The Newtown Pentacle

Up on the Pulaski Bridge, in today’s post.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One was desirous of capturing the current Empire State Building lighting display, meant to honor the efforts of First Responders and Medical Staff during the CoronAmerica crisis, so a longish walk was embarked upon. Well, longish by the current standard… I ain’t exactly walking to Red Hook right now, if you know what I’m saying. One kept to the shadows, walking in a westerly direction from Astoria along streets and byways which are unpopulated during normal times, and soon found myself shlepping and scuttling up the Pulaski’s pedestrian path, connecting Jackson Avenue and 11th street in Long Island City with McGuinness Blvd. and Freeman Street in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section. Annoyingly, new construction in LIC has obscured the view of the Empire State from one of the normal “stations of the cross” which I’ve been visiting for better than a decade, but I managed to get my shot nevertheless.

I wouldn’t mind all of this new construction so much if it was at all visually interesting, or didn’t embrace the banal at every opportunity. Seriously, you invest tens of millions in waterfront development and what you build is another soulless glass box? How’s about a rhombus, maybe? A cone, or cylinder, perhaps?

– photo by Mitch Waxman

My beloved Newtown Creek hasn’t dried up or been filled in during the quarantine, which is good news for me. The shot above looks north, towards LIC, along the pathway of the double bascule Pulaski Bridge and its bridge house. When all of this is over, I have got to find a way to get inside of that bridge house and take some photos. I’m fairly curious about the “works” within. I know who to call.

Despite the aforementioned quarantine, there were a substantial number of automobiles crossing the Pulaski, although bicycle and pedestrian traffic was virtually non existent. It was difficult to find a thirty second interval during which to actuate the camera without a passing truck or suv rattling the bridge’s structure.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Having to alter the exposure triangle for these shots from my normal tripod/night “go to” actually allowed me to capture the weird luminance of the Kosciuszcko Bridge, for once. The Kosciuszcko is about two miles away, and this shot looks down Paidge Avenue in Greenpoint past the sewer plant towards the thing. My lens was comically zoomed out.

My walk on this particular excursion found me entering Brooklyn for the first time in at least a month, whereupon a circuitous path was followed. Avoiding population centers is a big part of the game plan for my constitutional walks.

Cooties.

Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the end of the week of Monday, April 6th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates as we move into April and beyond, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.

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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.