PICTURES of OTHER things: November 2005

This timeless old stove was found in an abandoned and now-crumbling Canal-Master's station along the old Delaware-Raritan canal at Griggstown, NJ. The rainy day had effected a greyish half-light and it afforded me only a momentary opportunity to shoot this old stove which was still in place at one jagged center-wall along the cabin's right side. Peelings and crumblings from above had simply come to rest where you see them. Wonderful, thematic, evocative old scene. You don't see much like this these days.

A LEFTOVER RELIC OF ANOTHER TIME

Liberty Hall. Screened from the road by tall trees and fencing, and once facing Ursino Lake (now gone), this house was built in 1773 by William Livingston, first Governor of the State of New Jersey. The large rectangular building was erected on a sold brick foundation and was surrounded by some 300 green acres of maples, elms and hilly meadowland. In it are still displayed many artifacts of the Revolutionary period, as well as the bed in which both Washingtons slept. Along Morris Ave., Elizabeth, NJ

A great shot of the three-story mansion in the distance across the yard. It was here that a great stand of horse-chestnut tress, planted in 1772, shaded the house. In this three-story white frame house, known as Liberty Hall, Sally Livingston (Governor Livingston's daughter) married John Jay, first Chief Justice of the United States; where George and Martha Washington slept, and where Alexander Hamilton was once quartered.

Green Lake Farm: This brick house (in a distance shot), was - through the 1930's and 40's, late the property of then Senator Hamilton F. Kean (now Kean College, or more 'properly' Kean University). More a barn and workplace than a mere home, 50 Guernsey cows were here stabled in marble-paneled stalls, and they shared the lower portion of that 'barn' with the upstairs private library of the ex-Senator Kean in his retirement - along with NJ State records and many valuable volumes. Running the place as a hobby, Senator Kean delighted in his library above the cow barn and with his prize-winning chickens, which also shared the premises. This was thus the center of what was once a large work-field and acreage for some localized heavy-duty farming and upkeep.

The Blue House: Done over (unfortunately) by the 'authorities' to act as office and social center; staffed by a few strange elderly people who protect the place like their own fiefdom and who portray only 'official' history; no sidetracks, no detours, and nothing not correct and pleasant. Those 'charming, charming' old days. But WHY IS IT that, once they get their hands on it, the funding authorities, the 'History Commissions' and the usual governmental agencies always staff these places with soulless salaried bureaucrats and, even worse, 'Volunteers' whose idea of History is to sanitize and maim every real fact and each piece of reality as it once REALLY was. Everything in turn is then transformed into joyful pabulum and sentimental stupdity. Crafts-fairs, doily exhibits and cookie-bakes.

NEWARK, NJ. The burial plot of Allen Ginsberg, American poet, 'Howl'. Near Rt. One, Newark NJ.

Allen Ginsberg; American poet/writer.

The Grave of Allen Ginsberg - Newark, NJ;
amidst a Ginsberg family plot area, in the middle of an old, Jewish cemetary, beneath the shadows of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery on Route One at the airport. See photos posted.

Disappearing NEWARK, NJ.
These photos are just a tiny segment of views which can show how we've simply put away the past. If you've read 'American Pastoral' by Philip Roth, this is the very area wherein the father-daughter rapprochment takes place at the climax of that book's story. It was once ALL part of a vibrant industrial area which hugged the railroad trestle (of stone and brick) and which delineated the area - it was called 'Ironbound' because it was ringed on three sides by railroads. New Jersey Railroad Avenue was the name of this street - now the area has been destroyed; razed and rebuilt with tacky two-family duplex government-subsidized housing. It's a major travesty of ANYTHING good; housing second-class people in government-built second-class housing subsidized by taxpayers' dollars. No heritage, no awareness of the past, NOTHING but the putrid glut of the present and all its lousy taste in housing, possessions and people.

The most abstract assemblage of the old and unused I could find.
Not much else is left.

Red brick, curves, arches, shadows and peaks - all a disconcerting
and leftover view of the OLD.

A strange vista to nowhere really.

A once-refurbished factory-wall of old red brick, now vacant and falsified by green-painted plywood; a holding pattern until the end.

Square smokestack along NJ Railroad Avenue (fast disappearing)
and its industrial ruins.

THE DANCE OF DREAMS:
Come with me to some weird old place. A hundred-year old house, settling and falling in on itself, abandoned and wasted, filled with the forgotten waste of items which once, perhaps, MAY have been saleable - but which now just lay about and decay.

The odd, the old, the useless, the dumb. Like castaways awaiting their dismissal, these discarded items strangely haunt.

A huge, crumbling mess of a place, once an antique shop, now sits derelict along the highway.

This OLD house, once used as a 'We Buy Anything' junk, curio and antique shop, now sits crumbling at the edge of a highway in northwestern NJ.

a Visit to Carl Shurz Park : These photos are of the John Finley Walk, at Gracie Mansion, in Carl Shurz Park. The walkway runs along the river area, elevated above the East River and affords many scenic and interesting views of that river below, at Hell's Point. The river traffic itself - tug, barge and scow - is quite interesting to watch. The walkway runs north and south from Gracie Mansion at its northern end. Nearby Yorkville and the Upper East Side beckon. Usually the home of the NYC Mayor, Gracie Mansion is at present not used for that purpose, as Mayor Bloomberg resides elsewhere in the city.These pictures are taken from that walkway.