Posts Tagged ‘Long Island City’
suitable pressure
It’s National Garlic Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has been “behind the eight ball” of late, as far as getting things done. There’s so much to do and see in Queens, but lately I can’t seem to climb outside the box of obligation which I’ve built for myself. Something as myopic as that previous sentence will sound hilarious to my friends with kids, of course. The truth is that I just can’t seem to get on top of my various deadlines for some reason, and this unpredictable weather pattern we’re in at the moment is “harshing my buzz.”
As a note, there’s a new event that just popped up on the “upcoming tours and events” section today, an event with Access Queens which will be celebrating the centennial of the opening of the “7’s 11” or Corona Extension in 1917. Come with?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent endeavor saw Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself celebrating our twentieth wedding anniversary at a rooftop bar and restaurant here in Astoria, and when the sun began to set – the ancient village was cast in a beautiful sculptural light. Long suffering, Our Lady knows that when my head starts twisting around at such moments, and I start fiddling with the controls on the camera, that I need to crack out some shots.
Pictured above is the Triborough and Hell Gate Bridges, as seen from high over Steinway Street.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On “Astoria Business” notation – I spotted this adorable bit of signage one night while walking my little dog Zuzu. I wish it hadn’t been screwed into the street tree, but there you go. That water main leak I mentioned the other day continues to magnify, despite my urgent warnings to the government officialdom who oversee such things. Accordingly, I’m spending today filling up sandbags and shoring up the levie here at HQ.
Upcoming Tours and events
7 Line Centennial Ride, April 21st.
With Access Queens and NYC Transit Museum, Free event, except for subway fare – details here.
First Calvary Cemetery walking tour, May 6th.
With Atlas Obscura’s Obscura Day 2017, Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour – details and tix here.
MAS Janeswalk free walking tour, May 7th.
Visit the new Newtown Creek Alliance/Broadway Stages green roof, and the NCA North Henry Street Project – details and tix here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
teetering sanity
It’s National Pecan Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The glorious IRT Flushing Line, or 7 line, opened in a couple of stages here in Queens. It wasn’t until 1928 that the line reached its modern terminal destination in Flushing, with the section in LIC between Manhattan and Queensboro Plaza having opened in 1915. The second section to open was the QB Plaza to 103rd st./Alburtis Avenue stop in Corona, and that happened on the 21st of April in 1917. That means that we have a centennial on our hands, lords and ladies, next Friday.
Luckily, a humble narrator and his friends are not the sort of people to allow such important matters to go unacknowledged.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you may or may not know, I’ve been hanging out and working with the folks at Access Queens of late, a community group dedicated to transit advocacy issues. Next Friday, we are going to be commemorating the opening of the line – and I’ll supply details of the event with you as soon as possible next week (everything is still forming up) – and I wanted to advise those of you inveterate fans of the NYC Subway system to start the process of getting the afternoon off on the 21st (next Friday) if you want to join us in celebrating the “international express” which, in many ways, built modern day Queens.
There’s going to be some pretty cool stuff going on, I tell you.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The plan, as it stands right now, involves the replication of a journey which the “hoi polloi” and politicians made a century ago, boarding the IRT Flushing Line at Grand Central at 2 in the afternoon. We are going to ride the line through the eleven stops after Queensboro Plaza to 103/Alburtis and then commemorate “our train.” Come with?
The history of Queens is often unacknowledged, ignored, or forgotten entirely. Not on my watch, however.
Upcoming Tours and events
First Calvary Cemetery walking tour, May 6th.
With Atlas Obscura’s Obscura Day 2017, Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour – details and tix here.
MAS Janeswalk free walking tour, May 7th.
Visit the new Newtown Creek Alliance/Broadway Stages green roof, and the NCA North Henry Street Project – details and tix here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
prime exporters
It’s National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Often, it seems to me that for most of the 20th century New York City waged an unyielding war against the natural environment. The process of city building, of course, has always been a tale of harnessing and controlling nature – but the 20th century in NYC saw something tantamount to a military campaign waged against clean water and air. The highways were driven through wetlands (called waste meadows at the time), and anything that could be plated over in concrete received a few inches of the stuff. Sewage and industrial runoff was channeled directly into waterways like my beloved Newtown Creek, garbage was burned in municipal incinerators or dumped into the ocean, and there doesn’t seem to have been any regard given to the natural world at all other than in the name of conquering it.
What can you do about it, though? This is the world as we received it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a lot of hair pulling and teeth gnashing these days, in government circles, about how to rectify this inheritance. Partially its because the government people have to worry about fiscal responsibility, as related to flooding and storm resilience. It’s also about the fact that scientific opinion now points at the efficacy and effect which a healthy biome has on the welfare and earning potential of the citizenry, and the effect that environmental factors have on the economic prosperity of urban areas. Here, at your Newtown Pentacle – and on my many walking tours of the creeklands – I’ve been known to rattle on about storm water, green roofs, the Maspeth heat island effect, bioswales, and all other the other types of so called “Green Infrastructure” which officialdom has been experimenting with in the attempt to get a handle on this inheritance from earlier generations.
“Gray Infrastructure” is defined as sewer plants, retention tanks, various sorts of concrete structural devices which are found deep below the street – that sort of thing. “Gray” is incredibly expensive, and disruptive to the day to day lives of the citizenry as it disturbs the flow of traffic during construction and also generates noise and dust. “Green” is far cheaper, and uses the mechanisms of nature itself to accomplish the same goal as gray. The corollary of using the “green” approach is that you also get the aesthetic and practical benefits of having vegetation in your neighborhood – trees which shade both buildings and pavement for instance, meaning that summer heatwaves are theoretically less severe in terms of energy costs. Green is a win, win – essentially.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s one of the literally hundreds of outfall pipes you will observe in Long Island City which descend from the elevated highways – in this case an onramp to the Long Island Expressway on Borden Avenue. To my knowledge – there is not a single bridge, elevated highway, or subway in the City of New York which doesn’t ultimately drain into the combined sewer system or – in fact – directly into area waterways. Even the brand spanking new Kosciuszko Bridge that the NYS DOT is building over my beloved Newtown Creek right now will drain into the creek via a system called a “vortex drain.”
This post is not meant as a chide, however, rather it’s meant to point out to anybody in the world of officialdom who might be reading this that there’s a huge opportunity to do something curative around these outfall pipes using the “Green Infrastructure” approach.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That overpass, spillway, and pipe – in this case – are the property of the State government. The drain, sewer, and sidewalk are likely owned by the City government. What if the spillway contained a small rain garden designed to drink up water and catch the trash coming down from the highway? The City wins in not paying fines to the State for clean water violations, and the State solves a problem it caused, and all for the price of a bit of gardening.
These hundreds of outfall pipes and their spillways would make for a brilliant spot to install some of that “Green Infrastructure” mentioned above. As far as maintenance of the installation, local community boards could “adopt” these outfalls and parcel out the care and maintenance duties (trash removal mainly) to their constituent businesses and community organizations (Boy Scouts, Kiwanis clubs, etc.) in the same manner as upstate communities do with the “adopt a highway” program. Win?
What if?
Upcoming Tours and events
First Calvary Cemetery walking tour, May 6th.
With Atlas Obscura’s Obscura Day 2017, Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour – details and tix here.
MAS Janeswalk free walking tour, May 7th.
Visit the new Newtown Creek Alliance/Broadway Stages green roof, and the NCA North Henry Street Project – details and tix here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
urbane rector
It’s National Caramel Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As a well known physical coward, and after having observing that a quartet of fourth graders (whose aspect I did not like) were heading my way along Northern Boulevard the other day, it seemed logical to duck under a parked car and hide. You really just cannot be too careful these days. While passing the time it would take for these rough looking nine to ten year olds to exit the scene, one pondered about life in Western Queens and the meaning of it all. Also, I wondered how I was going to wiggle my fat ass out from under this car, which was pretty easy to dive under, but which ended up being a tighter fit than one would have guessed.
Banal reality is all I’ve got, what can I tell you?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“The Queens Cobbler” is the name I’ve assigned to a likely serial killer operating hereabouts whose macabre trophies adorn the streets of Queens in the form of singular orphan shoes. The Cobbler left behind one of his or her little messages on Broadway in Astoria recently, pictured above. It’s my belief that, just like Jack the Ripper, the Queens Cobbler is connected to one of our noble political families and that both the press and police are laboring to keep the thing quiet just for the sake of maintaining everyone’s patronage. You won’t get to be judge, or a DA, or a Captain, or an editor, if you piss them off. There’s rumors, of course…
Maybe that’s just a cast off shoe, or maybe not… the question you have to ask is – where’s the other one? You and your “Occam’s razor.” pffft.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Usually, whenever a humble narrator leaves the house, people point and stare. Women clutch at their handbags, mothers gather their children close, and dogs begin to whine pitiously. If one steps out of line in any minor way – say jay walking, or depositing metal foil in a bin marked for paper – a crowd gathers and law enforcement displays an enviable level of efficiency and deployment. These sorts of experiences are why one is constantly confused by the freedom enjoyed by serial graffitists, the bastards who post those cash for cars stickers, and those who can urinate anywhere they choose to.
My reverie beneath the car was broken when the owner of my hiding place began heading towards the vehicle, as signaled by the “beep boop” signal sent by the electronic key chain fob to the conveyance. One rolled out from my shadowed safe space and discovered that that the threatening quartet of sinister seeming children had moved on, so once again I stood and faced the concretized reality of Western Queens – here in the Newtown Pentacle.
Upcoming Tours and events
First Calvary Cemetery walking tour, May 6th.
With Atlas Obscura’s Obscura Day 2017, Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour – details and tix here.
MAS Janeswalk free walking tour, May 7th.
Visit the new Newtown Creek Alliance/Broadway Stages green roof, and the NCA North Henry Street Project – details and tix here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
tremulous pen
It’s National Chocolate Mousse Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The staccato of lonely scuttling steps are the rhythm of my life, and a humble narrator recently found himself pulsing down Jackson Avenue in Long Island City after dark. Were it just a few hours later, the subway would have been utilized to return to the rolling hills of almond eyed Astoria from the post industrial dystopia of cylcopean construction sites which typify modernity in this ancient place, but since the evening had just begun it was my bet that the legions of vampire who hide in the rafters of the elevated train tracks were off conducting their nightly siege of the NYC Blood Center over on Vernon Avenue, a few blocks to the west. Still, one had left the garlic and cruciform back home…
I’m guessing that as I age I’m starting to slip up – ten years ago I would have never left the house without the garlic…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One did encounter unholy and inhuman things along the route, of course. Bizarre statuary adorned a median divider, its misshapen countenance perhaps hinting at what those who walk amongst us unseen are working towards turning mankind into. Have no doubt that a shadowy group is at work at all times in LIC, an unseen cabal organized and controlled by that impossible thing which dwells in the cupola of the Sapphire Megalith and stares at the world through an unblinking three lobed burning eye. Also, the rats hereabouts are oddly organized and operate in a seemingly orchestrated or military manner. Do they all serve some hidden master, a monkish being who is the lord of all that is darkness in Western Queens? Only time will tell.
The organized efforts of the rats might be due to the Vampires (who are known to possess affinity with “creatures of the night”), however, as I haven’t been able to connect the shadowy cabal or any monkish master with rodent control… quite yet.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Heading eastward, towards Queen Plaza, one removed his headphones and tried to focus on separating the sounds of the eternal cacophony of the place. It is critical to listen closely for the rustle of grave soil choked clothing coming from above, and to remain vigilant for the other horrors which lurk in harsh contrast. Queens Plaza is a sensory melange of automotive headlights throwing out beams of bright bluish light, emergency vehicles strobing white and red, the thunderous crossings of the elevated N, W, and 7 Subway lines above and the E, M, and R lines below. The ground shivers with the passing of transit, quakes with the activity of heavy construction, and the very air you’re breathing is a poisonous fume. This airborne taint is painted into the breeze by the hundreds of vehicles a minute which are moving at speed through here at any given moment, and by the out gassing of buried toxics from the former industrial properties which rim Queens Plaza.
Perhaps, underway is some sort of environmental adjustment designed for the comfort of that shadowy cabal, the vampires, the army of vermin, or for the inhuman thing which dwells in the megalith. Who can say?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Historical research reveals that the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek used to run right through the section of Jackson Avenue between Queens Plaza and 31st street, in fact the clear eyed Mariners of the United States Coast Guard were able to navigate and map the waterway all the way to 29th street and what is now Jackson Avenue as late as the Civil War. In accordance with the engineering habits of earlier eras, when the Sunnyside Yards were constructed in the early 20th century, the waterway was contained underground. It’s still flowing down there, as the East Side Acces project engineers found out at the start of this century, and as we all know – Vampires are proscribed from crossing running water. That’s why you don’t have to worry too much about them once you cross Queens Plaza while heading for Astoria.
We do have an issue in Astoria with a race of Grecian Goblins called the Kalikantzaros, but that’s another story.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is preparing a check list for my carriable prophylactic measures to ensure that age, haste, and other factors do not allow one to go out into the night without a full compliment of deterrents. A garland of fresh garlic – as well as a compliment of cruciforms, crescents, and Stars of David, amongst other wards and amulets – will now be everpresent in my camera bag.
Remember to avoid the area around the blood center on Vernon after sunset though, if you should find yourself somewhere in the northwestern section of LIC, here in the Newtown Pentacle, at night. You’ve been warned.
Upcoming Tours and events
MAS Janeswalk free walking tour, May 7th.
Visit the new Newtown Creek Alliance/Broadway Stages green roof, and the NCA North Henry Street Project – details and tix here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 