I don’t know what happened yesterday. I was walking toward the Seaport to see what a little thrift shop over there was about. Something about the decline in the sidewalk, the slight angle at which it sloped, made me dizzy and confused. I nearly lost my balance, holding on to signs and poles wherever I could without being conspicuous. I leaned my back against a wall on Cliff Street at Fulton and stayed there for about a minute, regaining my balance. After that walking seemed fine but for those minutes I felt vulnerable and at risk of some kind of fall or passing out. I don’t know if the sidewalk is entirely to blame or if it exacerbated something else going on inside me. Anxiety about this job and the daily financial losses it incurs may be getting the better of me.
I did not make it to the thrift shop on Fulton. I’m a little skeptical it’s even there. I should have better luck today should I decide to try again. I’m into thrift shops again because they often have spindles of blank CDs and DVDs. I’m going to be burning copies of my Street videos to DVDs. I’ll donate them to thrift shops
I don’t really know what happened yesterday. The day before yesterday, when I got 22,000 steps and some actual sunshine, I felt fine that whole day. Yesterday, nearly stumbling around like that, I felt naked and alone. But on the day I got over 14,000 steps so I might have done something right.
Today I took a full pill, 2MG of Lorazapam. Cannot remember the last time I did that. Makes me feel woozy and weird. That’s potent stuff. It should keep me calm today, though. I mean, it doesn’t really do that as effectively as it used to, but it does something.
I just added a bunch more days of video to sunswick.com. The formatting gets messed up, as seems routine for Piwigo themes. It seems I may have come closer than I realized to getting Peertube to work. I’ll have to follow up on that.
“Cliff and Fulton” sounds like a brand of cigarette, not a place where one disintegrates into invisibility. The thrift shop on Fulton is closed today so no spindle of DVDs for me. I have plenty as it is and I don’t know how many I will be able to fill with streeet videos. They will only hold up to 12 hours.
Reading about Sunswick, which as a word turns up in many contextxs in Astoria lore. There was a Sunswick Mansion named for nearby Sunswick Creek, occupied by George Gibbs in the 1830s. In the 1870s The Astoria Ferry Company named one of its boats The Sunswick. In the 1890s there was a bowling team called the Sunswick Club. In the 1880s Astoria had a street named Sunswick Terrace. I think I’ve seen that on an old map. In 1893 16-month old Charley Cox drowned in a swamp near Sunswick Creek. He was attempting to join some boys who were fishing at the creek. In 1891 supervising Deputy General Regent A.M. Bogardus created Sunswick Council, which was Council #1,374. In the 1880s there was a Sunswick Cotton Mill on Broadway in Astoria. It burned to the ground.
There are certainly other occurences of the name. It belongs to no one. There is actually a newer building that I spotted last year, a condo or apartment building, callilng itself Sunswick. You can name an apartment building anything you want. Common sense says you don’t name it the “114th Precinct” or “The Projects.” But naming an apartment building Sunswick is not violating any rules, unless Sunswick 35/35 wants to get retentive about their name.
Sunswick 35/35 used to just be called Sunswick but a new owner took over and changed it, adding the 35/35 which indicates the intersection of 35th Avenue and 35th Street at which the place is located. Sunswick and Sunswick 35/35 were, for too many years, my regular pub. It was the best bar scene I’ve ever been a part of, by far. But almost everybody moved away and I grew weary of bars. Many good friendships established there, most of them now reduced to occasional social media shoutouts.
Sunswick 35/35 the bar dominates most web searches for that word but I found online content regarding the new condo called The Sunswick, on 32nd Street in Astoria, near 37th Avenue, which by some peoples’ reckoning puts it in Long Island City, not Astoria. I tend to think of Astoria as starting from the north at the Con Edison plant or else Berrian Boulevard and ending at the south at 39th Avenue. From there it starts turning into Queens Plaza, which I think has evolved into its own designated place/community. Long Island City, to me, is everything south of Queens Plaza down to Hunters Point. But I consider none of these designations definitive. To me these things are malleable. What I disagree strongly with is that Astoria starts at the East River and ends at Steinway Street. My Astoria, toward the northeast end at least, extends over to Hobart Street, 81st Street/19th Avenue, and St. Michael’s Cemetery.
The Sunswick Condo is described as a “boutique” condo, whatever that means. I remember a former PCP’s office being described as “boutique-y” when I thought the place was kind of a dump. I’m sure it’s a fine accommodation, with no units available at this time.
I’m trying to get AI to give me some scary images with Astoria’s Hell Gate bridge in the background but it just gives me other NYC bridges instead. No respect for the Hell Gate.
