Posts Tagged ‘Long Island City’
mighty temples
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The neo gothic handiwork of architect Morrell Smith is hard to miss as one moves about Queens Plaza, and it is known to all as the former Bank of Manhattan Tower. Formerly the tallest structure in the borough of Queens at 14 stories (roughly 210 feet), the 1927 vintage building has since been dwarfed by the Citibank Megalith at Court Square. Smith was a noted architect of the early 20th century and had his hands in more than one landmarked structure in Queens (and Manhattan), and his projects also included the notable Jamaica Savings Bank which is found further east.
Crenellated, its spire carries a clock.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Personal observation has revealed that these clocks are seldom if ever accurate, and often they do not match up with each other. My understanding, gleaned from municipal and real estate industrial complex propaganda, is that the hidden mechanisms which drive these clocks are undergoing some sort of restoration as is the rest of the building- although specific detail remains elusive. The building itself is another one of the “black holes” in the historical record which distinguish western Queens- a noteworthy structure erected to serve a high profile company sited in a prominent location which is nevertheless relegated to an architectural footnote because its location is outside of Manhattan.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator acknowledges that, as always, whenever the subject of Queens Plaza and it’s locale comes up one must refer to the hierophants at the Greater Astoria Historical Society– however- one does not wish to stand on the shoulders of others forever and I have resisted making inquiries with them about the place. Unfortunately, independent research has offered little surcease to my curiosity about the clock tower or offered the deeper story and meaning of this building. Rumors of late 20th century bacchanals and Astorian apocrypha about certain rites conducted in its lofty heights during the thunder crazed nights of the the second world war era notwithstanding, there is a dearth of information available for me to share with you about the place. An open call is therefore made to you, Lords and Ladies of Newtown, for any information which might serve to inform your fellow citizenry on this enigmatic structure.
metempsychoses and shudders
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Abjurations of fealty to self interest aside, your humble narrator is suffering some sort of delirium these days. Wandering thoughts and an inability to maintain focus plague my waking hours, and certain hallucinatory visions experienced during the nocturne haunt. Conversation has become difficult to follow or respond to, and paranoid imaginings or unheralded agitations at obviously minor issues color my days with fear, aggression, and anxiety. All I can see lying before me is devastation, hopelessness, and a slouching path leading to destruction.
I’m all ‘effed up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Were it possible that I could just be like the humans who infest this great hive, satisfied with loping along the streets whilst spouting colorful aphorisms, pronouncing vainglorious affirmations of personal worth. If only adorning myself with gaudy baubles or tailored garments, reflecting the height of current taste and fashion, could allow surcease from the diabolical internal dialogues which torment and disabuse. Such adolescent fury and desire is unacceptable in an adult, let alone one whose beard has gone white.
The waste meadows are where I belong, their devastating loneliness and abandonment mirror my own.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Apotheosis finds a home here, along the tributaries of the Newtown Creek. Artifice is struck down by the concretized reality of hubris, and the shape of the future can be discerned in studying the past. Notions such as this force me into a separate form of existence which is ruled by the dark emotions of fear, resentment, and anger. Such is my lot then, to exist as the broken, the barren, and at the dazed and disappointed edge of man’s world.
I must find contentment in my role as Outsider, it would seem.
crowned with withers
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Apologies for the paucity of communique offered this week, as catching up with sundry and mundane details of both personal and professional incarnation has been all consuming. The Creek tours of last month, in addition to psychologically exhausting a humble narrator famous for his delicate constitution and frail health, caused a surfeit of t’s to miss their crosses and undotted i’s proliferate. For the next few days, expect a few pretty pictures but nothing too hardcore until I’ve caught up. Thanks to all who have written inquiring as to my status, everything is fine.
Remember, Remember, the 6th of November
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Five score and seventeen years ago today, the greatest swindle in the history of mankind was pulled off.
A cadre of super predators in Manhattan rigged an election which destroyed two cities in the name of a third. The decline of Brooklyn and Long Island City began when the notion of “the City of Greater New York” was concretized by the Tammany men, all nice and legal like.
from “Queens Borough, New York City, 1910-1920: the borough of homes and industry“, courtesy google books
At the election held November 6, 1894, the question of consolidating with the City of New York was voted upon by the residents of Queens County. The majority of votes in favor came from the Long Island City section whose inhabitants, because of their proximity to New York, had been in favor of the project for many years. The western part of the county therefore became part of the City of New York, and is known as Queens Borough; while the eastern part of the county was erected into a separate county, known as Nassau, taking its name from the early name for Long Island.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is one of my opinions which inspires credulity in folks from the Manhattan establishment, a group which to this day believes that the unsustainable “Shining City” is the rightful top dog of the five boroughs. Largely, this point of view ignores the fact that Manhattan has spent the last 117 years exporting its factories, garbage, and other problems to the so called outer boroughs. The decline of Newtown Creek, for instance, began when Peter Cooper was compelled to remove his glue works from midtown (vicinity of modern day Grammercy Park) to (formerly) greener pastures in Brooklyn.
In 1851, 10% of the wealth of the entire Untied States was found in Brooklyn.
Today- not so much.
from nytimes.com
John Purroy Mitchel, the Fusion candidate for Mayor, brought a new charge last night against Edward E. McCall. He asserted that Tammany’s nominee for Mayor and the other Tammany members of the Public Service Commission had turned the borough of Queens over to the Consolidated Gas Company and had given that concern a monopoly of not only the gas but the electric light and power business there under franchises which were perpetual in many cases.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An interesting genre of historical speculation is the fictional genre of “alternate history”. “What if Hitler had won ww2” or “what if Hannibal and Carthage had conquered Rome instead of the other way around”.
Imagine if the alpha partner in the consolidation of New York City had been Brooklyn or Long Island City… Would Manhattan have become the home of the Dickensian mills and factories? Would it now be begging for scraps like Brooklyn and Queens? Would its hospitals be underfunded and shuttered as oligarchal Brooklyn real estate powers wiped away ancient Manhattan neighborhoods in the name of progress? Would the site of the Empire State building host a garbage transfer facility? Would Battleax Gleason or John McCooey be remembered as the father of this great metropolitan city, with Boss Tweed and Richard Croker relegated to footnotes?
It is important to ask, when new “development projects” are announced by Tammany’s admiring children – is this good for Brooklyn, Queens, Richmond, or the Bronx- or is this good for Manhattan.
from wikipedia
The earliest example of an alternate history is Book IX, sections 17–19, of Livy’s Ab Urbe condita. Livy contemplated an alternative 4th century BC in which Alexander the Great expanded his empire westward instead of eastward; Livy asked, “What would have been the results for Rome if she had been engaged in war with Alexander?”
Joanot Martorell’s 1490 epic romance Tirant lo Blanc, written when the loss of Constantinople to the Turks was still a recent and traumatic memory to Christian Europe, tells the story of the valiant knight Tirant The White from Brittany who gets to the embattled remnant of the Byzantine Empire, becomes a Megaduke and commander of its armies, and manages to fight off the invading Ottoman armies of Mehmet II, save the city from Islamic conquest, and even chase the Turks deeper into lands they had conquered before.
high and wild
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sad and scared today, the Newtown Creek tours were yesterday, and your humble narrator spoke to 2 sold out boatloads of eager enthusiasts. This isn’t the first time I’ve spoken before a group, but anxiety and nervous energy ruled an otherwise beautiful autumn day, and I am exhausted. Accordingly, here are 3 pretty pictures to cheer up the mood, captured recently in the brilliant light of autumn in the borough of Queens. A single moment from the real world in 2011, found on Northern Blvd. is above.
from wikipedia
As opposed to nostalgia – the melancholia or homesickness experienced by individuals when separated from a loved home – “solastalgia” is the distress that is produced by environmental change impacting on people while they are directly connected to their home environment. A paper published by Albrecht and collaborators focused on two contexts where collaborative research teams found solastalgia to be evident: the experiences of persistent drought in rural New South Wales (NSW) and the impact of large-scale open-cut coal mining on individuals in the Upper Hunter Valley of NSW. In both cases, people exposed to environmental change experienced negative effects exacerbated by a sense of powerlessness or lack of control over the unfolding change process.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When I’m walking around, looking for moments of time to freeze and or document, the movements of my eyes seem mechanical. Up, down, all around- notice everything. The things I seldom photograph, as I find it rude, are the little domestic scenes which make life in this ancient community of Western Queens and North Brooklyn worth living in. The old guys posturing with a bottle of bear, some old lady shucking beans, yuppies arguing with their dogs. My “thing”, however, is found in lost thoroughfares, graveyards, and wherever the night winds are answered with defiance and howls.
from wikipedia
Hypervigilance is an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect threats. Hypervigilance is also accompanied by a state of increased anxiety which can cause exhaustion. Other symptoms include: abnormally increased arousal, a high responsiveness to stimuli, and a constant scanning of the environment for threats. Hypervigilance can be a symptom of posttraumatic stress disorder and various types of anxiety disorder. It is distinguished from paranoia. Paranoid states, such as those in schizophrenia, can seem superficially similar, but are characteristically different.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the last week, the two walking tours of Dutch Kills for Open House NY, a private boat tour of Newtown Creek for an elect group of education professionals, and the two public tours on Sunday the 23rd have been accomplished. The massive preparation and study associated with speaking on these tours has flattened my psyche, and left my frail and ruined physique a shattered mess. Enjoy today’s photos, and I’ll be back tomorrow with another missive from deep within the Newtown Pentacle. Oh… almost forgot to say it… I’m all ‘effed up.
from wikipedia
The onset of a stress response is associated with specific physiological actions in the sympathetic nervous system, both directly and indirectly through the release of epinephrine and to a lesser extent norepinephrine from the medulla of the adrenal glands. These catecholamine hormones facilitate immediate physical reactions by triggering increases in heart rate and breathing, constricting blood vessels. An abundance of catecholamines at neuroreceptor sites facilitates reliance on spontaneous or intuitive behaviors often related to combat or escape.
Normally, when a person is in a serene, unstimulated state, the “firing” of neurons in the locus ceruleus is minimal. A novel stimulus, once perceived, is relayed from the sensory cortex of the brain through the thalamus to the brain stem. That route of signaling increases the rate of noradrenergic activity in the locus ceruleus, and the person becomes alert and attentive to the environment.
If a stimulus is perceived as a threat, a more intense and prolonged discharge of the locus ceruleus activates the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system (Thase & Howland, 1995). The activation of the sympathetic nervous system leads to the release of norepinephrine from nerve endings acting on the heart, blood vessels, respiratory centers, and other sites. The ensuing physiological changes constitute a major part of the acute stress response. The other major player in the acute stress response is the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.
The Newtown Pentacle 