Archive for the ‘Skillman Avenue’ Category
padding, clicking, walking
Want to feel better? Take a walk in Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Skillman Avenue between 39th street and 49th avenue is “big sky country” here in Western Queens, with the majesties of the Sunnyside Yard and the glorious skyline of the Shining City laid out for all observers. It has always been one of my favorite spots for a stroll, and never more so than at twilight.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a number of things I can tell you about the yards. When it opened, this was the largest coach yard on the planet, and it hosts the busiest tracks on earth to this day – specifically, the Harold Interlocking, which is shared by Amtrak and the Long Island Railroad. There’s an ocean of PCB’s and other industrial chemicals in the ground here, and its likely going to be listed for some sort of environmental cleanup or remediation before too long.
The odd and continuing appearances of cast off single shoes found along the fence line continues to intrigue and puzzle a humble narrator, but that’s another story.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It seems that the whole “deck over the yard and build a new neighborhood on top of it, with a stadium and hotel complex at the Queens Plaza side and affordable housing to the east” chestnut has surfaced again – the latest iteration of a plan espoused by Dan Doctoroff early in the first Bloomberg term. A number of people have asked me what my thoughts on the matter are.
My reply is always: How, in any way, would that be good for Queens? Does the proposal to deck the yards include hospitals and schools, an annex for the already stretched 104th and 114th precincts, additional FDNY personnel and equipment, or some mechanism to incorporate this new population into the existing wastewater system? Who will bear the costs of these municipal services? It won’t be the entity that builds a stadium or hotel complex, one guarantees you.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
humid seas
By jove, I nearly got wet yesterday.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Yesterday, despite the somewhat solitary inclination of mood which a humble narrator awoke to find himself in, nevertheless did he need to go to Sunnyside to talk to some people about some thing. Post facto, a leisurely stroll back to Astoria was planned upon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As is my custom, certain breaches and apertures in the fencing which secures the Sunnyside Yards from casual observation by most, and the attentions of malodorous sappers and mad bombers in particular, were exploited for photographic use. The sky was dramatic, and active. A weak wind blew chilled air, from west north west.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking towards 36th avenue, from Northern Blvd., a certain sense of doom was laconically accepted. Surely, this will be how all is ended, in a storm. The Vikings, alas, seem to have been correct in their prophecies of the world’s end. If Ragnarok comes to Queens, it’s going to look something like the shot above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Some wicked fancy seemed to be animating this cloud, but contemplation of such matters was not a luxury at hand. Not having any sort of umbrella or rain gear with me, haste was made to cross the few short blocks back to Newtown Pentacle HQ.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Evacuating birds were shooting through the winds, which had picked up in intensity. Oddly, there was no thunder, but a present and palpable expectation hung pregnantly about. The storm was about to break.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just as I hit 44th street, the clouds attack began, and even your humble narrator found himself struck by airborne missiles of water which had been fired from thousands of feet above. These missiles, luckily, splattered.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Cover was sought behind a simple row house, one which had a small awning. Notice the “rain shadows” forming on the sidewalk.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Experience informs that summer squalls like this are short lived, quickly passing through the neighborhood, and not worth going to extreme measures over. In the twenty minutes or so spent sitting upon some anonymous stoop, observations of the passing humans included a fellow strolling along in a business suit acting as if it were not raining and a handsome young woman who walked by with a plastic bag over her head.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
This weekend-
Saturday, August 16th, LIC’s Modern Corridor
With Atlas Obscura, click here for tickets and more info.
Sunday, August 17th, 13 Steps Around Dutch Kills
With Brooklyn Brainery, click here for tickets and more info.
cold and cramping
Lurid shimmerings of pale light, that’s what I’m about.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The hours one spends marching about Queens are severely impinged upon by weather during the winter months, a fact injurious to both health and morale. A humble narrator attempts to fill the empty hours productively, but there is little solace for one such as myself in hours spent in the office. Perhaps relocating to a warmer climate is in order? That would mean that New York City had finally beaten me, and that a life long grudge match had been lost.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The various medications which my staff of doctors prescribe to manage those ailments which bedevil and weaken my material form have a certain downside – inducing a particular fragility to my homeostasis when the temperature dips down. Simply said, cold weather such as that which the City is experiencing is actually painful. Vital ichors run away from the extremities, and one begins to experience the sense of being in a long dark tunnel which terminates in a distant but brightly lit aperture. I call that aperture “April.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The hard reality of this, I’m only a quadragenarian after all, has made me truly love to see the oil companies delivering the fuel that stokes all the furnaces and boilers. I propose a new secular holiday, one which celebrates the constancy and efforts of the oil truck man, without whom we’d all surely freeze to death. Brr.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
subsequently professed
A week of madness, doubt, and insecurity ends.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Roman Emperor Caligula set the standard of sanity for his culture. Luckily for the rest of you, I’m the emperor of nothing other than what exists between my ears. Unfortunately for me, there’s a couple of rebel groups here in Cortex city, and a bizarre religious cult which is steadily growing in population and making itself known out in the Oblongata Desert. At the border, in Medulla town, a team of terrorists seems to be forming up as well. One hopes that a War on Terror won’t spring up in my neck.
I’m all ‘effed up.
from wikipedia
Deviance, in a sociological context, describes actions or behaviors that violate social norms, including formally-enacted rules (e.g., crime), as well as informal violations of social norms (e.g., rejecting folkways and mores). It is the purview of sociologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and criminologists to study how these norms are created, how they change over time and how they are enforced.
Norms are rules and expectations by which members of society are conventionally guided. Deviance is a failure to conform to these norms.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
How one wishes that satisfaction and desire had led to a more wholesome life, rather than the bizarre simulacrum- a series of dull events- which was the path I ended up on. It isn’t fair to those who, against all logic and reason, care for my well being. Would that I had chosen homogeneity, embraced the traditional desires of this culture, and was able to pretend or even feign. Unfortunately, this is my lot, to remain apart.
Barren, disappointed, abused, shunned… always must I remain an outsider…
from wikipedia
Normality (also known as normalcy) is the state of being normal. Behaviour can be normal for an individual (intrapersonal normality) when it is consistent with the most common behaviour for that person. Normal is also used to describe when someone’s behaviour conforms to the most common behaviour in society (known as conforming to the norm). Definitions of normality vary by person, time, place, and situation – it changes along with changing societal standards and norms. Normal behaviour is often only recognized in contrast to abnormality. In its simplest form, normality is seen as good while abnormality is seen as bad. Someone being seen as “normal” or “not normal” can have social ramifications, including being included, excluded or stigmatized by larger society.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For one such as myself, the middle weeks of August are always a time of lament, recrimination, and doubt. Marching- ever marching- across the Newtown Pentacle as the burning gaze of the thermonuclear eye of god itself glares down upon me, an unending soliloquy of uncertainty and madness is held imprisoned just a few inches behind my eyes.
Whether it be Mōnandæg or Frīġedæġ, you can count on a humble narrator to find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
from wikipedia
The name Friday comes from the Old English Frīġedæġ, meaning the “day of Frigg”, a result of an old convention associating the Old English goddess Frige with the Roman goddess Venus, with whom the day is associated in many different cultures. The same holds for Frīatag in Old High German, Freitag in Modern German and vrijdag in Dutch.
The expected cognate name in Old Norse would be *friggjar-dagr. However, the name of Friday in Old Norse is frjá-dagr instead, indicating a loan of the weekday names from Low German. The modern Scandinavian form is Fredag in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish, meaning Freja’s day. The distinction between Freja and Frigg in some Germanic mythologies is problematic.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, August 10, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– Saturday, August 17, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
walked abroad
Another industrial corridor, just another day in Queens.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
Clinging to queer ideations about the storied past, and to the ceramic bricks of the former Swingline factory on Skillman Avenue one fine and recent morning, your humble narrator began to accept the fact that he’s been working too hard. For the last several weeks, I’ve been up at sunrise, not going to bed until well after midnight, and the intervening hours have been more or less filled with various projects, deadlines, and curtailed wanderings. Additionally, chaos and argumentative situations have colored my perceptions.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
Unlike certain others, my “busy time” of the year is during the summer, with nearly every weekend bringing another walking tour to conduct. The usual schedule of meetings, along with institutional obligations along the Creek and the larger Harbor, have kept me busy in the evenings. Suffice to say that my game is a purely reactive one at the moment, as I stumble from place to place and show up “a day late and a dollar short.” This is a somewhat untenable situation, and an enormous backlog of tasks gets a bit longer every day.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
Accordingly, for the rest of this week, a series of short postings will follow this one. Its the holiday thing, I guess, and strong desires to fire up the BBQ and drink a beer rule the day. One would also enjoy just sitting in a dark room while staring at a blank wall for just a little bit. Time to regroup, regathering, refocus. It’ll be short posts through the holiday weekend, lords and ladies, as I try to take little break and catch up on what I should be doing instead.
The Newtown Pentacle 