Archive for July 21st, 2020
spiritual rapport
Tuesday affects us all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned yesterday, a trip to Randalls Wards Island was recently enacted, during which I saw a bird – pictured above. The history of these islands are – at best – a long and convoluted tale during which they changed names several times over many hundreds of years. Great Barent Island, anyone? Suffice to say that the most important thing in the history of these East River Islands was the day that Robert Moses decided to make them his base of operations. A tributary of the East River – Little Hell Gate it was called – separated the two islands and it was filled in at his command in the early 1960’s to create a single land mass. Moses’ Triborough Bridge operation was based here as of 1936, making this the actual “House of Moses.”
There’s an amazing number of playing fields and pedestrian paths on the island, and the whole scene is framed in by the Hell Gate and Triborough Bridges.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking across a small waterway called Bronx Kill found on the northern side of the place, which is where that bird was noticed, that’s a CSX engine moving a garbage train around. The tracks lead westwards towards a Waste Management Facility, then eastwards and north towards to some unknown destination. That side of the water is an unknown country which local children call “Bronx.”
Seriously, what I know about the Bronx wouldn’t fill a thimble. I’ve been saving it for my old age. I can tell you a lot about the other four boroughs, but the Bronx? I can tell you where it is, basically. Ok, it’s Port Morris, but it’s nice not knowing everything about something for once.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking more or less westwards along the Bronx Kill from a small pedestrian span called the Randalls Island Connector, in the distance that’s a part of mighty Triborough. Specifically, I’m fairly sure that’s it’s the Truss Bridge section of the Triborough Bridge complex. The visible arch is part of the Hell Gate bridge trackage. I wonder if it’s still called the NY Connecting Railroad on this side of the river, as it is on the Queens side?
More tomorrow.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, July 20th. 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 here, 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.
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