Posts Tagged ‘Pickman’
ache horribly
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Down Under the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge Onramp, or DUGABO as I call it, on the Queens side of the loquacious Newtown Creek, is found south of the tracks of the Long Island Railroad. A largish industrial footprint, whose boot heels were dug into the swampy soil as early at the 1830’s, both describes and damns the area. The ghosts of fat renderer and yeast brewery alike haunt the spot, as does your humble narrator.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wandering around down here recently, this intriguing bit of graffiti was observed. I’ve seen such markings before, over on Dutch Kills Street nearby Queens Plaza. It’s unusual mainly because of the figurative nature of the illustration, most area graffiti tends to be gang oriented, typographical in nature, or features the usage of a stylized and highly practiced logo or “tag”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Deeper meanings and interpretation are best left to curators and wonks, but I for one like the drawing. The text betrays the twee irony of the hipsters, in my opinion. Always remember, lords and ladies, I go to these places so you don’t have to.
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engulfing mist
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another victim of Sandy seems to have been the Old Orchard Shoal Lighthouse, which according to Coast Guard reports, has been scoured away from its century long occupation in Great Kills.
Wo.
Lighthouses are amongst the most resilient structures mankind can produce, and this thing reliably weathered the entire 20th century.
I will say it again- Wo.
from workingharbor.wordpress.com
The US Coast Guard has confirmed the total loss of the Old Orchard Shoal Light off Great Kills Beach, Staten Island. The historic structure was swept away by Hurricane Sandy on October 29, 2012.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My pal Mai Armstrong, known to you Lords and Ladies of the Pentacle as “far eastern correspondent Armstrong”, beat me to the punch on this news.
She has been writing the fantastic Working Harbor Committee blog for a while now, linked to above. She also has shots of the aftermath at the post linked to above.
from wikipedia
Old Orchard Shoal Light was completed and lit on April 25, 1893.
The Fresnel lens was removed in 1950.
Before moving on to Governor’s Island and then finally Coney Island Light, Frank Schubert, said to be the last civilian lighthouse keeper in the United States, was stationed at Old Orchard Shoal Light.
Old Orchard Shoal Light is listed on the National Park Service’s Maritime Heritage Program as Lighthouse to visit [6] and as one of New York’s Historic Light Stations.
On May 29, 2007, the Secretary of the Interior identified Old Orchard Shoal Light Station as surplus under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000. The property was described as Gedney Channel/Lower New York Bay, 3.5 miles south of New Dorp Beach. Remote 35 ft. conical, 3-story “spark plug” style light (1893) with keeper’s quarters (approx. 1000 SF). Interior lined in brick up to 3rd floor. On 0.72 acre submerged land. Constructed of cast iron on concrete/cast iron caisson. Markings: white upper/black. Protective riprap and breakwater sheltering light’s boat basin. Accessible by boat only.”
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mournful mist
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few days before the storm, your humble narrator found himself bobbing around on the Newtown Creek onboard the Riverkeeper boat. While Captain John Lipscomb and his crew performed their function and fulfilled their patrol mission objectives, I was casting my lens around the waterway when I spotted this tug and barge. A fitting subject for another Maritime Sunday at this, your Newtown Pentacle, thought I.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The barge which the tug is handling is a “clean oil barge” which contains some 10,000 gallons of refined fuel. The tug is the Hubert Bays, an independent tug operated by Marine Environmental Transportation LLC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Likely, the tug was headed for the Bayside depot on English Kills, which is the facility landlubbers will recognize as located on Metropolitan Avenue nearby its intersection with Grand Street at the crux or angle between Williamsburg and Bushwick.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oddly, there wasn’t too much to be found detailing the specifics about Hubert Bays, which is kind of anomalous for a vessel operating in NY Harbor. It seems to be flagged in Austria, which is also kind of odd.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m sure that the operators or crew of the tug will find this post when they google themselves. To these parties, I would ask, please fill us in on yourselves. That’s one fine looking tug and barge combination you’ve got, and a certain humble narrator hates mysteries.
gibbous glow
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Since Hurricane Sandy and the accompanying storm surge were made a few degrees worse by the full moon and it’s accompanying tidal forces, it occurred to me that in addition to having somehow pissed off Poseidon- New York might have angered a lunar deity as well. There are lords of the sea, and lords of the sky, after all.
from wikipedia
The pregnancy of Coatlicue, the maternal Earth deity, made her other children embarrassed, including her oldest daughter Coyolxauhqui. As she swept the temple, a few hummingbird feathers fell into her chest. Coatlicue’s child, Huitzilopochtli, sprang from her womb in full war armor and killed Coyolxauhqui, along with their 400 brothers and sisters. He cut off her limbs, then tossed her head into the sky where it became the moon, so that his mother would be comforted in seeing her daughter in the sky every night.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
More often than not, the moon is represented by a goddess in the west, which ties the waxing and waning of the Earth’s anomalous astronomic companion to the female cycle of menses. In the near and far east, the moon was interpreted somewhat differently.
from wikipedia
In Cook Islands mythology, specifically of the Hervey Islands, Avatea also known as Vatea (meaning ‘bright’) was a lunar deity and the father of gods and men in Mangaian myth of origin.
According to one myth, Vari-Ma-Te-Takere (The primordial mother) created six children from her body. Three were plucked from her right side and three from her left. The first of which was Avatea, the first man, who was perceived as a moon god. As he grew he divided vertically into a hybrid being; the right half was a man and the left half a fish.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The pagan, as in historical pre Christian religious beliefs, would see the moon as a threatening and sinister celestial sign. This is a hold over from the old days of wicker kings and female priesthoods, of course, if you subscribe to the theories of Robert Graves. One would suggest that in the future, New York City take the lunar cycle a bit more seriously, lighting beeswax candles and offering appropriate ablutions.
from wikipedia
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Luna is the divine embodiment of the Moon (Latin luna; cf. English “lunar”). She is often presented as the female complement of the Sun (Sol) conceived of as a god. Luna is also sometimes represented as an aspect of the Roman triple goddess (diva triformis), along with Proserpina and Hecate. Luna is not always a distinct goddess, but sometimes rather an epithet that specializes a goddess, since both Diana and Juno are identified as moon goddesses.
In Roman art, Luna’s attributes are the crescent moon and the two-yoke chariot (biga). In the Carmen Saeculare, performed in 17 BC, Horace invokes her as the “two-horned queen of the stars” (siderum regina bicornis), bidding her to listen to the girls singing as Apollo listens to the boys.
fellow student
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator is exhausted and forlorn, and cannot bear to present another posting of the post hurricane Sandy environment around the Newtown Creek. A desire for the purity of chromatic splendor, the chance to inhabit a Mondrian painting, possesses me. Let’s take a day off, and just enjoy some color, say I. It’s a day to do a little housekeeping, and let the edifice air out.
On the housekeeping note, I’ve set up a twitter feed for those of you who would rather receive the Pentacle in that manner. If Twitter is what floats your digital boat then “follow” me at @newtownpentacle.
Right now, its just your standard newtownpentacle postings filling in there, but over the course of time you’ll start seeing unique content disseminated which is a bit more “in the moment”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Twitter thing is something I should have set up a while ago, it was actually the storm that drove me to create an account, as it provided a neat conduit to news coming out of City Hall and the Governor’s mansion during Sandy. Additionally, although I haven’t been promoting it, I’ve got a Facebook page going as well- for those of you who have surrendered their right to online privacy and are comfortable with having a publicly traded company track you online- you can follow me at facebook.com/mwaxman1.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The tour this weekend will be the final one for this year, although I’m currently striving to set up another schedule of boat and walking tours for 2013. As you’d imagine, the Magic Lantern show which I was going to do last night with Atlas Obscura is being rescheduled for sometime this winter, and I’m told that Observatory has conquered their flooding issues (they are nearby Gowanus). Count on a few fluffy postings for the next couple of days, as I need cartoons, comic book movies, and any form of escapist entertainment I can find to escape the tyranny of the real world.
Upcoming Newtown Creek tours and events:
Note: there are just 3 tickets left on this one, which is likely the last walking tour I’ll be conducting in 2012.
for an expanded description of the November 11th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
The Newtown Pentacle 