Posts Tagged ‘Long Island City’
unseen material
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A recent walk took me up Vernon Avenue… why is it that walking towards Hells Gate always feels like “up” and towards Long Island City “down”? There is an actual change in grade, as Astoria is actually built on ground physically higher in altitude than the eluvial plain that LIC stands on- yes- but that’s not it.
Anyway, Vernon at Broadway, where once the 96th street and 86th street ferries from Manhattan met the Broadway trolleys at Hallets Cove. Right by Costco and Socrates Sculpture Garden, if you require modern landmarks.
Here’s a post from February of 2010 that described the area in some detail.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There is a large amount of construction going on here, and fairly large scale buildings are hurtling up and out of the mud. It’s been a few months since my path has brought me in this direction, and it was startling to see how fast these structures are forming up.
Not too long ago, there was a massive fire at the little factory that used to exist at the bottom left of the shot above, the round sign that says “Alpine” is all that’s left.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The cool thing about the very large building which is going up on the corner of 12th street, other than the enormous footprint of a structure which will feature 199 apartments…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
…is that the whole thing is being built by just one guy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you may have heard, American worker productivity is at an all time high, and no where more so than in Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It seems hard to believe, but this fellow holds every possible license and certification that the building code demands of its employees, rumor has it that he’s also the principal financier.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It can’t be easy building things by yourself, there no one to take a coffee break with, and car pooling is out of the question entirely.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I look forward to the day when the 199 new families unpack, and join with the rest of us. Enjoying our comfortable and never crowded mass transportation, learning that they can rely on the presence of modern and top notch hospitals, and that their children can look forward to a rewarding and full scholastic life in local schools.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Always a selling point for Queens, multicultural experiences will abound. The nearby Queensboro, Ravenswood, and Astoria projects will satisfy anyone’s desires to learn about new and interesting cultures that have their roots in exotic foreign lands.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Welcome to Queens.
remarkable law
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A freelancer, your humble narrator is always looking for work. Recently spied in Long Island City, there seems to be a company that specializes in a trade I’m interested in.
Is this what “service economy” means?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just ask anyone who has ever lent me anything of value how good I am at this. Pretty much anything I touch ends up at least partially ruined, and when one puts his mind to the task… whoa, nelly.
I can’t have anything nice.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I too offer “Destruction Services”, although my understanding is that large players in the destruction trade, like the United States Marines for instance, play this game at “big league” levels. My destruction business isn’t limited to old files like these guys though, I’ll mess up new stuff too.
Freelance rates will apply.
dim entity
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the 24th of February, a Newtown Pentacle posting was offered in which description of an astounding demolition which had occurred along 30th street in Long Island City, and whose purpose was to clear the way for a gargantuan FedEx trucking depot and shipping center. Attempting to describe the sheer scale of this to friends and Our Lady of the Pentacle simply proved that words would be inadequate to convey the scale of it all.
So, a humble narrator went back, and did a little bit of climbing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Having once been a child in Brooklyn, you humble narrator learned to climb the urban landscape like a monkey. This skill is something that still comes in handy, especially when something which needs photographing is behind a ten foot tall plywood construction fence. The shot above is a “stitched panorama” which incorporates around 16 individual exposures into a single image- encouragement is offered to click through to the largest incarnation of this shot at flickr (click here) to appreciate the massiveness of the footprint.
Click here to see it on a google map.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
From the decking of the Borden Avenue Bridge, you can see that the construction site extends all the way to the Dutch Kills tributary of the malign Newtown Creek. FedEx must need an awful lot of space.
Wonder why?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Well to begin with, the entirely coincidental condemnation and demolishing of the FedEx World Service Center building in Manhattan (528-556 West 34th Street) to make room for the Hudson Yards residential development has robbed the shipping giant of certain capabilities. My guess, and it’s a guess, is that they were offered Queens instead.
And once again, Manhattan exports its problems to Queens, I guess.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When this site has been mentioned, those who live and work in Queens get a wild look in their eyes. They ask “Wait, where will all those trucks go when heading into Manhattan?”. Sure, they’ll be taking truck routes, but what happens when they bottleneck at Queens Plaza, the Midtown Tunnel, or the Triborough? Care to guess?
What about the tractor trailers leaving from LaGuardia and Kennedy, how will they get to Long Island City?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A bit of that climbing talent bragged about at the beginning of this posting, and a switch of POV to Hunters Point Avenue brings you this “stitched panorama” of the rubble beyond the fence. Notice the lack of water being sprayed on the shattered masonry, or any attempt at dust abatement, and remember that the factories which stood here for nearly a century adjoin the monstrous pollution of the Dutch Kills tributary.
This is no land that the site stands on either, rather it’s a construct. This area was filled in by Michael Degnon in the early 20th century with rubble from the Belmont Tunnel construction, and that the bulkheads which defined the modern shape of Dutch Kills were only installed in 1914 by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. This rubble is coated with a century worth of “the colour”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Around thirty or forty feet down, the waters of the Newtown Creek gurgle about boulder and gravel, and around the wooden piles which the concrete mastabas of modernity stand upon. The Creek is eternal, and water always- inevitably and eternally and patiently- wins.
Like many things around the Newtown Creek, and Queens in particular, you must just accept the decisions of your betters in Manhattan- I guess. They wish to install playgrounds for the idle rich along the Hudson, erect fanciful condominiums for their comfort, and soaring office towers to administer and employ them. Why should those of us in Queens complain, when they export their waste, their trucking facilities, or their garbage to us?
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, I guess?
ALSO:
March 6th, as in tonight
blissville update
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just in case you were wondering, not too much new to report on the oil situation in Blissville Queens, which is found on the northern shore of the lamentable Newtown Creek. Our friends at Riverkeeper continue to investigate, as do everyone’s friends at the State DEC. Conversation with highly placed members of both organizations indicate that they have people working on it.
These photos from the beginning of February in 2012 would seem to dispute that. Compare to the same area in August 2011.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The conversations were informal, and were initiated by your humble narrator. Concurrently, I’m not going to “report” the substance of these exchanges yet, as I’m not “that kind” of blogger. “That kind” would seek to embarrass or denigrate the process and participants for puerile amusement and or self advancement. This is not the case, and I draw a line between what a source tells me privately versus publicly. Suffice to say that things are moving along and that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
The Newtown Creek Alliance is aware of the issue as well, and we are working on it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Some of you may have noticed that I said “we” referring to NCA, and in accordance with some standard of full disclosure which only one such as myself adheres to- the group has awarded me the title of “Historian”. I’m picking up the fallen banner of my friend and mentor, Bernie Ente, and will strive to earn the honor by continuing to reveal the occluded history of this place.
The initial assessment of the leak, as presented in the posting “oil in queens” back in December of 2011 has garnered little attention from the mainstream press. The sole venue which ran a story on it is the DNAinfo website, their posting can be accessed here. If this was Manhattan, I’d be fighting the NYTimes for access.
But seriously, who cares anything about Queens?
ALSO:
March 5th, as in tonight:
Riverkeeper and NCA ask: How’s the Water? How’s Newtown Creek?
Join Riverkeeper and the Newtown Creek Alliance for a presentation on water quality in the Hudson River Estuary and its tributaries, focusing on the waters around Manhattan Island and in Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal and Newtown Creek.
March 5, 2012, 7:30PM to 9:30PM
Brooklyn Brewery, 79 North 11th Street, NY map
and March 6th, as in Tuesday
rhetorical effect
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There is a curious stretch of 50th avenue, a truncated street that starts at 27th street and terminates at 23rd street in the dusty streets of Long Island City, which is orphaned and decapitated. It is dominated by the high flying steel of the Queens Midtown Expressway section of the Long Island Expressway, and the tortured asphalt of the street it shadows often exhibits bursting ruptures revealing century old cobble stones.
Long have I exerted to refer to this area as the “Empty Corridor“.
Pictured above are the relict remains of Irving Subway Grate, which suffered a catastrophic fire a few years back.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Even during the work week, there are few places in New York City that allow one to feel so isolated and alone as this street. Once it connected with Hunters Point, but that was long before the Queens Midtown Tunnel and the astounding steel viaduct of the Long Island Expressway which sprouts from it were installed and opened to traffic on November 15, 1940.
It was before the Long Island Railroad established its operations that it met with East River, in fact.
Borden and Hunters Point Avenues are the main through way for traffic heading east and west, and this street is little more than relict of earlier times.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The overhead tracks of the Long Island Railroad are observed at the intersection of 25th street, which govern the passage of large trucks on 50th avenue. Never have these tracks been observed as active by a humble narrator, but those in the know about such matters assure me that they are in fact transited.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Alongside these tracks, on the loamy midden which surrounds them, one might observe the colonies of feral cats which hunt and frolic around these parts. The kind hearts of area workers insure that these cats are afforded shelter and food, which unfortunately allows them to breed and multiply.
It is not an easy life, to be a feral cat.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in the past, when these nocturnes are observed as my perambulations carry the camera about the concrete devastations of western Queens, a sure notion that the right place and time have been arrived at sets into my mind.
Always, they signal that the path which stretches before me is an appropriate and often revelatory one.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Beyond the tracks and their feline neighbors, the gargantuan structure with its attendant loading docks on the right are the former Bloomingdales warehouse, and is currently used by the New York City Housing Authority. They refer to it as the “Long Island City Complex” which sounds menacing somehow.
The left (or south) side of the street hosts several garage based businesses, and mainly acts as a parking lot for fleet trucks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As the LIE slouches rudely toward the Queens Midtown Tunnel it descends from its 106 foot apex over Dutch Kills, just a few blocks away, and the street noticeably darkens. A guarded parking lot and entrance to the LIRR station lies to the right or north side, which is intended for employee access. To the south, one might follow 23rd street southward, toward Borden Avenue.
An audible hum, the sound of automotive tire spinning upon the elevated roadway above, colors the air.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The street ends in the driveway of a steel equipment company, which a humble narrator did not feel obliged to explore. What atavist wonders might lurk down there are surely beyond legal access, and are quite visible from the fence which adjoins the LIRR station on Hunters Point Avenue, near the Paragon Oil building. Surely some revelation hides back there, denied to me.
Illegal trespass, however, is not the Newtown Pentacle way.
The Newtown Pentacle 