Archive for January 2020
had lain
That’s a parrot!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My pal Jiminy the Parrot greets you today, for a single shot post. Back Monday with more midnight wanderings around the World’s Borough and beyond.
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vitally encrouched
Back to base.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Having decided it was time to head home, one nevertheless diverted his path over to Queens Blvd. to gather just a few more shots of the elevated tracks of the 7. This is at the western corner of Van Dam Street, which I can now describe to you as enjoying a major rat infestation. While approaching this spot, several large banks of clustered shadow along the sidewalk began to disassemble and scatter into hidey holes. Not sure why this particular spot is so attractive to mammalian scavengers, but it is, so there you are. Maybe there’s a cheese monger in the old Swingline Stapler building.
The 7 line runs fairly frequently, so it was decided to set myself up again at another nearby point of view and wait for a train set to appear.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What I wanted from the shot above was the light streak and ambience offered by the passing subway train, with the intention that it would provide a bit of illumination for the factory windows as well as providing some separation from the night sky. The temperature had been dropping the entire time I’d been out – lurking in fear down Northern Blvd., then shadowing in Queens Plaza, and scuttling towards Skillman Avenue. By the time these shots were gathered, gloves had been donned and my sweatshirt hood raised, and the filthy black raincoat buttoned.
As a note, I’m particularly fond of this year’s hoodie sweatshirt. The hood completely encloses my head, and all you can see of my face is the tip of the nose and a wisp of gray beard. The hood is large enough to to hook over the bill of my too tight baseball cap, too. I really look menacing, crazy, and kind of scary when it’s all done up. Win.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One last shot upon crossing Northern Blvd. and back up the hill into Astoria, of a Major Auto World Garage which won’t be there too much longer. There’s going to be a large footprint, and architecturally banal, apartment house rising in this spot before long.
It’s fair to say that nearly everything you’ve seen in this series of posts won’t be there too much longer, and that it all will be replaced by large footprint and architecturally banal apartment houses.
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Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
hardly fitting
Cacophonies of tumult.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Having staggered and stumbled down Northern Blvd.’s Carridor, and then down the vampire infested expanse of Jackson Avenue, one made the turn away from Queens Plaza, towards Skillman Avenue and onto one of the truss bridges carrying pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicle traffic over the narrow part of the Sunnyside Yard while wearing a too tight hat.
This is a pretty busy byway, as a note, with thousands of vehicle trips an hour passing through, and since LaGuardia Community College is just a few blocks away there’s also a considerable amount of pedestrian and bike movement. This is another one of those spots where utilitarian concerns trumped all other considerations, including esthetics, when it was created. Unfriendly is the word.
Far and away this is one of the most unwelcoming, ugly, and down right hostile passages in all of NYC for perambulatory pursuits, in my experience. It’s also badly lit, and there’s a hundred places for a bad actor to lie in wait for passerby. Luckily, since there’s running water in the ground below, no vampires are found above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just as the truss bridge ends at Skillman Avenue, the street officially gets listed as Queens Blvd., but “technically speaking” the actual Boulevard of Death begins at the corner of Van Dam Street and Thomson Avenue. There’s spots like this all over Queens where an overpass above (the one pictured today carries the IRT Flushing or 7 Line Subway) obscures the actual street name below and cartography gets vague. One interesting thing about the design of Queens Plaza is that if makes you want to get out of Queens Plaza just as quickly as possible. It’s not the sort of place where you look around for a cafe with out door seating, where you’d want to sit down to enjoy an espresso.
This was the “turn around” point in my scuttle, where I orient my steps back towards HQ in Astoria. An eastwards turn onto Skillman Avenue was executed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I had to “Frankenstein” the shot above, or I should say “shots.” One of the problems often encountered while gathering these night photos is the uneven illumination. The exposure for the gas station was literally half of what was required for the rest of the shot. Accordingly, it’s actually two shots welded together, which you can get away with doing if you’re using a tripod and the camera is in a fixed position. Luckily, the 7 was delayed during the longer exposure so it renders as something other than a streak of lights.
Formerly common commercial establishments seen in NYC were gas stations. When the fires of gentrification begin to be stoked in any neighborhood, large footprint businesses like gas stations are usually amongst the first to go. Supermarkets too. A point has been made in recent years to record their location and appearance.
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“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
bewildered shakings
Barren, broken, dispossessed… that’s me!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Having successfully avoided garnering the attention of those vampires who conspire and dwell in the steel rafters of the elevated subways along Jackson Avenue, one found himself immersed in the tumult of Queens Plaza. Given my particularly medieval sense of criminal justice, I’ve always thought this area an excellent location for getting cruel and unusual as far as punishment goes. Rapist? Yup, we suspend the perp from the elevated in one of those iron cages which the Ottomans liked to use, naked. Jackson Avenue could become the Appian Way of Queens, with lines of crucified child molesters providing an ad hoc barrier shielding a protected bike lane. I’d want to see Corrections Officers dress properly for this task, however. Shirtless, with black hoods and leather wristbands, carrying flails and whips. Non violent offenders – the embezzlers, grifters, real estate agents, and other con artists – could be collared and team tied onto leads like oxen, to pull buses of commuters to and from Queens Plaza – a climate friendly form of incarceration and a transit improvement. Win!
Why not, everything is flippity flop crazy in this country right now.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the things I like about Queens Plaza is that all of the plans which anyone in Manhattan have ever come up with for “fixing Queens” are on display. The ground isn’t the ground, rather it’s either the roof of a subway station or it’s part of a truss bridge overflying a rail yard. You’ve got a horrible excuse for a park stuck in the middle of a traffic nightmare caused by around 170,000 vehicle trips a day, a set of post industrial environmental nightmares which have recently seen high density apartment houses built atop them, and a dripping set of shrieking subway tracks where two distinct elevated lines converge. The rail yard, incidentally, is a New York State Superfund site, and has been named as a responsible party in the Federal Superfund site at Newtown Creek, which is about a half mile away.
Can you think of a better place to get “cruel and unusual”?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One such as myself suffers from a complete emotional and physical numbness, and is given to withdraw and isolate himself from social interactions due to the hopelessness of it all. I’ve always been poor at social adjustments, bad at handling life when it’s going well, and disappointed in the other humans and their silly ideations. This crushes any sense of compassion or empathy in me, except when it concerns the welfare of animals and small children. It’s why I prefer to wander the streets of Queens at night, and alone, cutting endlessly through the January dark. It’s why I’m drawn to Queens Plaza, where I can get psychologically cruel and unusual on myself.
Seriously, though, watch out for those vampires.
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Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
looming up
Continuing a night time stroll down Jackson Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For generations have the children of Queens cried out in anguish and despair that they were denied their birthright – a chance to live in a small to medium sized but quite expensive apartment in or near Queens Plaza. Luckily, the powers that be over in Manhattan heard the children’s pleas and have answered their prayers. The under construction structure pictured above will be capped off by an “infinity pool,” which should answer another group’s longings – specifically the statistically relevant number of people who have always wanted to swim in a pool high above Queens Plaza. It’s a magical place, after all.
I get nostalgic for the porn shops and hookers, personally. They really dressed the place up, back in the day.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The stretch of Jackson Avenue lying betwixt Queens Plaza and 31st street is just horrible. You’ve got security fences and fortress walls on one side of the street, and long featureless construction fences on the other. A dizzying amount of automotive traffic occupies the center, and above there’s the tormenting sound of steel subway wheels grinding against the elevated rails. Jackson Avenue is too dark, and too bright, all at the same time. Everything is a confusion. It’s terrifying crossing the street, as every intersection is rumbling with traffic waiting to spring forth. Also, there’s vampires hiding up there in the steel.
God almighty, how I love places like this.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Dormitory style living awaits just a few blocks away, where all of that traffic – both automotive and locomotive – is coincidentally heading towards. Queens Plaza is where an automotive choke point turn off of Jackson Avenue carries you towards the onramps of the Queensboro Bridge. It’s also where the Flushing line subway conjoins with the Astoria service, so you’ve got that extra bit of steel rail sound to contemplate. I could not hear anything playing on the headphones jammed in my ears while shooting these photos, which indicates just how loud Queens Plaza actually is.
There’s lots and lots of new construction here, so the kids of Queens can finally live the dream. There’s that.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
The Newtown Pentacle 