Archive for the ‘Queens’ Category
hurled consequentially
No matter where you go, there you are.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“How are ya?” is usually greeted wth “just another day in paradise,” whenever a humble narrator is queried by friends and acquaintances. It’s nice to have a catchphrase, and it took me years to come up with one that didn’t involve verbiage that could be considered a threat, hate crime, or offer a string of profane words randomly strung together. For a while, I liked “gaze upon the dragon and despair” but it’s difficult to pull that one off with the proper theatrics before coffee.
Here in paradise, one has been quite inert due to the weather. That sucks, but the good news is that “the project” has been moving along nicely. Allow me to explain…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“The project” which was slowly chipped away at throughout 2017, is cataloging photos. It all started last winter when I realized that I needed to print up new business cards. I use a printing company called “Moo” for this, and their services allow for variable color fill on one side of the card (photos) and a single BW layout for the other. Essentially, it’s up to twenty shots for the photo side. Thing is, while hunting through something like sixty thousand photos, I realized that it was time to start organizing and separating the wheat from the chaff. That means that I’ve had to comb through the entire archive, just in the name of “doing it right.” I literally finished the process on December 30th, and am in the early stages of arranging shots into categories – harbor, bridges, people etc. Believe it or not, I’ve consciously avoided inclusion of Newtown Creek or NY Harbor oriented shots, as those will be getting their own individual processes. There’s a reason this project has taken so long to get done.
The end of this grueling procedure will be a godsend, and will be spawning several byproducts. I still haven’t printed any new business cards, incidentally, that’ll be the first thing I do. 2018 is going to be something of threshold year I hope, which will lead into the tenth anniversary of this – your Newtown Pentacle – in June of 2019.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the things I plan on doing in 2018 is creating more video essays like the “A Short History of the Sunnyside Yards” or “Newtown Creek Magic Lantern” ones I’ve offered in the past. I’m also planning on creating a few pamphlet sized publications exploring various subjects, which would be offered for sale as both digital and physical items. Suffice to say that there are other goals for the end product of this project, but that’s still something I’m scribbling down in my notebooks and thinking about.
“Just another day in paradise” might be a worthy title for a photo book about Western Queens, one believes.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
only briefly
It’s National Fruitcake Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
With one foot in Queens’s Flushing, and the other in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint, this NYC street endlessly fascinates. It’s called Roosevelt Avenue east of 48th street and Queens Blvd., and to the west it’s called Greenpoint Avenue. The elevated IRT Flushing line has been lurking above the street since 1917, meaning that the Roosevelt Avenue section has been shielded from the emanations of the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself for a century now.
Funny thing is, as far as I’ve been able to discern, Roosevelt Avenue isn’t all that much older than the elevated tracks. Here’s a NY Times article from 1910 which discusses the great haste undertaken by the newly consolidated City of New York in creating the road. Back then – Roosevelt Avenue was considered a highway, apparently, and it was designed to parallel (and create a secondary path for Queensboro Bridge bound traffic) Jackson Avenue (Northern Blvd.) for its three mile route from Woodside to Flushing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The elevated subway along the street (to Corona, Flushing happened a bit later) opened in April of 1917, but it had only been proposed in 1911. This is one of the many reasons which should keep the managers of the MTA up at night, as a note, for the actual agreement to build the thing didn’t happen for another two years in 1913. Imagine the modern incarnation of the organization being able to get literally anything done, let alone monumental capital construction, in just four years.
Them’s was giants in those days, I tells ya.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been led to believe that there are a significant number of “quality of life” issues suffered by the folks who frequent Roosevelt Avenue due to the presence of the elevated tracks. Bird droppings, toxic lead paint flaking from the steel, omnipresent heavy vehicle traffic, a suffocating amount of noise. There’s meant to be a significant footprint of the underworld along Roosevelt Avenue as well, and Ive been told tales of all levels of prostitution (street to Madame run apartment Boudoirs), gangsters, and gambling dens.
Funny thing is, all of these things don’t slow things down along the street one little bit. The shops are all occupied, and commercial businesses thrive, even on the third floors of walk up buildings. Compared to other commercial strips in Western Queens – Steinway Street in Astoria comes to mind – every kind of business seems to be booming along Roosevelt Avenue.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
evidence itself
It’s National Candy Cane Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Things have gotten a bit weirder than usual here in Astoria, as will be elucidated upon in today’s post. Pictured above, and submitted for you consideration is a single shoe whose sudden appearance thrust a cold dagger of latent terror and existential dread into the holiday season for Our Lady of the Pentacle and a humble narrator.
Even our little dog Zuzu has been displaying apprehension and nervous tics…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last week, upon exiting the domicile, a single shoe bearing a hand drawn scrawl was observed on the ornamental fence which defines my landlord’s property line. The message on the shoe, which was of the “Oxford” style and manufactured by a company called “Ecco” read “Season’s Greetings Mitch!” and continued on with “The Queens Cobbler, Ho Ho Ho.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been talking about the Queens Cobbler for several years at this point in time.
The first time I used the term was way back in 2014, and there have been posts mentioning the monster since then. Halloween of 2014, this one from March of 2015, another from April of 2015, and from the same month – the appearance of a potential copycat Cobbler was mentioned in this one. June of 2015 saw more evidence appear, and shoes continued to drop right on through 2016. 2017 brought more macabre trophies to the fore, and it seemed like the Queens Cobbler began to grow haughty. All through the summer of 2017, single shoe sightings began to grow in frequency. Even children aren’t safe from the Cobbler, and I should have taken the message when a singular shoe was found at my local saloon in October. Halloween of 2017? As late as middle December of 2017? Yep.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the name of creating some sort of evidentiary documentation for local, State, and possibly Federal authorities to analyze – the shoe was carefully transported upstairs where “studio shots” of the thing could be created. Additionally, Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself activated all of our passive and active household defense systems and spent Christmas in the apocalypse bunker which we’ve been scratching deep into the loam of Western Queens for quite some time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One should have realized that the shoe pictured above, which was observed in October of this year at the neighborhood saloon I frequent, was a warning to not inquire too deeply into the Queens Cobbler’s nefarious purpose.
Should I disappear one day whilst scuttling along the bulkheads, I’d ask for all of you to search for a size 11 Merrel hiking boot at Newtown Creek, as that’ll be all that’s left of me to bury.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
cupboard linings
It’s National Sangria Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
File this one under “Old Man shakes fist at passing cloud.” We really have to do something about these utility wires here in Western Queens. You’re looking at an amalgamated twenty five to thirty years of wire in the shots today. Somebody moves in to an apartment, they order cable or internet service, and next thing you know – there’s a new lead coming off of the utility pole that gets tacked loosely onto their wall.
Thing is, the cable people never seem to remove the old wire, and just leave it in place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s when it snows that you can really discern the clot of coaxial cabling which owns the sky here in Astoria. The scene hereabouts is reminiscent of those old photos of Manhattan, the ones from the late 19th century when the telegraph and telephones had just come to town.
There has to be close to a ton of cable criss crossing back and forth on every single block in Western Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When I say Western Queens, I really mean the totality of it, incidentally. I see this mess everywhere that the local community board didn’t force the cable people to put their wires underground, as they are in Sunnyside Gardens and other parts of Community Board 2.
It’s not just the cable folks either, Verizon and Con Ed can boast rather impressive bundles of electronic spaghetti mingling with the street trees.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve witnessed a couple of disasters, and a few near disasters associated with this utility wire situation. Thanks to the intervention of Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer, the NYS Utility Commission compelled Cond Ed to replace a bowing utility pole on Astoria’s Broadway last year. Saying that, neither RCN nor Spectrum have bothered to move their wire hookups to the new pole yet, and their conductive tonnages are still being supported by the ancient wooden one.
Additionally, as a note, the Spectrum Installers Union strike is still going on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A summer ago, the entire RCN grid began to simmer and smoke on the poles. To their credit, the company brought in extra crews and got their customers back online in a day or two. To their detriment, they left all the damaged cables in place. One hopes that at some point in the future, a cohesive plan to rationalize this situation will be undertaken wherein Government officialdom will compel the utilities…
Aww. Crap. Forgot the Borough motto. “Welcome to Queens. Now go fuck yourself.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Nothing will be done, and everything will get worse. Storm clouds will gather, rain will fall, and the puppies will be unhappy all about the neighborhood. The cables will fall and randomly kill us all, falling like asps from the sky. Ruination and death will be answered by calls for a rezoning by City Planning, with increased height and residential density in mind.
That’s when the wires will disappear into the ground.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All is ruination and death. Everywhere you look.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
insinuated lapse
It’s National Hard Candy Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We recently had some company staying over, at HQ here in Astoria. Amongst our lodgers was a 12 year old fellow who lives in the (extremely) exurbs of Denver out in Colorado, which is a somewhat “sheltered” place as far as the tangible realities of life go. As we were moving along, he pointed out an older woman on Broadway who was collecting cans and bottles for recycling and cash redemption, and asked me if she was homeless. The kid had apparently never seen a homeless person before, which is a whole other story, and I had to explain to him about the industry of the “canners.”
Somehow I ended up in a lefty speech about personal initiative and the streets being paved with gold from an immigrants point of view, lauding the canners for their pluck and chiding native born New Yorkers for literally throwing money out in the garbage. The kid wasn’t impressed and went back to playing with his phone. He just wanted to say he saw a bum when he was in the City, I think.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My dog Zuzu is quite used to these little invectives and flights of politique fancy. Whomever to and whenever I’m trying to make some long winded and esoteric point, Zuzu just sort of hunkers down and waits. She knows it’s going to be awhile, especially when my response to someone starts with “No, that’s not how things work… it’s complicated…”
Don’t get me started, really.
Funnily enough, I’ve recently had several of the people in my “social media” world label me as a “liberal.” Most of the real lefties I know think of me as a “stealth Conservative,” whereas I argue that none of these labels actually mean anything anymore. Might as well call me a Whig.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are, of course, things encountered in NYC that just defy description, and if you didn’t take a picture of them – nobody would believe you. Zuzu the dog won’t commit to anything more than a quick sniffing of such anomalous items, and the kid from Colorado barely seemed to register most of what was going on around him.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 