The Newtown Pentacle

Altissima quaeque flumina minimo sono labi

Posts Tagged ‘Project FIrebox

Project Firebox 30

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– photo by Mitch Waxman

It lives on the corner of Van Dam and Review, and clearly remembers when the self storage place across the street was a pickle factory. Like all long time residents of Queens, it can barely recognize the place these days, but carries on and sallies forth on the daily round. It’s not old enough to remember the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge burning down, twice. Neither does it remember Gleason’s trolleys nor the vast funeral cortèges that emptied the Five Points as they proceeded to Calvary. Memory is not a strong point for its kind, for as a watchman, the sole function it must serve is to raise the alarum.

Written by Mitch Waxman

February 4, 2012 at 10:53 am

Project Firebox 29

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– photo by Mitch Waxman

Sleek, styled, and svelte- witness the sentinel which stands at the corner of Astoria Boulevard and 70th street here in noble Astoria. The Grand Central Parkway was driven into the land here by Robert Moses, sundering a long ago Dutch village called Astoria into distinctly differing sections.

On one side of the road is St. Michael’s Cemetery- with row and apartment houses stretching out beyond its southern gates. To the north, a residential neighborhood is surrounded by highways, trains, and industrial concerns- but whether itinerant workman or long time resident, all may find succor at the silvery side of this guardian of the public trust.

Written by Mitch Waxman

January 28, 2012 at 12:15 am

Project Firebox 28

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– photo by Mitch Waxman

Hipper than thou, this guardian of the realm is found on the nebulous border betwixt Williamsburg and Greenpoint. As evinced in the shot above, the stalwart nobility of the scarlet sentinel is quite irresistible to the attention of North Brooklyn’s ladies.

The fairer sex is never immune to the power of uniforms, it would seem.

Written by Mitch Waxman

January 12, 2012 at 12:44 am

Project Firebox 27

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– photo by Mitch Waxman

On Ninth Street in Ravenswood lurks this minaret of scarlet assurance, a lonely and stalwart island of municipal succor in an dark and industrial sea of factory and warehouses. Curiously noble, it stands astride 35th Avenue.

Written by Mitch Waxman

January 7, 2012 at 12:15 am

Project Firebox 26

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– photo by Mitch Waxman

Hanging precipitously on Brooklyn’s Varick Avenue, in the shadow of the vast Kosciuszko Bridge, is found this emergency call box. Hedged and hidden by barbed undergrowth, neglected and forgotten by soporific politics, it nevertheless signals that a New Year has arrived in the Newtown Pentacle.

Welcome to 2012, lords and ladies, and don’t look back lest you become naught but a pillar of salt.

Written by Mitch Waxman

January 1, 2012 at 12:15 am