Chingis Khan’s grandson Güyük):
“You must say with a sincere heart: “We will be your subjects; we will give you our strength”. You must in person come with your kings, all together, without exception, to render us service and pay us homage. Only then will we acknowledge your submission. And if you do not follow the order of God, and go against our orders, we will know you as our enemy.”
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
August 2nd, 2015
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek – Bushwick & Mapeth Walking Tour
with Newtown Creek Alliance, click here for details and tickets.
August 8th, 2015
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills – LIC Walking Tour
with Atlas Obscura, click here for details and tickets
The Newtown Pentacle 