actual anatomy
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, after taking the train to Long Island City and then walking across the Pulaski Bridge to Brooklyn’s Greenpoint on a misty and foggy day, the atmosphere broke and it was suddenly clear and sunny. I had reconfigured the camera to handheld mode and began scuttling back to Queens.
“Photowalk” is pretty much what it sounds like, as a pursuit. You walk along, head pivoting around. You look up, down, and all around. If something catches your eye, you grab a shot.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the casualties of the real estate frenzy are large footprint businesses like supermarkets and gas stations. The speculators buy up these properties and will sit on them for years, hidden away behind green plywood fences. It’s easy to get a permit to demolish something, harder to get one to build. Thereby, properties like this gas station on the corner of McGuinness Blvd. at Greenpoint Avenue can sit empty and unused for years.
The signage on a new development building next door includes the motto “where you are is who you are.” Thereby, residents of this building are a high volume traffic corridor three blocks from a sewer plant and five to six blocks in either direction from a federal superfund site or the Brooklyn Queens Expressway – that’s who they are.
A 2 bedroom in that building is going for $5,900 a month, so also wealthy and dumb. Yes, you read that correctly, the annual rent for a 2 bedroom in Greenpoint on McGuinness Blvd. at Greenpoint Avenue is nearly $71,000.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is when you exhale loudly, making some sort of “wow” sound.
You ask why I’m moving out of NYC at the end of this year? The Real Estate people are just getting warmed up. Give it five years and some enterprising politician will begin to suggest having the City or State subsidize the north of $10,000 a month rents that are coming.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There was a Law and Order TV shoot getting ready for an evening’s effort, and I walked through the setting up area. There were a few interesting vehicles that seemed to part of the production, but this pink Jeep limousine was so outré that I couldn’t resist.
As Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor proclaimed in the classic “Superman 2” movie, however, a humble narrator kept on reminding himself “North, Ms. Tessmacher, north!” A scuttling did I go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Along my path, I encountered this trio of black cats with yellow eyes. Normally, this is my omen that it’s going to be a good deal for photos, but since I’d been actively shooting for a few hours, I thought my day was pretty much over.
Wrong again, Mr. Waxman.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I never miss a chance to crack out a few shots of the sewer plant in Greenpoint, especially when the light is nice.
Honestly, I thought this was pretty much going to be my last few shots of the day, but that all changed when I was crossing the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge into Queens.
More on that tomorrow.
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The Newtown Pentacle 
You are, perhaps, being polite in your characterization of those willing to pay $71K a year to live atop Lake Mobil and down the street from the former radiological establishment. You’re certainly being sensible in leaving.
Disclosure: I may be biased, though, as I had an entire floor to myself in Greenpoint but left when my rent was bumped to $1650.
ttu
August 30, 2022 at 11:36 am
The lighting always changes. Ansel Adams had his Half Dome at Yosemite. You have the Digestor Eggs in Greenpoint.
georgetheatheist . . . cheese said
August 30, 2022 at 12:26 pm