Archive for August 2021
strange tributes
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Dutch Kills is a tributary of the fearsome Newtown Creek, a Federal Superfund site some 3.8 miles long that provides a border for the New York City Boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens for the first three miles of its course. The waterway is polluted by industry and open sewers, and there’s a bed of sediment at the bottom composed of coal tar, petroleum derivates, human waste, and everything else that’s ever fallen into the water. This sediment is called “Black Mayonnaise.” The Dutch Kills tributary branches off of the main waterway about 3/4 of a mile from its intersection with the East River, flows entirely within the confines of Long Island City, and is about .7 – .8 of a mile long.
I’m obsessed with that little tree growing out from under a factory along the bulkheads. It’s a Tree of Paradise aka “Princess Tree,” I’m told.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All of those little streaks in the water, along the rotting bulkheads which I focused in on, are fishies. What you can hear at night, from all over this industrial canal, are the slaps and splashes of predator fish picking off these little bug eaters who gather around light sources. You can also hear passing ATV’s and muscle cars with modified exhaust systems, but that’s a different post.
I spent a bit of time hereabouts recently, waving the camera around and investigating what might be hiding in the shadows at Dutch Kills. As long time readers here at Newtown Pentacle will attest, a humble narrator is endlessly fascinated by this section of the greater Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Water fowl, these Canada Geese are dicks. All Canada Geese are dicks, and I’m racist towards them. Specist, actually, I guess. At the very least, I’m extremely prejudiced against them.
Wow, remember when there was a difference between prejudiced and racist, as in there was a level of severity for being an asshole to other people? I was having a conversation with a younger friend of mine about this lately, one which centered on how you bleed pressure out of a closed system. There’s different levels of murder, for instance – manslaughter, homicide, etc.
At any rate, the Canada Geese are ultimately downy piles of meat, and what I was doing at Dutch Kills on this warm night was searching for a carnivore which legends say hunt these waters. Looking for a hunter? Focus in on the prey.
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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.
snouted denizens
Monday
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– photo by Mitch Waxman
Experimental in nature, the images in today’s post are actually hundreds of images wound into YouTube video files. I set the camera up to capture time lapses of the storm setting itself up on Saturday night. Was hoping for lightning, but there you go. The one above is looking westwards from Astoria right about sunset.
X
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When the storm really got going, and it turns out that Saturday broke the record in NYC for a single day’s worth of rain, I had to move the camera to a somewhat safer and drier position. All of these were captured at HQ – by the way – where a humble narrator was bunkered down, drinking tea and eating toast. This one looks at the sewer grate on my corner as it drank up hundreds and hundreds of gallons of water.
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– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is from a little earlier in the evening, looking southwest along Astoria’s Broadway as the clouds and humidity built up. One was quite aware of his ear drums at this point in the evening, as the atmospheric pressure built and the storm neared. Back tomorrow with something else.
Also, tonight is the actual, calendrical, Night of the Living Dead.
“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.
mighty silence
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Long Island City is one of those places where a constancy of tumult and change can be expected. It’s photographically interesting to me, and even though you’ve walked down either this block or that one a hundred times before I guarantee that there’s some feature or weird thing you probably haven’t noticed before. My pal Ms. Heather over in Greenpoint coined the term “street furniture” for finds like the one above.
As is often the case, one had to stand in the street to get this shot. As is also often the case, the minute I decided to step off the curb, traffic volumes on this particular street rose to downtown Manhattan 1960’s levels.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m always on the lookout for evidence of Mad Science or Supervillain lairs in Long Island City. High real estate valuations have priced most of the lesser villains out of LIC in recent years. You have to be a Luthor, or a Cobblepott or Osborne, to be able to afford mad sciencing here these days. Most of the lesser villains have moved their operations north, south, and east. Edward Nigma is out on Staten Island, as are Kraven the Hunter and the Crimson Dynamo. Word has it that Kiteman is now operating out of a split level ranch house in Bayonne. I wonder what villain is operating out of those repurposed shipping containers pictured above, making monsters.
I’d like to live in a world where getting bit by a radioactive spider doesn’t just give you blood poisoning and or cancer.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I always remind people to respect the traffic in LIC, as even the traffic signs aren’t safe hereabouts. I always follow official instructions to the letter, so when the signage above points a certain way, I obey the edict. That’s why I ended up walking into a brick wall.
The brick wall didn’t give me super powers or anything, just scrapes and a bruise.
“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.
terrifying delight
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sunset is fairly spectacular this time of year, if you get your timing correct. A recent scuttle found one heading towards the familiar destination of Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kills tributary in Long Island City’s Degnon Terminal section. This is a familiar path for me, and is one of the regular night time walks which I’ve been engaging in throughout the endless pandemic months.
That water tower pictured above is on the roof of the Standard Motor Products Building, which also hosts the Brooklyn Grange Urban farm.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When I was crossing the Honeywell Truss over the Sunnyside Yards, which is one of the street bridges spanning the rail complex which connects Skillman Avenue with Northern Blvd., I got the fiery skies I was hoping for.
One was, of course, about a half hour late relative as to where I wanted to be when the sky went orange. I really wanted to be near the water, but had a bit of trouble dragging my butt out of HQ on time. This is one of the effects that the pandemic months has created for me, an inability to rush about.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s been a while since I’ve left HQ with the entire photo kit on my back – y’know, the tripod and everything. A point was made of intentionally using my zoom lenses while walking, since most of what I’ve been shooting over the last few months has been accomplished with two prime lenses. Given that I’ve brought a long lens out of retirement, I’m trying to mix things up a bit and “reach out and touch something” with it.
As mentioned, a bit of travel is in the cards for me in September. Definitely going to be visiting the pretty city of Pittsburgh with its amazing collection of bridges and funiculars, Burlington up in Vermont is on my list, as is Washington D.C. If I can make it work, I might come back from Pittsburgh via Chicago. I also have a wedding to attend in a rural section of New York State next month. Exciting, no?
“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.
glutless zeal
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s an example of a Flopwhistle’s Water Hen pictured above. Given that I’m always wrong about what kind of a bird a bird is, one has undertaken the practice of just assigning random names to the various avians I encounter. This particular “bird on a wire” was hanging around HQ here in Astoria during the 72 hours I got to spend quarantining myself from the exposure to Covid which offered by an anti-vaxxer friend of mine. Grrr.
This particular person received a verbal dressing down the other day. For those of you who haven’t experienced what it’s like when a humble narrator drops the facade and stops pretending to be a nice guy… it ain’t pretty. I’ve been told it’s like having a thesaurus yelling at you, since I also drop all pretense of colloquialism and the carefully constructed artifice of my working class persona.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This week, since nobody who works for New York State – nor Con Edison or Spectrum cable – can visualize the hornets nest of dead wire and overburdened utility poles without photos of it, one has to go out and perform a photographic survey of the ludicrous situation hanging over our heads. Literally the entire regional economy hangs off of utility poles, and it can be derailed with a single fallen tree. Y’all want it, you’re gonna get it. Then you can found a blue ribbon committee that recommends things which will never happen.
I am so tired of fighting, lords and ladies.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, a negative Covid test for both Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself has ensured that we haven’t been derailed from the extensive travel schedule which is in the works for September. My anti-vaxx friend’s defenses of his perceived “freedoms” came close to attenuating my own freedom – see? I’ve got an Amtrak package which I’ll be spending in that interval, and bringing the camera to new and different locales for a change of pace. It’s been so long since I left NYC…
Vacation, all I ever wanted…
“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 