Posts Tagged ‘Pickman’
odd alterations
Curious things, in Astoria.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It is happening again, here in Astoria Queens. As a humble narrator stumbles along while walking a highly reluctant dog named Zuzu, many things which the human infestation hereabouts get up to are noticed. The curious customs of the summer notwithstanding, every time the air begins to grow chill, a menacing event begins and spreads throughout the community.
Zuzu the dog is rather timid, and somewhat paranoid about several things. I’ve learned to trust the dog, and her vast canid sensory range – one that extends well beyond the dross observations which primate organs can discern. Well, except for the whole “see things in color” part, as dog vision ain’t so hot.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You’re not paranoid if people are actually trying to mess with you.
Wires begin to intertwine with vegetation annually, carrying current to blinking bulbs of uncertain origin. One has attempted to discern if these blinks are carrying some sort of coded message, but mathematics has always been a language alien to me.
Like the “Aglet,” which is the metal or plastic tips of shoelaces, I believe their purpose might be sinister.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Curious combinations of colored light have been known to carry coded missives. Given that the vast majority of these wired strings are manufactured in the factories of China, one wonders if the Commisars of the People’s Republic of China’s Communist Party have found a way to directly infiltrate the subconscious mind.
I’m not paranoid, though.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
impolite exclusions
It’s horrible to be me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent endeavor found me wandering amidst the Degnon Terminal in Long Island City during a light drizzle, which for one such as myself indicates that’s it’s time to start recording the things I see. Above, the off ramp of the Queensboro Bridge that doth feed traffic unto the Thomson Avenue Viaduct.
As I’ve stated in the past, NYC never looks as good as it does when it’s raining.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was on my way to attend a meeting for the group that’s sprung up around the abandonment of the Montauk Cutoff tracks by the MTA, a project which was described at this – your Newtown Pentacle – recently. The meeting of the so called “Cut off coalition” was taking place over in the former Waldes Koh I Noor complex in the Degnon Terminal, and since it was raining I used the subway to get there rather than my usual methodology of walking in pursuance of not getting drenched.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Degnon Terminal, just in case you’ve missed the thousands of times I’ve referenced it, is an industrial park which was built in the early 20th century by a fellow named Michael Degnon. Degnon and his team land filled a famously honerous swamp fed by Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kills tributary at around the same time that the Pennsylvania Railroad was busy building the Sunnyside Yards railroad complex. Degnon’s project took advantage of the yards, and provided for a “ship to rail” link at the head of Dutch Kills.
“Progress” was a pretty big concept back in the early 20th century, and the Degnon Terminal saw some of the first poured concrete mega structures in the United States rise from the reclaimed wetlands of LIC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Loose Wiles bakery, Eveready Battery, American Chicle and other large manufacturers based themselves here and provided tens of thousands of jobs, which drew the immigrant masses out of Manhattan and out to LIC and its environs. By the 1930’s, this section of LIC had become a vast industrial sector.
After the Second World War, when manufacturing in the northeastern United States began to decline, the buildings were left behind and nobody was quite sure what to do with them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the early 1990’s, it was decided to demolish a hospital to make way for the new, and the Citi building megalith was erected. The first of the glass and steel skyscrapers in LIC, this malefic eidolon used to be a singular tower. That has changed in the last ten years, as multiple high rise residential buildings have risen around “court square.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over on Pearson street off of Skillman, in the Degnon Terminal, the four building Koh I Noor complex found profitable life after splitting the property up amongst smaller tenants. The Waldes company manufactured milliners and tailoring supplies – it’s said that they invented the metal zipper, for instance. Warehouse businesses, printers, and small manufacturers have taken up residence here in the 21st century.
None of them utilize the rail, nor the maritime connections, and are instead truck based businesses.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
cyclopean endeavor
Down Under the Kosciuszko Bridges Onramps – DUKBO – in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Around two weeks ago, Newtown Pentacle presented a pair of postings (this, and that) showing the progress of the Brooklyn side of the Kosciuszko Bridge construction project. I was invited to walk through the site by the NYS DOT, along with other members of the “Stakeholders Advisory Committee,” and the photos captured during the walk populated the posts. Today, the Queens side of DUKBO.
It should be mentioned that I didn’t enter the site for these, and just creeped around the fences on Thanksgiving weekend. It would have been a simple thing to enter the deserted site, of course, but the Newtown Pentacle way is to never trespass. I’m like a vampire, and have to be invited in before I do my work. Luckily, you don’t need an invitation to walk down the sidewalks of Queens in the direction of Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These are the 1939 era bridge’s concrete approaches, as seen from Laurel Hill Blvd., which is the eastern border of Calvary Cemetery. The street that’s all ground up into gravel is “used to be 54th avenue.” “Used to be” is an apt adjectival phrase, as when the new bridge is finished several of the existing streets will have been relocated and the geometry of the street grid will be altered to accommodate the new structure.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you can see, security is tight as a drum here in Blissville. Nobody over 350 pounds would be able to get through this gap. It’s at times like these that my “no trespassing” rule really grates.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking down Laurel Hill Blvd. to the south. That’s Calvary Cemetery on the right of the shot, and the redoubtable 1939 Robert Moses version of the Kosciuszko Bridge on the left. Moses convinced LaGuardia that the old Penny Bridge, which crossed Newtown Creek from the end of Meeker Avenue in Brooklyn and connected to Review Avenue in Queens, would be insufficient to handle the traffic load which the 1939 Worlds Fair in Corona would create. He proposed the “New Meeker Avenue Bridge,” which LaGuardia agreed to. Moses then argued that without the 2.1 miles of high speed approach roads, the money spent on the bridge would be wasted. LaGuardia agreed again. Moses then expanded the approaches, on one side to connect to his “Grand Central” Parkway and Mighty Triborough, and on the other to connect via Meeker Avenue to Grand Street, he also created something LaGuardia did not agree to in the bargain. What would become the “Brooklyn Queens Connecting Highway,” something we refer to in modernity as the “Brooklyn Queens Expressway.”
Clever one, that Moses.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Crossing under the Kosciuszko Bridge at 54th road – a corrugated fence which used to be part of an NYPD towing impound lot allowed for a quick view of the “House of Moses.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
By the end of 2017 (if I remember the schedule accurately), this will be an enormous demolition site. All the steel will be coming down in sections, and the cyclopean concrete piers will be chipped away. The stripping away of the central span of the Kosciuszko Bridge promises to be quite an exciting sight.
Essentially, they are going to bring in maritime cranes which will affix supports to the truss section in the center, cut it away from its supports with torches, and then lower it onto a platform composed of several barges. Multiple tugboats will guide it away, heading in a westerly direction down Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Crossing under the Kosciuszko Bridge via 54th road onto “used to be” 43rd street, the now familiar masonry of the BQE overpass appears. The roadway will be considerably lower here, in comparison to the old setup. Not really sure how much I like that, actually. It’s going to be bringing the close to 200,000 vehicles a day that cross the thing down to nearly street level. Noise, exhaust, etc. It’s higher on the Brooklyn side.
Oh well… welcome to Queens, now go fuck yourself… right?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is “used to be” 54th drive, and you can see the new concrete supports for the Kosciuszko Bridge approaches are coming along nicely. If you refer back to the two posts from the Brooklyn side linked to in the first paragraph, you can check out what this area will look like probably 6-8 months into 2016. The deck roadway will ride along on the top of this piers, rising to the cable stay supported section spanning Newtown Creek.
On the other side of the concrete structures are a bunch of office trailers which house the administrative and engineering staff for the project.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Kosciuszko Bridge project is striking its path through the former location of the Phelps Dodge company, on a patch of land which was once adjudicated as being “too toxic to park empty United States Postal Trucks on.” Phelps Dodge is a NYS Superfund site, and the company is one of the “potentially responsible parties” named in the Federal Superfund listing of Newtown Creek itself. Incidentally, Phelps Dodge and their copper refining operations were pretty much a 20th century thing, they inherited the property after a merger with a chemical conglomerate that had been here since the 1830’s.
The State Bridge people have made it a point of mentioning that they’re able to deal with the environmental stuff, but that it’s an immensely complicated situation. There’s a sign on the fence that says “Hazwoper.” I mentioned this signage to my Union laborer neighbor Mario during conversation about the project, which caused the big fellow to utter a “woof” sound, followed by “Hazwoper Zone, bro, woof.”
The entire project is an immensely complicated situation, actually.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Imagine building a bridge, next to an existing one which carries the Brooklyn Queens Expressway over a heavily polluted maritime industrial waterway found in the dead bang center of NYC. Imagine that this waterway was where the oil refining industry, and the manufactured gas industry, and the waste disposal industry, and the chemical industry, and the Long Island Railroad, all figured themselves out. Refineries, distilleries, waste transfer stations, open sewers… Ok? Got it?
Ok, so you finish the bridge, and reroute the highway onto it. Ok. Now you have to demolish the old bridge and cart it away. Now, you get to start on building the second half of the new bridge, and then reroute the highway again to take advantage of the completed bridge.
Ahh… my beloved Creek!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot looks north, from the “will continue to be” Restaurant Depot Parking lot. Most NY’ers are surprised at how much of the food they eat has spent some of its journey to their colons at Newtown Creek, but a humble narrator has reached the age where his innermost psychology can best be described as “a severe and apathetic form of nihilism,” so nothing really surprises me anymore. I don’t buy sausages in supermarkets, as an example of how this numbed acceptance of the world we live in informs my days and tortures my nights.
As you’ll notice, the shots depict concrete still being formed into the columns, and rebar sticking out of a few of them. The Brooklyn side is a bit further along, I’m told it was a bit more complicated on the Greenpoint side due to the rerouting of the BQE over Meeker Avenue, and the presence of dense populations surrounding the road.
In Maspeth, here on the Queens side, there were just two or three private homes and a few warehouse sized businesses. The various entities, hereabouts, were recompensed for their properties by the State and assisted with relocation to parts unknown. Or they might now be sausages in a freezer at a Costco. You’ll never know… which brings me back to the whole nihilism thing. There you go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our Lady of the Pentacle often reminds me that whereas everything in the shot above is familiar to me, I shouldn’t make the assumption that everyone reading this enjoys the same visual catalog as my creek chums and I do.
This shot looks towards the west, where you can see the Empire State Building over in Manhattan. Out of sight, not mind, the tracks of the LIRR Montauk line are aimed directly at midtown Manhattan and are travelling under the bridge and along the tree line. The wooded section, on the right, is Calvary Cemetery. Just beyond those concrete blocks is part of the Phelps Dodge site, and the truss section of the 1939 Kosciuszko Bridge is overflying Newtown Creek and traveling out of frame at top left – or south.
Just keeping y’all in the loop, here in DUKBO, Down Under the Kosciuszko Bridges Onramps.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
shall continue
A few shots from the late summer, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As of this writing, my Mac is still in the shop getting repaired, so a humble narrator finds himself reduced to pulling out older shots from my archives. The computer experienced some sort of electrical failure, which is the sort of thing that is beyond my capabilities to diagnose and repair. Software problems I can handle, but component failures require a specialist – much in the same way that I can deal with psychological or emotional problems on my own, but a doctor is needed to sew, or set, or medicate, or even operate when it’s something mechanical that afflicts the chassis.
Spotted this half truck over on the forbidden north coast of Queens back at the end of the summer while incessantly wandering about and exploring, and the shot is somewhat indicative of how I feel without my desktop computer. The desktop remains the “master cylinder” of my work life, and I’m diminished without it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Into each life, a little rain must fall. That’s what my grandmother used to tell me, but she was a Russian Jew, and you will never be able to appreciate the sort of fatalism which people like my “Bubbie” lived with. Her story was like something out of a Dostoyevsky novel, including a mad dash across the Atlantic to America and a quick immersion into the garment industry sweat shops of NYC during the First World War. That was followed by the Great Depression, and the Second World War… you get the idea. Bubbie told stories of a lost brother who was beheaded by drunken Cossacks when he was just 13, which helped to explain her particular world view.
Think you’ve got problems? Drunken Cossacks, ’nuff said.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Regardless of the familial stories involving a world which was literally “beyond the Pale,” this has been a bad year for my gizmos. The camera disaster back in July, which saw my trusty capture device lying shattered on an Astoria street, was a setback. Add in the unfolding computer problems – 2015 has really been a crap year for me.
Bah. Christmas is cancelled. Hang your head down as you walk along the streets, and consider the plight of the world like a good nihilist. Everything is shit.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
flat platform
Trucks, trucks, horses, trucks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One spent a pretty decent amount of time wandering about the wastelands for Thanksgiving Weekend.
It was likely a good decision to do so, as my company is aberrant and I can be quite “the downer” around the holidays. My understanding of the origins of the term “downer,” by the way, is that it refers to a cow that was sick when it arrived at the stock yards. Common practice in the factory abattoirs of the 19th century was to move the downers to the front of the slaughter line while distracting the government inspectors. The inspectors were glad to be distracted, but they were already in the pockets of the beef trust anyway.
Cattle which was fed on distillery slop, which produced the “swill milk” which I’ve explained endlessly, were covered in sores and boils and were referred to as “steely.” It was a miserable job slaughtering the steely cattle, according to the historic record, but it’s hard to find any profession in the industrial sectors of the 19th century which wasn’t miserable.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Horses, mules, and oxen were not supposed to be part of the food ecosystem, nor were goats. Saying that, an enormous amount of horse meat found its way into cans of “tinned beef” back then and it was pretty common for “lamb chops” or “mutton” to have exhibited little verisimilitude to lambs. Goat makes for a good stew, at any rate, but I’ve been to Greece a few times and Hellene cuisine can make almost anything taste good. Supposedly, a significant number of the casualties in both the Civil and Spanish American wars were caused by soldiers consuming the tainted tins of meat in their rations.
By the beginning of the 20th century, NYC was producing something like ten million tons of horse manure a day. Modern people – myself included – bitch and moan about truck traffic but can you imagine the amount of shit that our modern world would produce if pack animals were still roaming the streets?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s hard to imagine that version of NYC, although there are a few people left amongst us who experienced it directly. It was still pretty common up until the 1920’s for Fire Engines in Brooklyn and Queens to be driven by teams of horses. FDNY, after the consolidation of the City of Greater New York in 1898, began to outfit the departmental structures in outlying districts and standardize their equipment around the internal combustion engine but that took a while and as you’d imagine – downtown Manhattan came first.
Until the ubiquity of cheap petroleum became a reality, and the supply chain of an automotive industry existed, the horse was still your best bet for moving people and cargo around.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There was an entire industrial complex built around the horse and carriage trade, as you’d imagine. Just as we don’t think twice about taking a long drive, secure in the knowledge that should we need to replace an engine part or a tire that there’ll be a Pep Boys or auto mechanic everywhere you choose to go – so too did the carriage trade enjoy a dispersed network of supply and demand based equipment and an abundance of skilled mechanics, stable keepers, and tradesmen in every town and village they’d pass through.
Newtown Creek, on the Queens side in particular, hosted a variety of trade manufacturers who supplied the carriage trade. Atavistic industries produced “carbon black,” a kind of paint manufactured from burning and then crushing up animal bones, which provided Victorian era horse carriages (think any Sherlock Holmes movie or TV show) with their shiny black coatings. Others manufactured “neet oil” and the various bits and bobs which the Teamsters would require to ferry people and commerce around the city at the speed of a trotting horse. Funnily enough, that’s just under the speed at which the current Mayor’s “Vision Zero” traffic initiative requires motor vehicles to operate at.
When the pack animals were spent, and their useful occupation at an end, companies like Van Iderstine’s rendering plant in Blissville or Peter Cooper’s Glue factory in Bushwick awaited their arrival.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Researching the history of Newtown Creek, as I do, one often encounters early versions of environmentalist sentiment. A particular period in the 1880’s saw Manhattan based reformers complaining in vociferous fashion about the smells, carried on the prevailing north westerly winds which then as now swept across the Creek and East River, which plagued Murray Hill and the east side of Manhattan Island. I’ll be exploring this in some detail next week, but the really interesting part of this narrative from the 1880’s is the push to rid the Creek of the “organics” processors like the rendering plants, glue factories, bone blackers, and “superphosphate” manufacturers in favor of the “scientific manufacturers” like General Chemical (Phelps Dodge) and the petroleum distillers like Standard Oil. As mentioned, more on this one next week.
As a note, check out that truck in the shot above. Not only is it parked in a bus stop, but it’s also blocking a fire hydrant.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
