Posts Tagged ‘New York City’
fevered state
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– photo by Mitch Waxman
Gaze in wonder upon the fabled Newtown Creek of the 21st century, whereupon a tug of the Poling and Cutler towing organization wrestles a fuel barge in a westerly course toward the East River. A famously repeated phrase offered by your humble narrator boldly states that “in the late 19th and early 20th century, Newtown Creek carried more commercial traffic than the entire Mississippi River”, a statement which often causes listeners to roll their eyes. It is inconceivable, given the modern appearance of the Creek and its banks, to believe this statement. Some ask me whether or not tugs and barges even operate along the Newtown Creek in this dystopian future we have all found ourselves living in.
– photo by nycma.lunaimaging.com, September 11, 1903
Gaze, thereby, upon the Newtown Creek of 1903. This is roughly the same spot, with the Chelsea fiber mill (modern day Manhattan Avenue and GMDC) on the southern (left) or Greenpoint bank and the Newtown Creek towing company docks on the right or LIC bank (modern day Vernon Blvd. street end). Another shot emanating from the NYC Municipal Archives, this is one of the few extant photographic records of the Newtown Creek’s zenith as the “workshop of America” at the height of the second industrial revolution.
brotherly piety
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– photo by Mitch Waxman
The back situation seems to be ameliorating itself, thankfully- and as this post is being written- has transmogrified from a crippling stiffness and intermittent sword blade of pain to a dull and omnipresent ache. Ultimately, this is a good thing, as I have actually managed to sleep without interruption for two days in a row and am able to move about in fine fettle. With luck, I will be able to resume my wanderings in a day or two, but for now- here’s another “Then and Now” shot, this time of the Paragon Oil building on Hunters Point Avenue in venerable Long Island City’s industrial quarter. It should be mentioned that I am fascinated by this building.
This edifice- known sometimes as “the Subway Building” and others as the “Paragon Oil building”- was, in fact, Queens Borough Hall. Check out the January 2012 posting “high doors” for more on the structure.
– photo by nycma.lunaimaging.com, August 7, 1936
The shot pictured above emanates from the awesome collection of historic photographs made available by the NYC Municipal Archives, and was captured by a now anonymous municipal photographer in August of 1936. The center of Queens during the 1930’s, this was Borough Hall. Back then, the power brokers of the borough located themselves nearby the Newtown Creek and perched high above the southern extant of the Sunnyside Yard and alongside the Long Island Railroad tracks. Prior to this, the unofficial Borough Hall of Battleaxe Gleason was located at the Miller hotel (which would become the LIC Crab House) and the official one was on Jackson Avenue nearby modern day Court Square.
twisting willows
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– photo by Mitch Waxman, 2012
During this infirmity which has struck me down, a twisting gimlet of overstressed tissue in my lower back (for those of you who haven’t read my endless complaints about it in the last week), an amazing amount of time has been spent combing the vast Internet in search of amusement and diversion. While doing so, a few images at the New York City Municipal Archives provided me with some intellectual whimsy. The shot above is quite modern, captured a few days after Hurricane Sandy. It depicts the “Queens Midtown Highway” section of the Long Island Expressway.
– photo by nycma.lunaimaging.com, May 13, 1941
The historic shot from May 1941, above, is shot from a few hundred feet south of my vantage point. Unfortunately, the spot where that photographer stood is now obscured by both a chain link fence and a highway sign which blocks the historic view. Of particular note in the 1941 shot are the presence of private homes, rather than industrial buildings, along the northern side of the highway. Also, the blanket of vaporous exhaust visible in the air of Long Island City is of some interest.
groveling obeisance
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in yesterday’s post, a short interval of puffy individual shots is being presented over the holiday weekend. Partially, this is owed to a debilitating back injury suffered last week which has reduced your humble narrator to the uniform of the house bound invalid- sweat pants and bathrobe- the other is that every now and then an individual image presented earlier in the year got swallowed by the post it was published in. To wit, the storied John J. Harvey fireboat upon the Hudson during the Op Sail event in late spring of 2012. A bizarre atmospheric light is captured therein, wherein storm clouds literally opened around the procession of ships and provided a somewhat eerie atmosphere. Those of us in the Working Harbor Committee ascribe such events to the otherworldly abilities of our own Captain Doswell, referring to the phenomena as “The Doswell Effect”.
fallen over
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Thanksgiving weekend is no time to burden you with cares or worries, that’s Walmart and your family’s job, so the Newtown Pentacle tradition is to kick back and present singular images which appeal to the sensibility and tastes of a humble narrator. Above, and I do believe that this shot has run before at this – your Newtown Pentacle, is depicted the corner of 31st street and Broadway in demimonde plagued Astoria. The structure, of course, is the the elevated track of the Subway. There’s just something about the light in this one which I really dig.
The Newtown Pentacle 