commencing to
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One can never resist grabbing shots of the high steel of the Long Island Expressway when I’m moving through the “empty corridor.”
“Blighting Long Island City since 1939” – they should put that on a sign.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a reason I call this area the “empty corridor.”
Who cares anymore? I keep on saying that to myself these days. I’m in the process of “checking out” right now. Severing ties seems to be the order of the day, as I prepare to separate from NYC. I see fire shooting out of a manhole cover, I do nothing and…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Well, unfortunately, I’m still me and I’m still here.
On the day that this post was written in mid August, for instance, a downed signal light on Northern Blvd. and a looming sewer backup issue were reported to relevant local authorities. I have a sense, however, that beginning in 2023 – Western Queens is going to be consumed by a series of easily fixable problems without me being able to reach out into agency land to get them to notice things spotted “in the field.” If Astoria ends up falling into the river, you’ll say “man, wish Mitch was still here.”
Saying that, I really don’t care anymore. Somebody else’s problem.
Hey, look at that – an Amtrak train set heading into Manhattan from LIC’s Sunnyside Yards! Neato.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
During the entire walk on August 10th, which started out quite comfortable, the atmospheric humidity was rising at a precipitous rate. Having arrived at the Hunters Point Avenue station, one nevertheless masked up and headed down into the sweating concrete bunker below.
My habit in recent months has been to use the 7 Line to go from subterranean to elevated and land on high at Queensboro Plaza. A transfer over to the N or W Astoria Line keeps me elevated and up high all the way to Astoria’s Broadway, and then I scuttle about ten blocks back to HQ. Yeah, I could transfer at Court Square for the M…
Part of my “Doctor Nerdlington” persona is extremely satisfied by executing a series of transfers when using the subways.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The 7 service is pretty good these days, in my experience. Every ten minutes or so, you’ve got one arriving.
I was planning on hanging around Queensboro Plaza for a spell, given the relative infrequency of the Astoria line trains, but the MTA’s ways are wild, and many,
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Arriving at the platform, an Astoria bound train was sitting there, so that funny train rapid dash that we New Yorkers execute occurred, the one followed by the realization that the train would going nowhere for a few minutes and you standing there feeling foolish for having rushed.
Off to Broadway went I, heading eastwards back to HQ and the sweet embrace of Our Lady of the Pentacle.
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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.
The Newtown Pentacle 
Amtrak goes to Boston via the Hells Gate Bridge. You can see Paragon Honda from the train. So why don’t we have it stop in Queens and Bronx? Boston has three stations. Now, If I want to avoid Penn, I go to New Rochelle.
Louis Merris
September 30, 2022 at 2:05 pm