#NYC #WilletsPoint #IronTriangle #Motonormativity #NewYorkCity #Urban #Automobiles
New York City, a metropolis with an estimated population of over two million registered automobiles housed on its streets. That's more licensed vehicles than the entire human population of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania! Much of these millions of cars crawl and slog their way across the city grid on a daily basis; all while emitting air and sound pollution like some form of rouge, unrestrained virus that has escaped from the laboratory, killing us by the hundreds everyday. Yet this is the stark reality of the death machine metal box we have invented. Curiously, even death machines die, and when they do, many find their way to the numerous automotive shops and surrounding streets at Willets Point, Queens, population approximately 10... people that is. However if you were to factor in the population of automobiles in Willets Point, it would no-doubt exceed well into the thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands on game days. That's largely because Willets Point exists merely as an asphalt sea of surface parking lots for Citi Field and the currently under construction Etihad Park stadiums. Within the industrial armpit formed by the intersection of Whitestone Expressway and Van Wyck Expressway in northern Willets Point, exists a flood prone, dirt road, sewer-less cesspool of car carnage better known as The Iron Triangle. Here, automotive shop shanty's line the streets, mimicking the density and grime of a city such as Delhi, India. Wrecked cars, used tires, oil slicks, and dismembered automotive parts litter the streets, all the while vehicles on their death bed navigate crater sized potholes before killing their engines for the last time. The Iron Triangle is a vehicle's utopia and a no-man's land all at the same time, a symbolic gesture to the car centric society we have created, existing even in a city where car ownership is only 45 percent.