The Newtown Pentacle

Thursday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

My Pal Val and I met up, after I flew in from Pittsburgh. She picked me up at LaGuardia airport, and we rode on the NYC Ferry from Astoria to Manhattan’s Pier 11. We then marched over to the Staten Island Ferry and were soon on… Staten Island… now you’re caught up.

I was absolutely famished, with the last caloric installation having occurred some 400 miles west of NYC, in Pittsburgh at about two in the morning. There’s only so far that a homemade egg sandwich is going to carry you, so we decided to grab some eats while in St. George.

That’s the predicate of how I ended up ordering a $20 Wagyu Beef burger at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. It was a good burger, but no burger is worth $20 except to a weary traveler in need of a hot shot of fat and protein to fill his empty fuel tank.

Good news about this spot were the views, which were spectacular.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

It was nice seeing the familiar ‘color way’ heraldries of NYC’s tug fleets again. Val and I finished our luncheon, and headed back into the terminal to catch a big orange boat back to Manhattan. Along the way, we spotted multiple tugs waiting their turn at dock.

My day was at roughly at the median point, and after landing in Manhattan, Val and I would be splitting up. She needed to catch a ferry back to Astoria to fetch her car, and I would be plunging right up the middle of Manhattan Island on the subway towards Midtown.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

A couple of last shots of the maritime world were gathered, and I adjusted the intricate web of straps arranged about the torso. I was carrying a week’s worth of clothes in addition to my camera bag, and the camera itself was in my hand. My usual formula for this sort of ‘heavy carry’ looks like an old timey soldier’s setup – the camera and the clothes bag straps arranged in an X shape across my chest, with the knapsack/camera bag shoulder straps locking the two other straps into place while I was moving about.

We arrived back on Manhattan Island, and Val and I bid each other adieu.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I didn’t necessarily miss the subway all these months, and my only thoughts about the subject while sitting in that wheelchair were ‘glad I don’t have to deal with the subway right now.’

One decided to get off the Subway at Herald Square, and walk from 34th to 42nd in order to get to Grand Central Terminal. At least it used to be a terminal, before the LIRR opened up down below.

Does that reclassify the place as a station/terminal now? The terms are specific. For most of its existence, the last stop on Metro North (a public passenger service, nationalized from private rail companies by the noted Liberal and Socialist President Richard Nixon) was here, hence terminal.

Saying that, 7 train subway service has been passing through here for quite a long stretch, but that didn’t make it a ‘station.’ It’s all very confusing.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Leaving ‘the system,’ I stepped back into the sunlight after riding the R to the 34th street hellmont, which is just a slight bit better experience than the one at 42nd street. I had swapped lenses while on the subway, and reentered the street level milieu with a 16mm wide angle prime on the camera. I wanted to ‘take it all in.’

The plan from this point involved getting to Grand Central and catching a Metro North train up to my buddy’s house in Cold Spring, upstate. That’s where I’d be spending the night, and given that I’d been awake for something like fourteen hours at this point, I was growing pretty fatigued.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

My toes were pointed in the correct direction, and thereby I followed them. Grand Central was a 15-20 minute walk away (I’m moving a LOT slower than I used to, although the ankle was not at all getting in my way, my legs are still somewhat atrophied from the long recovery period) and I was intent on getting upstate and out of the City as quickly as possible.

More tomorrow.

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