severed aspiration
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
November 12th, and I was hanging out with none other than the webmaster of Forgotten-NY himself – Kevin Walsh. If you don’t follow the fellow, you’re missing out. Kevin practically invented the genre of urban history blogging here in NYC back in the dial up days, and I’m honored to consider him as being my friend.
One of the people whom I had to spend some of my last time in NYC with was Kevin Walsh. Thereby, I drove out to the Forgotten Cave’s secret entrance nearby the Forgotten mansion, and offered to take him wherever he wanted to go.
Kevin wrote about the day we spent at his Forgotten-NY site, which you can check out here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I should mention that the car I got, and I had virtually zero choice in color or trim – it’s what the factory sent us, take it or leave it, due to the whole supply chain thing – looks a great deal like the sort of thing you’d expect Star Wars Stormtroopers to drive around in. It’s white with black trim. It looks like Empire or First Order technology, so I decided to fashion a nickname for the vehicle as being the ‘MOP’ or “Mobile Oppression Platform.” Someday, I’ll mount a laser cannon on the roof bars… someday… right now, I’m debating whether the “MOP’s” all season radials will get me through the winter or if I’ve got to drop a bunch of money for snow tires.
Decisions, decisions. Despite what literally every New Yorker thinks, Pittsburgh actually get’s less snow than NYC does. It’s because of where they are in relationship to the Appalachias, and the fact that NYC sits next to… Y’know… the ocean. It does get colder for longer periods, apparently, with deep freezes persisting a bit longer than they do in the coastal areas of NY and NJ.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Kevin Walsh hungers occasionally, which is a dark and terrible moment for any nearby. Thunderously, He demanded entry to the Bantry Bay Inn on Greenpoint Avenue, and so did the trees of Calvary tremble as he passed. Within the establishment, Innkeeper Clooney answered his demands for sustenance and grool. Soon sated, the webmaster of Forgotten-NY returned to his normal state of geniality. We returned to the Mobile Oppression Platform, and a humble narrator did convert the webmaster back to the Forgotten Cave in Eastern Queens.
The Forgotten Cave isn’t in Little Neck, which Kevin’s propaganda would have you believe. It’s location is secret. It’s where the Forgotten Computer, the Forgot Alert, and the Forgotten Cycle are stored. Several of the specialized Forgotten costumes may be observed – the underwater one, the space one, and the Iron Forgettatron are – in particular – deserving of the attentions of his few visitors.
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ruptured hopes
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
November 9th, a humble narrator was once behind the wheel of the car, and after running a few move related errands, I had a couple of hours to kill. There’s a whole outer ring of seldom visited Newtown Creek views which are now in reach. While pulling into Mount Olivette Cemetery in Maspeth, a chance meeting occurred and I ran into an old friend – Tony Nunziato. Having not had a chance to say goodbye, I was glad of the chance to do so.
As you’re reading this, if everything has gone according to plan, all of my worldly possessions have been loaded into a moving truck which is heading towards Pittsburgh. Additionally, as you’re reading this, I’m likely cleaning the toilet and or pushing a broom around an empty apartment in the Astoria section of the Borough of Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As tomorrow’s post publishes, I will be about six hours into my own journey to Paris of Appalachia. Last week, I drove Our Lady of the Pentacle and a carload of gear out to the new house. We set up a quick and temporary state of housekeeping, and on our first night there we were standing out on the deck and admiring the town.
Something pretty cool occurred, when a Doe – as in a female deer – wandered into our driveway and looked up and at us. It huffed out a grunt, and continued on its way. Also, we’ve got bunnies living in our back yard. One of them is a white rabbit. I haven’t noticed a hookah-smoking caterpillar yet.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My little drive around Newtown Creek’s environs included a couple of other cemeteries in addition to Mt. Olivette. On my way home to Astoria, I decided to also take a ride around First Calvary Cemetery in Long Island City’s Blissville section as well.
Last week, when I was in Pittsburgh, a visit was paid to their Calvary – Allegheny Cemetery. I was only scouting, but… wow.
More tales of my last weeks in the City continue, tomorrow.
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myriad other
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
November 7th, and one back in NYC – I had to move the car for alternate side, so I went to a point of elevation nearby HQ for an hour and shot a bunch of train photos not unlike the one above. I also ran out a pretty large panorama shot, which you can look at here.
I’m working on a City focused transliteration of the Bible which I dub “The New Yorker Testament” wherein the lord rests on the third day as there’s no alternate side, and it’s got a “good spot.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
November 9th, I had a few minutes to spend on my own pursuits and needed some “head space” from all the have-to’s of moving out of the City, after making my last run to the scrap yard. I hopped in the car and headed over to my beloved Creek.
While in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section, at Apollo Street and while shooting the photo above, I noticed a freight train moving westwards along the Lower Montauk Tracks of the Long Island Railroad, on the Queens side of Newtown Creek, and thought “hey, I’ve got a car now, I can do this.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Using routes familiar and loved, one zoomed over to Maspeth’s Haberman siding and got there just as this GATX freight unit was heading back towards the Fresh Pond yard. Win!
More next week, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
stole timid
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You want to know what heavy traffic is like? When the driver of a car on a highway has the time and opportunity to stick a camera through his car’s moon roof and take night photos, that’s what heavy traffic is like. After our all day drive from Pittsburgh to NYC which moved at 70-75 mph for hundreds of miles, we ground down into the evertraffic leading to the George Washington Bridge in New Jersey. I had crossed half of the state of New Jersey in the time it took me to go the last ten miles on my way to that bridge. Uggh.
These pinch points leading to the landform of Long Island, with Brooklyn and Queens on its western edge, are the strategic weak points of NYC. The real estate people have managed to cut off all of the water access for freight traffic on the Hudson and East River frontages because “affordable housing,” so it’s up to trucks to feed and supply the millions who live on a very Long Island.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Port Elizabeth Newark is thankfully growing by about 5-7% per year, and the port is the largest single driver of the regional economy of the NYC Metropolitan Area, after Wall Street. Unlike Wall Street, the port is constrained in its growth by the fact of these pinch points. All of that commercial activity has to flow into and across NYC to reach first Brooklyn and Queens, and then continue on to Nassau and Suffolk via either the Verrazzano Bridge on the south or the combination of the George Washington and Triborough Bridges on the north. These trucks sit and idle on neighborhood streets during their transit, painting the City with diesel soot.
Bike lanes ain’t gonna save ya, NYC. It ain’t Uber or AirBNB or any of the other entities which the politicians and activists like to blame that’s causing the traffic. It’s last mile delivery services like FedEx, Amazon, and UPS on the small scale and semi tractor trailers on the large. As the local economy expands, so does truck traffic, unless something changes.
Annoyingly, something like 40% of the truck traffic required to feed these growing local economies of NYC’s urban and suburban zones thereby travels through Northern Manhattan with the rest moving through Staten Island and Brooklyn. Think about that one, and mention it to either Mayor “YIMBY Swagger,” or Governor “Spread the Money Around to make the Building Trade Council happy” and ask them about it when you’re graced with their august presence.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s funny, the way that the internet works. Writing critiques about the policy situation in NYC, and the endemic political corruption of this new Tammany Hall system, has algorithmically caused Google and other services to read that as a cue to feed me Republican propaganda. Jordan Peterson, Tim Pool, Ben Shapiro, and other noxious voices from that side of the aisle populate my feeds these days. That’s annoying, and illustrates how the internet breeds political polarization.
I’m not a Fascist sympathizer or “on the right,” rather I’m what I’ve always been – a centrist liberal not afraid enough of the “L” word to say “Progressive.” You know who was a progressive? Robert Moses. Nelson Rockefeller too.
I believe that if something isn’t hurting somebody else it should be legal, and that if an existing law or set of policies is restricting somebody else’s freedoms we should get rid of those laws. More freedom is better than less. I also believe that it’s often best to do nothing at all, from a Governmental point of view. I will opine that the Government of New York City is bought and paid for by “big real estate” and that the shit flies which populate that industrial sector will move on to the next turd as soon as NYC has been destroyed by them, when the Politicians they fund are no longer offering them tax breaks which create 30-40% margins for new construction. All of the crap the “electeds” spout to the press falls apart behind the curtain, and they consort with characters whom they would publicly castigate.
Really, ask your Councilmember what it’s like working with Jared Kushner, or Larry Silverstein, or Donald Trump on “affordable housing” real estate projects, and then watch them run away from you while talking about systemic something or some sort of justice thingie.
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thereafter amidst
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The day before we were scheduled to head back to NYC from Pittsburgh, Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself had decided to leave the car parked at the AirBNB we were staying in and we headed out on foot for a bit of a celebratory bar crawl on one of the “main streets” in Dormont, where we had just signed a lease. I’m pretty serious about not operating a vehicle while impaired by alcohol, at least at this stage of my life.
We visited a drinking establishment that specialized in mead and cider, where I enjoyed the hell out of a sour cherry juice infused glass of mead. I felt like a Viking.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our revelry continued into the evening hours, and since it was a full moon I couldn’t resist cracking out a few shots. We headed back to the AirBNB and packed our stuff up for the trip back to “Home Sweet Hell.”
As mentioned in the past, the drive between Pittsburgh and NYC encompasses roughly 400 miles. The highways post speed limits that are largely 70 mph, but in practice traffic is moving quite a bit faster than that. It’s an all day drive, when you factor in bathroom breaks and meals. You don’t find yourself in any sort of traffic nightmare until you’re about 40-50 miles from the Hudson River in New Jersey as it’s mostly a rural route. This is one of those drives where the highway exits are spaced out 30-50 miles from each other.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At one of the “rest” stops we took, I spotted this construction vehicle and instantly regretted the choice I made in buying a Toyota instead of a TerraMac. Look at that thing! Gah. Zombie deterrent of the highest order, Bro.
At any rate, we arrived back in NYC safe and sound, and began to really tear into the remaining work and packing up we needed to do to escape New York. I ended up throwing out about half of the material goods I’ve accumulated over the decades spent here in NYC, judging everything against a rubric of “do I really want to pay a mover to drive this thing 400 miles west.” A lot of personal archaeological finds occurred during this process. I found the letter that my high school girlfriend sent me to announce our break up, several yarmulkes which came into my possession at family weddings and Bar Mitzvah‘s, and all the other minutiae of life which I had been holding onto for decades.
November would end up being a very busy month, in terms of “have to’s.” Multiple runs to the scrap yard to dispose of electronics and metallic items we weren’t going to take with us, then there was a bunch of paper which went to a different scrap yard, all that sort of stuff. The camera was with me for all of this, but seldom did I hit the shutter.
So much to do…
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
The Newtown Pentacle 