Posts Tagged ‘Astoria’
grim castle
Today is the Fête du Vodoun in the Republic of Benin.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Shlepping around Astoria one day, my footsteps found me over by Luyster Creek on the forbidden northern shore of Queens. The real estate shit flies have recently been getting pretty active nearby, with medium sized developments that absolutely do not have any connection to local elected officialdom’s blind trusts and out of office legal partnerships. That sort of thing could never happen in modern day NYC, after all. Dimly lit rooms have replaced the smoke filled ones, I’m told, as it’s now impolitique to smoke indoors. I don’t want to talk about any of that this week, however.
I came here for the boids.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another urban waterway in Queens which I describe as a “future superfund site,” Luyster Creek can also be referred to as Steinway Creek – as it adjoins the Steinway piano factory and once upon a time, old man Steinway used to have his mahogany delivered in log form via Bowery Bay and Long Island Sound by floating it into Luyster Creek lumberjack style. One wrote a profile of the waterway at my old Brownstoner Queens column a few years ago, click here for it.
To understand the modern incarnation of the waterway, let’s just say that these shots were captured from a spot at the end of Astoria’s 19th avenue and that I was standing on an open sewer leaking sewage overflow from the nearby Bowery Bay sewer plant. The shorelines on the western side are pretty much all Consolidated Edison property, but as you head north to where it meets Bowery Bay, you’ll encounter a couple of fuel depots on the eastern side. The water smells like bad cheese and goat poop.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Despite all that, it’s still one of the spots where migratory water birds like to hang out during the winter. The shallows seem to host a fairly abundant amount of whatever delicacies they prefer to quaff. I’ve never been sure where “Duck” ends and “Mallard” begins, but there’s a few of one or the other in the shot above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m fairly sure that these friggin things are Mute Swans, which as of quite recently (January 1st) are no longer targeted by Department of Environmental Conservation hit squads for being a specie termed “invasive.” The DEC hit squads are nothing to mess around with, incidentally. A team of hard men and and women with combat experience and the “thousand yard stare,” they recently exterminated a group of coyotes in this area with extreme prejudice.
I’ve heard accounts of that operation which sounded like something from a Charles Bronson movie.
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rotting creation
It’s National Cassoulet Day, here in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Astoria Tumbleweeds doth fly. In accordance with the ancient village’s calendrical notch on the wheel of the year, it’s time to abandon the holiday tree to the vagaries of the wind. All the neighbors scoff at the idea of driving the thing over to one of the many municipal mulching drop offs. That ain’t natural.
What you are supposed to do, according to Astoria tradition, is drag it over to the corner and then skulk away.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Often there’ll be an orderliness to it all. One forlorn tree, excommunicated from the warm embrace of a family home, acts as an anchor point for others. Soon a veritable wagon train of trees can be observed. A recent perambulation carried me across several of these evergreen middens, which persisted well beyond the close attention which the redoubtable DSNY crews offered to their more mundane sort of waste collection duty – the black bag or putrescent waste, and the various recyclables encased in their respective blue and clear bags.
Apparently, medical waste is meant to be housed in red bags, so there you go. You’re also supposed to put grease in a can or bottle labeled appropriately, and spent batteries should also be in a labeled container.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily for one such as myself, as my walk was coming to its conclusion the wind began to kick up and the astoria tumbleweeds began to explore their migratory patterns. Speaking strictly as “a member of the tribe,” one has often wondered about the annual tonnage of lumber which the holiday month celebrations imports into NYC, by the various goyim, can be quantified as. I’m sure there’s somebody at DSNY who could inform. I’m sure there’s also someone else at DSNY who could and would catechize on the efficacy of mulching your Christmas Tree before it becomes an urban runabout.
All I can say about the Jewish POV on this holiday tree madness is this – what, you paid how much… for a dead plant which you can’t eat, and that you threw out after just a month? Meshuggenehs.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As seems to be a holiday tradition here in my neck of Astoria, wherein garbage and recycling pickup are dually scheduled for Sunday nights, the back to back “day off” for the long suffering truck crews of DSNY results in the neighborhood beginning to fill up with considerable amounts of trash. Add in the tidal wave of cardboard and wine bottles which appear in the domestic bin…
Astoria, our abundance runneth over, and the tumbleweeds doth fly.
btw – for those of you Luddites who don’t know what a Cassoulet is, click this link to Food Network for a recipe.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
ascending node
It’s National Creampuff day, here in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Christmastoria exemplified is how I describe the shot above.
An early entrant into my Astoria Tumbleweeds category, this tiny holiday tree was properly disposed of, and kind of summed up my mood for the holiday season which has now thankfully passed into memory. Just wasn’t feeling it this year, I wasn’t. Weather, social obligation… a lot of things were happening all through December that just got in the way of solitarily marching around Queens and critiquing things I saw which absolutely nobody asked for – nor cared about – my opinion on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I did manage to get out here and there, stealing an hour or two for myself. These were short walks, mainly, without any specific destination or goal. All in the name of just kicking my feet about and getting a little exercise. It’s an odd thing for me to leave the house and come back with only a couple of images on the camera. That’s mighty Triborough, of course, as seen from the corner of Astoria Blvd. and 31st street one sunny afternoon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, after Christmas came and went, the weather wasn’t too bad – for short intervals – and I decided to get busy.
Getting busy is what I’m all about at the moment, incidentally. Buckle up, the Newtown Pentacle is back in session.
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clung round
Night time in Queens, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This week, you can expect exactly zero newly minted shots from this humble narrator. One part of the reason for that is that Xmas week postings are (annually speaking) the ones with the lowest readership at this – your Newtown Pentacle, the other is that due to the gloom, wet, and cold last week – I wasn’t exactly outside a whole lot. As is my habit, a few shots were selected from the archives for presentation, your consideration and possible amusement.
That’s Sunnyside Gardens in the shot above, shot sometime in the late night or early morning, if memory serves.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Point A in my life is Astoria, Queens. All journeys start at “Point A,” for me, and end there as well.
Pictured above is 31st street beneath the elevated tracks of the Subway, on a drizzle choked evening.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Speaking of the elevated, I stand by my assertion that the 7 line is the most photogenic of all NYC’s Subway lines. That’s her, crashing through LIC.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
loathsome tittering
Astoria, Queens rules – In today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wandering about in the dark and cold, as one is wont to do, this inflatable snowman was encountered on Northern Blvd. at the angle between Astoria and Sunnyside. For those of you who don’t “speak Mitch,” an angle is the borderland between two neighborhoods where you’re neither here nor there. These “angles” are usually where the old municipal borders between the town and villages of Western Queens were found – prior to the creation of Long Island City in 1870, or the consolidation of the greater city in 1898. These angles are where Robert Moses would usually site his roads, as is the case with the border between Sunnyside and Blissville or Woodside and Maspeth where the LIE was built, or between Long Island City and Maspeth when the BQE was routed.
I’ve always ascribed this to Robert Moses having been clever enough to play the politicians of both communities off of each other, which got him better deals and concessions from each. These ward bosses and assemblymen and town Mayors could then report back to their constituents that not only didn’t they allow Moses to dig a trench through the center of their town but that Old Man Moses had promised them that building jobs would be available for anyone that the elected official put forward. That’s how you build a city!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Also spotted while picking my lonely way through the nighted devastations was this pair of taxis gassing up before starting (or ending, perhaps) their shifts. Urban ephemera is what I’m all about these days – gas stations, car washes, minor bridges.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Longtime readers of this – your Newtown Pentacle – might remember that there was an electrical transformer fire on my corner back in July of 2016, which was described in this post. This set off a whole slew of work by Con Ed and its contractors here in Astoria, some of which is discussed in this post. During the intervening months since the event, multiple crews of workers have randomly shown up on the corner, then dug a new trench down into the street, did some sort of stuff, and then filled in their new hole. Two to three random weeks later, another bunch of guys in orange vests shows up and then they repeat the process.
The latest passel of work involves the replacement of a lamp post, which must have been shorted out during the transformer fire. Pictured above is a crew who have dug the most recent trench, this time going from the transformer to the affected lamp pole. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the lamp pole now seems to have power, the newly installed LED luminaire mounted on the pole is displaying a red bar rather bright bluish white light. The red bar is the “trouble” signal that repairs are needed, I’m told.
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