Archive for the ‘sunnyside’ Category
regular pulsations
In today’s post, more cast off clothing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whilst enacting my seemingly penitential and quite obligatory weekly walk to Greenpoint, this time for a Newtown Creek CAG meeting last week, a humble narrator was on the lookout for more examples of the “single shoe phenomena.” Oddly, one hasn’t witnessed a distaff member of a mated pair adorning the roadside middens in a few weeks. Back during the summer, it was difficult not to trip over one of them every time one left the illusion of safety offered by ones own rooms.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Opposite Calvary, this item was spotted instead, which appears to be a ladies undergarment, cast off to the mercies of Greenpoint Avenue. This is strange to me, as Our Lady of the Pentacle has explained to me on numerous occasions that such garments are quite costly.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The manner in which my brain functions demands that I attempt to explain things away, automatically generating a logical progression of probable events to explain the things I see.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Adolescent revelry comes to mind, with images of some freewheeling band of loose women and liquor fed boasting. Alternatively, darker scenarios form, but this is a family blog and salacious speculation is not the Newtown Pentacle way.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
skillful blows
Random events witnessed and recorded.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While heading for Brooklyn one morning, I noticed these guys screwing up Queens at the Sunnyside Yards. They were part of the army of construction crews working on the East Side Access project, I’d wager.
If you’ll notice, they are literally operating a giant screw housed on that yellow piece of equipment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not too sure what they were doing, but one suspects it has to do with the complex hydrology which underlies the yard. When the place was established at the start of the 20th century, all sorts of issues were encountered in the name of conquering the land.
This was once an enormous swamp, found at the foot of a rocky outcrop known in the 19th century as “Long Island City Heights” which was rebranded in the 20th century as “Sunnyside.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Speaking of Sunnyside, I’ve been keenly watching the construction of the new school on 43rd street. This is a BIG project, and the steel for the new building is rocketing up towards the sky. Good to see that the municipality is actually reinvesting in the infrastructure of the neighborhood as the rapacious eye of the Real Estate Industrial Complex bears down on western Queens.
We get a few more hospitals, schools, fire houses, and police stations and there just might be a possibility of us surviving the 21st century in as fine a fettle as we did the 20th.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
ravished sight
Destruction in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Spotted recently, on one of my interminably numerous walks to and from Greenpoint to attend another well meaning meeting designed to discuss the infamous Newtown Creek and the nuances of its environmental and legal standing, was this ripped to shreds traffic barrier on 43rd street alongside the titan Sunnyside Yard. The wooden traffic barrier pictured above has been in place for years now, vouchsafing a pedestrian walkway which has long substituted for the sidewalk alongside a construction fence.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The substance of the the thing, a stout and squared off log which was held fast by steel rebar to the pavement, was shredded. This is the sort of damage one witnesses on wooden docks, a manifestation of the physics of weight, inertia, and velocity. This damage would require quite a bit of all three. Likely, a truck or large automobile was hurtling along 43rd when the driver lost control of the vehicle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The physics of the scene were off putting. The amount of energy required to lift the wood and rebar out of the cement had to be enormous, and the shredding of the woods edge says to me that the vehicle uncontrollably rode along it for a bit. Hopeful wonderings that no humans or dogs were injured in this accidental are embraced, as this is a busy pedestrian pathway connecting Sunnyside with Astoria.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale soon.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
broad slab
In today’s post, the night terrors.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Perambulating through the fuligin night, across the cracked ambitions of Western Queens, recently did your humble narrator find his lonely self. A meeting in Brooklyn with the cognoscenti of Greenpoint had run late, and no offers of automotive conveyance were offered, so off I went. The tenebrous shadows ran slickly together as one crossed a bridge spanning a creek and shambled through Blissville and its tenement haunts. Entering the Sunnyside, whose name is but a cruel promise when the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself has slipped below the horizon, one experienced a deep unease and nervous apprehension of a dire near future set in.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Feeling one of my states coming on, with its attendant fugue of panic and self critique, vast mental effort was expended in the name of maintaining my pace lest some creature of the night take notice of my passage. Lurking in fear and scuttling toward Newtown Pentacle HQ, the vulnerability of my position with its attendant possibilities carried me toward that panicked chasm of madness and other worldly horror which, once crossed, destroys all succor and peace. Prescription tablets, ordered by my team of physicians, were hastily consumed. Their influence calmed me, but how can one remain calm in a realm of halogen and sodium shadow as he plunges his feet towards the earth in an uneven and arrhythmic syncopation which might simply be described as “out of step”?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What malign and queerly unicellular thing might lurk and scheme in some nearby warehouse, a sort of life which must at all costs avoid contact with sunlight? Where, in the shadowed obscurity of the buildings all around me, might some criminal organization, cabal of hidden cultists, or conclave of conspiratorial partners gather- or are gathering? Why, asked I, could no one offer me a ride back from Greenpoint, knowing that night time is scary and full of half guessed at horrors which only the sickest minds can perceive? Who, passerby must ask, is that shabby shambling fellow- the mendicant with a camera- taking pictures as he scuttles along in the dark? How, exactly, does a humble narrator always find himself stumbling along in the darkest corridors of a hostile universe?
Upcoming Tours
Saturday- September 21, 2013
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills Walking Tour with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Saturday- September 28, 2013
Newtown Creek Boat Tour with the Working Harbor Committee- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
tightly packed
Just a short one today, got to catch a cab.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An uncanny valley of off duty cabs, called Skillman Avenue in Queens.
The Newtown Pentacle 