Posts Tagged ‘queens’
singular division
Everywhere I go, there I am.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A busy holiday weekend for a humble narrator, and for you, ended with a humid exhalation of heat it would seem. Ribald barbecue notwithstanding (one grills a mean pork chop), the holiday interval has been personally marked with a stunning amount of photos which were captured during it. There was a Tugboat race on Sunday, y’know.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Additionally, I attended a “Newark Bay” tour with my pals from the Working Harbor Committee on Saturday, so an abundance of new maritime shots are currently being processed here at HQ. Intervals like this one are great, as I capture a lot of images, but also stink as I need to process and “develop” them afterwards – trapping one in front of the computer for days. Still, no reason to complain, as I have a system for turning these shots around quickly, and sticking to it means everything.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Interestingly, I might have discovered a spot where other dimensions rub up against our dross material world, over in Queens Plaza. Not sure if we live in the evil mirror universe, where Spock has a beard, or if our reverse counterparts do. I can tell you that the humble narrator staring back at me from the other side was clean shaven, so perhaps I’m the evil version, as I sport whiskers just like evil Spock.
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This weekend-
Saturday, September 6th, The Insalubrious Valley of the the Newtown Creek
Walking Tour with Atlas Obscura, click here for tickets and more info.
incessant reverberations
Cool cars are everywhere in Astoria, and I don’t even have a bike.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Scuttling along in building shadows, beneath outstretched awnings, along heavily wooded lanes, and under the dripping steel of the elevated subways are the only places one such as myself can hide from the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself as its burning gaze stares down upon Western Queens during the summer.
Wan, a pale enthusiast such as myself will quickly combust if overexposed to the ultraviolet and shrinks away from direct exposure. While huddling in these particular absences of light, wonders like the sedan pictured above are encountered. This shot was from fabled 31st street, here in Astoria.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On Broadway, still in Astoria but on the way to Woodside, a relic of different but still earlier times rolled by – a Volkswagen Camper van. Many a hippie will offer tales of exciting exploration and disappointing travel associated with this model of vehicle. This survivor seems to live in the neighborhood, as it has been observed while parked on area side streets. There have been several “hipster” spottings by members of our little community of late, but until now we seem to have been free of “hippies.”
A worrying development.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Nearby the location of the passing VW Microbus, this outlandish roadster was racing its engine in anticipation of the changing nature of traffic signals. One congratulates at the style and panache of choosing an Italian made Ferrari, but is also dizzied by the ideation of sitting in stop and go traffic on Steinway Street in one. Cool cars, lords and ladies, Queens is full of them.
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exotic without
A few shots from around the neighborhood, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over the weekend, Our Lady of the Pentacle announced that she would be bringing our dog over to Astoria Park for an early morning “off leash” dog gathering, as is her habit. A rare weekend day off for me, last Saturday was, so I accompanied her to the park. When we arrived, low hanging clouds were rolling over mighty Triborough, and your humble narrator found a favorable vantage point from which to capture the scene.
It happens to overlook the heavily chlorinated waters of Astoria Pool, which provided an interesting contrast given the environmental condition of morning ambience coupled with a dark sky.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Roaming around Dutch Kills recently, at the borders of Ravenswood and Queensbridge alike, an abundance of Boro Cabs lined a still industrial section of the neighborhood. That giant tangle of technology to the left of the frame is an electrical substation, which might belong to Consolidated Edison, and the big pile of red and white smokestacks is the Big Allis Power Plant on the East River.
Of course, no one can tell who owns what these days, what with their stock market whatsis and corporate whatchamacallits, but I think the substation is owned by Con Ed. I can report – authoritatively- that on hot days, when walking past this fence line, my headphones have often issued a sudden humming drone – and occasionally electrical shocks have transmitted through and them into my shell like ears. The entire block sounds like this – “mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…mmmmmmm.” This may be one of those spots where a handheld fluorescent bulb might just start to glow.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The empty corridor wasn’t so empty the other day when one wandered through on a stroll through Long Island City. Trucks were whizzing about, disgorging palettes of cargo to those who lurked within the warehouses lining the street. Several worrisome characters were closely observing my movements and the particulars of equipment employed in the capture of these images as they quaffed cheap vodka from plastic bottles and shared a marijuana cigarette, one seemingly mixed with cigar tobacco and wrapped in a coarse brown paper or leaf (which one understands as being in fashion at this time).
A mild panic came upon me, and one felt himself descending into one of his states.
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know thy zone
As everyone knows, August 23rd is the Night of the Living Dead. Prepare your “go bags,” Lords and Ladies, and know your zone.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Famously, there are indeed more dead people in Queens than there are living. The Rural Cemeteries Act of 1847 forbade interments in Manhattan, which begat what is called “the Cemetery Belt” spanning the borders of Brooklyn and Queens. There are three million corpses in Calvary Cemetery alone. Should the dead rise this or any other year, we are going to be in a real pickle.
As a public service, zone maps of the danger that various communities face are offered in the hope that individuals can prepare for the coming storm.
Courtesy of openstreetmap.org, here’s a shot of western Long Island and the southern tip of Manhattan.
Here’s a rough illustration of our study area, the so called Newtown Pentacle. As you might notice, a significant number of cemeteries are found therein, and the area transverses from Bushwick to Astoria and from Flushing to the Wallabout.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Nearly all of the area cemeteries are surrounded by stout fencing, and there are but a few points of egress into and out of the polyandrions. How well these often century old fence lines would do against an army of flesh eating ghouls is questionable, but one cannot speculate on their structural integrity.
First Calvary, in particular, is isolated by high walls and expressways from its environs, with only two points at which the slavering horde of undead assassins might access the surrounding neighborhoods. One would not want to be in West Maspeth or Blissville on Saturday night, however.
In the graphic above, the actual cemetery boundaries are roughly sketched out in orange.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One would imagine that the NYPD would be forced to collapse the East River Tunnels and detonate the roadways of the great bridges to protect the Shining City of Manhattan from the onslaught of the Living Dead.
For those of us who reside in the Newtown Pentacle, this heat map is offered. The areas of darkest red are surely goners, and it is suggested that we refer to these areas as Zone A. Zones B & C likely have a fighting chance, should they be well prepared to shelter in place for an interval. Realistically, if you haven’t evacuated within the first twelve hours of the Night of the Living Dead, you’re already doomed.
Because Dawn is coming.
also, from youtube–
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solitary presence
Loathsomeness awaits, in the deep.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is never more alone than when waiting for a Subway to arrive. Swaddled in stifling clouds of fungal spore ejaculate and those desiccated airborne particulates of rodent excrement which lend the dripping concrete caverns their particular perfume, the “system” must be the loneliest place on earth, despite the abundant representation of the human infestation whom are found therein. Depersonalization is a specialty of the “system,” which redefines individual personages as “ridership” and let’s everybody who uses it know that there is nothing special about them, whatsoever, despite whatever status they hold in the radiant world above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In forgotten side tunnels and hidden chambers, all throughout the system, what might lurk? One does not forget the 1980’s, when rumors of a population of indigents who set up housekeeping in these antechambers abounded amongst the above ground population. Stories of grasping hands reaching up from sidewalk grates at small dogs and women’s ankles tantalized with latent horror, during that particularly dark age in the history of the megalopolis.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In Jackson Heights, mothers assure their children that the Rakshasha do not hide in the tunnels, as do the folks in Flushing when they tell their kids that there is no È Guǐ waiting to carry them off into the darkness down here. So too do parents console, on the south side of Williamsburg and all along the G and F lines, instructing that there are no Comprachicos hiding in these vaulted tunnels of rotting cement, waiting to make a meal of some toddler or small child. It should be pointed out that MTA workers never go anyplace alone in the system, and instead prefer to move in large groups.
Who can guess, all there is, that might be buried down here?
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