Posts Tagged ‘Project FIrebox’
Project Firebox 10
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Woe to the FDNY Firebox which finds itself on the surly triangular corners that swirl about Northern Blvd. This elegantly destroyed specimen languishes perilously close to Steinway Street’s transmogrification into 39th street near the Standard Motor Products Building, specifically 36th avenue and 41st street.
As a point of interest, this is the eastern extant of 36th avenue, with its western terminus obviated by the Roosevelt Island Bridge at the East River.
Project Firebox 9
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Foliated in the manner of some medieval “green man”, this FDNY alarm box clings to it’s mount at the corner of Woodside and 38th avenues. A vestigial back alley rudely forgotten beside the tracks of the LIRR, it sits squarely at the center of an angle between the neighborhoods of Woodside and Sunnyside- a place which is neither here nor there, between tick and tock.
Project Firebox 8
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This maladjusted servant of the City of Greater New York enjoys a tumultuous existence on 48th Avenue in Long Island City, not far from that tendril of cuprous cupidity known as Dutch Kills- a tributary waterway to the Newtown Creek. Your humble narrator has witnessed this firebox’s abuse filled duties for quite some time. It seems to be a regular target for trucks, and I’ve seen it reinserted into its assigned place several times. How do you not notice a big red box?
Project Firebox 7
Firebox (actual number) 182 – photo by Mitch Waxman
Just down the block from the Grand Avenue Bridge, on the Brooklyn side, one may marvel at this survivor of an earlier time. Oddly, it’s also just up the block from a firehouse which should negate its necessity. The sticker affixed is meant to boost the fortunes of a candidate for high office in the Teamsters union, James P. Hoffa.
Of course, this is Hoffa the younger, as the storied elder Hoffa has been missing from our national dialogue for some time.
from wikipedia
He is the only son of Jimmy Hoffa, who was also a president of the Teamsters, and his wife Josephine (née Poszywak). He is the brother of Judge Barbara Ann Crancer. Hoffa has a wife, Virginia, and two sons, David and Geoffrey.
Born in Detroit, Michigan on May 19, 1941, Hoffa established himself as a leader as early as his high school years while attending Cooley High School. There, he became a member of the National Honor Society, and an all-city and all-state football player.
Hoffa often accompanied his father to Teamster meetings and events, and became a Teamster on his 18th birthday. Hoffa holds a degree in economics from Michigan State University (1963) and a law degree (LL.B) from the University of Michigan Law School (1966). Hoffa was awarded a Ford Foundation Fellowship to work in the Michigan State Senate as an aide to senate and house members doing constituent relations and research. Hoffa is a member of Alpha Tau Omega.
A member of the Teamsters since his 18th birthday (1959), Hoffa was an attorney for the Teamsters from 1968 to 1993.
Project Firebox 6
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The monstrous pride of this hold out from an earlier day serves sentinel duty on Vernon Blvd., near that point where the ancient path intersects with 44th avenue and curves south. A seller of ornate garden stones and ceramic artifices sits securely behind its steely gaze, and it was undoubtedly the good natured industry of that facility’s owners that created the decorative sidewalk which lends this Firebox its panache. Surely, it cannot just be the backdrop of the Shining City beyond?
The Newtown Pentacle 