Posts Tagged ‘Astoria’
From ChristmAstoria’s past
Merry Christmas
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Due to recent events, I haven’t got a 2024 Santa shot to use today, so I reached back to my Astoria archives for the one above.
Merry, merry. Back tomorrow with something else.
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“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.
Archives #050
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If everything is going to plan as this post is being written, on Friday the 6th of December, this should be the last of the archives postings.
Presuming that the weather was on my side this week, as the forecast suggests it will be – and that my ankle problems weren’t too severe when I started revving up again – there should be new material appearing here next week. Can’t wait to see whatever it is that Pittsburgh wants to show me, but one remains a bit hobbled. There’s still an entire month of PT in front of me, after all.
2013’s ‘moist verdure’ joined in with the railfanning cultists at MTA’s annual nostalgia train subway ride.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Queens used to enjoy taunting me to photograph her pains, and would often serve up interesting ‘amuse bouche’ appetizers at my doorstep, something which – so far – which Pittsburgh doesn’t do that often. Here, I’ve got to go and find it, but there you are. Can’t have everything served on a silver platter.
2016’s ‘loathsome tittering’ offered yet another hullabaloo breaking out on my old corner in Astoria.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally…
These archive posts are reaching into Newtown Pentacle’s backups, and are pulling posts that went public on this date, in their respective years, going back to 2009. This practice will continue until I’m back on both feet full time, and new photos and stories can be gathered. For anyone who hasn’t heard the news, I broke my left ankle at the end of September.
2021’s ‘almost illegible’ is right about when I had decided to move out of NYC. It also contains an excellent recipe for lemonade, a favorite joke, and a recommendation for listening to the Who. Rough year, 2021.
“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.
Archives #046
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These archive posts are reaching into Newtown Pentacle’s backups, and are pulling posts that went public on this date, in their respective years, going back to 2009. This practice will continue until I’m back on both feet full time, and new photos and stories can be gathered. For anyone who hasn’t heard the news, I broke my left ankle at the end of September.
Further, as I predicted, the minute that the docs told me it’d be ok to start normal activities again – atmospheric temperatures dropped down into the 20’s, then it started snowing here in Pittsburgh, and the combination of all that resulted in leaving behind icy conditions.
No bueno, regarding the ankle and ice. Hopefully, this is the last week of archive posts, and next week new material should start showing up again.
Thanks for sticking with me during this trial, it’s meant a lot – the comments, views, etc. have definitely buoyed me up during dark times.
2013’s ‘uneasy voices’ detailed the scene as yet another one of the endless ‘Astoria Hullabloo’s’ set up just under my window when FDNY and NYPD suddenly appeared in large numbers on Broadway.
This sort of thing would occur at least once a month during the entire interval that I lived on Broadway’s corner of 44th street in Astoria. Yes, I lived directly over Gino’s Pizza. Zuzu the dog liked sleeping on the tile floor directly over their pizza oven, during the winter months.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hey, that’s my shadow! You can see the outline of the street cassock filthy black raincoat and everything. Good times…
A standard ‘short walk’ I’d commit to at least once a week was to negotiate over to 39th street, at Northern Blvd., from Astoria, then walk past Sunnyside Yards and southwards up a shallow hill to Skillman Avenue. Skillman would then negotiate me across Queens Plaza and off the hill, slotting my feet into a path which led directly to the Degnon Terminal and the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek. There and back again was about 5-6 miles and a great short walk. Miss that route.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I didn’t used to just walk south from Astoria, it was just the more interesting walk visually than the other way. Y’know… another favorite destination for a short walk was Luyster Creek on the northern side, but there were so many long stretches of just residential blocks, which are rumored to be full of humans. In some spots, there are positive infestations of the man-apes. Always did I avoid the crowds and congregations of the humans, given the changeability and capriciousness of their moods.
I love’s me a post industrial and often deserted waterway, I do. Throw in all of the fence hole POV’s at Sunnyside Yards… Dutch Kills won most of the time.
In 2015’s ‘known specie,’ your humble narrator found himself walking over to the forbidden northern shore of Queens via ‘Astoria, astoria.’
“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.
Archives #024
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Things continue to improve for a humble narrator, who attended the first of many ‘physical therapy’ or ‘PT’ appointments yesterday. At one point, I actually stood up on both feet without any sort of brace on my busted ankle, although most of the appointment involved various stretches and exercises to get the thing working properly again. Needless to say, last night and this morning the limb is sort of angry.
These archives posts are reaching into Newtown Pentacle’s backups, and are pulling posts from this date in their respective years going back to 2009. This practice will continue until I’m back on both feet full time, and new photos and stories can be gathered.
November 7th in 2016 saw a series of photos of Astoria’s Halloween festivities presented, as captured from the old ‘local’ bar on the corner of 42nd and Broadway – the Times Square of Astoria – which I used to hang out at.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Man, I miss just being to do ‘stuff.’ It’s been fifty days since this rather crappy adventure began, but I prefer to think it in hours – as in its been 1,211 hours of constant and often overwhelming pain. There’s been no way to be ‘comfortable,’ so I’ve just had to compartmentalize the agonies. It’s an interesting part of the human brain which allows us to ignore deep wounds and fundamental problems just in the name of sleeping.
There’s always a crisis at MTA, isn’t there? This 2019 post admittedly rants a bit, but points out that they never seem to blame the management.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, I’ve got friends who have been willing to endure my company, telephonically speaking. Our Lady has been caring for me, in ways I can never pay back. A humble narrator doesn’t enjoy feeling vulnerable, and especially doesn’t like having others observe such moments.
I was already packing stuff up back at HQ in November of 2022, when I was also trying to see and photograph everything one last time. I figured it might be a good thing to leave behind some instructions for the real estate people, on stealing more of the sky in Long Island City.
Two years later this sounds a lot like ‘City of Yes,’ don’t it?
“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.
Archives #019
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The most wonderful time of the year, and I’m missing it. Bah.
Some good news which this humble narrator can share with you is that my doctor has cleared me for use one of those boot things and then encouraged me to WALK AROUND WITH IT ON. I start physical therapy next week, so I’m taking things slow, but I actually left the house yesterday and drove around Pittsburgh for a few hours. Filled the car’s gas tank while I was out, and had the camera with me while I was motoring about and listening to Black Sabbath, on an atypically warm afternoon. Didn’t take a single shot, the camera just came along for the ride.
Hey! It’s Halloween!
A fairly well read post – by this point in time some 15 years after its original publishing date – is 2009’s Halloween offering of a western Queens ghost story called ‘The White Lady of Astoria.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As I’ve mentioned in the past, given the number of people and residences in NYC, there are surprisingly few city ghost stories. I’ve always chalked this up to real estate valuation, as haunted condos don’t sell as well as the ones without spectral amenities. NYPD seems to not use the term ‘serial killer’ that often, I’d also mention. Probably don’t want to get the people nervous.
Just saying… If you calculate NYC’s head count (The New York City metropolitan region, often called the Tri-State Area, has a population of around 20 million people. This includes New York City itself and surrounding areas in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut), a strictly statistical point of view demands that there have to be at least a few serial killers loose and ‘doing their thing’ in the five boroughs at any given moment. (Historically, it’s estimated that about 0.3-0.4 serial killers per one million people are active in the U.S. each year. Translating that into a percentage, this rate would be approximately 0.00003% to 0.00004% per million people annually.)
2014 saw my revelation of the Queens Cobbler’s activities back in Western Queens and revealed them to the world. How’s that for a Halloween post?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I seem to recall being ‘stuck’ for a Halloween post for this one. A post I was working on fell apart, so I left the house and shot some spooky photos around LIC at night, and got to writing something ‘grimdark.’ The rail bridges in the shot above are the Montauk Cutoff, by the way, on Skillman Avenue.
This grimdark post was from Halloween, in 2018,
Back tomorrow.
“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 