The Newtown Pentacle

Wednesday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

2022 started off here at Newtown Pentacle with a particularly long early morning walk from the Brooklyn Navy Yard to Greenpoint’s Newtown Creek coast line. The encampments under the Brooklyn Queens Expressway discussed in “he shuns” were eliminated by a combination of Police and Sanitation Department action about a month after this post, when the Mayor and the Bicycle People both decided that there should be a bike lane on Meeker Avenue and “fuck the homeless.” Swagger!

The walk continued from the Navy Yard, and then I had arrived at Newtown Creek’s “Penny Bridge” Meeker Avenue street end. My increasingly disillusioned POV – regarding the City of Greater New York – was discussed in “he seeks” which saw the start of a certain thematic statement which would carry through the entire year.

Nothing matters, and nobody cares.

Regardless of this growing ennui, I still had my duties to perform on Newtown Creek – which as in the case of “he flees” – involved introducing a Grad student to the Creek.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

My growing interest in Pittsburgh caused me to travel out and explore the place again, and write about what I was seeing, as in the post “dawning love” from the end of January. By this point, Our Lady of the Pentacle and I knew we wanted to move somewhere else, but hadn’t made the decision as to where yet.

In February, I was scuttling around Queens and Long Island City at night again. “fantastic figment” visited Sunnyside Yards, which like the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek, was always on my shot list when leaving HQ.

“puerile kind” paid a nocturnal visit to Hells Gate on a foggy night in Astoria. “amorphous amenity” found me wandering back towards home on the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge over Newtown Creek. “limitless limitations” discusses the time I met an Opossum while scuttling my way over towards the Kosciuszcko Bridge.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Throughout the pandemic months and as it ended up – years, one maintained a personal discipline of walking the camera around every other day. One day “in” and one day “out.” My strategy to avoid the various disease vectors involved moving around at night, and visiting industrial hellscapes where nobody in their right minds would find themselves. “bodily emanations” is a fairly typical post for this period of time. So is “stony plateau,” but that one was shot in Astoria instead of Industrial Maspeth.

You want social distancing? Pfah. Welcome to Newtown Creek at night, asshole.

“psychopathic institution” details what I saw in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section after receiving word that a barge had sunk in Newtown Creek. “perilous disposition” is one of dozens of posts which focused in on the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek in Long Island City. Another Dutch Kills post, “harmless stupidity,” emanates from the time that I decided to shoot the place at sunrise, on what would turn out to be the second coldest day of 2022 in NYC.

Frostbite in six of ten fingers and three of the toes was the consequence of that decision.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

A humble narrator was really on a roll during this interval, photography wise, if I do say so myself.

The decision to leave NYC had been agreed upon by Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself in early March, which informed the rest of the year for me. We had a plan. At that point it became a logistics problem, and logistics are one of my specialities.

Now that there was a theoretical end to my endless scuttling about in LIC, one decided that what I really needed to do was to create one last catalog of photos of my little empire of dirt. Efforts were redoubled, and one began to push his comfort levels and boundaries.

“Every time might be the last time” joined with “Nothing matters and nobody cares” as the governing mantras.

“hellish hours” detailed one of my frequent visits to Sunnyside Yards, “somnolent stillness” went to Flushing, “laminar dissection” is from Industrial Maspeth, and the less viewed sections of Dutch Kills were recorded in “plumbed descent.”

– photo by Mitch Waxman

My last dragon to slay, as I described a collapsing Dutch Kills bulkhead along LIC’s 29th street to Our Lady of the Pentacle, began to catch my eye in “yellow rays.” Throughout the year, I never missed a chance to ride the 7 train, as I did in “all observant.”

The 7 is, far and away, the most photogenic of all of NYC’s subway lines.

April began with another dark sky visit to Hells Gate in “uncertain outlines,” I took a walk over the Queensboro Bridge in “perfumed jungles,” got some nice shots of the Kosciuszcko Bridge in “whirling fancy,” and in “assignable colour,” “sentiently over,” and for “more hexagonal” I took a night time walk over the section of the Triborough Bridge which I had some responsibility for in my community board Chair of Transportation committee role.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

“those obeisances” was when I revealed the horrible truth about all of those ‘not in service’ MTA buses that shuttle about at night – from Cemetery to Cemetery – all across the Newtown Pentacle.

“secrets stood” paid a visit to Queens Plaza at night, where vampires lurk in the steel rafters of the elevated subway tracks.

More “2022’s best of,” here at Newtown Pentacle tomorrow.

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