Posts Tagged ‘queens’
or depend
Holiday pretty pictures, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Arguably one of my best shots, ever. A weather phenomenon known as “Mammacular Clouds” occurred in NYC one day around sunset, and luckily I was in the right place at the right time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Weather is a photographers nemesis most of the time. It’s too hot, or raining, or too cold. One night, while onboard a boat in NY Harbor, the weather actually worked in my favor as a storm front was blowing past the Freedom Tower.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was actually lovely weather the day this portrait shot of the Empire State Building was captured, and I happened to be in Queens’s Calvary Cemetery at yet another “right place” and “right time.”
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babbling over
National Feasting week is upon us, eat long and hard, lords and ladies.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured above is the magical Chrysler Building, surrounding by the dross modernity of Manhattan. One of the few shots captured in the City after a recent crossing the Queensboro Bridge, which was detailed in recent posts. Odds are that few, or any, of you reading this post will actually be in New York for the holiday weekend – so Newtown Pentacle will be going into its traditional holding pattern for the next few days.
Don’t worry, I’ll still be publishing, but it’s just going to some pretty pictures for a few days, without much meat on the bone.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Personally, your humble narrator will be in town.
Holiday weekends such as Thanksgiving are a fantastic time to avoid family and friends for me, and to wander aimlessly about in the concrete devastations of the nearly deserted industrial quarters of the Newtown Creek. There’s quite a few irons in the fire, however, and one fairly earth shattering project in LIC which I’m extremely excited about which I’ll fill y’all in on when you settle back into your desk chairs on Monday next.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Suffice to say that it involves a defunct railroad trackway, LIC, and the MTA itself. I’d tell you more, but that would technically be “spoilers.”
Have a happy and a healthy one, lords and ladies.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
leftward fork
Down Under the Kosciuszko Bridges Onramps – DUKBO, part 2 – in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described in my last post, a visit to the NYS DOT’s Kosciuszko Bridge project site was arranged for members of the “Stakeholders Advisory Group” that is connected to the project. Community members, business owners, representatives of municipal agencies and elected officialdom, the SAG’s job is to bring concerns to the attention of the project managers of the K Bridge project. Anyone interested in finding out more about the project straight from the source, or who feel that they should be involved, can contact the Community Liason’s office.
There’s all sorts of job opportunities available on the project as well, for those of you involved with the trades, but quite obviously that’s not something a humble narrator can help you out with.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the left side of the shot above is the Robert Moses 1939 era “New Meeker Avenue” Bridge, which was rechristened in 1940 as the Kosciuszko Bridge. Its original purpose, as far as Mayor LaGuardia was concerned, was to allow egress for the multitudes of Brooklyn to the 1939 Worlds Fair over in what we refer to as “Flushing Meadow Corona Park.” For Moses, it was the first link in a chain which he originally called the “Brooklyn Queens Connecting Highway” which modernity knows as the Brooklyn Queens Expressway.
Technical note – the Gowanus Expressway actually was the first part of the modern BQE to be built, but my understanding is that Moses didn’t intend for it to be part of the BQE – it was incorporated into the larger expressway when the Verazzano was being built.
That’s my understanding, I might be incorrect, so “grain of salt.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Brooklyn side of the Newtown Creek enjoys a rather shallow firmament, as a craton which underlies this section of western Long Island – essentially an enormous glacial erratic or boulder – is only about sixty to seventy feet below the surface and sits at a fairly oblique angle relative to the land.
The Queens side is basically a giant pile of mud more than a hundred feet deep, and the bedrock craton on the northern or Queens side of the Creek is more difficult to access. The original or 1939 Kosciuszko Bridge piers on the Queens side are essentially founded on concrete blocks floating in this mud. The new bridge will be anchored in the bedrock instead. (This, incidentally, isn’t something I know from the SAG, rather its “history” stuff).
The piles seen above are in various stages of being driven down to the craton – or bedrock.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As we neared the shoreline of Newtown Creek, I mentioned to several people that this was one of the spots which I had never actually set foot upon. There used to be a carting company here which was… let’s just say that they didn’t like people with cameras wandering around, and that the few times which I did approach their fencelines over the years resulted in my being literally threatened by several mustachioed people with a distinctly Italian variant of the North Brooklyn accent. As I often say, I only run when someone or something is chasing me, and after meeting these fellows I was running.
The metallic box pictured above was a pretty cool thing, however.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The new Kosciuszko Bridge is going to be a “cable stay” bridge, the first of its kind in NYC. The device pictured above is what the cables will be running through. The cables will leave their anchorage and climb up and over the towers, feeding down to and supporting the roadway over the water. This is a pretty important bit of kit, obviously, as the BQE carries a couple of hundred thousand vehicles a day over Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking towards West Maspeth’s border with Blissville near Calvary Cemetery, across the lugubrious Newtown Creek. The Queens side of the job is on schedule, but the process isn’t quite as far along on the north shore. You can see the piers which will carry the road, but the towers which will support the cables haven’t been erected yet.
There’s a whole lot of environmental “ugly” in the shot above, the ground to the right is part of the Phelps Dodge State Superfund site. The sediments in this section of the Newtown Creek are rife with organocoppers and all sorts of bad stuff, which is why the water and what lies below is part of the Federal Superfund site, and not too long ago it was determined that the chemical condition of the land at Phelps Dodge was too extreme for it to serve as a parking lot for USPS trucks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking up the dizzying heights of the two concrete towers of the Brooklyn side, which are still rising. There were gangs of laborers working up there, who are clearly made of sterner stuff than I. I’d need the Fire Department to come rescue me, as paralysis would set in due to the height.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking back towards the south/south west, along the ramps of the Kosciuszko Bridges. You can really see the difference in the two spans’ deck heights in the shot above. The DOT folks tell me that this is to ensure a smoother experience for drivers, as they won’t have to crest quite as high an incline. Additionally, the BQE will no longer compress to three lanes from four and then back to four again on the new bridge. There is also meant to be an entirely dedicated approach to the Long Island Expressway when the job is finished.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our visit over, the Stakeholders Advisory Group was escorted back to Meeker Avenue, where we turned in our hard hats and other safety gear.
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peered diligently
Visiting with an old friend, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“Back in the day,” as it were, a humble narrator used to spend an awful lot of time on the Queensboro Bridge. When the 2009 Centennial Celebrations occurred, I was actually a deputy parade marshall, which the City rewarded me for with a medal. We got to close the bridge’s lower level for a few hours, and there were marching bands and a bevy of elected officials were present – including Michael Bloomberg himself. The very first posts at this – your Newtown Pentacle – discussed the event in some detail.
In recent years, as I’ve become more and more focused on Newtown Creek and its upland properties, my walks across mighty Queensboro have decreased in frequency and a recent realization that I hadn’t actually walked the span in more than a year prompted me to start kicking my feet forward and lurch roughly forward towards Manhattan. Unfortunately, this meant I was heading onto that loathsome island and leaving the intricate geometries of Queens behind for a spell.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For those of you who haven’t taken one of NYC’s best walks, the pedestrian and bicycle lane of the Queensboro is accessed at Queens Plaza near Crescent Street. It’s not a hard walk in the least, but it does offer some fairly decent “cardio” for half of it. The long sloping ascent from Queens Plaza to the tower set into Roosevelt Island carries you hundreds of feet from the ground, and despite the gradual nature of it – you will find your heart rate increasing steadily.
Bicycles will be whizzing by at fairly high rates of speed, so be mindful of your surroundings if you decide to undertake the stroll. If you bring your camera, you will be glad you did, as the views from up on high are spectacular.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Apparently, the incline is severely felt by bicyclists, as I’ve observed them standing on the pedals and struggling against it several times. Many will dismount and walk their bikes. The “whizzing by” mentioned above occurs once they surmount the paramount of the bridge and the descending incline allows them to gain velocity quickly.
My favorite time of day for Queensboro, visually speaking, is the middle to late afternoon. The light is spectacular during that time of day, and the intricate cantilever gears of the great bridge are evenly illuminated.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking north along the East River, you’ll notice a series of steel structures which carry the Roosevelt Island Tram from Manhattan’s 2nd Avenue to the island. The tram is another one of my favorite destinations, incidentally, as it allows for a birds eye perspective on the Queensboro Bridge and the waterway it spans. One of “my walks” involves crossing the bridge, catching the tram, and then perambulating back to Astoria via the Roosevelt Island Bridge which carries pedestrian and vehicular traffic to Queens.
I’ll often stop off and hang out with my pal Judy Berdy at Roosevelt Island Historical Society when exiting the tram – which is located in a historic kiosk nearby the Tram’s landing point. You can’t miss it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Midpoint on the bridge, one always turns back and considers avoiding going to Manhattan altogether and returning to the poisoned loam of western Queens. In the instance of this particular journey, however, a humble narrator was set to meet up with friends in the City so I kept moving in a westerly direction.
I catch a lot of shade for the contempt with which Manhattan is discussed here. I actually used to live in the City for more than a decade, on Broadway at 100th street. Best move I’ve ever made was listening to Our Lady of the Pentacle when she announced that her desire was to move our HQ to Astoria. Back when I was a Manhattanite, my M.O. was “cocooning” – leaving the apartment only to go back and forth to work. There was no “community” to draw one out, and a vast depersonalization was experienced in the daily round. Whatever there once was that made the City an attractive place to live – night life, for instance – is long gone.
The City is a ruin, exploited and picked over and destroyed by the Real Estate Industrial Complex, and there is little fun to be had there anymore. Brooklyn and Queens are “where it’s at” these days – at least for one such as myself.
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another would
Rain, cold, and darkness in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Holiday season is upon us, I fear. Already have I been compelled to reminisce with old friends, commiserate over drinks with acquaintances, and discuss plans with Our Lady of the Pentacle for winter holiday feasts. One has never had too much trouble maintaining long term relationships, as I am too lazy to go out and make new friends. Admissions of my curmudgeon like tendencies notwithstanding, the seasonal holidays seem important to people whom I will admit affection for, so I play the game but it feels as if my brain is wrapped up in cling film during this time of the year and that I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The shoe did drop in Paris last Friday, a reminder of the realities of the “new normal” and that the Terror Wars continue to rage.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It has long been my contention that the most dangerous collection of people on the planet are the Europeans. America, Russia, and China are the big kids on the block – of course – followed closely by the Japanese. Europe has been tamed for much of the last seventy five years, with their imperial cultures and natural tendency toward conflict and the subjugation of everybody else having been chastised down via the lessons learned during two world wars. Viewing Europe through a historical lens, the modern day residents of Eurasia’s western peninsular enjoy a level of security from conflict, freedom of conscience, and an enviable level of economic stability which their grandparents could only dream of. A lot of this is due to the fact that the United States has a gigantic military footprint in Europe, which has allowed the governments of the EU to spend their money on different things than tanks and fighter jets. The U.S. has always been pragmatic in this regard, as the lack of large standing armies in France and Germany (call them the Normans and the Teutons, or the Gauls and the Visigoths, or the Romans and the… you get the idea) is considered a guarantor that the two ancient enemies won’t throw down unexpectedly and start a Third World War if the United States is standing between them.
The attacks on Paris, I fear, might have roused a great beast from its slumber, and the U.S. can’t do anything about getting this one back in the cage.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The French, in particular, have a lousy military reputation, which is based on the thorough and scientific attempts of the German military to degrade and annihilate them in the early 20th century. The word “decimate” would indicate that the Germans killed one out of every ten French soldiers during the world wars, but it’s actually closer to four out of ten. Two lost generations put France on a path towards a peaceful existence throughout the latter half of the 20th, and the first decade and a half of the 21st centuries.
In the United States, we joke abut the French tanks which can only go in reverse, but that’s a dangerous bit of historical subterfuge which does not acknowledge the history of France. In terms of the last 2,000 years, really right up to 1915, you are talking about the country which possessed the most powerful army in history. If you started a land war with France, you lost – ask the English about that one, or the Spanish, or the Italians. It took the Kaiser’s Wehrmacht to change that, and even then, the French cost the Germans hundreds of thousands of casualties.
Long story short, you don’t screw around with the French, and you especially don’t want to piss them off.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My fear, this holiday season, is that the European monster has awoken. In the same way that the American season of military restraint was shattered by the attacks of September 11th, the Europeans are likely to assume a more aggressive posture. Remember, the clowns who shot up a night club and concert venue, and who lit off suicide vests in Paris killed civilians who numbered in the hundreds. By European military standard, this is a failure. When Europeans decide to start killing civilians, they set up factories to do so. They use drumroll artillery tactics to suppress and destroy whole cities, employ weapons of mass destruction, and generally give no shits about committing genocide.
2016 is going to be an ugly year, I think, and our world is descending into the sewer. That’s why, despite my antipathy towards teary eyed holiday gatherings, I’ll gladly attend and play along with the season. You never know when it’s the last time you’ll see someone, so rather than crying out “Bah” or “humbug” this year – raise a glass with friends and family I say. Life’s too short.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
