Archive for the ‘Queens Plaza’ Category
…hits the fan
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Council Member Van Bramer sent this out to his mailing list today, regarding Hurricane Irene
As everyone knows by now, Hurricane Irene is expected to hit our area sometime Saturday into Sunday. We should all take precautions to be prepared for a storm of this magnitude. Some areas in our district are in evacuation zones and at high risk for flooding. Those areas of Hunters Point/Long Island City should familiarize themselves with the map below and know that should an evacuation be ordered, Newcomers High School (28-01 41st Ave.), Aviation High School (45-30 36th St.) and W.C. Bryant High School (48-10 31st Ave.) are your nearest evacuation centers. The City will make a decision about whether to order a mandatory evacuation of Zone A for the general public by 8:00 AM on Saturday. The evacuation centers will be open as of 5:00 PM today and the City is strongly recommending that people within these areas immediately make plans to go to alternative locations outside of Zone A starting tomorrow for the duration of the storm. The orange areas are Zone A. The yellow areas are Zone B. The green areas are Zone C.
We are also concerned about significant portions of the district including parts of Sunnyside, Woodside, Astoria and Maspeth that have experienced flooding during several recent storms. Our office has been and will continue to be in contact with the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and other city agencies throughout this weekend. Anyone experiencing difficulties as a result of Hurricane Irene should contact me and my office as soon as they occur. We will report problems in real time. For those outside of Zone A areas that have experienced flooding or are concerned that you may, please click on the link below on how to protect your valuables. In addition to calling our office, DEP is asking for reports of flooding to be called in to 311.
http://home2.nyc.gov/html/oem/downloads/pdf/flooding_guide.pdf
I have also been in touch today with NYCHA and the Mayor’s Office to make certain that Queensbridge, Ravenswood, and the Woodside Houses are included in any and all emergency plans including evacuation, should that be necessary. We will continue to be in regular contact with NYCHA throughout the storm.
While we continue to hope for the best, we must prepare for the worst. The city has published some useful information in securing your home during the storm. Please click on the link below for recommendations on how best to prepare for the hurricane.
www.nyc.gov/html/oem/html/ready/hurricane_guide.shtml
Given the high volume of traffic to OEM’s (Office of Emergency Management) website there have been delays and interruptions in gaining access to some of these links. For that reason, we also include the Red Cross’ Hurricane Safety Checklist below. We have also included information from OEM’s Hurricane Guide at the end of this email should that link not respond when you try it.
http://www.redcross.org/www-files/Documents/pdf/Preparedness/checklists/Hurricane.pdf
In advance of the hurricane I wanted to remind you that clogged catch basin grates can aggravate flooding. Although DEP staff – with the help of their colleagues at other agencies – are busy cleaning catch basins now, DEP has asked us to remind homeowners and residents that they welcome assistance in removing leaves, litter or other debris that may prevent water from flowing off the streets and into the catch basins. For any of you that aren’t familiar with catch basins the attached link to a page on DEP’s website has some text and visuals that will help explain why flooding occurs and how citizens can help DEP minimize flooding by removing debris where they see it blocking catch basin grates.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/flooding/flooding_causes.shtml
I will be keeping my district office open on Saturday to field questions and concerns from constituents. Needless to say, we will close the office when the storm approaches and will reopen as soon as it is safe to do so. My district office number is (718) 383-9566. I will be in the district throughout the storm and encourage anyone with problems to email me concerns at jvanbramer@council.nyc.gov as well as using social media including Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/jimmyvanbramer) and Twitter (http://twitter.com/jimmyvanbramer) to reach me. You may also call 311. Please only call 911 if you have a very serious or life threatening emergency.
I hope this update and the attached information proves useful to you. Again, my staff and I will be working throughout the weekend and please do not hesitate to contact me should you need assistance.
Sincerely,
Jimmy Van Bramer
Council Member
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Additionally, the Council Member included the following information from the Office of Emergency Management
OEM’s Hurricane Guide
To secure your home if a tropical storm or hurricane watch is issued:
Bring inside loose, lightweight objects, such as lawn furniture, garbage cans, and toys.
Anchor objects that will be unsafe to bring inside, like gas grills or propane tanks. Turn off propane tanks.
Shutter windows securely and brace outside doors.
Place valuables in waterproof containers or plastic bags.
Help Others Prepare
- Check on friends, relatives, and neighbors, especially those with disabilities or special needs, and assist them with their preparation and evacuation.
- If you live outside an evacuation zone, offer to shelter family and friends who may need to evacuate.
If Asked to Evacuate, Do So Immediately
The City will communicate specific instructions about which areas of the city should evacuate through local media. If the City Issues an Evacuation Order for Your Area: Evacuate immediately. Use public transportation if possible.
If you are going to an evacuation center, pack lightly, and bring:
- Your Go Bag
- Sleeping bag or bedding
- Required medical supplies or equipment
- Let friends or relatives know where you are going.
What about my pets?
- Make sure your disaster plan addresses what you will do with your pet if a hurricane requires you to leave your home.
- Plan to shelter your pet at a kennel or with friends or relatives outside the evacuation area.
- Be sure you have supplies ready for your pet in the event of an evacuation, including food, a leash, a muzzle, proof of shots, and a cage or carrier.
Account for your special needs
- Consider your capabilities and make sure your preparedness plan addresses how your special needs affect your ability to evacuate and shelter.
- Determine if you will need assistance and arrange help from friends, family, or neighbors.
- Consider additional supplies and equipment that you may need to bring with you, such as medicine, icepacks, medical devices, and backup equipment. Bring food for your dietary needs.
- Include additional time and evaluate your transportation options.
IF YOU LIVE IN AN EVACUATION ZONE
Prepare A Disaster Plan
Develop a plan with your household members that outlines what to do, how to find each other, and how to communicate if a hurricane strikes New York. If you rent your home, renter’s insurance will insure the items inside your apartment. If you are a homeowner, make sure your home is properly insured — flood and wind damage are not covered in a basic homeowner’s policy.
Know Where You Will Go
The City strongly recommends evacuees stay with friends or family who live outside evacuation zone boundaries. For those who have no other shelter, the City will open hurricane shelters throughout the five boroughs.
To ensure efficient use of resources, the City will ask all evacuees to report to an evacuation center. Once at the evacuation center, evacuees will either be assigned to a hurricane shelter in the same facility or transported to an associated hurricane shelter by bus.
Every household member should have a small Go Bag — a collection of items you may need during an evacuation packed in an easy-to-carry container such as a backpack. A Go Bag should be easily accessible if you have to leave your home in a hurry.
Assemble an Emergency Supply Kit
You may be instructed to shelter in place (stay at home) during a hurricane. Keep enough supplies in your home to survive for at least three days.
If you do not live in an evacuation zone
All areas of the city could face hurricane-related hazards such as high winds, flooding, tornadoes, and loss of utilities. You may be instructed to shelter in place (stay at home) for several days until the hurricane passes.
If you live in a high-rise apartment building
Residents of high-rise apartment buildings may face special risks from hurricanes even if they live outside evacuation zone boundaries. If you live in a high-rise building outside an evacuation zone, be prepared to take shelter on or below the 10th floor. If you live in a high-rise building located in an evacuation zone, heed evacuation orders.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This looks like it will be a profound event. Personally, I’m preparing for an uncomfortable few days, but that’s because I live inland and uphill in Astoria. Long Island City and Greenpoint on the other hand…
Our friends at liqcity.com have prepared an excellent posting on the Zone A situation, which can accessed here:
http://www.liqcity.com/life/long-island-city-and-hurricane-irene-a-match-made-in-well-well-see
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Newtown Creek Alliance, an organization of which I’m a member, issued this statement earlier today…
Flood Warning for Creek Neighborhoods
Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced on August 25th, 2011 that certain emergency measures will be instituted in low lying coastal districts referred to as “Zone A” (at high risk of coastal flooding) due to the expected arrival of Hurricane Irene in the New York City area late Saturday night. Much of the land surrounding Newtown Creek is designated as “Zone A” on the coastal flooding map prepared by City officials, including large tracts of Greenpoint and Long Island City. For a map of the affected areas, please click here.
Newtown Creek Alliance cautions residents of the affected areas to monitor the situation and be prepared to evacuate should authorities warrant it necessary. If an evacuation is recommended or ordered, information about evacuation centers and hurricane shelters may be found by calling 311 or at by visiting this website. Additionally, be mindful that during such an event, the flood waters could carry a significant load of pollutants and should not be ingested. Care should be taken upon any contact with skin.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sources within the City have discussed this storm with me in the most dire tones. If you live in an area designated for evacuation, please comply. I’ll be marching out into the brave new aftermath early Monday morning, if there’s something which you think I should point my camera at, please contact me here. Good luck, and assuming the availability of both electrical power and internet connectivity, I’ll post as the situation develops.
As this post was being prepared, Council Member Van Bramer passed along another message, ordering the mandatory evacuation of Zone A by 5 pm Saturday.
shadowy corners
“they’re building another one?” – photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the final installment detailing my experiences in western Queens, on that day when I finally located the grave of Calvary Cemetery’s first interment (Esther Ennis, 1848), stepped in a dead rabbit, picked up a paranormal companion on my long walk, found myself in a state of “stupendous ruin“, soon realized that my perceptions had grown “bafflingly homogeneous“, and that my senses had become occluded due to “sleep filmed eyes“.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in yesterday’s posting, tardy delivery of content to this- your Newtown Pentacle- has been caused by a cavalcade of obligations. Both personal and professional, these obligations have placed me in a room next to personages who enjoy the highest reputation and standing, lettered academics and eidelons of “the professions” both have taken me to a private corner of the room and confessed to having had similar experiences to those which I’ve been describing in this series of postings- which is VERY interesting.
This day, I was in Tower Town, down by the East River in Long Island City… or Queens West as its proponents call it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Former days of grandeur, industrial might, and utility seem to be over for this part of Queens. Perhaps it is overworked and deserves a pastoral retirement as a park and residential center. Such meta-lopolitan planning is beyond the understanding of one like myself, who is cursed to wander through this infestation of the human hive but forbidden to do anything but observe. When my nervous scuttling and vast perambulations are performed, dark glasses are worn and the earbuds of my iphone are firmly in place- serving to isolate and insulate.
Of late, I like to wear my hood up, but loss of periphery can be a fatal mistake in these places I go.
Perhaps this is why I was casting two shadows.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My companion was familiar to me somehow, an atavist and insistent presence. Definitely male, the image of a double headed ax was impossible to banish from my thoughts as I neared the bridge…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
…THE QUEENSBORO BRIDGE!!! Queensboro is its name, not 59th street nor anything else that Manhattan elites might attach to it.
CALL HUNTERS POINT SOUTH OR WILLETS POINT “KOCH CITY” instead…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
…sorry that sort of thing just blurts out of me these days…
At right about this spot that I suddenly perceived that my spectral companion was no longer present, and when I noticed my nervous shadow had returned to its altogether wholesome and expected aspect. Whatever it was… perhaps it was just the moment when “one of my states” had passed…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was here in the shadows of that great machine called Queensboro that the splendid isolations which your humble narrator so enjoys returned, and roamed once more alone amongst the multitudes. The disturbing vision of that double headed ax though, seemed to stay with me and caused ponderings to begin.
What connection could there be between Long Island City, a largely Irish cemetery, and a battle-ax?
involuntary marching
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Submissive posturing of face and body would be offered were we to meet in person this day, presented in some petulant passivity designed to demand forgiveness for having not updated this- your Newtown Pentacle- after having sworn to return to habits less indolent. Such pedantry is part of the daily turn for one such as myself, whose childhood was spent amongst never dusty shelves of old books while sprawled upon some sculptured green broadloom in Brooklyn, kept far away from other children due to my perilous infirmity and overall weakness of both character and constitution.
I was working on something else, which required 100% attention.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Some exertions require the marshaling of, and defense against, character and sloth. This project of mine was nothing grave, nor was it some occult expedition into the very bowels of Queens or anything. It was merely a presentation of certain bits of lore coupled with data gathered during the pursuit of this very blog, and illustrated with the usual flourishes- photographic and graphic- you’ve come to expect here and from your humble narrator.
Of course, while working on what ended up taking me a full week to produce, I’ve only been able to get out a few times for “my walks”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So far in March- I’ve only managed to trek the coast of Queens from Astoria Park to Hunters Point, all of Skillman Avenue and then on to Greenpoint, LIC over the Pulaski to the Sewer Plant to Greenpoint Bridge to Sunnyside, from Maspeth to Manhattan via Grand Street and the Williamsburg Bridge, most of Roosevelt Avenue, most of First Calvary, and to all points above from Astoria.
Tomorrow, I’ll try and fill you in on the next part of my haunted walk, on that day when I finally located the grave of Calvary Cemetery’s first interment (Esther Ennis, 1848), stepped in a dead rabbit, picked up a paranormal companion on my long walk, found myself in a state of “stupendous ruin“, and soon realized that my perceptions had grown “bafflingly homogeneous“.
no pity
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Consider this one a space holder with a pretty picture in it, presented by a humble narrator otherwise overwhelmed with obligation who offers it with the promise of several regular postings appearing- on schedule- at this, your Newtown Pentacle in the coming week.
This has been one heck of a week…
Project Firebox 19
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Decapitated, this firebox on Skillman Avenue and Honeywell Street has long been severed from its designed functionality. I’m told by certain knowledgeable sources that you simply cannot remove the stump of an alarm box from its appointed spot, as the circuitry which governs the entire system will be affected by its absence rendering the surrounding neighborhood’s chain of Fireboxes blind to urgent cries of imminent immolation.
This firebox, however, finds a new utility for the needs of the few – or in this case the one- as opposed to the many it once protected, for your humble narrator routinely uses the dinner plate sized platter which crowns it as a makeshift camera platform when photographing the titan Sunnyside Yard with its backdrop of the shield wall of that Shining City which squats squamously across the River of Sound.
The Newtown Pentacle 