The Newtown Pentacle

Friday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

After a brief epiphany of light, the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself became occluded by atmospheric clouds again, but one kept on shooting the scenes observable along the Newtown Creek, from up on the Kosciuszcko Bridge’s pedestrian walkway.

As a tip – it’s critical to not allow any part of your camera, whether it be lens barrel or tripod leg, to touch the fence of the bridge when you thrust the lens through. The fence is always vibrating due to the traffic passing by on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, and said vibration will transmit into the camera and ruin your shots. The concrete “ground” you and the tripod are standing on is vibrating too, of course, but less severely than the metal fence is.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Looking down at Queens side Penny Bridge, that’s Review Avenue running alongside Calvary Cemetery on the right and the mirror like Newtown Creek on the left.

As above, so below, the occultists will tell you.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One lingered on the walkway as the gloom spread and the sky dimmed. The lights came on in Manhattan’s largely empty office buildings.

My beloved Creek…

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Before switching the setup back over to “night time” handheld mode, I cracked out one final exposure focused in on the Kinder Morgan oil terminal at Greenpoint’s Apollo Street. It used to be the BP Amoco oil terminal until just a few years ago, and before that it was part of the campus of the Mobil/Standard Oil Company’s refinery operations. That’s where the oil spill in Brooklyn was discovered by a passing Coast Guard helicopter in the 1970’s.

A tank farm like Kinder Morgan’s operation stores and distributes various flavors of refined petroleum product. The oil terminal gets filled up and supplied with product by maritime barges, and emptied by semi tanker trucks which make local deliveries to homes and gas stations. Generally speaking, the tank farms which supply the barges are found along the Kill Van Kull waterway in New Jersey. There’s also pipelines which feed product into the facility.

Regarding handheld vs. tripod mode, it is extremely annoying carrying the camera when it’s attached to the tripod. It takes two hands, and it looks like I’m carrying a rifle.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I’ve noticed this door before, of course, which sits about thirty to forty feet over the roadway of the BQE. It’s seemingly inaccessible.

I’d like to start a rumor that this is the door to a vault where Andrew Cuomo kept his secret archives.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Behind Cuomo’ s Red Door… that sounds good, huh? Shelly Silver’s sins, Heastie’s haughty pictures, Gianaris’ goof balls… they’re all filed away up there behind the scarlet steel should Cuomo ever find a way to manifest himself again in the flesh. Word has it he’s currently a bodiless consciousness which poltergeists Tish James’ offices.

Who can guess, all there is, that might be hidden behind Cuomo’s Scarlet Steel door, high over the malefic waters of the Newtown Creek?

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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.