Part of the DVD portion of Paul McCartney’s new CD/DVD release, Good Evening New York City, aired on ABC this past Thanksgiving night (11/26/09).

The live show that makes up the new release was recorded from McCartney’s July 17 and 18, 2009 shows at Citi Field in Flushing, New York, basically on the original site of Shea Stadium (Shea was just demolished this year), the site of two concerts by a band called The Beatles. The first on August 15, 1965, and again for the band’s fourth-to-last U.S. concert, on August 23, 1966. One week later, on August 30, 1966, The Beatles played its last US. concert, and last ever show on tour, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. The only live show by The Beatles after this was the famous rooftop concert on January 30, 1969.

In retrospect, the two Shea Stadium shows by The Beatles were significant points in the band’s live performance history.

Forty-three years later, after a new venue has been constructed in place of the old, Paul McCartney of The Beatles returned to show not only the people of New York, but the world, that he still shares in (he is 1 of 4) the capacity to hold us all in the palms of his hands.

Below, see a teaser clip of McCartney’s newly released Good Evening New York City, followed by nearly ten minutes of footage from The Beatles’ 1965 Shea Stadium concert, then corresponding concert posters for both.

23。
紐約過感恩節。

紐約的感恩節不像其它地方, 這晚大部份餐廳都沒休息, 於是渡過了第一個在餐廳晚餐的感恩節。沒有火雞, 也沒有派。反而是到超有台味的Flushing吃小肥羊鴛鴦鍋。

這蝦子整個有厲害到, 端上來時竟然還是活跳跳的。

小肥羊好像是大陸的知名連鎖火鍋店, 據說在台北也有分店。有中藥味的鍋底還不賴（賣點之一就是湯底大概融合了八百種藥材）, 而且有我愛的當歸（笑）。雖然服務生的動作慢到爆炸, 而且莫名奇妙的九人只開一鍋, 所以大部份的時間幾乎都在等待。除此之外, 它真的是好吃的火鍋。

感恩節沒有火雞其實也還好, 只是Flushing永遠都給我一種大過年的感覺也不知道為什麼（可能是街上的人永遠都像過年辦年貨一般的擁擠吧）。

[FYI]

View Larger Map
Flushing 小肥羊火鍋
36-35 Main Street
Flushing, NY 11354
(718) 358-6667

After reading The Hindu Temple Society of North America’s writeup in my Hidden New York book, I had an strong desire to visit institution yesterday. So I stayed in my seat at 40th St-Lowery–my station–and sat there until I reached the first stop of the 7 line.

I took the presence of a florist within Main Street-Flushing’s station to be a good omen.

After surveying the subway’s neighborhood map, I decided to head up to Northern Boulevard to see the area’s Quaker meetinghouse. I attended a Quaker boarding high school in southeastern Pennsylvania so I have love for the Friends.

From Northern, I turned onto Bowne–the Temple’s street. Turns out this quiet and unassuming, mostly residential, street has a lot of culture and history. For starters, Quakerism founder George Fox preached on it.

Those Oaks must’ve been huge! Check this stump out:

Secondly, it was the site of the New World’s first botanical nursery.

There’s an enormous weeping birch just across from Bowne too.

Adjacent to the tree, is the home of the street’s namesake–John Bowne. Bowne, a Quaker convert from The Netherlands, used his home as a meetinghouse in the late 1600’s. The structure, erected in 1661, is a symbol to the area’s long-standing tradition of religious freedom and diversity.

I continued down Bowne passing school kids speaking to their grownups in languages that I didn’t know and some that I did.

Since it was about 3 and I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, I decided to duck into El Rincon de la Vieja for a quick bite.

Stepping into the lovely nook felt like I was entering Colombia. There were all sorts of goodies from tamales tolimenses

to a hot bar, a pastry display, and shelves of Colombian products.

I enjoyed a moist and delicious guava-and-cheese empanada and an arepa with a cup of coffee, while I listened to vallenato underscore these ladies’ conversation about their kids.

I loved that the mom was feeding her 11-month-old spoonfuls of her empanada.

A couple doors down from El Rincon de la Vieja is an Argentine butcher and grocery.

Appreciation for the meats is kind of lost on me, but I was impressed by the Boca jerseys for sale that were hanging from the ceiling and the  wall-to-wall array of South American foods and drinks.

And onwards down Bowne I went.

Slowly the adorned concrete peaks of the institution peered into the sky and Ganesha began appearing in storefronts as I neared my destination.

Success! I had arrived.

After leaving my shoes on the rack (and not on the floor!), I made my way past a corridor of deities into the temple. Once inside, I found a few worshipers in prayer while others were engaged in stringing flowers for the garlands used to adorn their deities’ altars.

In addition to being a place of worship, the Temple’s also a community center and gathering place for all Indians. I overheard a man tell the woman at the information counter that he had come from Wisconsin to visit.

One altar particularly grabbed my attention. It was for Saraswati, who I just learned is the river/water goddess of “knowledge, music and the arts.” Which is fitting considering my connection to water, Yemaya, the Yoruban water goddess, as well as my love for knowledge, music and the arts.

I didn’t spend much time in the Temple. Even though the Temple welcomes visitors, I think that part of me feels it inappropriate to gawk as others are engaged in prayer. So I spent a few minutes thanking Ganesha and all of the other deities for being such lovely hosts, and headed back up Bowne to go home.

Just back from a lovely afternoon of wandering through one of Queens’ oldest neighborhoods. I came home to feed the pets and now I’m heading back out to see where my “wonderlust” takes me next.

Happy travels everyone!

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Despite the inclement weather we encountered, and my inherent vulnerability to temperature extremes, the upper deck of the watercraft was the ideal spot for me as its experienced Captain negotiated a course along Flushing Creek. Weather- especially the drenching rain and gray sky variety- had dogged my ambitions throughout summer and fall, and seemed to pop up whenever I found myself on or near a boat. Frustrating occlusions of mist obscure and darken the landscape, challenging exposure and focus.

from nytimes.com

FLUSHING, L.I., Feb. 12 — While the Highly Commissioners of Newtown and Flushing were holding a joint meeting yesterday afternoon to investigate the condition of Strong’s Bridge, which spans Flushing Creek, and which connects the southerly portion of this village with the town of Newtown, the bridge suddenly collapsed, making further inquiry unnecessary.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

All along Flushing Creek, at what seemed to be every turn and twist, heavy industries were at work. This barge and crane, I believe, are part of an asphalt operation. Other large industrial mills observed along the shoreline were clearly concrete and cement factories, but like the auto shops at Willets Point, their days are numbered down here.

from nytimes.com

With work begun on thirty dwellings, to cost from $5,000 to $8,000 each, with the starting of a factory for the manufacture of concrete building material, with the sale of twenty-nine acres of high-class land for development, and with work started upon the reclaiming between 500 and 600 acres of meadow land — all in the vicinity of Flushing — one of the most important seasons in the history of that locality has opened.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Every history blog alludes to Gatsby when mentioning Corona or Flushing- here’s the much discussed couplet:

from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Great Gatsby“

About half way between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight. But above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their irises are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days, under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground.

The valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul river, and, when the drawbridge is up to let barges through, the passengers on waiting trains can stare at the dismal scene for as long as half an hour. There is always a halt there of at least a minute, and it was because of this that I first met Tom Buchanan’s mistress.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Odd stories about Flushing Creek are bandied about in the neighborhood, and in olden times, it was absolutely magnetic for suicides.

from ufoquery.com

More recently, a number of reports came in about white and green lights in a triangular formation seen moving back and forth over Flushing Meadows Park during July 2-5, 2008. Some of the witnesses said that the lights suddenly appeared, disappeared and reappeared again between 10pm and 3am on those dates. However, strange lights are not the only bizarre phenomena associated with UFOs that has occurred in the park.

In 1968, the Flushing Meadows Zoo opened in Flushing Meadows Park on the grounds of the 1964-1965 World’s Fair. Although small in scale, the zoo had a number of exhibits and plenty of animals including sea lions, black bears, sheep, bison, mountain lions, coyotes, bald eagles, birds and wolves. Since its opening, the Zoo has been associated with several disturbing UFO events. The first may have occurred in 1977.

After several nights of UFO sightings above the park, wolves managed to escape from the zoo on November 30, 1977. Official reports said that twelve wolves clawed their way through a chain link fence surrounding their pen and killed several other animals until they were recaptured by parks department personnel and police. However, a caretaker working there at the time said that while making his rounds he found several animals missing, not just the wolves, and others dead. The dead animals did not look like they had been killed by predators. He also said that none of the animal pens or enclosures had been unlocked, damaged or tampered with.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

from forgotten-ny.com

In 1907, Michael Degnon, builder of the Williamsburgh Bridge, the Cape Cod Canal, part of the IRT subway and the Steinway Tunnels, and owner of the Degnon Terminal in Sunnyside, began buying up every tract of salt meadow along Flushing Creek. He thought that he would be able to build a port facing Flushing Bay, and that the federal government would pay for his plan to dig out the Creek from the Bay down to its headwaters at Kew Gardens to make it passable for large ships. He began buying ashes and refuse and dumping these onto the salt meadows to lay a foundation. Unfortunately all this did for Corona was to make the town stink like garbage. When residents looked east, all they saw were ugly gray mounds on the horizon.

The most frequent cause for blushing is anxiety. The reasons can be cultural and psychological simultaneously. Blushing can be checked by many means. For this tackling the social problem is a big requirement. People with social anxiety are often anxious about how other people see them and how they see themselves. They tend to think that they are instead unacceptable to others and their blushing makes them low in others appraisal. In reality however, people barely give any consideration to their blushing.

Blushing may happen automatically when you are lost in thinking about what the other person is thinking about you or if you are very much conscious about your own self.  You may think that you are looking brainless or you are afraid that you may be criticized.  If you are considering hard to suppress blushing, you are sinking deeper into the problem. To be criticized is a part of life and blushing does not halt the criticism. What is essential in such cases is a positive assertion that you have plenty self-confidence to face the criticism squarely. It definitely takes time to work up this courage when you have a long history of self-negation.

If you are firm to stop blushing then confer with a surgeon who will suggest you to go in for an Endoscopic Thoracic Sympathectomy (ETS). It is executed on patients who are victims of uncontrolled bouts of blushing. For them to stop blushing is the first priority. However, in a wish to stop blushing, people frequently overlook to look at the side-effects it may cause. Doctors are oblivious of how your body will respond when they do this operation. Perspiration in the back and lower stomach regions is a common side-effect experienced. Often, people see surgery as a workable option only in extreme cases.

90% success rate is reported for individuals who have undergone operation to stop blushing. Some have reported excessive perspiring on the forehead after the surgical operation particularly when they consume spicy food. Homers syndrome or drooping of eyelids and constriction of pupils have in occasional cases resulted from ETS. The doctor can stop this phenomenon by clamping the sympathetic nerve which is a better alternative than snapping it, for it leaves a scope for reversing it, if any side effects occur.

There are a few rules of thumb to stop going red. Few people blush after a vigorous exercise or sexual encounter. Try to maintain your body temperature under control. To know a greater extent about how to stop blushing, log on to http://www.stopblushing.org/

The Flushing Business Improvement District (BID) will host the kickoff to the holiday season with Macy’s and the original Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Santa at the annual Holiday Lighting Ceremony and Holiday Celebration with Con Edison and the Sharaton LaGuardia East Hotel. 

Holiday Lighting Ceremony
5pm at Macy’s Flushing
136-50 Roosevelt Avenue
(Between Main & Union Streets)
Santa’s Children’s Workshop starts in-store at 4pm
FREE

Holiday Party
6pm at The Sheraton LaGuardia East Hotel
135-20 39th Avenue
(also Roosevelt Avenue between Main & Prince Streets)
FREE

BID Shopping Tote Bag Giveaways

RSVP: (718) 888-1805 or aloh@flushingbid.com

For more information go to www.flushingbid.com

The Flushing Pimp. Probably the most recognizable figures where I live. Over the years, this guy had the strut, the clothing, the cane, the whole pimp attitude. I remember when I was in HS seeing this dude walking the streets of Flushing always muttering something, always seemed pissed off. You know there was always hookers near the theater, I’m sure they were incognito with the caped legend. I think this video was conducted by HS students, but they did a fairly good job on answering questions on the Flushing Pimp’s whereabouts and such.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

A new friend, whose family could trace ancestry back to the colonial settlers of Flushing, was searching for the spot where her forebears had settled on the Flushing Creek (or river, depending on who you ask). Armed with serious historian muscle, and having hired an experienced mariner to shepherd the journey, She mentioned to a mutual colleague that there was room for one more on the ship, and proffered that He join her party. Busy with professional obligation, this colleague of ours suggested your humble narrator ride along, which is how I ended up leaving the strict borders of the Newtown Pentacle and found myself on Flushing Creek.

from wikipedia

The current site of the airport was originally used by the Gala Amusement Park, owned by the Steinway family. It was razed and transformed in 1929 into a 105-acre private flying field. The airport was originally named Glenn H. Curtiss Airport after the pioneer Long Island aviator, and later called North Beach Airport.

The initiative to develop the airport for commercial flights began with a verbal outburst by New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia (in office from 1934 to 1945) upon the arrival of his TWA flight at Newark — the only commercial airport serving the New York City region at the time — as his ticket said “New York”. He demanded to be taken to New York, and ordered the plane to be flown to Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field, giving an impromptu press conference to reporters along the way. At that time, he urged New Yorkers to support a new airport within their city.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Factual inconsistencies and wild conjectural fantasies aside, one of the stated goals of this project is documentarian in nature (in the notion that someone in the future will be looking for photos of “Queens in the Past”), and the vantages of the northern Queens shoreline are largely blockaded and hidden from land. I leapt at the opportunity. The security apparatus and extensive fencing of (starting at the east river) an electrical power plant, a sewage treatment plant, prison complex, and airport enforce a cordon (and appropriately so) of the shoreline from the landward side- at least.

note:

Your humble narrator takes a lot of heat from the Urban Explorer types for the “Do Not Trespass” mantra here at Newtown Pentacle. Its my firm belief that – like a vampire- you have to be invited in before you can really do your work. The nervous thrills experienced in penetrating an abandoned factory or condemned hospital or active rail trackbed are outweighed by both the physical and legal dangers to yourself, and exhibit a real lack of empathy toward the poor bastards at NYFD who will have to figure out a safe way to rescue you. I’ve described the attention paid me by radio patrol car police officers as I squat down on the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge trying to get a picture of pollen settling into sticky waters at the Dutch Kills, and been chased for blocks by a hysterical Greek woman screaming “terrorist” at me around Ditmars. I roll under a flag of “if you can see it in a public place, you can take a picture of it, as long as you don’t imply some editorial meaning to it that wasn’t there” and “ask”. I do take a lot of pictures I don’t run, though, and often slightly obscure locations if the subject is so wildly and criminally vulnerable that I had time to set up a tripod and shoot dozens of photos.

And… I never show anyone the images, of all the dead things.

from nytimes.com, an article from 1895

A number of Long Islanders have been quietly considering for some time the feasibility of cutting a ship canal from Newtown Creek to Flushing Bay, and have now reached the conclusion that the work should be done.

Best – photo by Mitch Waxman

The aura of Flushing Creek, as viewed from the water, might best be described as “Dickensian”. The modern steel highways, sweeping in elegant curves over the storied waters, produce tenebrous shadows pregnant with sinister implication. What horrors may have transpired here, under sodium light, fills your humble narrator with wonder. Heavy industry, like this concrete company, seems to dominate this part of Flushing Creek. It all feels somewhat atavist, yet, these are the sort of “mills” that built New York City.

from osc.state.ny.us

Flushing, named for the Dutch village of Vlissingen, was the first permanent settlement in Queens, and was founded in 1645. In 1657, the town fathers issued the “Flushing Remonstrance,” which defied Governor Peter Stuyvesant’s demand that the town expel Quakers, Jews, and other religious groups. Flushing was the first town in the Western hemisphere to guarantee religious freedom for its residents.

The Flushing Railroad, which later became part of the Long Island Rail Road, opened in 1854, as urbanizing influences gradually penetrated the more rural portions of Queens. Urbanization accelerated in the early 20th century, when the Queensborough Bridge opened in 1909 and the subway system was extended to Flushing in 1928. In the 1930s, a former ash dump on the west side of the Flushing River became the site of the 1939 World’s Fair and, later, the third-largest park in New York City—Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

The park hosted the 1964 World’s Fair.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Built by Robert Moses to house the 1939 Worlds Fair, Flushing Meadows Corona Park cuts the Flushing Creek from its original flow. From 1946 to 1951, the United Nations General Assembly was held at the New York City Pavilion, said Pavilion is now the Queens Museum of Art. Said Museum houses the Panorama of the City of New York, and the United Nations meet in a house that Rockefeller and Le Corbusier built over in Manhattan.

Here’s the scoop of Nelson Rockefeller and LeCorbusier from a Newtown Pentacle posting of June 23, Adventures upon the East River 3

LeCorbusier is responsible- ideologically and in some cases literally- for the ring of poverty surrounding Paris, the council housing of London, the housing complexes of Chicago, and of course- New York’s rather disastrous experience with “the projects”. He was the Ayn Rand of architecture.

here’s what he wanted to do in Paris, from wikipedia:

Theoretical urban schemes continued to occupy Le Corbusier. He exhibited his Plan Voisin, sponsored by another famous automobile manufacturer, in 1925. In it, he proposed to bulldoze most of central Paris, north of the Seine, and replace it with his sixty-story cruciform towers from the Contemporary City, placed in an orthogonal street grid and park-like green space. His scheme was met with only criticism and scorn from French politicians and industrialists, although they were favourable to the ideas of Taylorism and Fordism underlying Le Corbusier designs. Nonetheless, it did provoke discussion concerning how to deal with the cramped, dirty conditions that enveloped much of the city.

here’s what his politics were, also from wikipedia:

Le Corbusier moved increasingly to the far right of French politics in the 1930s. He associated with Georges Valois and Hubert Lagardelle and briefly edited the syndicalist journal Prélude. In 1934, he lectured on architecture in Rome by invitation of Benito Mussolini. He sought out a position in urban planning in the Vichy regime and received an appointment on a committee studying urbanism. He drew up plans for the redesign of Algiers in which he criticised the perceived differences in living standards between Europeans and Africans in the city, describing a situation in which “the ‘civilised’ live like rats in holes” yet “the ‘barbarians’ live in solitude, in well-being.”^[10] These and plans for the redesign of other cities were ultimately ignored. After this defeat, Le Corbusier largely eschewed politics.

Until he designed the United Nations Secretariat, a 39 story building and complex located in Turtle bay, Manhattan. This part of Manhattan is not part of the sovereign territory of the United States, incidentally, its legally international territory and not subject to the laws of New York City or the USA unless the U.N. says so. Here’s the proviso:

United Nations, Pub. L. No. 80-357, 61 Stat. 756 (1947): “Except as otherwise provided in this agreement or in the General Convention, the federal, state and local courts of the United States shall have jurisdiction over acts done and transactions taking place in the headquarters district as provided in applicable federal, state and local laws.”

Interesting note:

The land that the complex sits on was purchased from William Zeckendorf (a mid 20th century real estate baron) in a deal brokered by the Chase Manhattan Bank. Chase, of course, was the instrument of future New York Governor and United States Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. Grandson of John D. Rockefeller, and inheritor (with his brothers) of the Standard Oil fortune. The Rockefellers had already offered some of their own land-the house that Standard Oil built- and Rockefeller family castle,in Westchester, for use as the potential seat of a world government- but it was “too far away” for the diplomats. So, he had his father- John D. Rockefeller Jr. buy Turtle Bay and donate the land to the city for the UN.

The area called Turtle Bay was where the Draft Riots of 1863 started, and it was a neighborhood of tenements, butchers, slaughterhouses, and dangerous organized crime controlled docks which handled the traffic coming to and from Long Island City via rail and barge. The United Nations building was completed in 1950.

1950 is also when the decline of the economic infrastructure of North Brooklyn and Western Queens, especially the area around the Newtown Creek in Queens and Red Hook in Brooklyn, began in earnest. Connected? Maybe.

from time.com

“What do you want to go to Flushing Meadow for, honey?” a Manhattan taxi driver asked a TIME researcher last week. “I’m going to the United Nations,” she said. “Well,” he said with a wink, “that used to be quite a lovers’ lane in my day.”

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Just outside of the Newtown Pentacle’s north-eastern extant at LaGuardia Airport, beyond the feral Brother Islands and the caustic shores of Rikers Island, is found Flushing Bay.

Following the waters as they flow beneath the Whitestone Expressway, one will realize they are upon the Flushing River (or creek, depending on your source, but it’s actually a salt marsh). Like the nearby Newtown Creek, Flushing Creek is a heavily industrialized waterway with a long history of epic pollution and municipal abuse.

from wikipedia

The town of Flushing was first settled in 1645 under charter of the Dutch West India Company and was named after the port of Vlissingen, in the southwestern Netherlands. It is said that the name Vlissingen means “salt meadow,” given as a nod to the tidal waters of Flushing Meadows. As the English version of the name of the Dutch town is “Flushing”, the same English version was used by the town’s English-speaking inhabitants. During his presidency, George Washington arrived to Flushing by ferry across. The first road crossing, a drawbridge at Northern Boulevard, was built in the early 19th century.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

A vast morass of clinging mud and knife edged grass, Salt Marshes are nevertheless exemplars of biological activity. The stinking mud, bubbling with sulfur and methane, digests organic filth surrendered to it by ocean wave, and provides purchase for tenacious carpets of grasses. This tough vegetable armoring of the shoreline allows more accretion of mud, and in this lilliput of the waves, hordes of multitudinous and loathsomely tentacled carnivores hunt those which are squirming and soft bodied, which form colonies or don shells in self defense. Above the fray, the lords of life and death in this environment truly are the vertebrates, especially those which fly.

from wikipedia

By the 1850s, a second crossing, Strong’s Causeway was built near the present-day Long Island Expressway, extending Corona Avenue towards Flushing. This crossing was located near the confluence of Horse Brook and Flushing Creek. In the mid-19th Century, the growing city of Brooklyn acquired the land around the creek and gave it for use to the Brooklyn Ash Removal Company, which turned the salt marshes into landfill. The pollution was chronicled by F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby, where Nick Carraway observed the “valley of ashes” on his train ride between Manhattan and Long Island.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Quiet tides and low rates of erosion allow mile after mile of boggy wetland to feed off the nutrient rich salt water, which becomes increasingly brackish as it mixes with fresh water flowing off and through the upland. In the case of the modern Flushing Creek, that fresh water is a combination of industrial runoff and cso’s (combined sewer outfall), along with whatever rain water manages to drip off the highways bridging it.

from wikipedia

In 1936, Robert Moses proposed closing the ash landfill and transforming it into a park through its use as a World’s Fair site. With the exception of the Willets Point triangle, the landfill was leveled, the creek bed was straightened, and the southern part of the creek was deepened to form the Meadow and Willow lakes. At its northern section, a tidal gate bridge was built to keep the East River tide from flooding into the park. By then, Horse Brook was long gone, covered by the future Long Island Expressway. Ireland Creek was also filled in for use as parkland to prevent flooding in the surrounding neighborhoods. Dammed and reduced in size, the creek became navigable only up to Roosevelt Avenue. Barges still docked on the river, bringing sand and gravel. At its southern end, the Jamaica subway yard reduced some of the flow coming from the headwaters.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Of course, such modern interpretations of what was- until “just yesterday”- considered wasteland, would have been rejected by our progress minded antecedents. An elegant cocktail of petroleum distillates, industrial waste, and municipal sewage were freely combined and dumped directly into the water here for centuries.

When the highway pilings were driven, the fate of Flushing Creek was sealed for half a century, and the community that had symptomatically formed around and because of the waterway lost access to it.

Forgotten-NY, which of course has been everywhere, did a great and in-depth piece on the Flushing Creek (or River, depending)- check it out here.

from wikipedia

Citi Field is a stadium located in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in the New York City borough of Queens. Completed in 2009, it is the home baseball park of Major League Baseball’s New York Mets. Citi Field was built as a replacement for the adjacent Shea Stadium, which was constructed in 1964 next to the site of the 1964-1965 World’s Fair. Citi Field was designed by Populous (formerly HOK Sport), and is named after Citigroup, a financial services company based in New York that purchased the naming rights. The $850 million baseball park is being funded by the sale of New York City municipal bonds which are to be repaid by the Mets plus interest. The payments will offset property taxes for the lifetime of the park.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Just outside of the Newtown Pentacle’s north-eastern extant at LaGuardia Airport, beyond the feral Brother Islands and the caustic shores of Rikers Island, is found Flushing Bay.

Following the waters as they flow beneath the Whitestone Expressway, one will realize they are upon the Flushing River (or creek, depending on your source, but it’s actually a salt marsh). Like the nearby Newtown Creek, Flushing Creek is a heavily industrialized waterway with a long history of epic pollution and municipal abuse.

from wikipedia

The town of Flushing was first settled in 1645 under charter of the Dutch West India Company and was named after the port of Vlissingen, in the southwestern Netherlands. It is said that the name Vlissingen means “salt meadow,” given as a nod to the tidal waters of Flushing Meadows. As the English version of the name of the Dutch town is “Flushing”, the same English version was used by the town’s English-speaking inhabitants. During his presidency, George Washington arrived to Flushing by ferry across. The first road crossing, a drawbridge at Northern Boulevard, was built in the early 19th century.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

A vast morass of clinging mud and knife edged grass, Salt Marshes are nevertheless exemplars of biological activity. The stinking mud, bubbling with sulfur and methane, digests organic filth surrendered to it by ocean wave, and provides purchase for tenacious carpets of grasses. This tough vegetable armoring of the shoreline allows more accretion of mud, and in this lilliput of the waves, hordes of multitudinous and loathsomely tentacled carnivores hunt those which are squirming and soft bodied, which form colonies or don shells in self defense. Above the fray, the lords of life and death in this environment truly are the vertebrates, especially those which fly.

from wikipedia

By the 1850s, a second crossing, Strong’s Causeway was built near the present-day Long Island Expressway, extending Corona Avenue towards Flushing. This crossing was located near the confluence of Horse Brook and Flushing Creek. In the mid-19th Century, the growing city of Brooklyn acquired the land around the creek and gave it for use to the Brooklyn Ash Removal Company, which turned the salt marshes into landfill. The pollution was chronicled by F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby, where Nick Carraway observed the “valley of ashes” on his train ride between Manhattan and Long Island.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Quiet tides and low rates of erosion allow mile after mile of boggy wetland to feed off the nutrient rich salt water, which becomes increasingly brackish as it mixes with fresh water flowing off and through the upland. In the case of the modern Flushing Creek, that fresh water is a combination of industrial runoff and cso’s (combined sewer outfall), along with whatever rain water manages to drip off the highways bridging it.

from wikipedia

In 1936, Robert Moses proposed closing the ash landfill and transforming it into a park through its use as a World’s Fair site. With the exception of the Willets Point triangle, the landfill was leveled, the creek bed was straightened, and the southern part of the creek was deepened to form the Meadow and Willow lakes. At its northern section, a tidal gate bridge was built to keep the East River tide from flooding into the park. By then, Horse Brook was long gone, covered by the future Long Island Expressway. Ireland Creek was also filled in for use as parkland to prevent flooding in the surrounding neighborhoods. Dammed and reduced in size, the creek became navigable only up to Roosevelt Avenue. Barges still docked on the river, bringing sand and gravel. At its southern end, the Jamaica subway yard reduced some of the flow coming from the headwaters.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Of course, such modern interpretations of what was- until “just yesterday”- considered wasteland, would have been rejected by our progress minded antecedents. An elegant cocktail of petroleum distillates, industrial waste, and municipal sewage were freely combined and dumped directly into the water here for centuries.

When the highway pilings were driven, the fate of Flushing Creek was sealed for half a century, and the community that had symptomatically formed around and because of the waterway lost access to it.

Forgotten-NY, which of course has been everywhere, did a great and in-depth piece on the Flushing Creek (or River, depending)- check it out here.

from wikipedia

Citi Field is a stadium located in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in the New York City borough of Queens. Completed in 2009, it is the home baseball park of Major League Baseball’s New York Mets. Citi Field was built as a replacement for the adjacent Shea Stadium, which was constructed in 1964 next to the site of the 1964-1965 World’s Fair. Citi Field was designed by Populous (formerly HOK Sport), and is named after Citigroup, a financial services company based in New York that purchased the naming rights. The $850 million baseball park is being funded by the sale of New York City municipal bonds which are to be repaid by the Mets plus interest. The payments will offset property taxes for the lifetime of the park.

This is a little off the Sunset Park track, but with Obama in China and Flushing only a “dollar van” ride away I thought I’d pass this along:

As part of the radio station’s “Main Street” series, WNYC’s Richard Yeh spoke with one business owner in Flushing. A recent study said eaters look to spend 20 percent less on meals these days, and that has showed at the tables of Ice Fire Land, a hot-pot restaurant in Flushing. But the restaurateur also owns a few herbal/traditional medicine shop in the area. He told Yeh that more sick people and less health care have kept business steady there. Many come in to buy vitamins and fish oil to send back to China, he said.

Hear the full story at WNYC.

Le Queens / New-York

Le district de Queens se partage Long Island avec Brooklyn et s’étale aussi sur les autres îles de la Jamaica Bay. Il est relié à Manhattan par le pont de Queensboro.

Le comté de Queens fut originellement créé 1er novembre 1683, et ainsi nommé en l’honneur de la reine Catherine de Bragance, épouse de Charles II d’Angleterre.

Queens fut l’épicentre de l’activité cinématographique américaine avec qu’Hollywood ne lui vole la vedette. Mais, depuis la fin du XXe siècle, les studios de cinémas réinvestissent dans le quartier, notamment dans les productions TV.

Un musée célèbre tout cela : American Museum of the Moving Image

www.ammi.org  AMMI : 35th Ave. at 36th St.

Directions : R, G trains jusqu’à Steinway Street ou le train N train jusqu’à Broadway….

LIRE LA SUITE DE CE GUIDE DE VOYAGE COMPLET ET GRATUIT SUR

LE QUEENS / NEW-YORK

Photo: Ryan Schude (Click to enlarge)

This throwback photo of Angelo Ferrer resurfaced today via Facebook. If i’m not mistaken (which I am) this took place during one of the East Coast True Skate Competition’s or ECTSC’s while Angelo was also filming for one of Tom Lipani’s videos. “Ryan Schude came to NYC to shoot for Daily Bread and during his visit we bumped into him while filming for Elegance. I was doing a disaster topsoul on the flushing kink, I never knew or got to see what happen to the picture, 4 yrs have gone by and thanks to Ryan for not forgetting…” Angelo Ferrer. See the clip at about 5:40 into this edit.

     You may recall that I’m not the greatest at relaxing.  And sadly, it takes a little old thing like surgery to allow me the chance to even try to take it easy.  You would think that would be the one time that the stars would align in my favor.  However, even after going under the knife, my time to take care of myself was sure enough cut short by the chaos that consumes my every waking moment.  Enter the demon dog, a bowl full of poo, and the very reason why I preach to my kids about flushing their butt bombs.

     One night last week when I was laid up in bed trying to shake off the pain from my surgery, I kept thinking that I heard the clinking of dog tags outside my bedroom door.  My husband was downstairs watching t.v., so I felt fairly confident that he surely had the gate in place on the stairs to keep the dog from running amuck throughout the house.  He knew that I needed to rest, and he surely would have done everything in his power to keep the commotion to a minimum, right?  Therefore, I dismissed the noise as just a delusional side effect from my pain pills.  After all, the meds had been causing me all kinds of nightmares and crazy dreams every single night, so it wasn’t such a far-fetched idea then that I might simply just be hearing things.  

     The clinking noise, however, did not stop.  In fact, it grew even louder.  Now I may have been in a drugged out haze, but I most certainly heard something clanking around outside my door.  I yelled for my husband several times but got absolutely no response whatsoever.  So, I carefully hoisted myself out of bed and hobbled into the hall.  I painfully followed the noise, step by agonizing step, into the kids’ bathroom where I was greeted by a most unpleasant sight. There in the dim glow of the bumblebee nightlight stood the very bain of my existence all hunched over the toilet.  As he lifted his furry head, water dripping from his beard, lips smacking together happily, I felt the three saltine crackers that I’d managed to keep down at dinner slowly start to rise up in my throat.  You see, it seemed that once again, my kids had taken a ridiculously large dump and had failed to flush it down.  And apparently, our goat-like dog saw this as his golden brown opportunity to help himself to a little late-night snack.

     I grabbed the little shit-eating beast by the collar and attempted to lead him back out into the hall, all while trying to avoid the puddles of dung water that had splashed onto the floor.  I repeatedly yelled for my husband but got no response, so I had to just suck up the pain and drag the dog’s nasty ass all the way down the flippin’ stairs. When I finally reached the bottom, I was made very aware of just why my husband was completely oblivious to the whole wreck of a mess that was taking place on the second floor.  He was all sprawled out on the couch, peacefully snoring the night away, while I, the recovering surgical patient, was busy trying to wrangle one fecal-loving fiend. All my shouting eventually stirred him from his tranquil slumber, and he jumped up and took over the out of control situation.  I didn’t stick around to watch the clean-up efforts because my queasy stomach had already had enough.

     The next day, we had our ten billionth talk with the kids about the importance of hitting that flush button on the toilet whenever a transaction is conducted.  But, as with most of our lectures talks, I’m sure it went in one ear and quickly exited the other.  I’m sure it’s only a matter of time till I come across yet another unflushed bowl.  And as for the poop nibbler, I’m having a REALLY hard time allowing him to kiss me with that tongue of his now that I know just where it’s been. He gave a whole new meaning to the term potty mouth that night.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detain suspect in Flushing, Queens, this week. Nine were busted in predawn raid targeting El Salvadoran gang MS-13.

The MS-13 gang’s plot to murder a federal agent in New York has triggered a fierce crackdown – a blitz of predawn raids that have netted nine arrests.

FLUSHING TOWNSHIP, Michigan — Flushing Middle School teacher Robert Filter has found a unique way for children to learn black history — through music.

The eighth-grade history teacher’s students are writing a research paper and making a 10-slide PowerPoint presentation about legendary black musicians, including from Michigan natives Thad Jones and Berry Gordy. Each student will give a presentation to the class.

Filter said the class usually studies U.S. history from the 1600s to 1900.

“It’s important that we take about three weeks out in February and add this to the curriculum,” he said.

Black History Month is part of the curriculum for every grade level throughout the school district.

The musical aspect has engaged students.

“I think a lot of what happens in a culture comes from music,” said Carson Smith, 14, who is researching jazz singer and trumpet player Louis Armstrong in Filter’s class.

Carson, also a trumpet player, said he didn’t know much about Armstrong before the project.

“He was a really charismatic person, a real show person,” Carson said. “He worked really hard, and he got out of it what he put into it. He had to live through segregated New Orleans and he was still successful — that was amazing.”

Sheania Bacon, 13, is researching Patricia Louise Holte, better known as soul singer Patti LaBelle.

She said most students probably don’t know anything about LaBelle and will learn from her presentation.

“It’s nice because kids can learn more about people through history,” she said of the class project.

Chelsea Thomas, 13, now has more “respect” for the woman who sings the song by the same name. Chelsea learned that Aretha Franklin had a child at age 13 and another at 15 before she persevered to become the queen of soul.

Tyler Snover, 14, was enthusiastic about studying Robert Johnson, a blues artist from the 1930s.

“He’s considered the grandfather of rock ‘n’ roll,” Tyler said. “He inspired Eric Clapton and Angus Young.”

He is taking away something personal from the project.

“I play guitar, and he inspires me to write,” Tyler said.

Learning about black history starts in kindergarten in Flushing, when teachers read books about Black History Month to students.

At Central, Elms, Springview and Seymour elementary schools, children are making PowerPoint presentations, writing essays and watching videos about famous leaders, such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Middle school students start their days with black history trivia during morning announcements, and along with class projects, some students have gone on educational field trips, including the Opportunity for All Conference on Jan. 30 in Detroit.

Along with several class projects, high school students created a wall of quotes made by famous black people.

Ciara Hunter, 16, paused in front of the wall outside the cafeteria and pointed out her favorite quote: “If you want to lift yourself up, lift someone else up,” said Booker T. Washington.

Shelby Brooks, 17, liked, “Hold fast to your dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly,” by Langston Hughes.

“You need to do what you want to do — life isn’t life unless you fulfill your dreams,” she said.

Shannon Lee, 18, liked President Barack Obama’s quote, “Change will not come if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change we seek.”

“Everyone said we needed a change, but we needed to help him make the change,” she said.

This Saturday, the 14th, the QMA is hosting the Indian Karaoke Singing Group’s “Geet Jamboree,” from 2-8pm. And judging by their youtube channel, their members actually have some pretty great pipes.

Oh and if they have “Jai Ho”, I’m totally signing up.

Please excuse the babbling, I got a bit carried away.  I also managed to cut my video off way too soon.  I’ll post a better one tomorrow, perhaps.  Oh well.  You should at least get a general idea from this video.

Not much has been done this week, in fact there was only 1 day of work done and that was by the plasterer who came in and done the flushing. Oh well i guess we have to be patient and wait. As the saying goes all good things come to those who wait…. We have started working out what we are going to be doing out the back and have gone and got quotes for the verandah, fencing and shed. Not quite sure whether to go peaked or flat roof with the verandah, will have to see what everything else is going to cost us and make a decision then.

Gyprock - kitchen and dining room

Kitchen and dining flushed