Posts Tagged ‘Astoria’
grown stern
Getting meaner and meaner.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Yesterday’s little post about Earth Day seems to have struck a sour note with some. Apparently your humble narrator was a bit too much of curmudgeon on this topic for some. Well, there you go. One has run into this sort of thing over and over during the last few years, folks who cry “Heresy” if everything they believe in isn’t part of your personal credo. Personally, I’m not the sort who buys the entire restaurant’s menu when sitting down to dinner. I say it all the time to the Newtown Creek people, whenever a disagreement erupts amongst us – There’s more that we agree on than what we disagree on, so let’s focus on that.
Unfortunately, academics and activists are often rather “catholic” in their viewpoints and want you to just sign on to anything they tell you with little critical analysis. You can’t “pick and choose” they’ll tell you. If you persist in pursuing or debating with them, you’re branded with analogies or aspersions of your resemblance to unloved or reviled historical characters that range from Adolph Eichmann to Dick Cheney or Sean Hannity (or other members of the Fox News staff) – a juvenile response which is akin to a drunken adolescent calling a uniformed Police Officer a fascist.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Orthodoxy has never sat well with me, whether it be in politics or religion. A closed mind is a closed mind, after all. If you think you’ve got the world all figured out, you’re wrong. Nothing is simple, every action and stance has a consequence and an unimagined result. Robert Moses once suggested that Lucifer himself would be lauded by the Press if he was advocating for Parks. Question everything, I say. Take nothing at face value. Everybody does this thing or that for a reason, nothing is random, and there is not one person in public life who isn’t beating some sort of drum. Unfortunately, we are trapped in a paradigm of political life which has been frozen since the 1960’s. There are no liberals, or conservatives, or progressives, anymore. Those labels no longer apply, and haven’t since the 1990’s. “Conservative George W. Bush” was actually a radical, and “Liberal” Barack Obama is actually a conservative – using the actual meaning of what those terms once meant 50 years ago.
Can’t tell you how many of the urbanists and City Planning types that I’ve met over the years only live in NYC part time, and who actually hate the City lifestyle, btw.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, what sort of drum am I beating?
Famously, I have no agenda. My role in all of this nonsense that I’m involved in is simply to record the tumultuous era we are experiencing – the Superfund period on Newtown Creek, the vast redevelopment of the two East River communities surrounding it in Hunters Point and Greenpoint. I strive to leave behind a photographic record of what was here when I arrived, documenting the last traces of what was, and showing the origins of what will be. The last time that these sort of paradigm shifts happened in Queens, there were a few photographers working on it, but they were in the employ of government or corporate interests. My archive isn’t.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
May 3, 2015 –
DUBPO, Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp
with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, a free tour offered as part of Janeswalk 2015, click here for tickets.
May 16, 2015 –
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills with Atlas Obscura
with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for details and tickets.
May 31, 2015 –
Newtown Creek Boat Tour
with Working Harbor Committee and Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for tickets.
glancing through
Caution, everyone.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Famously, I wander the earth. There are few places that I won’t go. Photography and eventual postings at this, your Newtown Pentacle follow. When leaving the house, there are seldom objectives in mind, instead I literally just follow my path and keep the sun on my back. There are issues which one cares deeply about, with Newtown Creek at the paramount. For the last month or so, I’ve been talking to a LOT of people about the Sunnyside Yards and discussing my objections to the project proposed by the current Mayor which would deck them over and install the population of Albany atop them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Inevitably, sometime during the 21st century, some portion of the Sunnyside Yards will be so converted. Likely, it will be the area around 21st street – the so called Arch Street Yard. This is likely, as it adjoins the Jackson Avenue corridor leading from Queens Plaza to the Court Square neighborhood, a zone which is undergoing a radical amount of construction – as discussed in a recent posting at my Brownstoner column.
Thing is, Queens isn’t ready to handle the amount of people this will bring – from a hospital bed, school desk, police officer, fire fighter, transit, or sewage plant point of view. It’s a bad idea being propagated by a weak Mayor whose own electoral coalition is rebelling against him, and who has a terrible record of actually delivering on the affordable housing he offers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The effect that the Sunnyside Yards will have on my beloved Creek are somewhat terrifying, from a sewage runoff point of view. This is something I’ve been emphatically mentioning to all who would listen, which at this point is a significant number. Quite obviously, someone in City Hall has heard that I’ve been speaking out about this issue.
This is going to sound ridiculously paranoid, I realize, but the last few times that I went out for one of my long walks – I’ve been followed. I feel sorry for whomever has been assigned to do so, of course, as they’re being exposed to a ridiculous amount of pollution – but the surveillance hasn’t escaped me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last Saturday, while walking through Maspeth, a fellow – who I managed to get a shot of (the guy in the black jacket and jeans at the lower left hand corner of the shot, right by the Phelps Dodge property) – followed me for something like two miles. I ducked off the street into a bolt hole nearby Penny Bridge, and reappeared behind him, asking if he was lost and needed directions. His confusion at how to react was actually comical as I offered him walking directions by which he could reach the 7 or G from Review avenue. Yesterday, a plain clothes detective spent his day on the corner opposite my house, swiveling his head around, for something like six hours. I know that you know that I know, now.
You’re not being paranoid if someone is actually surveilling you, and I’ve noticed that they’ve noticed.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
May 3, 2015 –
DUBPO, Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp
with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, a free tour offered as part of Janeswalk 2015, click here for tickets.
May 31, 2015 –
Newtown Creek Boat Tour
with Working Harbor Committee and Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for tickets.
nearby where
This one just makes me angry.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, the other day I’m walking up Steinway Street towards the Museum of the Moving Image to go shoot some party for my Brownstoner column. It’s not the sort of thing I’d EVER cover for your Newtown Pentacle, of course, but there you go. As I’m walking along, what seemed at first to be some sort of weird statuette in a store window began to move, and that’s when I noticed that this particular shop had a live and quite exotic bird living in its front window.
An extremely ill one, at that.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Awww, hell. Cue the Sarah McLachlan music.
This poor thing had pecked and scratched itself bald. Our Lady of the Pentacle, upon examining these rather ugly photographs, offered that the bird likely has untreated mites or some other parasitic infection. It chest was quivering, and the beating of the heart and action of respiration was quite visible.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When I see a bloodied drunk laying face down in the street, I know what to do. Same thing with a fire, or car accident, or even who to complain to about excessive noise emanating from a commercial business. Smell the sewer? Spilt some oil? Yup, I can tell you whom to call and what to tell them. A sick bird?
Is it even my business, this? Who do you call? Sure doesn’t seem to be Police business. Am I meant to storm into the store and demand to speak to their Vet?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Let’s just presume that this particular blog post is merely intended to point out that there seems to be a pretty sick bird, in a shop window on the west side of Steinway Street in Astoria, between 35th and 36th avenues. That bird… well, there might be certain signs that someone versed in handling this sort of situation could observe to find and help it.
I’m truly ignorant on the subject of avian veterinary health, perhaps that shivering miserable looking creature isn’t as bad off as it looked to me, and I’m simply over reacting.
Just saying.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
May 3, 2015 –
DUBPO, Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp
with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, a free tour offered as part of Janeswalk 2015, click here for tickets.
May 31, 2015 –
Newtown Creek Boat Tour
with Working Harbor Committee and Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for tickets.
quite ponderous
Trucks with trucks on them, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One was scuttling through the Carridor, or Northern Blvd. as the rest of the world calls it, recently. Nearby the thoroughfare’s intersection with Newtown Road, this semi appeared, and it was a truck carrying a series of other trucks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was reminded of some nature documentary I had once seen that showed a Momma turtle allowing her babies to hang onto her carapace as she moved through the water, with the offspring forming a conga line behind her.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Here, you see a truck carrying a smaller truck which has another even smaller truck on it. If only there was a pickup with a bicycle in its bed upon the smaller truck…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The world is puzzling to me, and I really don’t understand many of the things I see.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
May 31, 2015 – Newtown Creek Boat Tour, with Working Harbor Committee and Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for tickets.
canopic jars
A short one today
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned yesterday, I’m a bit buried at the moment in work.
Accordingly, a single image greets you today, depicting my favorite Halal Meats food cart here in almond eyed Astoria. These cats, and their thriving enterprise, are found at 34th avenue and Steinway Street. As you can see, even well into the evening – there’s always a lineup of people waiting for chow. If you’re in the neighborhood – I recommend their two kabab hero sandwich, which is stuffed with eggplant, onions, and drowned in both yogurt and hot sauce.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 