Posts Tagged ‘New York City’
ordinary courtship
It’s National Chocolate Covered Cashews Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Gaze in awe upon the magnificent spectacle of the incredible Newtown Creek, that lugubrious cataract of urban neglect which doth form the currently undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens. Not saying how I got this shot, but perhaps in a great and atypical feat of athleticism a humble narrator leaped from one borough to the next. It’s possible.
Upcoming Tours and events
7 Line Centennial Ride, April 21st – TODAY.
With Access Queens and NYC Transit Museum, Free event, except for subway fare – details here.
First Calvary Cemetery walking tour, May 6th.
With Atlas Obscura’s Obscura Day 2017, Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour – details and tix here.
MAS Janeswalk free walking tour, May 7th.
Visit the new Newtown Creek Alliance/Broadway Stages green roof, and the NCA North Henry Street Project – details and tix here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
suitable pressure
It’s National Garlic Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has been “behind the eight ball” of late, as far as getting things done. There’s so much to do and see in Queens, but lately I can’t seem to climb outside the box of obligation which I’ve built for myself. Something as myopic as that previous sentence will sound hilarious to my friends with kids, of course. The truth is that I just can’t seem to get on top of my various deadlines for some reason, and this unpredictable weather pattern we’re in at the moment is “harshing my buzz.”
As a note, there’s a new event that just popped up on the “upcoming tours and events” section today, an event with Access Queens which will be celebrating the centennial of the opening of the “7’s 11” or Corona Extension in 1917. Come with?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent endeavor saw Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself celebrating our twentieth wedding anniversary at a rooftop bar and restaurant here in Astoria, and when the sun began to set – the ancient village was cast in a beautiful sculptural light. Long suffering, Our Lady knows that when my head starts twisting around at such moments, and I start fiddling with the controls on the camera, that I need to crack out some shots.
Pictured above is the Triborough and Hell Gate Bridges, as seen from high over Steinway Street.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On “Astoria Business” notation – I spotted this adorable bit of signage one night while walking my little dog Zuzu. I wish it hadn’t been screwed into the street tree, but there you go. That water main leak I mentioned the other day continues to magnify, despite my urgent warnings to the government officialdom who oversee such things. Accordingly, I’m spending today filling up sandbags and shoring up the levie here at HQ.
Upcoming Tours and events
7 Line Centennial Ride, April 21st.
With Access Queens and NYC Transit Museum, Free event, except for subway fare – details here.
First Calvary Cemetery walking tour, May 6th.
With Atlas Obscura’s Obscura Day 2017, Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour – details and tix here.
MAS Janeswalk free walking tour, May 7th.
Visit the new Newtown Creek Alliance/Broadway Stages green roof, and the NCA North Henry Street Project – details and tix here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
hushed conversation
It’s National Cheeseball Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lots of odds and ends today. A supposition which opines that I live on the most exciting corner in Astoria continues to play out, as evinced by a deployment of the ever reliable FDNY the other night. It seems that one of the neighbors discerned the olfactory evidence of combustion emerging from a storefront occupied by the local bagel shepherds, which was a report which the FDNY responded to with a fairly large deployment. The fellows on the big red trucks soon determined that this was a false alarm, and it all ended up being just another Astoria hullabaloo.
My suspicions that I live on the most interesting corner in Astoria will soon bear a different kind of fruit, however, as the trickle of water which I reported to 311 as bubbling out of a manhole cover on the next block – about two weeks ago – has now grown into a small flowing stream. Never quiet – here in Astoria, Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hypothetically – due to having had to sign a non disclosure agreement with the State of New York today, one cannot tell you where I am this morning or what I am doing. I am precluded from sharing photographs or discussing my visit to some mysterious location where my camera has been brought to today until some indeterminate time in the future when the embargo on such collected material has been rescinded by NYS officials. There are no specific penalties described for violating this embargo (which is odd), nor was it originally offered with an “expiry” date, which is fairly standard for such situations (an open ended NDA contract for such matters isn’t strictly “kosher” legally, anyway, and there’s also that whole first amendment thing which NYS doesn’t get to suspend). Saying that, a humble narrator made a big stink about the imposition of an open ended image embargo with certain hypothetical people whose offices would be found in some theoretical minor City – which would be found around two hundred miles to the north of the de facto Capitol of New York State at the other end of the Hudson River – and eventually I will be able to describe in some excruciating detail where I went this morning and what I saw at some later date whenever they decide it’s no longer a state secret.
The photo of the two Kosciuszcko Bridges seen above is merely a decorative addition to this post – filler, if you will – and does not in any way indicate where I am, or what I may be walking upon or over as you’re reading this. The shot was gathered a week ago in Greenpoint, on April 9th, for the legally minded and prosecutorially inclined amongst you.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Speaking of the bagel shop which drew the attentions of the FDNY to Astoria one recent night, while waiting for the bagel shepherds to construct a sandwich for me one recent afternoon, one was standing outside in the rain and glowering at passerby when I noticed these two pigeons working a flooded tree pit for bits of food and drinking from the puddles. Our normal flock of pigeons, who live in Astoria in fairly considerable numbers, have lately been harassed by a sudden explosion of super aggressive sparrows. This flock of avian bullies has been chasing the pigeons about, and driving them from their ledges. The Sparrows, on the other hand, have recently begun to be harassed by a bunch of Ravens. The multitudinous Sparrows will be loudly chirping when a single “caw” is sounded, which shuts them all up. Down below, the street cats watch, and wait. Luckily, after the bagel shepherds completed the construction of my sandwich, I was able to remove myself from this internecine urban warfare and return to the tranquil safety of HQ where my little dog Zuzu polices the behavior and habits of all the lower life forms.
Gang warfare, of the feathered variety, affects us all. It’s best to have an elderly dog around to keep things straight.
Upcoming Tours and events
First Calvary Cemetery walking tour, May 6th.
With Atlas Obscura’s Obscura Day 2017, Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour – details and tix here.
MAS Janeswalk free walking tour, May 7th.
Visit the new Newtown Creek Alliance/Broadway Stages green roof, and the NCA North Henry Street Project – details and tix here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
teetering sanity
It’s National Pecan Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The glorious IRT Flushing Line, or 7 line, opened in a couple of stages here in Queens. It wasn’t until 1928 that the line reached its modern terminal destination in Flushing, with the section in LIC between Manhattan and Queensboro Plaza having opened in 1915. The second section to open was the QB Plaza to 103rd st./Alburtis Avenue stop in Corona, and that happened on the 21st of April in 1917. That means that we have a centennial on our hands, lords and ladies, next Friday.
Luckily, a humble narrator and his friends are not the sort of people to allow such important matters to go unacknowledged.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you may or may not know, I’ve been hanging out and working with the folks at Access Queens of late, a community group dedicated to transit advocacy issues. Next Friday, we are going to be commemorating the opening of the line – and I’ll supply details of the event with you as soon as possible next week (everything is still forming up) – and I wanted to advise those of you inveterate fans of the NYC Subway system to start the process of getting the afternoon off on the 21st (next Friday) if you want to join us in celebrating the “international express” which, in many ways, built modern day Queens.
There’s going to be some pretty cool stuff going on, I tell you.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The plan, as it stands right now, involves the replication of a journey which the “hoi polloi” and politicians made a century ago, boarding the IRT Flushing Line at Grand Central at 2 in the afternoon. We are going to ride the line through the eleven stops after Queensboro Plaza to 103/Alburtis and then commemorate “our train.” Come with?
The history of Queens is often unacknowledged, ignored, or forgotten entirely. Not on my watch, however.
Upcoming Tours and events
First Calvary Cemetery walking tour, May 6th.
With Atlas Obscura’s Obscura Day 2017, Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour – details and tix here.
MAS Janeswalk free walking tour, May 7th.
Visit the new Newtown Creek Alliance/Broadway Stages green roof, and the NCA North Henry Street Project – details and tix here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
creeping secularism
It’s National Peach Cobbler Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of those “cool cars” of Queens which was recently spotted, this time on Steinway Street here in raven tressed Astoria. This one was so over the top for usage on the streets of NYC… the mind boggles… but to each his own I always say. If you can afford it, why not? Personally, I’d like to see a bigger set of tires on this pickup, possibly spiked ones, and some sort of roof mounted chain gun – then you’d be ready for the inevitable horde of zombies which we all collectively know are just around the historical corner.
Don’t think that the artillery would help you too much with the vampires in Queens Plaza, but there you go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Should a horde of zombies appear in Queens, a humble narrators plan is to shelter with Our Lady of the Pentacle and our little dog Zuzu down in the sweating concrete bunkers and tunnels found below. There’s lots of antechamber rooms that line the tunnels of the subway system which are “off the beaten track,” both literally and figuratively. Water wouldn’t be much of an issue given the fact that most everything down there is dripping, and there’s a whole lot of protein available if you can figure out how to trap the rats. My belief is that, after a couple of weeks, the undead hordes would have moved off in search of sustenance to Brooklyn or New Jersey and it would be somewhat safe for us to return to daylight and Newtown Pentacle HQ. We would need to remain vigilant, of course.
The Real Estate guys would likely see a zombie apocalypse as an opportunity, and as long as the Dope from Park Slope over in City Hall survived, and remained on their payroll, it would be an excellent opportunity for them to institute yet another rezoning and loosen height restrictions on new construction.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One does not believe that the unknown, inhuman, and impossible thing which dwells in the sapphire megalith would be responsible or endorse the zombies. Were such an impossible and inhuman thing to exist, staring down in covetous fashion upon the world of men with its three lobed burning eye, the thing in the cupola would see no profit in the mastication and depopulation of western Queens.
Its entire existence is dedicated to profit and exploitation, and revenants neither spend or borrow.
Upcoming Tours and events
First Calvary Cemetery walking tour, May 6th.
With Atlas Obscura’s Obscura Day 2017, Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour – details and tix here.
MAS Janeswalk free walking tour, May 7th.
Visit the new Newtown Creek Alliance/Broadway Stages green roof, and the NCA North Henry Street Project – details and tix here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 