Posts Tagged ‘New York City’
yellowed paper
Reaching into the archives, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sidelined as I’ve been for the last few weeks by holiday obligations, food poisoning, and my vulnerability to extreme cold – a humble narrator has little new to share with you today but the show must go on. Reaching into the archives, the shot of a Night Heron above was gathered while in the company of the Audubon Society on North Brother Island in 2012.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A pod of Dolphins surfacing was witnessed while onboard one of the inaugural “Whale watching” trips offered by the American Princess boat company, which hails from Breezey Point, back in 2010.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In 2013, I met this kitten who was living in the rip rap shoreline of Staten Island, not far from the Staten Island Ferry terminal. Back tomorrow with something a bit more in depth, I hope, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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hurled consequentially
No matter where you go, there you are.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“How are ya?” is usually greeted wth “just another day in paradise,” whenever a humble narrator is queried by friends and acquaintances. It’s nice to have a catchphrase, and it took me years to come up with one that didn’t involve verbiage that could be considered a threat, hate crime, or offer a string of profane words randomly strung together. For a while, I liked “gaze upon the dragon and despair” but it’s difficult to pull that one off with the proper theatrics before coffee.
Here in paradise, one has been quite inert due to the weather. That sucks, but the good news is that “the project” has been moving along nicely. Allow me to explain…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“The project” which was slowly chipped away at throughout 2017, is cataloging photos. It all started last winter when I realized that I needed to print up new business cards. I use a printing company called “Moo” for this, and their services allow for variable color fill on one side of the card (photos) and a single BW layout for the other. Essentially, it’s up to twenty shots for the photo side. Thing is, while hunting through something like sixty thousand photos, I realized that it was time to start organizing and separating the wheat from the chaff. That means that I’ve had to comb through the entire archive, just in the name of “doing it right.” I literally finished the process on December 30th, and am in the early stages of arranging shots into categories – harbor, bridges, people etc. Believe it or not, I’ve consciously avoided inclusion of Newtown Creek or NY Harbor oriented shots, as those will be getting their own individual processes. There’s a reason this project has taken so long to get done.
The end of this grueling procedure will be a godsend, and will be spawning several byproducts. I still haven’t printed any new business cards, incidentally, that’ll be the first thing I do. 2018 is going to be something of threshold year I hope, which will lead into the tenth anniversary of this – your Newtown Pentacle – in June of 2019.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the things I plan on doing in 2018 is creating more video essays like the “A Short History of the Sunnyside Yards” or “Newtown Creek Magic Lantern” ones I’ve offered in the past. I’m also planning on creating a few pamphlet sized publications exploring various subjects, which would be offered for sale as both digital and physical items. Suffice to say that there are other goals for the end product of this project, but that’s still something I’m scribbling down in my notebooks and thinking about.
“Just another day in paradise” might be a worthy title for a photo book about Western Queens, one believes.
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surviving entry
A good place to get dead, the Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Something I get asked about all the time is whether or not bodies get regularly dumped into Newtown Creek. My stock response is “only of its amateur hour.” If you’re dumping a body in NY Harbor, you want to make sure that it disappears quickly. Nothing that falls into Newtown Creek vanishes, it just sinks to the bottom and eventually it comes bubbling back up to the surface. The East River is crap for this duty as well. The Hudson, or Jamaica Bay, however…
Nevertheless, a lot of people have ended up dead in the Newtown Creek over the centuries.
Charles Hannigan, who once lived on fifth street in the Eastern District of Brooklyn, was fishing along and drowned in the Newtown Creek in early September of 1856. His body was never recovered. On August 1st of 1866, a 40 year old escapee from a lunatic asylum in Flatbush, named John Montayne, attempted suicide at Newtown Creek but was revived. In 1870, a dock worker named Patrick Boyle fell into Newtown Creek nearby Hunters Point and drowned, while three men watched and did nothing to help him. In September of 1874, a Long Island City Policeman, Officer Minnocks, found the body of an infant with a crushed skull floating in Newtown Creek. In February of 1878, Blissvillian William Owens fell out of a rowboat and drowned in Newtown Creek, his body was never recovered. In 1886, the body of S.W. Meyers, who had disappeared eight weeks prior in Manhattan, was found floating nearby the Penny Bridge along Newtown Creek.
Meyers was described as feeble, and given to fainting spells. It was presumed that he just fell into the water and drowned.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Joel Rifkin, the serial killer, dumped a 55 gallon steel drum containing the corpse of a woman in May of 1992 in Newtown Creek, according to his 1995 confession. In 1996, a United States Army Captain named John Lau disposed of the bodies of a married couple, Alexander and Liane Barone, in the Newtown Creek not too far from the Metropolitan Avenue Bridge. A fellow named Derek Winefsky drove his car at high speed through the waterside fence line of Greenpoint’s Apollo Street in 2008, and whereas his body was recovered, that of his passenger disappeared into the murk. In October of 2017, a decomposing body was discovered at the very end of the English Kills tributary of Newtown Creek in Bushwick by one of my colleagues at Newtown Creek Alliance.
Basically, it’s pretty difficult and expensive to dispose of a human body, even under the best circumstances. Ever heard how much a funeral costs? Imagine trying to do it all quiet and secret like.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator has no first hand knowledge of the following, rather it’s the product of bar room banter with all sorts of old timey characters, disreputable rogues, and grifting undesirables in Long Island City and Greenpoint; back in the “old days” when the “boys” were still in charge around the Creek and one of their uncooperative business associate needed “getting rid of,” it wasn’t that difficult to find a local crematorium or industrial furnace tender whose palm was easily greased. Additionally, if the cover story you offer – regarding your employment – to both religious leaders and Federal prosecutors is that “you work in waste management,” ditching 150-250 pounds of meat into the waste flow isn’t that big a challenge.
So the short answer is “No, Virginia, people don’t dump bodies in Newtown Creek that often, and if they do they’re amateurs.”
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in cipher
On this day in 1898, the City of Greater New York was born.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Happy New Year.
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archaic chirography
It’s National Pepper Pot day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last week, I was hanging out with a friend over in the City, and we decided to hit the eastern side of Chinatown for a wee photo walk. This is the Manhattan side definition of “DUMBO,” which is an area still defined by the presence of late 19th century tenement buildings and narrow streets. Chatham Square, the Five Points, and Paradise Alley aren’t too far away, and it’s one of the few spots on the island which haven’t been ruined by the real estate industrial complex in recent decades. Off in the distance, a municipal complex of government buildings and courthouses positively looms.
We were wandering about, my friend and I, and decided to grab some lunch at a Chinese bakery before heading south and east. After a super hot cup of coffee and a couple of roast pork buns (Bao) we fired up the cameras and started marching about in an area which has apparently been called “Two Bridges” since 1955. I think the Two Bridges thing, since I’ve never actually heard it before, is real estate industrial complex propaganda being specifically disseminated by the Extell corporation which happens to be building a 68 story market rate tower nearby. Just a hunch there, by the way.
Saying that, as of 2003 there’s been a Two Bridges Historic District on the national list of such things, so…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This part of Manhattan Island has been occupied for longer than the United States has existed, and was part of the exurbs of the New Amsterdam colony. During the “Gangs of New York” era, Chatham Square was a central market place and meeting point where foodstuffs, farm goods, and often less than salubrious goods and services were offered for sale. The tenement dwellers in this area, who were those “huddled masses” mentioned by the screed on the Statue of Liberty, were largely destitute and lived in conditions which modernity would perceive as squalor. Jakob Riis and other contemporaries described it as squalor, it should be mentioned, so maybe…
from wikipedia
Up until about 1820, the square was used as a large open air market for goods and livestock, mainly horses. By the mid-19th century, it became a center for tattoo parlors, flophouses and saloons, as a seedy section of the old Five Points neighborhood. In the 20th century, after The Great Depression and Prohibition, the area was reformed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I always try to analogize the era of early to mid 19th century New York City to people by reminding them that this was the same age as when Cowboys were riding horses about the west, and that folks in Europe were still fighting each other with swords, spears, and arrows. They had cannons and firearms over in Europe, of course, but these early weapons were pretty clumsy, prone to misfires, and inaccurate. There’s a reason that they used to affix those long bayonets on muskets back then, y’know.
Guns were practically a brand new commodity, with Mr. Remington having begun the democratization of rifle firearms only in 1816. It wasn’t until 1852 that Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson incorporated, becoming the Henry Fords of firearms. In NYC, a pistol was a fairly uncommon and expensive commodity, as I understand things. Rifles and shot guns were more common but still relatively rare amongst the tenement crowd.
It would be far more likely, were you to invent time travel and visit this section of Manhattan in the 1850’s, that you would be beaten to death or fatally stabbed shortly after stepping out of your time machine. They were big on blades back then…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You can’t walk through Chinatown and not grab some shots of the foodstuffs being offered for sale on the sidewalks in front of shops. Thing is, these fish may or may not be considered “food” per se. A lot of what’s on sale in this eastern section of Chinatown is actually medicinal in nature, which my ignorant and dross western eyes cannot discern. Have to admit, I’m pretty ignorant about the nuances of the Chinese culture(s)…
from wikipedia
Manhattan’s Chinatown (simplified Chinese: 曼哈顿华埠; traditional Chinese: 曼哈頓華埠; pinyin: Mànhādùn huábù; juytping: Maan6haa1deon6 waa1bou6) is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, bordering the Lower East Side to its east, Little Italy to its north, Civic Center to its south, and Tribeca to its west. Chinatown is home to the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Personally, I love the fact that there are still junkie squats and homeless camps found in and amongst the streets/alleys of this area. It’s good to know that there are still some parts of Manhattan that have been resistant to the high fructose financial syrup that has decimated the East and West Village, turned the Lower East Side into bro-hipster Disneyland, and rendered the neighborhood around Port Authority into a grotesque.
I miss the old days, when Manhattan was ecstatic and predatory all at the same time…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My friend and I continued south and east, into the boring Battery section. We had a quick refreshment at a local watering hole, used the facilities, and got the hell out of dodge before rush hour started. A quick trip on the 5 line got us to 59/Lex, where a transfer was enacted to the IND R line which carried us beneath the river and back to the almond eyed milieu known as Astoria. As is always the case, a warm feeling erupted in my chest upon returning to Queens.
Might have been indigestion though, from eating those two roast pork buns. Probably should have had just one…
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The Newtown Pentacle 