Archive for the ‘Roosevelt Avenue’ Category
terrible injuries
Aching, painful butt? Get outside, I say.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recently, one forced himself off the couch, dared the frigid antibiome of Queens, and moved. Movement is difficult in this sort of weather, as one needs to swaddle himself in insulation. Sometimes I like to weigh myself unclothed, just out of the shower, and then get back on the scale after getting dressed. One recent day, I realized that I was wearing twenty seven pounds of clothes. We are all forced to carry baggage, I reckon, but no one is encouraging me to just sit on the couch so I picked myself up and went out – into the cold waste.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This crow was spotted over in Flushing, walking a cart of harvested alloys towards an Iron Triangle scrap yard for conversion into cash. He’s walking in a vehicle lane on the Roosevelt Avenue Bridge, which is ill considered – “vision zero” wise. Just before and about a minute after this shot was captured, vehicles moving at speed nearly struck him, dual events which really seemed to tick him off. The auto drivers offered the crazy notion that he should be using the pedestrian lane. Chalk this one up to “user error,” I guess.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Roaming into the park via the pedestrian bridge that connects the LIRR station with the Subway stop at Citifield, many sevens were present, but it was seven sevens that were focused upon. This is the MTA’s Corona Yard, which is next door to an MTA Bus terminal. All very exciting, except for the fact that due to track work, the train wasn’t running on the day I shot this and that I live way over in Astoria. Probably why there’s so many of them just standing around and apparently looking for something to do.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
disordered nucleus
A short one today.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A late post from a humble narrator, depicting the scene on Woodside’s Roosevelt Avenue where the LIRR and MTA Subway systems overlay each other. Back tomorrow with something a bit more substantial.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Walking Tours-
Saturday, September 27th, 13 Steps Around Dutch Kills
Walking Tour with Atlas Obscura, click here for tickets and more info.
Sunday, September 28th, The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek
Walking Tour with Brooklyn Brainery, click here for tickets and more info.
forced economies
Today, we pass through a crossroad.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the things I find endlessly fascinating about Western Queens is the juxtapose between at least three different urban planning schemes and where they overlie each other. Of course, the term Urban Planning is seldom found prior to the 20th century, so modern bias interferes with understanding the why’s of where. Also, everything has been so extensively built and rebuilt over the years…
The oldest one wasn’t really planned, rather its where the colonials and farmers of Newtown laid down roads like Greenpoint Avenue or Thomson Avenue, which were literally means to an end- a way to move from point a to point b which took into account and diverted around natural features like hills and streams.
Overlaid on these atavist lanes is an industrial era grid, Skillman and Borden Avenues comes to mind. Hold overs from the locomotive city of the late 19th century- which favored long arcs and subtly graded streets wide enough to carry a street car or in some cases a full on steam locomotive.
Dross 20th century engineering was applied to the most modern layer, such as where Queens Blvd. originates at Thomson Avenue or where Greenpoint Avenue transmogrifies into Roosevelt Avenue at its intersection with Queens Blvd. The modern layer was designed to carry the automotive and mass transit city forward and which is pictured in the shot above. The latter two are definitively hostile to pedestrian activity, but the way.
Project Firebox 73
An ongoing catalog of New York’s endangered Fireboxes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Under the El on Roosevelt Avenue in the angle between Woodside and Sunnyside, a firebox which wears the scars of long tenancy in the shadowed corridor.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? June 2013 Walking Tours-
The Poison Cauldron– Saturday, June 15, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, June 22, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
The Insalubrious Valley– Saturday, June 29, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
still quite submerged
This is a reblog of “quite submerged“, originally posted just over a year ago. The whole illness thing is just about conquered, working on catching up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Today, I’m going to be uncharacteristically quiet, it’s all about the pictures. I was dreaming about flying again, in the manner of a super hero, and pulled these shots (some of which you’ve seen in other posts) together.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whenever I can attain some altitude, an attempt is made to record it, especially in the low lying areas of western Queens and North Brooklyn. In this shot, it was the Roosevelt Island Tram which elevated my point of view.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Attempts and entreaties have been made- but so far- nobody in Long Island City has offered me roof or high floor access to shoot from one of the tower buildings. Haven’t asked anyone on Roosevelt Island yet, but the views of Queensboro and the East River must be glorious at night from there.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I have been to the Ravell Hotel roof, which is in the lower right hand corner of the shot, which offers amazing views of the bridge and whose vantage lines up with the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself for “Manhattanhenge“.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In Long Island City, the industrial zones are typically low lying in character, with few buildings exceeding 4 stories. Extreme reticence has been exhibited by property owners, when approached with requests of photographic access to their roofs or grounds. Insurance liability is the usual reply.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The ultimate viewing platform, of course, would be from the Citibank Megalith. Like Odin on his hildskalf, one might observe the entire world from up there, seeing the in the perspective of that thing in its summit which cannot possibly exist and does not think or breathe, yet hungers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
From up there, the entire soup bowl of New York Harbor is available for viewing. The megalith is visible from many faraway points in the harbor, and if you can see it- it can see you. On a clear day, the thing in its summit (were it to exist) can see the Narrows and Long Island Sound and Jamaica Bay and the Hudson.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Terrestrial and aquatic vantages have been my only succor in recent months, but an urge to look down from above is upon me, and scry the ancient patterns of life which invisibly govern the present City.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Probably why I’m dreaming of flying…
The Newtown Pentacle 