Posts Tagged ‘Astoria’
eternal day
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back in Queens, a humble narrator has been rather busy for the last few days.
Next week, the schedule of spring and summer Newtown Creek tours will be revealed to you at last, as well as some details about the ambitious schedule of boat tours which the Working Harbor Committee is planning. Short perambulations around the neighborhood have been my only distraction from the plotting and planning of this year’s excursions. Unnatural and unseasonable cold, however, has left the streets adorned in a drab winter appearance.
One starves for color.
from queensnyc.com
On Sunday, we joined over 140 people aboard a New York Water Taxi for the Working Harbor Committee’s tour of Newtown Creek. The tour was narrated by Mitch Waxman whose encyclopedic knowledge and passion for the area can be seen on his blog The Newtown Pentacle, and on his tours and work as the historian for the Newtown Creek Alliance.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Resorting to hanging around the produce departments of storefront merchants brings no surcease to this desire for the bright hues of Spring. Normally, one would expect the trees to show some sign of returning vitality and conscientious property owners would have already begun planting early varietal. Free ranging grasses should also be raising bright green shoots by now. Instead, the yellows and browns of winter linger, as does an unnatural chill.
One thirsts for warmth.
from nytimes.com
Not that Mr. Waxman is any sort of an academic. While the Newtown Creek Alliance, an environmental advocacy group, lists him as its resident historian, his credentials were earned on the street and the Internet, through countless solitary walks and countless nights poring over obscure archives.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Mainly, I’m just tired of hanging around in the cold wastes waiting for something to happen, and truly look forward to a day spent entirely out of doors and unencumbered by the heavy garments of an overly long winter. The next few months should be pretty interesting, lords and ladies, and without spilling a certain can of beans- pencil me in for May 26th.
One desires company.
from blsciblogs.baruch.cuny.edu
Usually it’s not a great thing when your memory of the first time you met someone person is inseparable from a terrible, gag-inducing stink. But with Mitch Waxman, it comes with the territory.
hollow voiced
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A specialized filter for my camera lens arrived one day, in the mail. I had not ordered the thing, but beggars cannot be choosers- as is oft repeated by area wags- and the optic element was attached. Happily enough, your humble narrator went about his tasks and recorded a few hundred images over the course of a few days whilst moving about the Megaloloplis.
When one emptied the memory card of the camera, loosing a flood of images onto the hard drive of my trusty computer, a phantasmagoric cavalcade of horror was unleashed. In “the field” these odd… they must be some sort of digital artifacts… lets just call them artifacts… artifacts were not displayed upon the preview screen of the camera nor were they detectable by any of the normal compliment of human senses.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Seeking to track down who sent me this bizarre optic, your humble narrator soon found himself in the back of a mobile phone franchise storefront, on Main Street in Flushing, arguing with an aged woman via the proxy and translations of her American born grandson. The old woman informed me that the package I had received, whose shipping address resolved back to the very shop she owned, was a complete mystery to her and that I should stop wasting her time and go find a job.
More than once, I thought that I spotted a young girl moving around behind the curtain separating the back room from the sales and service counters. It was an intuition, more than anything else, but I did hear a strange sort of clicking or gurgling back there and water was pooling on the floor. The girl was likely mopping up a flood and cursing under her breath, thought I.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Does this seemingly wholesome and quite utilitarian seeming lens filter have some coating or innate quality which allows it to discern the intangible, allowing the camera to record that occluded and squirming truth which is the true reality around us? Who sent this anonymous and possibly eldritch amulet to my home, and why?
In the week or so that these images have been festering on my hard drive, odd things have been happening around HQ. Sleep may never come easily again, as my computer has begun to randomly play early 1990’s modem sounds, and… sometimes the compositions in these images will appear change- entirely of their own accord. The shot above, for instance, is far more toothsome than when originally captured. Lets just call them… artifacts…
And if you believe anything like this fancily illustrated tall tale, especially on April 1, I’ve got this to sell you.
Project Firebox 65
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Always on the look out for friendly neighborhood Fireboxes which have eluded my notice, this sturdy specimen was encountered on Astoria Blvd. at 42nd street. Unfortunately malfunctioning, it bears familiar signage adjuring the reader to rely on telephone contact with the Fire Department instead of using the alarm system.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“Engine 263 and Ladder 117’s station house happens to be on the block” thought a humble narrator. “Why would there actually be a firebox on the same corner as a fire house” entered my mind next, but then I remembered that this was, after all, Queens. Logic and Queens are often exclusive of each other.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
No sign of the crews inside, so one imagines that this sign, advising one to use the broken firebox on the corner would need updating. Shame, as it is lovely typography.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A seeming memorial, this firebox like device ornaments a prominent spot on the building’s facade. The “343” is a reference to the number of FDNY personnel who perished at the World Trade Center at the turn of the century.
Project Firebox 64
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sudden panic overcame me on Thursday last, when a yawning hole in my scheduled postings presented itself in a looming fashion- I had no fresh Firebox for Saturday!
In a huff, and something of a puff, your humble narrator meekly wandered around Astoria looking for some heretofore anonymous fire box with the goal of shooting its portrait. Luckily, on 38th and 28th, this scarlet century awaited me.
blazing through
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An ongoing saga, the repairs visited upon a formerly smoldering Con Ed street pit here in Astoria continue unabated. The repair crew visualized in the images adorning this post wore Orange (the first wore blue), as can plainly be perceived, but a third unit arrived who were clad in grayish white costume. This tertiary band of pale laborers escaped photographic scrutiny, I am afraid, but the Oranges were not so lucky. For the first installment of this ongoing urban epic, vist the post “perfect service” and the ancillary “shrank away.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Orange brigade attacked the street vengefully, hurling their equipment at the pavement with an alacrity and conviction terrifying to behold. It felt to one such as myself, a deadened and unfeeling thing, that these Oranges might have been offended by this street pit’s very existence. Again, and again, the blades of shovel and diesel powered earth mover were hurled noisily against the street pit and its surroundings.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Suddenly, they were done with the task at hand, whereupon certain members of this crew began to secure trophies of their victory. Happily, these trophies were gathered onboard a waiting truck, no doubt to be carted off and displayed as totems of sacrifice, vigor, and prowess. When they were finished with the collection of their stony prize, a large sheet of steel was produced from the truck and lowered- ominously- over the far widened maw of the street pit.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is not the same safety cone which was detailed in the second posting, that one made its way down Broadway over the course of a few days where it was run over by dozens of trucks. This is the new one, which came along with the steel plate. As more news develops, a humble narrator (who still hasn’t forgotten nor forgiven Consolidated Edison’s Great Astoria Blackout of 2006) shall of course bring it to you at this- your Newtown Pentacle.
The Newtown Pentacle 