Archive for July 1st, 2025
Old friends
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One was finishing out the second day of shooting on a recent trip back home to NYC, but I had to make a late afternoon stop at the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge – spanning the Dutch Kills tributary of the fabulous Newtown Creek – to see my little tree of heaven.
Long time readers may recall that charting the growth of this tree became something of an obsession for me during the Covid lockdowns.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s officially a Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima), and it has been sprouting out from under that factory for a few years now. They make lady’s face paint and other cosmetic goo in there, I’m told.
My efforts were nearly over, having got started at about seven in the morning. I still had some socializing to experience later on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One last shot, and I summoned a rideshare to carry my carcass from Dutch Kills in LIC over to Woodside. I did think about just taking the train, but that was at least a twenty minute walk from this spot and frankly – I was fairly exhausted at this particular moment.
The car came, and the air conditioning within was quite a relief after an entire day of being out in the heat and carrying all of my possessions around. I was still shlepping a bag of clothing around with me, after all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Next stop was, as mentioned, in Woodside. The plan was to meet up with some of my knuckleheads at Donovan’s Pub for burgers and beers. I was early, and didn’t want to ‘get started’ by myself, so I headed over to the noisome little triangle park found at the corner of Roosevelt and 58th to wait out a half hour interval.
I affixed the wide angle 16mm lens to the camera, and tried to ignore the guy who was washing a slash wound to his hand in a water fountain. Dude had a lot of gravy inside him, and left a bunch of it painted onto that fountain.
This is why Queens can’t have anything nice.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Old number seven was rampaging through every ten minutes or so, high above on the green steel. Everything was madness, and noise, and chaos, and punctuated by automobile horns. As mentioned several times, my environmental adaptations to NYC seem to have worn off. It’s been a while since I’ve heard anything quite like this and it was overwhelming.
I don’t want you to think I’ve gone soft in Pennsylvania, instead my brain no longer spends quite as much time pruning and selecting sensory data as it used to back in NYC. In Astoria, for instance, I learned that I could sleep through an automatic weapons long barrel gunfight that was happening directly below my bedroom window.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After dinner, the group split up, and I left with Hank the Elevator guy. I’d be staying at Casa Del Hank in Middle Village for the remainder of my trip. We got back to his place, hung out for a bit, and I was soon passed out in his spare room. Day three of this trip was going to be a real lulu.
Back tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“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 