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Illegal dumping is the native art form of Queens, I believe, as it seems to be practiced by a significant slice of the population.

One has presented ample evidence to back up this bold assertion, over the years. Saying that, what I witnessed along Northern Blvd. was simply a degenerate bastardization of the Queensylvanian mode of self expression.

C’mon, no broken cabinetry or busted 1999 vintage computer monitors? Where are the piles of tires? What kind of “Long Island City Art Installation” was this?

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This pavement midden was encountered nearby the 36th street R/M station along Northern Blvd. one morning, and I would prefer to think of this crap as art.

The “work” was composed of a heterogenous collection of paper and plastic simulacra. It looked a great deal like litter, which might have been the intent of the artist. If so, the illusion was achieved and my disbelief was positively suspended. The composition left me flat, however, a banal and well rehearsed commentary on the post industrial urban milieu.

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When I was a boy and filled with the vainglories of youthful ambition, an enormous act of social engineering was perpetrated upon my peer group by the government.

Woodsy the Owl always reminded us to “give a hoot and don’t pollute,” turn off the light when leaving a room, and seek out proper receptacles for disposal of trash.

The impression was made, by Woodsy, that disobeyance of said missive would end all life upon the Earth in short order. This sort of environmentally friendly PSA messaging has been absent from the mass media world for quite some time, and is a curricula which has not been offered to subsequent generations, as evinced by the bold compositions offered by the street artists in Queens.

Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman lives in Astoria and blogs at Newtown Pentacle.


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