Posts Tagged ‘Astoria’
swoopingly through
Cool cars, Astoria/Woodside edition.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Gangster! Spotted this late model parked along Newtown Road near its intersection with Northern Blvd. recently. It’s registration sticker says it’s a 1960 Buick Four Door Sedan, and I do believe that it’s actually a 1960 LeSabre.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I dig the way the body styling above the head lamps makes it look angry. When you’re talking about a 1960 Buick, you should be using slang like “dig,” by the way.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The car wasn’t exactly “cherry,” as it had some body issues and was missing its proper wheel covers and more than a little bit of its chrome, but there’s a body shop on the corner of Northern which often has “cool cars” flowing through its lot so I suspect that this was one of theirs and that it was going to be receiving some love and attention.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a giant 8 cylinder engine under the hood of this auto, incidentally. If you’ve never driven a 1960’s Buick, I feel sorry for you, as you have no idea what real acceleration feels like.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This “cool car,” lords and ladies, caused a humble narrator to say out loud “me want.”
Of course, you’d be dropping half a tank of gas to get from one corner to the next, due to that giant 8 cylinder engine. It’s also from the “unsafe at any speed” era, so it’s likely that bumping into another car while parking might decapitate you, but…
Upcoming Events and Tours
Thursday, June 30, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. –
Port Elizabeth Newark Boat Tour,
with Working Harbor Committee. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
vacant box
Back to Hells Gate, where I belong.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in Moday’s post, a humble narrator found himself lurking in fear along the Western Queens waterfront recently, specifically the legend choked narrows of the East River which nearly four centuries of European mariners have called the “Hellegaat” or “Hells Gate.” It was late in the day, and the flood tide was heading out towards Bowery Bay and Long Island Sound.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A succession of tug and barge combinations were taking advantage of the titanic flow, heading north and then perhaps east. I had a meeting to attend, so I only stuck around for two of the vessel transits.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The first was Sea Lion, towing a seemingly empty barge meant for the transport of recyclable materials. Notice the mesh fencing on the lip of the thing, a device contrived to avoid having materials within the barge swept up on the wind and into the water.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sea Lion, famously, found itself in a bit of trouble off a different coast of Long Island back in January of 2014, when it sunk off of Atlantic Beach. There were injuries, but as far as I know, no fatalities – thank goodness.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Bouchard transport is a historical star in the NY Harbor family, with the company having been founded nearly a century ago by Capt. Fred Bouchard in 1918. That’s a fuel barge being towed in the shot above, incidentally.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The tug is the Ellen S. Bouchard, a 3,900 HP boat. You can read about her history at this page found at the ever reliable tugboatinformation.com.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s it for a somewhat maritime focused week at this, your Newtown Pentacle, see you Monday with something completely different. There’s still a few spots left for the Insalubrious Valley tour with Brooklyn Brainery, btw, come with? The Calvary walk is sold out, but it looks like we’ll be doing it again sometime soon.
Upcoming Events and Tours
Saturday, June 25, 10:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek,
with Brooklyn Brainery. Click here for more details.
Sunday, June 26, 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour,
with Atlas Obscura. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
shaken open
From Hells Gate… in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The titular centennial for the Hell Gate bridge, one of the prides of Astoria, will be occurring shortly. Accordingly, the “powers that be” hereabouts have begun to gather and plan for a community celebration. A meeting was called recently, and one marched over to the forbidden northern coast of Queens to participate. This particular meeting was the moment when the centennial efforts got serious, as none other than Peter Vallone Sr. was in the room. If you don’t who that is, or what it means when the great man himself is present, you don’t know much about Astoria.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As is my habit, I left a LOT earlier than I needed to, and walked to the meeting location “the long way.” The “short way” takes about 25-30 minutes, the “long way” is a meandering but somewhat photogenic path that’s more like 90 minutes. My chosen path would, I hoped, allow me to catch some maritime traffic taking advantage of the flood tide on the East River for transiting to the north and east. I wasn’t disappointed, but I’ll show you that later in the week. That’s a Dann towing company tug in the shot above, incidentally.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The “long way” involves me walking from HQ on the south eastern side of Astoria, where we share borders with Woodside and Sunnyside, down Broadway and then following the East River north in the direction of Astoria Park. That’s where I encountered this scene above, which is a great example of why I love living in this neighborhood.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“I like the way you think” is what I told the fellow in the Lay-Z-Boy on Shore Blvd. I also assured him that if he were to run for elected office, he could count on my support. He encouraged me to take his photo, incidentally, as his innovative notion of what a “folding chair” is was something wonderful.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ll show you some of the maritime traffic I spotted along Hell Gate in a post later on this week.
Upcoming Events and Tours
Saturday, June 25, 10:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek,
with Brooklyn Brainery. Click here for more details.
Sunday, June 26, 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour,
with Atlas Obscura. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
age mad
Bird brains, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last weekend I got to hang out for a while with my parrot buddy Jiminy. I know, I know – he’s my buddy and whether he’s a parrot or not is immaterial. Describing him as a parrot indicates that I’m not a parrot and that I view myself as part of a superior monoculture, which further indicates that I judge individuals through a lens that distinguishes them as being parrot or non parrot. My “primate privilege” is on display, and I’ll be reporting to the reeducation camps shortly.
In my defense, when Jiminy is hungry, he blurts out “feed the parrot” but that’s him taking the “P” word back.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recently, I got to witness a “cabinet of curiousities” at a scientific laboratory which sported dozens of dead things preserved in jars of some sort of preservative fluid. One of my buddies, who is coincidentally one of the founders of Atlas Obscura, has a “cabinet of wonders” in his house which includes a mummified baby llama he collected in the Andes. The fish in a jar smells better than the llama mummy, I would point out.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has been under the weather for several days, and suffering from a particularly annoying virus that has produced upper respiratory issues. A hacking and productive cough, accompanied by a sinus infection, has laid a humble narrator low since Sunday last. This has caused an uneven sleeping schedule, and forced me to stay quite close to home. The only thing I’ve been working on have been “paying jobs,” and thusly the views of NY Harbor and the Newtown Creek which you’d expect me to present are few and far between at the moment.
Accordingly, I’m a bit short on content for this week. One seems to be on the mend, and I’ll address this stunning lack of visual evidence as the week progresses, but for the next few days I’m going to be “reblogging” some archived posts. Sorry for the repeats.
Upcoming Events and Tours
Saturday, June 25, 10:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek,
with Brooklyn Brainery. Click here for more details.
Sunday, June 26, 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour,
with Atlas Obscura. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
accident or evil
Things I’ve seen, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One decided to take a walk through Hallets Point, or Astoria Point as the Real Estate Industrial Complex has christened it, recently. The fires of gentrification have been stoked on the forbidden northern coast of Queens, as you may have heard. My purpose behind this walk revolved around path finding the probable right of way for the proposed BQX street car system, which I find an interesting intellectual challenge – an Einsteinian “thought experiment” if you will.
As a note, I have nothing to do with the project – instead I’m just curious about how they’re going to “thread the needle” through parks and housing projects to make this particular dream of NYC’s oligarchs come true.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Upon arriving back in my neighborhood on the southern border of Astoria, one encountered another member of the growing population of “not homeless” types who enjoy an afternoon tipple and then a short nap on the public way. Nostradamus like, your humble narrator is, and my predictions that the toleration of a population of drunken bums by the 114th precinct along Broadway would begin to draw in others is playing out. At least one bank has had to hire a night time security guard to vouchsafe its ATM laden lobby against them, and the steps of the Broadway/Steinway library have become an open air camp site. I look forward to seeing these folks riding and urinating on the BQX.
This fellow is a regular, and commonly observed sleeping and or manipulating some body part found deep in his the pantaloons. This shot was captured on the corner of Steinway Street and Broadway, which can hardly be considered an out of the way location.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Me? I’ve been a bit too busy to care about the “bum” situation in Astoria for the last few weeks. Boat excursions, walking tours, a never ending series of meetings – all have been consuming my time.
Speaking of, I’ll be speaking early tomorrow at the Greater Astoria Historic Society for “Queens Waterfront” symposium they’re conducting with the Waterfront Alliance. This will be an all day affair, but I’ll only be there in the morning as I’ve got to conduct a tour of the Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek in the afternoon.
Come with? Ticketing link below.
Upcoming Events and Tours
Saturday, May 21st at 3:30 p.m. –
A Return to The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek,
with Atlas Obscura, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Click here for more details.
Thursday, May 26th at 6 p.m. –
Brooklyn Waterfront: Past & Present Boat Tour,
with Working Harbor Committee. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 