Posts Tagged ‘Pickman’
worried faces
Would it kill you to smile?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While riding the Subway in New York City, observation of the interesting social behaviors exhibited by the citizenry entertains. There are those who present the “pfft, ain’t no thing” and those who present the “what the hell are you looking at” and also present are the “please, for gods sake, do not notice me” lean. Others pretend to sleep, or stare blankly at the floor (that’s the one which I favor), while a small group of extroverts feel the need to shout and otherwise draw attention unto themselves. Then there’s the buskers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are Mariachi’s, young couples who perpetrate the “gypsy baby” scam, those three kids who dance and perform acrobatics. Worst of all are the religious zealots, whose clumsy attempts at evangelism are enough to drive one into the arms of Satan itself. Skillfully ignoring these buskers and con artists, or not, is what separates the true New Yorker from the tourist. The tourists are the worst, of course, breaking all of the unspoken rules of subway etiquette which “regular” riders subconsciously obey and enforce. Nobody smiles, the MTA has a rule against that.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My camera is always at the ready whenever entering these concrete bunkers with their pungent atmospheres, and one of the odd things I’ve noticed in recent years is the reaction some have upon seeing the device. Lens cap on and power switch off, they will stare at the camera in the manner one would watch the countdown clock on a bomb. I don’t understand this. Humans, they’re weird, and need to smile more often.
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shall vex
A baited trap, in LIC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Everyone knows about the particular predilection that the Gendarme has for those toroids of fried and sweetened dough which are commonly called Donuts, and it is simply “messed up” that someone seems to using one as bait. Should a hungry constable happen along and happily reach for this confection, what sort of snare might be triggered? Is this a cop trap of some kind? What’s hidden inside that duct or pipe?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The funny thing about the cop/donut myth is that it really isn’t true. Most of the police officers I’ve met over the years were actually in pretty good shape, and the ones who weren’t in wholesome condition owed it to a love of the brewer’s art rather than that of the baker’s. Still one wonders how many innocent but hungry servants of the realm hereabouts have been ensnared on this LIC block, adjoining Skillman Avenue?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Commonly held, the mythology about American Police and their love for donuts is reasonably predicated upon the frequent observation of unit cars and uniformed personnel, by the citizenry at large, congregating at locations commonly called “Donut Shops.” Simply answered, even if your job is to drive around a neighborhood for eight hours at a pop, you still need to pee and or buy coffee periodically – an endless cycle in itself – and sharing a common location for such activity allows units to compare notes on the days events. Donut shops are open late, as are the Police. It’s messed up that someone is setting out donut baited snares though, and provides for a worrisome development within this, our Newtown Pentacle.
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unidentifiable flowerings
Catching up with the Newtown Pentacle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This long winter has been especially difficult for one such as myself, who possesses no reserve of warmth. Accordingly, hermitage is enacted. Hair, beard, and nails are allowed to seek their natural length while an induced stupor was enjoyed by the brain. Now that the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself has once more attained an efficacious position in the sky, all of the dead cellular material external to the skinvelope has been trimmed back and an understimulated brain called to action once more.
The long marches across the concrete devastations have resumed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The spot of trouble enjoyed by my household in recent weeks, regarding the reliable availability of internet service – as supplied by Time Warner Cable – seems to have been resolved due to the actions of this fellow. Last Saturday, the third most hated corporation in modern day America sent this fellow, Jose, over to rewire and rekajigger the connections. The connectivity issues seem to have been repaired accordingly, and now the service has returned to “it just sucks” as opposed to “doesn’t work at all.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last Sunday, whilst crossing the Pulaski Bridge to visit Greenpoint via Long Island City, these graffitos were spotted. Displaying an unusually literate and somewhat scientifically accurate credo, my attentions were caught. It wasn’t this screed which stopped me in my tracks, instead it was the one in the penultimate photograph adorning this post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
No comment, except to say that hidden in green slimy vaults, in his house at R’lyeh…
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frantically begging
Those cool firemen from Williamsburg, spotted in Blissville, Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator does like hisself a fire truck – and having never surrendered the childhood desire to run along the sidewalk screaming “firemen, firemen” when a fire truck goes by – when a Brooklyn based unit comes screaming out of a fire house in Blissville – it catches my eye. For some reason, 108 came out of the Ladder 128 house on Greenpoint Avenue – obviously on a call. My confusion is based on the fact that one normally expects Ladder 108 to deploy via Union Avenue in Brooklyn.
from nyfd.com
History: Ladder 108 Ladder Co. 108, now quartered at 187 Union Ave., Williamsburg, Brooklyn, began life as Hook & Ladder Co. 8 in the old City of Brooklyn Fire Department at 112 Siegel Street near Graham Avenue on November 30, 1887. During this time, to be distinctive, the Brooklyn Fire Department used two-tone green on their apparatus, while F.D.N.Y. apparatus was red. Green continued to be used until consolidation of the five bouroughs in 1898. On January 1, 1898, Ladder Company became part of the Fire Department of the City of New York. It was renumbered as Ladder Company 58 on October 1, 1899. It was not until January 1, 1913, that Ladder 58 was renumbered as Ladder Company 108. In the 110 years of Ladder 108’s existence, two members lost their lives in the line of duty. A fire in Queens on March 2, 1905, took the life of Lt. George McGeary and 27 years later on May 2, 1932, Firefighter Joseph LaGrange was killed when Ladder 108 and Engine 213 collided responding to a false alarm and Firefighter LaGrange was thrown to the street. Ladder 108’s tenure at 112 Siegel Street lasted 84 years and on August 9, 1971, 108 truck moved to a new firehouse at 187 Union Avenue and is still quartered there.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Of course, the ways and means and mores common to those “firemen, firemen” are many and complex, so no profit can be realized by analyzing their methods. Luckily, one had the opportunity to crack out a few shots of the hurtling ladder truck as it sped along past the walls of Calvary.
from wikipedia
FDNY Ladder Companies (also known as Truck Companies) are tasked with search and rescue, forcible entry, and ventilation at the scene of a fire. A Ladder Company can operate three types of Ladder Trucks: an Aerial Ladder Truck, equipped with a 100′ aerial ladder mounted at the rear of the apparatus; a Tower Ladder Truck, equipped with either a 75′ or 95′ telescoping boom and bucket mounted in the center of the apparatus; a Tractor Drawn Aerial Ladder Truck, or Tiller/Tractor Trailer, equipped with a 100′ aerial ladder. A Ladder Company carries various forcible entry, ventilation, and rescue tools to deal with an assortment of fires and emergencies, including motor vehicle accidents.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Can’t help but wonder where Ladder 128 was, maybe they loaded the truck up and drove to Florida for a vacation or something. I like the idea of a whole crew just taking off for a few days, pulling into 711 parking lots along I-95 for toilet breaks and microwave burritos. The random appearance of NYC vehicles in other parts of the country – a taxi or a police car for instance – would be positively dada.
from dnainfo.com
Police officers inside the 90th Precinct were in just the right spot for such an emergency — someone from the station house simply ran next door to report the fire to Battalion 35 Engine 216 and Ladder 108. The firehouse shares a city building on a Williamsburg block with the NYPD.
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unavoidable oversight
What the end of the world will look like, as observed in Greenpoint USA.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Manhattan’s recyclable paper and plastic went up in flames in Greenpoint the other night, when a blaze began at the Rapid Processing Center on Humboldt St. and Greenpoint Ave. at around 7 p.m. on March 18th. The operation was in the Waste Transfer Station Recycling business, acting as a depot for the unloading of the DSNY’s white packer trucks which perform curbside pickup of paper and plastic materials.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the end, it took 200 firefighters and all of their arts to fight this four alarm fire.
Almost as soon as it started, social media sites like Facebook began to light up as well with comments and queries offered by community members about the fire and the possible hazards of being exposed to its smoke and effluents.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It seems that the torrents of water used to combat the blaze also flooded the streets, and news reports described a lake of water on Greenpoint Avenue, which carried garbage off the site and allowed it to move around with the wind as flotsam. As you can see in the shot above, puddles of unusual size persist, and carry a sheen of something on their surface.
These shots were captured yesterday, March 23rd, and the mound of material was still smoldering.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The structure is a total loss, obviously, and I did observe air quality monitoring equipment at work. Directly following the fire, FDNY announced that there was nothing, air quality wise, for the community to fret about.
Of course, there was reportedly NO air quality monitoring going on during the fire when a plume of (probably) dioxin laced smoke was infiltrating into the neighborhood.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There was talk following the flooding of Hurricane Sandy about prepositioning environmental sampling kits around Greenpoint, so that actual “time of event” samples could be captured, but that seems to have been forgotten.
Green Infrastructure, instead, is the buzzword of the present day.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
During the fire your humble narrator was safe and sound and upwind in Astoria, but a point was made of interjecting myself into their lively debate to adjure the Greenpointers to call 311 and complain of the smoke, as this would have compelled DEP to set up air monitors DURING the event. No one listened, and no monitors were set up, so everything is fine and nobody was exposed to anything bad.
If you smell something, say something, and call 311.
New York City would not acknowledge the presence of an elephant in the City Council chamber room unless a statistically relevant number of 311 calls were received about it.
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