Archive for the ‘Queens’ Category
once noble
An archive shot from 2007.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We call them “Shwarma Joe” but that’s not their name. This food cart has been operating at the corner of 34th Avenue and Steinway Street in Astoria for as long as I’ve lived here. They do a Halal menu, and offer one of the more affordable lunch options in the neighborhood. I favor the Chicken Kabob wrap myself, sans white sauce. This is an archive shot, as mentioned, captured during the heady days of the second Bush administration. Shwarma Joe never called their offerings “freedom fries,” however.
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dared not
Overwhelmed and underwhelming, that’s me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, we have once again hit that time of the year when the offerings here at your Newtown Pentacle are going to consist of an odd image and a pithy comment or two. The reason for this is the same as it has been every November – busy, busy, busy and exhausted. A short break from substance is required, to allow a humble narrator the opportunity to actually get out there and explore and shoot and research. Today’s shot is from the Procession of San Pio in Astoria, a religious ceremony conducted by St. Joseph’s RC Church.
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olden king
The end of an era happens today.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There is a generation out there- and whether they be youngsters, immigrants, or migrants from other States or Cities- the only Mayor of New York City they’ve ever known is Michael Bloomberg. Like him or hate him, he’s been nothing other than a fact for the last eleven and a half years. Luckily, the likely and chosen successor has not made it through the electoral process to today’s plebiscite, and its time to figure out what we should do next. This is no partisan political post, btw, as I view the political class as little more than employees- which ever side of an imaginary ideological line they happen to stand on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Arrogant, unapproachable, stubborn, inflexible- all of these are words I’ve heard others use to describe him. Often, municipal employees will go pale and say “This is coming straight out of City Hall” when telling a community group that something they wanted is denied. All in all, it could have been worse. Say the words “Mayor Mark Green” and your blood will turn to ice. The little big man will likely be remembered fondly down the road, as his administration has more profoundly altered the municipal landscape than any Mayor since Lindsay or LaGuardia, and we will be reaping the rewards of the vast infrastructure investments made in the last 11 years for decades.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The likely next Mayor is comically tall, could probably palm a dinner plate, and inherits a raft of issues which even three terms could not solve for the current guy. I like the idea of fresh air blowing through the halls of power, but worry that Park Slope will be coming to City Hall with him. There are mid level officials in power there today who were hired during Giuliani’s first term, and its time for a change in management. Not because they’ve done a bad job- they haven’t- but because de facto corruption festers in long municipal tenancy.
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Project Firebox 95
An ongoing catalog of New York’s endangered Fireboxes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I remember when this model of Firebox was wheeled out, back during one of the Koch administrations. It was designed to alert the coppers as well as the smoke eaters to trouble. Seem to recall that it never worked quite as well as intended, and the fact that the “intercom” concept never became standardized seems to confirm that. Nevertheless, shine on #7336, you’re doing the lords work.
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distant hills
So, what were you up to a year ago?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As has been and will be repeated to you all day by everyone, today is the anniversary of Hurricane Sandy blowing in and kicking New York City’s ass, and the start of an era in which discussion of the environment became a politically expedient and quite mainstream issue. A twelve to fourteen foot high wall of water suddenly surging through the neighborhood can do that. A lot of swell planning, plotting, and intentions “to armor up” has been going on in the intervening year. Stout terms like “resiliency” and “soft edges” have been wielded by pundit and potential contractor alike, and offered to a shaken public. Whether this plan is palliative or prophylactic, only time will tell.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Dozens of people have volunteered the stories of their trials that night to me over the last year, and others proudly talk about their time with Occupy Sandy and other relief efforts. The storm kicked New York City’s ass- that’s for sure- but New Yorkers are quite used to a swift kick in the butt, periodically. Personally speaking, your humble narrator counts his lucky stars that HQ was largely untouched by the storm’s deleterious effects (although, to be fair, HQ was hit by lightning the previous spring which destroyed a small fortune in electronics). We suffered no ill effect other than the difficulties encountered by Our Lady of the Pentacle in her quest to return from the west coast. Astoria, at least my part of it, was unscathed and largely open for business by the next morning.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My thoughts, however, remain centered on the sorrow of it all. Images abound- loss, and death, and fire, and storm tossed terror. Scared kids and barking dogs, firemen in boats, all that stuff. That’s the public side of it. Anecdotes and off the record statements offered to me by those who serve the public in a variety of official roles describe a city laid low and nearly sunk. For those who died during or because of this storm, and the multitudes whose lives were inextricably altered by it, condolences are offered. It is hoped that the images of Sandy, and those of Katrina, will similarly not be forgotten.
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