Archive for 2016
bustling contact
If you see something, say something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is LIC’s 41st street, between Northern Blvd. and 36th avenue, west side. The two shopping carts you’re looking at in the shot above have remained, unmolested, in this spot for more than a year. I know this because I walk past them on an almost daily basis. Not long ago, it occurred to me how long it is that they’ve been chained to this DOT owned sign post pole, and just how unusual that is. The City normally clips the chains of things attached to their property, and at the very least a Sanitation Inspector has been down this block at least once every couple of weeks.
At first glance, these carts belong to one of the many bottle and can collectors who work area streets for deposit returns. On second glance, however…
This is “weirdness” cart number one. (The numbers assigned are simply in the order of discovery and have no other meaning)
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The carts are stoutly secured to the pole, with a galvanized chain and a heavy commercial grade padlock. By commercial, I mean the sort of case hardened unit you see securing the steel gates of shops. Locks like these will run you anywhere from $10-30 – depending on make, model, and quantity. I’ve never bought a length of chain, so I couldn’t comment on the price of that. Shopping carts in Astoria are in the $20-30 range. That means that between lock and cart, you’ve got $50-100 bucks chained to this pole, and it has been for more than a year.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On top of the carts is a piece of beverage tray plastic, wired securely to the top of the things. The black bags in the carts are “3 mil contractor” bags, and if you probe them with your finger – there are no bottles or cans inside. Instead, you’d feel about an inch of foam and behind it a hard shelled case of some kind.
It’s odd, but there’s a lot of odd things you’ll find in Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Steinway Street at the northeast corner of 36th avenue is where you’ll find another one of these assemblages. Same thing as the one on 41st – tightly folded up contractor bags perfectly filling the entire cart’s volume with a layer of foam and a hard shell hidden within.
This is “weirdness” cart number two.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Beverage tray is secured to the cart, with wire that is tightly twisted in a manner suggesting the use of pliers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Stout chain, expensive padlock.
It’s odd, I tell you, odd.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is “weirdness” cart number three.
36th avenue, south side, at 38th street is where you’ll find it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Around the corner, at 38th street’s east side, at 36th avenue. Foam, hard case within, contractor bags tightly wrapped. You’ll notice some blue material showing through, which was actually TYVEK – the same plastic fabric that construction tarps and COSTCO bags are made of. Can’t say if this stuff was in all of these carts, but… odd.
This is “weirdness” cart number four.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Beverage tray wired securely to the cart, twisted tightly.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Expensive lock and galvanized chain.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is “weirdness” cart number five.
36th avenue, north side, at 37th street. This one has a wire grill attached to the top, but it too is wire tied to the cart. Again, finger probing of the black bag revealed not bottles or cans, but instead the now familiar foam padding around a hard case like interior.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is “weirdness” cart number six.
37th street, east side, at 36th avenue. The arrangements of these carts became increasingly regular. Always at the same relationship to a corner, chained to the first sign pole on the block.
It is increasingly odd.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The beverage trays were securely tied off, the foam and hard interior shell present, and so were the heavy chains and expensive padlocks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
36th street, east side, at 36th avenue.
While photographing this one, I got a “hey, whatcha taking pictchas of” comment from a fellow leaving his house. We chatted for a moment and he said this cart had been in this spot for more than a year.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Most of these carts were arrayed along 36th avenue, I should mention. I should also mention the abundance of subway tunnels which are directly below. I continued my little survey, but the carts were not found anywhere beyond 35th street. I decided to head down towards Northern Blvd.
This is “weirdness” cart number seven.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is “weirdness” cart number eight.
35th street, west side, between 37th avenue and Northern Blvd. This one was a little bit different, lacking a beverage tray on the top, but in all other aspects it was the identical setup with a padded case of some kind and the heavy chain with expensive padlock.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wandering back towards HQ, on Northern Boulevard, north east corner, at 42nd street. Same setup, with beverage trays and so on.
This is “weirdness” cart number nine.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These carts on Northern at 42nd had a bit of garbage stuffed into them, but anything you leave on the street in Queens will soon turn into a trash can.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
35th avenue, south side, at 43rd street. Again, same setup. There were a couple of empty carts sitting alongside the two chained up ones.
This is “weirdness” cart number ten.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The whole affair was being held together with the now familiar wire tie offs.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What’s going on here – along this stretch of Northern Boulevard, 36th, and 35th avenues, between 43rd and 36th streets? These ten cart installations hide whatever is inside those foam lined cases from discovery or inspection using skillfull camouflage. They look like just another bit of the sort of street ephemera you don’t notice – the bicycle wheel chained to a fence, a shopping bag stuck in a tree, a lamp post or firebox. At first glance you think “yeah, some bottle guy chains his cart here.”
Or – There’s a bottle and can collector – hereabouts – who uses high end padlocks, steel chains, layers of water tight contractor bags, TYVEK, foam, and a hard shell case that perfectly fits into a shopping cart to protect his ten caches of bottle deposit returns which are kept only in areas which are over subway tunnels.
Speculation is a silly thing to engage in.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you’re reading this post, I’m also sending it over to the 114th precinct for the boys in blue to consider. It’s probably nothing extraordinary, but I don’t like the locations or heterogeneity of these carts, given that they are all sitting on top of subway tunnels and are found at busy intersections which carry thousands of vehicles every day. I’d love to cut into one of these carts and find out what’s inside, but I’m a photographer not a cutter. It’s probably nothing, and the cops will proably just waste their time if they do look into it, but…
This cart business isn’t just odd, it’s downright weird, and my “spidey sense” is tingling for some reason.
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many went
My favorite place, when I was a kid.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On Facebook the other day, I mentioned to my little collection of friends that I had signed up for one of those NYCID cards in pursuance of all the free stuff you get in return. There’s a collection of institutions which normally cost a larger than you’d expect fee at the front door, and the NYCID card gets you a free membership which negates any sort of payment for 12 months.
One of them is the American Museum of Natural History. You present your NYCID at the front desk, and you get a complimentary year of membership to the institution.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was in the City anyway, and had a couple of hours to kill in between appointments, so I hopped on the B and went over to 81st and Central Park West and did the deed. Having a little time to kill, I strolled around the museum before it got too crowded. By about 12:30 p.m., I had discovered where every tourist visiting NYC with small kids in tow goes in the afternoon and given my lack of patience with crowds – well, it was time to head back to Queens and get back to work at HQ anyway after about an hour and fifteen minutes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I did manage to visit a few exhibits. I’ve always been kind of partial to the ice age mammals, personally, but let’s face it – you don’t go to Natural History to see Mammoth bones. You go for the dinosaurs.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned above, when I was a kid this was my favorite place in the world. Last time I spent any length of time at the museum was back in the early 90’s when I lived not too far away at the corner of 100th street and Broadway. I had been hanging around that section of the Upper West Side for awhile, going back to the late 80’s when I worked a college job as a non Union doorman in a building I would later live in.
Mostly boring work, but good for studying, and I had to get physical a few times with crack heads who wanted to use the lobby to smoke up. The neighborhood gentrified quickly, and became both crack head free and banal, back in the late 90’s and by 2003 – Astoria beckoned. I’ve been back to the Natural History museum just once in the interval since then, accompanying a buddy who was drawing a comic for Marvel and needed to do some Pterodactyl and Archaeopteryx research.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The NYCID thing was actually kind of painless to handle. I made an appointment, at LaGuardia Community College of all places, and showed up with proof of address and a couple of other required documents. The whole thing took about 15 minutes and the card came in the mail about a week later. I’m signed up at Moving Image here in Astoria and at Natural History, so far.
The part I’m excited about is the free zoo membership, of course. Only problem with that is that I have to go to Bronx Zoo to do the signup, which is a great example of the macabre sense of humor which New York City exhibits. Expect many, many, copulating monkeys at this – your Newtown Pentacle – in 2016.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The crowds at American Museum of Natural History really begin to dense up in the early afternoon, and as I was leaving it was noticed that there was a good sized lineup of people out on the steps waiting their turn to stand on the lines inside. Have to say – one of the many things which has changed since a humble narrator was young is that back in the 80’s and 90’s you were pretty much alone in these museums on week days.
There’s no way you could just drop yourself down on the floor and throw open a sketch book with all the tourists clodding about these days. New York really isn’t for New Yorkers anymore, I guess.
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itemized exceptions
I just can’t stop.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
More of the macro shots with which I’ve been passing the cold weather down time, in today’s post. First up is a bit of Swiss Chard. Chard (Beta vulgaris subsp. vulgaris) is actually part of the beetroot subspecies of the Amaranthaceae family. I’m planning on cooking the non photographed portions of it up with garlic, red onion, olive oil, and a bit of a poblano pepper thrown in to make it interesting. That’s likely the first time I’ve ever shared a recipe at this, your Newtown Pentacle, btw.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was a bit challenging to pose this leafy thing, given the manner in which its leaves buckle up and curl. The now standard under flash arrangement was used to reveal some of the internal structures of the thing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All sorts of Lovecraftian stuff was flying through my head while I was shooting these, it should be mentioned, but then again – I was standing in a darkened and quite chilly room in which bright lights were flashing every eight to fifteen seconds. The thing about strobes is that even if you close your eyes, the light will penetrate the lids.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I mentioned pareidola in my last post of macro shots, and a humble narrator is experiencing it heavily in the shot above. It’s the nature of the human mind to try and find recognizable faces and other familiar shapes in entirely random patterns, or at least it’s the nature of the slowly rotting ball of snot found between my ears and behind my eyes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is a bit of that plum I was showing you in the last macro shot, with a blast of light traveling up and through the flesh of the fruit. The slice was probably about a quarter inch thick, and I set my flash gun to half power.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The snow pea pod pictured above required full power on the flash gun. The waxy skin of the legume provided a bit of refraction as well, which was unexpected. A legume, the snow pea (Pisum sativum var. saccharatum) is also known to the french talkers as a “mangetout.” That means “eat all.” I know it’s supposed to be “two peas in a pod” but three just worked better.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The fuzzy Kiwi fruit, (Actinidia deliciosa aka mangüeyo), is seen in the shot above and is the national fruit of China. Once known as the Chinese Gooseberry, the vine escaped China in 1847 via the actions of British horticulturalists. A girls school principal began planting the vine in New Zealand in the early 20th century, and the fruit soon became synonymous with the country, although it wasn’t called Kiwifruit until 1959.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oddly enough, the world’s largest producer of Kiwifruit is actually Italy, and the specifics of the most common commercially available variant of this cultivar – called the Hayward – are that the world produces some 1,412,351 tonnes of it annually with Italy and New Zealand leading the pack. It seems that since the two nations are in different hemispheres, they don’t actually compete with each other due to seasonal variability.
Who knew?
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obstinate retort
random things I’ve seen.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My pals at the North Brooklyn Boat Club collect bricks and other things they find along the shorelines of the lugubrious Newtown Creek. Historic bricks are a whole topic in themselves, but the ones you find along the creek can be somewhat revelatory, as many of them were used in the furnaces of the industrial revolution. The company which manufactured these so called “refractory” ceramics was founded in 1854, and located on Richards street, between Van Dyke and Beard streets, in Red Hook.
Odds are that it was used for the retort of a manufactured gas plant, based on the sort of discoloring and wear pattern it exhibits. It’s also likely infiltrated with all sorts of heavy metals and arsenic compounds.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over in Blissville, along Greenpoint Avenue at the corner of Starr, this (reportedly) 1930 model building hosts a deli at the street level and two apartments above. There’s a basement as well, and I’ve found conflicting accounts regarding the date of construction, with NYC’s Buildings Department displaying a “CofO” listing the place as having been first occupied in 1917. The records regarding Queens at DOB are pretty spotty, if you ask me, and I chalk up their inaccuracies to the chaos of LIC & New York City Consolidation.
According to the DOB, the building Newtown Pentacle HQ occupies in Astoria is actually the parking lot of an Italian restaurant in Rego Park, as an example.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This one is shot from the last car of an N train leaving Queens Plaza, through that trippy lenticular plastic that MTA believes will defeat the armies of chaos. I dream of getting on an N, or Q, with clean windows. It’s part of the reason why I like taking the C, as those older model cars still allow an unimpeded view of the tunnels.
Regardless of optical distortion, I like the shot above for some reason.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Simply put, the shot above describes the proper Brooklyn pronunciation of the word “fifth.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back in Queens, which is the only place in NYC where a private property owner can get away with hanging his own sign on the pedestrian sidewalk admonishing passerby to make way for his workers and their heavy equipment. Look out for forklifts indeed.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
tropical marks
A quick look inside the Circus Warehouse in LIC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the Newtown Creek side of LIC’s Vernon Blvd., you’ll find the Circus Warehouse. I’ve been desirous of doing a long post on them for a while, but this ain’t that. The organization instructs and trains for the athletic side of the circus world, teaching acrobatics and rope training. Occasion found me sheltering from the cold in there recently, for reasons which I’ll describe in a post next week.
Suffice to say that for the 15 minutes or so that I was in the space, I cracked out a few shots of interesting people doing cool things – what more could the wandering photographer ask for?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a level of physical strength on display in the shot above which astounds. We’re I to attempt something like this, I’d experience a body wide cramp which would collapse into a singularity and a black hole would form.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Circus Warehouse offers all sorts of programs and classes, which the athletic and physically sound types amongst you might consider. They are based in a 1960’s era warehouse that sits on the former Pigeon Street Yard of the LIRR in LIC, at the Vernon Blvd. street end where the Vernon Avenue Bridge once stood.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 