The Newtown Pentacle

Friday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Since your humble narrator is kind of married to his car these days, due to recovering from the injuries associated with a broken ankle, I’ve decided to try and make the best of it. While moving through my day, the camera bag is sitting in the passenger seat with the zippers open and when something catches my eye – and I can do so safely – an exposure is cracked out. In the case of the shot above, I was moving through a Pittsburgh neighborhood called ‘South Side Flats.’

I’ve had to get clever with Google Maps, btw. Its calculations often send you hurtling directly into traffic jams that the program itself creates since it’s telling thousands of other drivers to go the same way as you. Additionally, whereas the route it suggests is often ‘mile for mile’ the shortest one, the software seldom takes into account that trading a mile or so in extra travel time means that you don’t end up in a snarled traffic jam on one of the bridges leading out of the city at Rush Hour.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

When I lived in Brooklyn with Mom and Dad, the old man’s health had degenerated to the point where the docs told him that taking the subway to work was a bad idea for him. Couldn’t do the stairs anymore. I should also mention that where I grew up on the Flatlands/Canarsie border, we were equidistant between the 2/5 train terminus at Brooklyn College and the L train terminus at Rockaway Parkway. Either route meant a 30 minute bus ride just to get to the train, followed by an hour long ride into town. It was then decided that Pop was going to drive back and forth.

The old man got handicap plates right around when I was a senior in college, and I abandoned my commute (used to take the Command Bus ‘BM-1’ back and forth) in favor of driving in with Pops to first school and later to an Ad Agency office in Midtown. We’d switch off on driving. He always insisted on the direct approach, literally fighting Flatbush Avenue traffic all the way to the Manhattan Bridge. Me? I’d take us through Crown Heights and along Eastern Parkway, turn right on Nostrand and then left on Flushing and that led to a seldom used ‘side door’ to get on the bridge. When Dad drove, it took at least an hour. I’d get us there in 35 minutes without speeding. Basically, my Dad would have happily gone whichever way Google told him to, whereas I’m convinced that I’m smarter than Google – at least contextually.

I find the maps app very useful, but it does tend to put you on highways and routes you ‘over hill and dale’ when it doesn’t need to. In the case of the particular day these shots were taken, I was specifically avoiding its suggestions in order to drive on streets which I knew wouldn’t be iced over, or ones that offered high prominences to cross which would mean driving down a severe incline on the other side in winter weather.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Back at HQ that night, after dinner, I decided that I wanted to set up the tripod and do a long shot looking back at the snow covered ‘community driveway’/alley behind mi casa. Alleys are given the street nomen ‘Way’ here. The alley itself is specifically referred to by the locals as a ‘paper alley’ which is technically the property of the Postal Service. My postman uses the front door, rather than the back, and whereas he seldom rings the bell it’s only one time, not twice. Yet another parable falls apart.

Back next week with (hopefully) some new stuff. Another snow event is meant to kick off tonight, but I’m literally dying to get out and do some shooting while on foot at this point, and leave the inert car parked while doing so.

One step, albeit a stiff and somewhat painful one, at a time.

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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.