Posts Tagged ‘Long Island City’
apropo shunning
Scuttling, always scuttling.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In many ways, one misses the old days when Long Island City was a deserted wasteland on the weekends. There’s so many people here now, and so damn many of these folks are “consumers.” I’ve always broken the human herd into two groups – producers and consumers. It’s not capitalism that these terms emanate from, as my definitions have little to do with economics. Instead, what I mean is that there are two distinct kinds of people in society – those who take what they’re offered and those who offer. Consumers readily form audiences and crowds eager to be entertained or fed. Producers entertain and feed. I’ve always fancied myself a member of the latter grouping, most artist and musician types are. It’s not a judgement, or statement of one grouping’s superiority over the other, rather it’s one of those “ground rules” observations which I tend to abide by. You can’t have one without the other.
Last weekend in LIC, while getting some exercise and waving the camera about, vast flocks of consumers were wandering about seeking diversion and entertainment, or just trying to find a meal.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One actually finds it a bit difficult these days to find a spot, in what used to be referred to as “Lonely Island City,” to commune with the concrete devastations and meditate on his inadequacies and failings. I really used to enjoy working myself over psychologically while navigating the broken pavement and endless avenues, ruminating on “why did I say that” or wondering if some untoward act or casually cruel comment from my High School years might be retroactively considered a hate crime. I’d warn the “youngins” who so laboriously chronicle their lives on social media that, just in my half century walking the planet, the script of acceptable speech and behavior has flipped about quite a few times.
Consumer or producer, be wary of changing mores and remember that there’s a generation coming just after yours that will be absolutely disgusted by the behavior of your own. As a “Generation X” member, my distaste for the selfish baby boomer generation is at an absolute apex right now. The boomers will talk about their Civil Rights era efforts and an all encompassing liberalization of American culture during their watch, but they’re ultimately the ones who put Trump and his Legion of Doom cabinet into office.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The kids who are not kids anymore that follow my generational cohort are just as screwed as my peers were and are because of this generation of Baby Boomers. I made the case to one of these youngins the other day that we have to legalize weed in New York State just to pay for the heroic level end of life medical care that this generation of characters are going to demand. They will consume, and we will produce. Luckily, after they all die off, it’s going to be like the years after the Black Plague in Europe and vast sums of money are going to escape the lock boxes of IRA’s and retirement pension accounts.
That’s unless the Baby Boomers can figure out a way to take it with them, which I wouldn’t put past the most self centered generation in American History to do. Somebody else is always handed that generation’s bill.
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aroused about
A storm’s a coming.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Depressing, that’s how I usually describe it. Shortly after taking this photo in the Court Square/Queens Plaza area of Long Island City, where the sidewalk was actually blocked off by this enormous midden of residential tower garbage, I sat in one of the high priced cafes installed into one of those residential towers (the kind that offers fare best described as a single perfect tomato served on a big white artisinal plate) and listened to a group of activists telling me that all this real estate development was just peachy and that they’d like to see more of it. My spiel about opposing the Sunnyside Yards fell on fairly deaf ears, and I inquired about how long the folks I was chatting with had lived here in LIC. The answer was pretty much encapsulated by De Blasio’s term in office, and I realized that these folks hadn’t been here for a transit strike, or a blackout, or had the Mayor turn a hotel on their block into a homeless shelter yet. Give it time folks, and remember the Borough Motto – “Welcome to Queens, now go fuck yourself.”
They didn’t mind the fact that they were living on the site of a 19th century chemical factory, and in fact didn’t care.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another sit down with a group whom I would describe as “hard left” was also somewhat dismaying, as their plan for the future involved collapsing one of the legs of the economic stool which the City’s economy stands upon. I’ve said this a million times, it seems, but one is not “anti-development” as macro economic forces such as our current building boom need to be managed, and the job of government is to manage and eke concessions or “buy-in’s” from the real estate industrial complex which both current and future populations will need. Transit improvements, green infrastructure, medical facilities, supermarkets and laundromats, school space, street level urban furniture like benches and garbage cans. Instead, our government still operates as if it’s the 1970’s and they need to beg developers to begin projects in NYC. The Real Estate people are awash in the “LLC” money that often malign foreigners are laundering through our local economy, so let’s demand that they share the wealth just a little bit and design some ameliorations of the City’s many needs into their towers – that’s what I say. It’s called “good old fashioned graft” in case anyone has forgotten that term. Why isn’t there still any place to take a piss, amidst all this new construction?
Is Long Island City going to function as a “city,” or is it instead just destined to be a dormitory for Manhattan’s job base. Why aren’t we talking about office space and commercial construction here? As the old adage offers – if you build it, they will come. That’s how Queens was originally developed a hundred years ago – they built the Subways, and the people came.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Walking these not so mean streets as I do, I can tell you that vast stretches of Queens are unfriendly, forbidding, and barren of any of the things you’d expect to find in Brooklyn or Manhattan. We’re starved for hospital beds, school desks, street trees. Our commercial strips are bare as far as street benches and everything else you’d expect to find in the “fastest growing community” in the northeastern United States, and Queens has less park land acreage per person than anywhere else in NYC except for Greenpoint in Brooklyn and the South Bronx.
While all of this is going on, or not going on, everybody continues to snipe and gripe and fight over an ever smaller piece of the pie. They’re fighting battles that they’ve already lost, which seems to be the Queensican way.
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attic realm
Aftermath, LIC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You may have heard that there was a rather large fire in Long Island City over the weekend, which saw an auto body shop consumed in what ended up being a five alarm blaze. Multiple FDNY units were sent to LIC from other boroughs, and despite their efforts the fire raged for hours and hours. The roof of the structure collapsed, and I’d be willing to bet that it’s going to be declared a total loss somewhere down the line by insurers.
On Sunday I walked over to get some shots of the scene, and given that this area is kind of “my stomping grounds,” knew where to go for an efficacious angle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The FDNY had two units on hand in case anything flashed back to life, and NYPD was also on hand controlling the intersection and keeping “lookie-loos” like me from getting into trouble. FDNY had Rockaway’s Tower Ladder 155 unit, as well as Engine unit 289 from Corona, on point. The coppers were from the 108 pct.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I say it all the time, “Newtown Creek has a history of large industrial site fires.” When I say that, I’m thinking of actual history – the 1882 and 1919 Standard Oil refinery fires in Greenpoint or the Pratt Varnish works fire just down the block here in LIC. Just in the last decade there’s been two major fires, both in Greenpoint, which took nearly a week to put out. Also in Greenpoint, there was the Greenpoint Terminal Market fire about 15 years ago which saw the largest FDNY deployment since 911.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
stifled oaths
A bit more Creekery, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Middle part of last week, I had to get together with some of my colleagues at Newtown Creek Alliance to discuss and strategize about a project we’re involved with over in Long Island City, and we decided to do the meeting in the early evening at the NCA offices at 520 Kingsland Avenue over in Greenpoint.
It was a misty day, with crazy dark clouds blowing through the sky, which made for nice atmospherics and a couple of times during the meeting I excused myself and headed out onto the green roof to shoot some shots.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our topic of focus was the Montauk Cutoff project, which is a whole other story.
Me? I was fascinated by the contrast being offered by the illuminations of the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself setting to west and the restless clouds rolling through the sky.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To the east, and looking towards the Metro Fuel facility, you could see some sort of fiery industrial process at work.
I had an urge to find a really long stick and try to toast a marshmallow.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Walking home afterwards via the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge, on the Blissville side of the Newtown Creek, I noticed that the NY & Atlantic outfit were getting busy with the whole garbage train business. Shot this through a convenient hole in the fence on the bridge, and noticed that the train set was sitting there in a static position so I quickened my pace and got down to the dangerous intersection of Review Avenue and Van Dam street as quickly as possible.
Didn’t have the time to slip on my reflective safety vest, which is kind of stupid but I’ve always been fairly lucky as far as not getting killed by trains and trucks – so far.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For some reason, whenever I seem to get into position for this sort of shot, I instantly need to pee. I’m talking dancing around, shifting weight from foot to foot like a five year old need. Didn’t have an inkling of it on the bridge, and took care of business prior to leaving the offices not fifteen minutes prior.
Biology… it affects us all. Me moreso than others.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, the NY&A folks didn’t keep me waiting too long before the signal arms came down and they advanced along the tracks of the Lower Montauk branch, exiting the Blissville Yard and heading eastwards a short distance to the Waste Management company’s transfer station found a short distance away.
WM handles the curbside black bag, or putrescent, waste collected by the Sanitation Department.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For short distance hauling, the NY&A folks use this “critter” which is a slow moving but powerful engine unit. It’s job is to move empty cars into loading position at the waste transfer station and then move the full ones back to the Blissville Yard where they’ll be coupled to other full boxes. At some indeterminate time in the late night, a “proper” locomotive engine will arrive and haul the train set away.
Our garbage goes on quite a scenic journey, through the Fresh Pond Yard and over the Hell Gate Bridge via the NY Connecting Railroad. It heads up the Hudson after visiting the Bronx, and eventually crosses over onto the continent.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
By this point, it felt as if my bladder was about to explode, but I had to get in a couple more shots.
Exigent prioritization of such matters are the razors edge of a humble narrator’s existential experience.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, the operator of the train set moved out of eyeshot shortly, and a misdemeanor or two occurred.
At least there’s now a semi clean spot on the Blissville side of the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge, albeit one that smells slightly of urine.
Upcoming Tours and Events
Monday, October 1st, 6:30 p.m. – Infrastructure Creek – with Atlas Obscura.
Join Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman as he leads an exploration of the city’s largest sewer plant, tunnels, draw and truss bridges, rail yards, and a highway that carries 32 million vehicle-trips a year over flowing water.
Tix and more details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
billious congestion
Friday odds and ends.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few shots from my travels and travails over the last couple of weeks assail you today, lords and ladies. Pictured above, the NYC DEP has been working on a water main replacement project here amongst the rolling hills of almond eyed Astoria for the last month or two, which has necessitated the occasional interruption of residential water service. The access, or manhole (as its called colloquially), cover which one of our municipal heroes is standing upon vouchsafes the subterrene valve which controls such service on the corner that Newtown Pentacle HQ is found on.
Who knew?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That bulkhead collapse on Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kills tributary I told you about shifted one of the derelict oil barges, long abandoned, from its decades long position. That’s the black mayonnaise sediment I’m always talking about exposed to the air in the shot above. The particular day I was shooting this was a dicey one due to a heavy rainfall and high atmospheric humidity which caused my camera to malfunction. A few of the mechanical controls on the back of the thing began to “stick,” which made me nervous as heck. Luckily, after returning home and throughly cleaning the device and then leaving it wrapped in a thick and thirsty towel, everything was back to normal the next day. Whew.
Rain + humidity = bad for camera.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is seriously tired of this summer humidity crapola. I do enjoy warm weather, but not when it’s accompanied by dew points in the 70 – 80th percentiles. It’s after Labor Day, and I’m still wearing white? Gauche, I.
That’s one of the arches of the New York Connecting Railroad leading to the Hell Gate Bridge, which is one of the defining landmarks here in Astoria. HQ is to the south of the rail aqueduct, with Astoria Blvd. with the “Ditmars side” of Astoria found to the north. The rail tracks and the Grand Central Parkway form a physical and social barrier between the two sides of the ancient village.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 