squat creatures
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An interesting conversation with someone who had just moved into the Long Island City area, whom I met at the after party for the recent Forgotten NY “2nd Saturday” Skillman avenue walking tour, involved the environmental and health consequences of living so close to Newtown Creek and the heavy infrastructure around LIC.
She was part of that group often referred to in a denigrating manner by area wags as “tower people”, and desperate to describe her new neighborhood as “not that bad”- she began making references to far off catastrophic environmental situations. Delicate turf for one such as myself, whose taciturn visage and brusque “matter of fact” mannerisms have never proven popular in polite circles- and extra hazardous as it involves Newtown Creek.
from wikipedia
Long Island City station was built on June 26, 1854, and was rebuilt seven times during the 19th Century. On December 18, 1902, both the two-story station building, and an office building owned by the LIRR burned down. The station was rebuilt on April 26, 1903, and was electrified on June 16, 1910.
Before the East River Tunnels were built, the Long Island City station served as the terminus for Manhattan-bound passengers from Long Island, who took ferries to the East Side of Manhattan. The passenger ferry service was abandoned on March 3, 1925, although freight was carried by car floats (see Gantry Plaza State Park) to and from Manhattan until the middle twentieth century.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The specific structure she dwells in is a newly realized and daring escapade which sits directly next to the Midtown Tunnel and the Pulaski Bridge, and is only a few blocks from the Newtown Creek. On the next corner one may find one of the Belmont Tunnels which carries both 7 train and Long Island Railroad to Manhattan, and the LIRR main line tracks weave through the area as well. She described the experience of living in this new building as fantastic, but overhearing your humble narrator as he proselytizes and promotes awareness of the Newtown Creek, grew increasingly uneasy as she heard an alternate description of her new home.
This is not my intention, nor what I intend when discussing the Creek and it’s environs in public.
from newtownpentacle posting of June 10, 2009
In the late 1860′s, Newtown Township was being run, politically, by a group of country hicks from eastern Long Island who wouldn’t know a good deal if it bit them on the bottom. All the sweat and blood being shed in Hunter’s Point, and along Newtown Creek- servicing the exploding populations of the two cities (Brooklyn and especially Manhattan)- it was the East River’s taxes that were building elaborate courthouses and paving roadways (in Jamaica, Queens and other unimaginably eastward points)- but what were these “New Men of industry” getting back from Newtown Township?
Was it those baronial Dutch farmers from Elmhurst who built the ironclad Monitors that redefined naval warfare? Was it they who had set up the casino riverboats, and a Turtle Bay to Hunters point ferry service to bring in the rubes, when Manhattan outlawed card rooms and horse betting parlors? Did those cloud watchers and pig farmers build the greatest and most productive shipyards in the entire world on Newtown Creek, or was it men like Cord Meyer and Daniel Pratt? The entrepreneurial explosion of the industrial revolution, the future, was happening right now on the East River and especially on the Newtown Creek, notLong Island Sound or Jamaica Bay.
These farmers from Flushing were standing in the way of progress, and holding on to an agrarian way of life that the railroad was obviously going to destroy. Besides, all the farm goods on Long Island would still have to go through the docks in Hunters Point and Astoria on their way to Manhattan anyway. The shores of Newtown Creek were bulkheaded and straightened by Newtown Township in 1868 in an effort to boost navigability.
In 1870- the leading men of the communities of Astoria, Ravenswood, Blissville, Sunnyside, Dutch Kills, Bowery Bay, and Middleton combined their considerable political patronage and their vast fortunes together and formed Long Island City. The population of the new city didn’t quite number 10,000, but the great unwashed- like we modern multitudes- were just along for the ride.
All this was far more than the men who owned and operated the 800 pound gorilla, also known as the Long Island Rail Road, could have asked for.
Industrialists and gangsters all over the new city vied for position on the train tracks, waiting for the iron road to lead the world directly to their door.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Here’s the thing… I can’t lie to the LIC Tower people about the history of the place and the leave behinds in the ground and water that are extant still, but by the same token, don’t want to breathe fire in their direction either. Attempts were made to explain her new role not as some mere resident of LIC, but as an actual stakeholder in it’s future. Careful shepherding by the actual community, rather than some external agency, is what LIC needs. Burying ones head in the sand works badly for Ostriches, and worse for primates.
She didn’t see it that way and insisted that things weren’t so bad around these parts, and that proximity to the admittedly excellent Sweetleaf Coffee shop trumped other concerns.
We laughed.
from ny1.com
Residents of a building in Long Island City, Queens say they are near their wits’ end over the noise from train engines that idle all day in a nearby yard, and want the MTA to put the brakes on it. Borough reporter Ruschell Boone filed the following report.
For some Long Island City residents, the sound of idling train engines plow through their day.
“I’m not here to observe it all day. I wouldn’t want to be here five days a week,” said resident Mark Goetz.
“It’s really horrible. I mean, like I wake up to this noise every morning,” said resident Lillian Marchena.
Marchena’s apartment is directly across the street from the Long Island Rail Road rail yard. She says residents have been complaining for years about the diesel engine trains that sit idling during the day.
“It’s actually gotten a little bit better from the beginning when I first moved in, but it’s still a big problem,” she said.
Over the last two years, the LIRR has turned off some of the engines during the day and placed some trains in other parts of the rail yard as part of a compromise, but some residents said the noise is starting to increase again.
“From 7:30 in the morning ’til 5:30 at night, Monday through Friday,” said Community Board 2 Chairman Joe Conley.
It is a harsh reality for new residents moving to the once-industrial area. The rail yard has been there for more than 100 years, but residents want the diesel engines turned off during the day.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Greenpoint side of the Newtown Creek is actually a hotbed of neighborhood activism, which is reflected by the abundance of grant money funding community projects there. Greenpoint of course, is a multi generational community, whose population is largely anchored in place and possessed of an “institutional memory” that remembers the sins of the past. The Queens side, not so much.
A not so funny joke I tell is: the borough motto should be “welcome to Queens, go fuck yourself“.
The reason it’s not funny is that it’s largely true, and something as simple as a blizzard or a blackout will concretize that rather quickly. It’s also why our neighborhoods are viewed as transient way stations on the way east by the elites of Manhattan, and it is something that needs to addressed, should we desire to see the “American Style” of government continue throughout the 21st century.
The trains and the Creek and the commuter traffic and the noise, you see, are not going to be leaving the scene anytime soon and frankly- compared to a hundred years ago, things are just grand.
from the 1898 “NEW AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT TO THE LATEST EDITION OF THE ENCYCLOPEDIAE BRITANNICA A” STANDARD WORK OF REFERENCE IN ART, LITERATURE, SCIENCE. HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, COMMERCE, BIOGRAPHY, DISCOVERY AND INVENTION EDITED UNDER THE PERSONAL SUPERVISION OF DAY OTIS KELLOGG, D.D. -courtesy Google Books”
LONG ISLAND CITY, a city of New York, separated from Brooklyn by Newtown Creek, with Hunter’s Point as its southwestern portion. It is the terminus of the Long Island and the Flushing and North Side railroad. It has large oil-refineries, sulphuric-acid factories, and many other large and important manufacturing establishments.
Blissville, now incorporated within the city limits, on Newtown Creek, is the seat of large distilleries, and of factories for compressed yeast, fertilizers, etc.
Astoria, the northwestern portion of Long Island City, contains carpet and piano factories, and many good residences.
The part of the city called Ravenswood contains also many handsome residences, Long Island City has an extensive front along the East River, Newtown Creek and Long Island Sound, Newtown Creek being navigable at this point.
The city has water-works, gas and electriclight plants and street-railways. The public schools have an enrollment of over six thousand pupils. Both Jamaica and Long Island City claim to be the county capital, each having several county buildings. Population of the city 1890, 30,506.
colossal and protuberant
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There I sat, broken hearted…
Somehow that old Brooklyn Public School aphorism was on my mind as I scuttled along the street ends of Greenpoint. These shots were attained at India Street’s junction with the East River and depict the shield wall of a Shining City as viewed from the collapsing pierages of an ancient and crumbling competitor.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s difficult for us to think of the Boroughs as separate cities… well, it’s hard to imagine Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx as separate while with Staten Island it’s quite easy… but they were. This location upon which I was standing was, until quite recently (from a historical perspective), heavily industrialized. A workshop, this section of Greenpoint is in many ways responsible for the ascendency of Manhattan over not just it’s local competition but the Nation itself.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is another of the zones which the City fathers has designated for whatever they call “urban renewal” these days, and plans are both afoot and underway to convert certain structures to residential use (such as the “Pencil Factory”) or to clear away the existing building stock to make way for new construction.
The good news, or bad depending on your perspective, is that a condition set forward to the real estate interests by the City is that a waterfront pedestrian concourse not unlike the one nearing completion across the Newtown Creek in Long Island City must be built in return for certain laxities of enforcement regarding the zoned height of waterfront development.
At least there’ll still be a place down by the water where the kids in Greenpoint can go and dream of an age when you needn’t have to commute to get to work.
Additionally, the following event will be happening in Greenpoint on May 4th, 2011. I’ve met Shawn Shafner and he’s got a LOT of good stuff to say about some very bad stuff indeed. I’ll be there- at the Temple of Cloacina- how about you, Citizen?
Text from the flyer with links:
Water for Cities: Responding to the Urban Challenge*
Moderated by Shawn Shafner of The People’s Own Organic Power Project www.thePOOPproject.org
Wednesday, May 4th 2011 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm Talks followed by a panel discussion
Visitor Center at Newtown Creek 329 Greenpoint Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11222
The Speakers are: Frederik Pischke Interagency Water Advisor UN-Water, Vyjayanthi Rao Assistant Professor of Anthropology New School for Social Research, New York, Jennifer Farmwald Project Manager Water Supply Infrastructure & Watershed Assessment NYC Environmental Protection.
Visit DEP’s website at www.nyc.gov/dep Follow us at www.facebook.com/nycwater
Queensboro Pedestrian Walkway
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Forgive the lack of regular formatting, as this post is being generated through Flickr’s wordpress application. Caught this a couple of weeks ago while walking over the Bridge- the Queensboro Bridge- to Manhattan. Something about the deep shadows and bright East River air just grabs me.
The Bowie effect
-photo by Mitch Waxman
There are those who like to tell your humble narrator that he is given to hyperbole if not outright fraud, and although I will admit to a weakness for theatrical effect, the odd subjects and situations described in these posts are not contrivances or banal set pieces. When I tell you of the odd polydactyl cats around the Grand Street Bridge or the eyeless things that wriggle in the mud during low tide at Maspeth Creek, rather than smile kindly and nod your head, shudder audibly at the terrible implications arising from their existence- which, if generally known, might herald a turning away from science by a beaten human race gladly retreating into a new dark age.
Here then is one of the curiously heterochromiatic cats found in hoary Greenpoint, which is one of the “you just make this stuff up” sore spots for a humble narrator.
from wikipedia
In anatomy, heterochromia refers to a difference in coloration, usually of the iris but also of hair or skin. Heterochromia is a result of the relative excess or lack of melanin (a pigment). It may be inherited, or caused by genetic mosaicism, disease or injury.
Eye color, specifically the color of the irises, is determined primarily by the concentration and distribution of melanin. The affected eye may be hyperpigmented (hyperchromic) or hypopigmented (hypochromic). In humans, usually, an excess of melanin indicates hyperplasia of the iris tissues, whereas a lack of melanin indicates hypoplasia. Heterochromia of the eye (heterochromia iridis or heterochromia iridum; the common wrong form “heterochromia iridium” is not correct Latin) is of two kinds. In complete heterochromia, one iris is a different color from the other. In partial heterochromia or sectoral heterochromia, part of one iris is a different color from its remainder.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
This was just one member of a colony of cats living on Commercial Street, and the rest scattered before the coloration of their ocular organs could be ascertained. Luckily this stalwart maintained a steady position, and despite the clear annoyance displayed at the horrible scuttling thing waving around a camera before it, stood it’s ground. As a fellow child of infinite Brooklyn, such tenacity did not go unnoticed. Odd eye colored Cats are special, from a symbolic point of view, and have no small amount of mythic significance – even the prized cat of the prophet, called Muezza, was odd eyed.
from wikipedia
The Cat Sìth (Scottish Gaelic: [kʰaht̪ ˈʃiː]) or Cat Sidhe (Irish: [kat̪ˠ ˈʃiː], Cat Sí in new orthography) is a fairy creature from Celtic mythology, said to resemble a large black cat with a white spot on its breast. Legend has it that the spectral cat haunts the Scottish Highlands. Some common folklore suggested that the Cat Sìth was not a fairy, but a transformed witch.
The legends surrounding this creature are more common in Scottish folklore, but a few occur in Irish as well.
-photo by Mitch Waxman
There are many odd things around the Newtown Creek, hidden away beneath the cracked cement and amongst the dripping masonry walls of those long buried and forgotten building foundations which lie just below the facade of modernity. Here you are then, the “Bowie Effect” of the Cats of the Creek is offered. Still working on getting the six toed critters in DUGSBO though…
Who can guess what other anomalous and unwholesome alterations our common urban fauna might have undergone, or are undergoing, in some runaway Darwinian reaction to those environmental stressors they have suffered over the centuries at Newtown Creek?
from wikipedia
In Irish mythology, the aos sí (Irish pronunciation: [iːs ˈʃiː], older form aes sídhe [eːs ˈʃiːə]) are a supernatural race comparable to the fairies or elves. They are said to live underground in the fairy mounds, across the western sea, or in an invisible world that coexists with the world of humans. This world is described in “The Book of Invasions” (recorded in the Book of Leinster) as a parallel universe in which the aos sí walk amongst the living.
In the Irish language, aos sí means “people of the mounds” (the mounds are known in Irish as “the sídhe”). In Irish literature the people of the mounds are also referred to as the daoine sídhe (“deena shee”), and in Scottish Gaelic literature as the daoine sìth or daoine sìdh. They are said to be the ancestors, spirits of nature, or goddesses and gods.
note: The large blue box in the background of these shots seems to have been designed to act as some sort of feral cat shelter rather than a Tardis, and bore a screed proselytizing the curious to visit the website found at neighborhoodcats.org/
Magic Lantern Show
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It is needless to say, of course, is that my magic lantern is digital. In the dawn of the age of photography, journeyman shooters would travel all around the world, or to corners of the City which the genteel upper crust would eschew- and capture images of titillating subjects for the entertainment and evangelization of the moneyed classes who would otherwise never encounter such things. Jacob Riis and Matthew Brady come to mind, and whereas your humble narrator would never allow himself to invoke those names for fear of the vast hubris it would call crashing down about my ears, a belief nevertheless persists around Newtown Pentacle HQ that such an exhibition can still find a modern audience.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just under an hour long, this Magic Lantern Show about Newtown Creek is personally narrated, and transports the viewer to every corner of the Newtown Creek- every tributary and street end, on the water and above it, and is presented in the idiosyncratic and off beat manner which has become familiar to regular readers of this- your Newtown Pentacle. It attempts to explain certain core questions in under an hour which have been repeatedly presented to me over the last couple of years, and the entire talk is illustrated with both my photography and historical researches and documents:
- What exactly do you mean by the “Newtown Pentacle”?
- When did the Newtown Creek begin to matter?
- Why should I care, how does the Newtown Creek affect me, as I live in Manhattan?
- Where exactly is this place?
- Who is responsible for this mess, and exactly who is it that’s going to clean it up?
- How can I get involved and help my community revitalize and or restore the Newtown Creek?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The entire evening will cost you a mere sawbuck, or $5 as it’s referred to in modernity (and I’m not altogether certain what the deal is if you’re already a GAHS member, you’d be best served by checking in with them), and will be presented at the Greater Astoria Historical Society on June 6th, 2011 at 7p.m. I’d love to see you there, and there will be a question and answer period after the show, in which I’ll endeavor to respond to any random question from the audience. Luckily, GAHS will be there, should my knowledge fall short. Come one, come all.
Believe it or not, this still isn’t the BIG announcement. Await with baited breath the next thrilling installment of this- your Newtown Pentacle.
