Posts Tagged ‘Astoria’
unknown things
114th precinct, I’m talking to you.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Broadway in Astoria is a lovely stretch of small shops and restaurants which are enjoyed by the largely working class population found hereabouts. Sure, there’s noise, bad actors, crime and all that – no different from you’d find along any commercial strip in the City of Greater New York but our local gendarme does a pretty reasonable job of keeping a lid on things. Luckily, Astoria is somewhat self policing, and there’s so much going on at all times that no one thing can ever really become a paramount concern.
What we’ve got a lot of, however – which the local Bulls inexplicably overlook – is public drunkenness and vagrancy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At 42nd street and Broadway, where you’ll find Tsigonia Paint, a colony of alcoholic vagrants has set up shop and have been present in this area for several years. Once upon a time, there were three of them, which became six, and now there’s around twenty regulars. Before any of you Columbia University people crawl up my back and announce that your liberal sensibilities are offended by this post, or opine that I’m some sort of caveman, let us first define the fact that these fellows aren’t homeless – they are in fact bums. How do I know this? Because unlike those of you in the Ivory Towers of scholastic solemnity, I’ve actually talked with them and learned their names and stories. The fellow in the shot below who is standing up is a tragic figure named Andres, for instance.
Not a week goes by that somebody in the neighborhood doesn’t have to threaten to call the police to get these guys to vacate a residential driveway, stoop, or doorway. For most of us it’s common practice to just step over them as they sleep one off. They inhabit this corner, and you’ll observe them composing a small fraction of the day laborer population that hangs around Tsigonia Paint hoping to pick up work. Nothing wrong with that, of course, a man has to work. These guys, however, aren’t here to work – except on their buzz.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve sat and watched patrol car after patrol car roll right past scenes like the ones depicted in today’s post. It has been pointed out by me to various neighbors and elected officials that this is the sort of thing which can kill a neighborhood. Government people have said to me that these drunks will not be arrested, and that the best I could hope to happen is that the cops will harass them a little bit in the hopes of getting them to move on.
One corrosive effect that the presence of these fellows in the neighborhood has created is generally transmitted to other Spanish speaking immigrants, 99% of whom are not just productive but SUPER productive members of the community, which is an ugly consequence.
Since it seems to be completely fine for drunks to congregate hereabouts, a population of heroin addicts has recently claimed the corner of 41st street and Broadway (at the Queens Library) for their turf. That’s what I mean about “corrosive effect” btw.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shots above and below you’ve seen before, lords and ladies. The fellow in the shot below was personally rescued by your humble narrator back during the epic cold snap in February, when he fell asleep in front of my house and was turning blue as he froze to the sidewalk in front of HQ. A quick call to 911 saw FDNY arrive and take him off to Elmhurst Hospital. I ended up having to help the two EMT’s get him onto the stretcher, as he was fighting them.
NYPD? Never showed, not on their radar.
Is it legal to get drunk and pass out on the streets of Astoria with an open bottle of booze in your hand?
How about shitting in the street? Is that ok as well?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Seldom am I confrontational with NYPD officers, I would point out. Whatever the current political vogue is regarding them, I nevertheless have a terrific amount of respect for the badge and personal relationships with both on duty and retired officers inform as to how much crap they have to endure during any given workday.
Why, however, doesn’t this obvious “Quality of Life” issue merit their attentions? Is it because of Compstat? Is it something political? Is this some of that “vibrant diversity” that all the politicians go on about at work?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What shreds me is that people have to walk their kids around these vagrants, and explain to them why some man is drunkenly crapping between two parked cars. For these kids, this sort of thing is normal.
114th precinct, I implore you to do something about this problem before we begin to slide further back into the chaos of the 1980’s. I promise that I will vote for anybody else than the current Mayor in return.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
August 8th, 2015
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills – LIC Walking Tour
with Atlas Obscura, click here for details and tickets
which swelled
Random sightings in Astoria.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The other day, whilst waiting for the bagel shop guy to assemble a sandwich for my consumption, this pile of cigarette refuse was observed. One was impressed not just by the quantity – this has to represent around $75-80 worth of coffin nails as currently priced in NYC – but by the relative tidiness and self contained nature of the refuse. The “Vision Zero” branding on the muni meter receipt just brought it home for one such as myself.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over on Astoria’s Broadway, nearby Crescent Street, one of those Chinese owned dollar stores had a display of plastic flowers arrayed upon the pavement. Other offerings included off brand backpacks and those wire shopping carts which we all use for transporting bags of laundry to and fro, but the patent artificiality of the flowers transfixed me. It was actually a bit of a challenge to capture how truly saturated their colors were.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Near Astoria Boulevard’s intersection with 21st street, this pentagram graffiti was found on the back door to a fairly ancient commercial building. When I spotted it, a loud exhortation bubbled out of me and “yeah, Satan!” was uttered. This caused no end of concern to the old Greek lady sitting on her porch across the street. Accordingly, one scuttled away and brisk perambulation carried me in a generally northern direction.
I’ve been chased through the neighborhood by a group of angry Greek women before, and do not intend on suffering through that sort of thing again.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
July 26th, 2015
Modern Corridor – LIC, Queens Walking Tour
with Brooklyn Brainery, click here for details and tickets.
As detailed in this recent post, my camera was destroyed in an accident.
For those of you who have offered donations to pay for its replacement, the “Donate” button below will take you to paypal. Any contributions to the camera fund will be greatly appreciated, and rewarded when money isn’t quite as tight as it is at the moment.
vine encumbered
It’s “something completely different day” in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our Lady of the Pentacle has been exercising her green thumb since the late spring, and we have quite a cucumber patch situation in one of the flower boxes out on said porch. Our Lady is an early riser, whereas your humble narrator is not, so one recent evening after she had retired to the boudoir, I was found out on the porch. Astoria is somewhat infested with rats, and given the abundance of cucumbers found hereabouts, a rustling in the patch caused me to grab a flashlight and inspect. While doing so, and it was just the wind btw, it occurred that it would be cool to stick a camera down in the pot and see what I could see.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My trusty old Canon G10 has a fantastic macro lens function on it, but the device’s weaknesses have always been most apparent in low light situations. Luckily, one of my flash guns has a “slave” function built into it, which triggers it when another camera flash is actuated within a certain visual range of its sensor.
Accordingly, the secondary flash was positioned at the far end of the vine, and the G10’s onboard flash (which is pathetic, but adequate for the task at hand) activated.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The G10 was outfitted with a remote cable release, and its menu of options set up, whereupon I sat it down on the soil deep within Our Lady’s flower trough. A little bit of noodling on the settings was called for, and eventually, the correct combination of instructions were encoded into both the capture device and external flash gun. Did I mention that these shots were captured well after midnight and in somewhat complete darkness?
Also, I never knew that cucumbers were covered in little hypodermic needles when immature.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Encouraged by my results in the first few shots, I ran inside and grabbed another bit of photographic kit, a clamp with a tripod’s ball head built into it and used the same technique to shoot down into the vine at some of the maturing fruit. In some of these shots, like the one above, you can actually see worms emerging from the recently watered soil. I plan on exploring this approach in the future, presuming that some urban farmer will allow me access to their planting beds at night.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One realizes that botanical macro shots aren’t exactly par for the course here at your Newtown Pentacle, but since I couldn’t stop looking at them, it was decided to share them in today’s rather late in the day post.
Also, for all of you who donated money to the camera fund last week, I cannot express my gratitude. I will at some point in the near future, incidentally, when my financial life isn’t quite as rugged. Like the Grinch confronted by Mary Lou Who, my heart grew two sizes due to your generosity and support.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
July 26th, 2015
Modern Corridor – LIC, Queens Walking Tour
with Brooklyn Brainery, click here for details and tickets.
As detailed in this recent post, my camera was destroyed in an accident.
For those of you who have offered donations to pay for its replacement, the “Donate” button below will take you to paypal. Any contributions to the camera fund will be greatly appreciated, and rewarded when money isn’t quite as tight as it is at the moment.
only crawl
Astoria, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just the other night, while hanging out at my local pub here in the southern end of Astoria, some rough fellow accosted one with the usual “hey, what are taking pictures of?” thing. Bellicose, the gentleman began to advise me that I should spend my time photographing the skyline of Manhattan because “no one cares about Queens.”
He was rather insistent about this.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is kind of rallying cry for me, this “no one cares about Queens” thing, and it’s bothersome to have to argue about it with some guy who – as it later turned out – had a largish back tattoo whose motif included a shoulder to shoulder swastika.
I’m all for political expression of course, but a Nazi in Astoria?
Conversation with amiable bartenders over the weekend revealed that there seems to be a small population of like minded individuals in the neighborhood. They’ve actually had to reprimand one fellow who liked to read passages from “Mein Kampf” out loud at the bar.
“Really?” was all I could say.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s not strange that racists and other adherents to rather ugly philosophies can be found in Astoria. We’ve got Jihadi sympathizers on the ass end of Steinway Street, and those Greek “National Front” guys are here as well -heck- a few years ago I even ran into a small group of actual card carrying Bolsheviks who opined that the revolution was nigh. “Diversity” includes nut jobs and jerks too, it would seem.
Thing is – If you’re a racist, “politically” a racist that is, Astoria probably ain’t the sort of place you’re going to want to live in. It will be exhausting for you to merely identify or classify the human infestation hereabouts, let alone espouse a specific grievance about all the groups who are living and working here. We have everybody from Egyptians to Eskimos, Thai to Tibetan, Irish to Indian. There’s normal human prejudice and frictions encountered occasionally when these wildly different cultures rub up against each other, but Nazi’s?
How retro.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Historically speaking, Queens has a rather checkered past on this subject. Members of what we would call the American Nazi party – the so called German American Bund – were rather active in the years leading up to the Second World War here in Queens (and especially so in Ridgewood and Bushwick).
These neighborhoods hosted a rather large German population back then, who referred to their communities in New York City as “Kleine Deutschland” and the “bund” was usually in tune – politically speaking – with their distant homeland. All of that fell apart during the Second World War and the American Nazi’s became associated with extreme elements of the Ku Klux Klan, and prison gangs like the Aryan Nation.
Hey, when you grow up Jewish, you develop a certain sensitivity to this sort of thing. Swastika bad.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
July 12th, 2015
Glittering Realms Walking Tour
with Newtown Creek Alliance, click here for details and tickets.
sidetracked once
Death, annihilation, and hatred… in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is not in a good mood, so bitching will ensue.
Psychological firmament at the moment would be best defined as reminiscent of the general anger and malaise one enjoyed in the late 1980’s. A neighbor casually asked me the other night “Howz yooz doins, brah?” and my only answer emanated from that era with “What this City needs is a good plague.” If it weren’t for the physical cowardice and generally avoidant set of behaviors which rule me, I might stamp my feet and cry out loud at passerby. A desire to craft a sandwich board vest which announces the nighness of the end compels and overtakes. The train is crowded, and so are my thoughts.
Why is it so noisy all the time, and why is there no place to pee?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’d bring up the whole dumb idea of decking over the Sunnyside Yards with these innocent travelers whom I’d acost with the truth of our times, and check off a list of realities associated with the population whose arrival in Western Queens is already scheduled. Thing is, if one was to become overexcited and display the wild eyed zeal and abundant mania which typified the behaviors of times gone by, one might fall into one of his states and need to be taken to a trauma center of some kind and the nearest one is found in Manhattan at Bellevue.
How could I achieve carbon neutrality after spending a hour in an Ambulance in Manhattan traffic? Ow, my algorithm.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Would one opine about the corrosive effects that afternoon drunkeness and public vagrancy cause in the minds of kids in particular and the community as a whole? Here, on Broadway in Astoria, populations of fellows like the gentlemen pictured above spend their days and nights wandering about in a drunken haze. Public urination, defecation, and drinking are commonly observed. As well, one routinely has to wake them up when they pass out in his doorway. Whether you feel sorry for these chaps or hate them, why aren’t the Police policing them?
Would the presence of obvious brothels in storefront locations on the main shopping thoroughfare be mentioned, and would the seeming toleration of such establishments by the aforementioned local police come up as well? If you leave your car parked in the wrong place for just a few minutes, the gendarme are promptly on scene to issue a ticket. What about drunks sleeping in front of your grocery stores and in your driveways, or storefront whores performing their trade next door to the bagel shop?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“What this City needs is a good plague” was a standard answer for me when people asked “Howze it goin, dude” back in the 80’s. That era in NYC wasn’t the way that some are describing it these days, opining about “energy and vigor and…” It was a grimy shithole which had seen better days, where you took your life in your hands by getting off at an unfamiliar Subway stop. An era of “getting jumped” and “mugged,” when you’d routinely see trails of blood on the pavement which would lead you from place to place. Sometimes they’d lead back to a party, but you didn’t have to go far to find a house party somewhere in East Village back then. More often the trails would lead over the bridge from Alphabet City into Williamsburg, where a lot of people found themselves bleeding back then.
Meh, I’m going to go listen to some Black Flag.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
June 20th, 2015
Kill Van Kull Walking Tour
with Brooklyn Brainery, click here for details and tickets.
The Newtown Pentacle 