Posts Tagged ‘Long Island City’
peered diligently
Visiting with an old friend, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“Back in the day,” as it were, a humble narrator used to spend an awful lot of time on the Queensboro Bridge. When the 2009 Centennial Celebrations occurred, I was actually a deputy parade marshall, which the City rewarded me for with a medal. We got to close the bridge’s lower level for a few hours, and there were marching bands and a bevy of elected officials were present – including Michael Bloomberg himself. The very first posts at this – your Newtown Pentacle – discussed the event in some detail.
In recent years, as I’ve become more and more focused on Newtown Creek and its upland properties, my walks across mighty Queensboro have decreased in frequency and a recent realization that I hadn’t actually walked the span in more than a year prompted me to start kicking my feet forward and lurch roughly forward towards Manhattan. Unfortunately, this meant I was heading onto that loathsome island and leaving the intricate geometries of Queens behind for a spell.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For those of you who haven’t taken one of NYC’s best walks, the pedestrian and bicycle lane of the Queensboro is accessed at Queens Plaza near Crescent Street. It’s not a hard walk in the least, but it does offer some fairly decent “cardio” for half of it. The long sloping ascent from Queens Plaza to the tower set into Roosevelt Island carries you hundreds of feet from the ground, and despite the gradual nature of it – you will find your heart rate increasing steadily.
Bicycles will be whizzing by at fairly high rates of speed, so be mindful of your surroundings if you decide to undertake the stroll. If you bring your camera, you will be glad you did, as the views from up on high are spectacular.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Apparently, the incline is severely felt by bicyclists, as I’ve observed them standing on the pedals and struggling against it several times. Many will dismount and walk their bikes. The “whizzing by” mentioned above occurs once they surmount the paramount of the bridge and the descending incline allows them to gain velocity quickly.
My favorite time of day for Queensboro, visually speaking, is the middle to late afternoon. The light is spectacular during that time of day, and the intricate cantilever gears of the great bridge are evenly illuminated.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking north along the East River, you’ll notice a series of steel structures which carry the Roosevelt Island Tram from Manhattan’s 2nd Avenue to the island. The tram is another one of my favorite destinations, incidentally, as it allows for a birds eye perspective on the Queensboro Bridge and the waterway it spans. One of “my walks” involves crossing the bridge, catching the tram, and then perambulating back to Astoria via the Roosevelt Island Bridge which carries pedestrian and vehicular traffic to Queens.
I’ll often stop off and hang out with my pal Judy Berdy at Roosevelt Island Historical Society when exiting the tram – which is located in a historic kiosk nearby the Tram’s landing point. You can’t miss it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Midpoint on the bridge, one always turns back and considers avoiding going to Manhattan altogether and returning to the poisoned loam of western Queens. In the instance of this particular journey, however, a humble narrator was set to meet up with friends in the City so I kept moving in a westerly direction.
I catch a lot of shade for the contempt with which Manhattan is discussed here. I actually used to live in the City for more than a decade, on Broadway at 100th street. Best move I’ve ever made was listening to Our Lady of the Pentacle when she announced that her desire was to move our HQ to Astoria. Back when I was a Manhattanite, my M.O. was “cocooning” – leaving the apartment only to go back and forth to work. There was no “community” to draw one out, and a vast depersonalization was experienced in the daily round. Whatever there once was that made the City an attractive place to live – night life, for instance – is long gone.
The City is a ruin, exploited and picked over and destroyed by the Real Estate Industrial Complex, and there is little fun to be had there anymore. Brooklyn and Queens are “where it’s at” these days – at least for one such as myself.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
circumstance which
Feasibility, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you’re reading this, in the filth choked furnace rooms and dark satanic mills of the NYCEDC, acolytes of the Real Estate Industrial Complex are working feverishly on the feasibility plan for the decking of the Sunnyside Yards. Syncopated, hammers are smashing out imperfections in the armor plating of their unholy works. Armies are at work, happily consuming the roughly two million dollars which have been allocated to their studies. At the end of the process, hordes of their making will emerge from the EDC’s subterranean vaults, proclaiming that a new order has been achieved, and all of New York’s problems will be solved by the fruits of their labor.
Housing will be made affordable, transit and other municipal services will be abundant and available, and the children of Queens will be assured a bright future. A great darkness will be conquered, and prosperity will spread through the land. In their keeps and towers will wizards and oligarchs rejoice, for Queens will be saved by those for whom the warren of lower Manhattan is a paradise.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The grand obfuscation, of course, will arrive when the Mayor’s office announces that the feasibility study of the EDC has made recommendations that City Hall must follow. The inheritors of Tammany will omit the fact that the NYCEDC, or New York City Economic Development Corporation, is not some independent or autochthonous entity. Pretense that the board of the EDC is not composed entirely of political appointees from the Mayoral and Gubernatorial mansions, or that it’s ranking staffers are not in fact just awaiting their turn at either electoral or corporate fortune, will be offered.
Not mentioned either will be the fact that the current so called “Progressive” Mayor of New York City has merely adopted the policies and projects of a predecessor whom his fringe coalition demonized, and that the decking over of the Sunnyside Yards was and is the personal passion of Michael Bloomberg’s “aide de camp” Daniel Doctoroff.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The coming of the darkness, an era when Sunnsyide will be referred to as “Shadowside” nears. One has been vocal about the opinion that sometime during the 21st century, at least some portion of the gargantuan rail yard found here in Western Queens will likely be decked over. The despoiled bureaucrats of Lower Manhattan have indicated to me, and others, that the decking will likely happen in three stages – a sort of creeping metastases which will begin with the section between LIC’s 21st street and Queens Plaza. This is the narrowest part of the Sunnyside Yards, incidentally, a part of the project which will be cheaper to accomplish than the sections abutting Northern Blvd. and Sunnyside.
During this last Summer, a meeting with the crew of loathsome sentience who are conducting the study began with a humble narrator slamming a box of donuts down on the table in front of them. I stated “when somebody comes to my house, I serve cake.” They did not know what to make of this, nor the unremitting hostility with which they were greeted. At one point during the meeting, I asked a high ranking member of the team to stop smiling, as it was freaking me out and there is absolutely nothing worth smiling about regarding this existential threat to the health and well being of Queens.
To their minds, the decking of the Sunnyside Yards represents a solution. To those of us who live in, and love, Western Queens – they are the coming of darkness and destruction, a barbarian horde sent to loot our communities and whose mission is to steal the sky and blot out the sun itself.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
yellow paw
A few randoms, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An assertion which has been offered on several occasions… it’s actually more an observation or opinion, actually… is that the 7 line of the NYCTA division of the MTA is the most photogenic of NYC’s subways – particularly that stretch that emanates off the Queensboro Bridge heading towards Sunnyside and Woodside. There’s all kinds of delays, crowding, and an angry mob has and continues to form from Queensicans suffering the “7 Train Blues” but for a purely visual bit of candy – the 7 just can’t be beat.
I also enjoy photographing the G, particularly at the elevated Smith 9th street stop in far off Red Hook, but the 7 is tops.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Carridor, or Northern Blvd. as it is conventionally known, is also one of my favorite spots to wave the camera around – particularly at twilight. Pictured above is a car lot that occupies a triangular property nearby 43rd street. The particulars of Northern Boulevard’s mapping, which sees it sweep around the curvilinear borders of the Sunnyside Yards, creates several oddly shaped properties. There are few rectilinear or squared off lots along its run from 31st street to Woodside Avenue. As it enters Jackson Heights, the road assumes a more conventional path as it moves through Roosevelt and Corona on its way to Flushing.
I’ve walked all of Northern Blvd. between 31st and Citifield, where pedestrian sidewalks disappear nearby the intersection with Ditmars and Astoria Blvd., and can tell you that the section adjoining Astoria, Sunnyside, and Woodside are my favorites – the happy hunting grounds, as it were.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has been fascinated throughout the summer by a certain Brownfield remediation project underway in Queens Plaza, incidentally. Sometime soon, you will be greeted by post detailing the operations underway at the former West/CN Chemical factory and the efforts being made to raise residential towers on the site. Personally, I would not want to a) live in Queens Plaza, b) live on the site of a chemical factory which was erected on a swamp, c) live within throwing distance of the tens of thousands of automobiles which exit the Queensboro or traverse Jackson Avenue, or d) live within direct ear shot of the 7, N, Q elevated tracks. I wouldn’t mind capturing shots of these trains from the windows of one of these towers, I would add, but wouldn’t want to live there.
I’ll happily take my little spot here in Astoria, although it is never quiet here either.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
been decreed
Scenes from the lugubrious Newtown Creek, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One had to go to Greenpoint to talk to a guy about a thing, recently. The guy in question was my colleague from Newtown Creek Alliance, Will Elkins, and the thing was to pick up some flyers he had printed up for the OHNY Plank Road event we conducted last weekend. We met at the North Brooklyn Boat Club location in Greenpoint’s DUPBO (Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp) neighborhood, and soon I found myself catching a ride with him in a medium sized row boat – outfitted with an electric motor – plying the waters of Newtown Creek.
We were heading for the so called “Unnamed Canal” which is analogous to the intersection of Kingsland Avenue and North Henry Street, which sits alongside a relict DSNY marine waste transfer station. That’s where NCA’s “Living Dock” project is underway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As the electric engine slowly but surely propelled us along, the FDNY’s “BATT” SAFE Boat (Callsign: WDG3982) appeared behind us. The SAFE Boat platform has been discussed numerous times at this – your Newtown Pentacle – over the years. It utilizes the “weapons platform” concept which has been in vogue in military circles for the last couple of decades, which dictates that you create a single superstructure which can accomplish a variety of basic missions and then customize it to the particular occupation of the user. The NYPD carry towing equipment, the FDNY has water monitors (nozzles that shoot water or foam), and the Coast Guard mounts M60 machine guns to them.
This creates an economy of scale for the procurement of basic replacement parts like screws and engine bits, and creates a large number of trained mechanics who can easily find employment based on their familiarity with the design. The SAFE Boats come in small, medium, and large. The BATT is of the “response boat small” type.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
By all appearances, the BATT was on patrol. It’s officially designated as a “Law Enforcement” vessel everywhere that I checked. Above, the BATT is depicted as proceeding eastward along the Newtown Creek, with LIC’s M1 industrial zone and the SimsMetal Newtown Creek Dock as a backdrop. Presumptively, they were on a regular patrol. It’s likely that this unit is based at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, although there are other Marine unit bases to the north where it might hail from.
As a note, I forgot to take the flyers from Mr. Elkins after returning to land and after having walked to Greenpoint from Astoria to get them. This is one of the many reasons that a humble narrator can best be described as an idiot.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
more nearly
Queensboro.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned yesterday, one is taking a short break – hence the singular image which greets you above. Back soon with new stuff.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours and events –
October 7th, 2015
Our Polluted History:
A Non-Toxic & Fascinating Forum on Greenpoint’s Environmental Past panel discussion
with GWAPP, click here for details
October 10th, 2015
Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour
with Atlas Obscura, click here for details and tickets
The Newtown Pentacle 