Archive for January 29th, 2021
further liberation
Friday odds and ends.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few remaining shots from a recent scuttle across Astoria on are on offer today. Pictured above is one of the archways supporting the NY Connecting Railroad tracks on Astoria’s North side. The NYCRR allows for a heavy rail connection between the rail system of Long Island and via the Hell Gate Bridge – the North American continent via the Bronx. Other than loading freight rail cars onto barges, this is the only way Brooklyn/Queens/Nassau/Suffolk has to connect with freight rail. Note: when you’re talking about arched causeways made of concrete, you can use the word “via” all you want as it’s historically appropriate.
You jackholes spend all your time worrying about parking. I worry about the most strategically important spots in NYC, and look to heavy infrastructure as being the only way to forestall the climatological apocalypse predicted for the end of this century.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The closer I get to all the doomsday scenarios – which all seem to revolve around the four alchemical elements of fire, water, air, and earth – the more I realize that the only way to ensure that our civilization doesn’t collapse is for us to “America the fuck out of the problem” by rebuilding and fortifying the sort of infrastructure that our wiser forebears left behind for us. Right now, 95% of everything we eat, wear, or use is brought to us by truck from Port Elizabeth Newark over in New Jersey.
This needs to change. It’s inefficient and overly expensive to truck in masses of existential cargo, and we need to figure out a better way. Rail, barge, something else for bringing bulk goods to warehouses, and use trucks only for the “last mile.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church, which is found on 30th Avenue here in Astoria. I’ve never been inside this building, despite having lived fairly close to it for nearly 20 years. I’m waiting for someone to invite me in, as I’m kind of like a vampire in that regard. I have no searing critique to offer, as I find its architecture satisfying.
Something different next week, have a good weekend, lord and ladies.
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, January 25th. 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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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 