Author Archive
moon men
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One found his boots scraping along the concrete of Railroad Avenue, back in February. A long walk was underway, and the camera’s shutter was a-whirring.
Railroad Avenue was where my pathway led.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
More evidence of the Queens Cobbler was observed. A probable serial killer who leaves behind single shoes to mark their efforts, I’ve been writing about the Cobbler for years. The Cobbler has even left personal messages for me in front of my own domicile.
Chilling, no?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just up the block from the Cobbler’s latest memento mori, yet another abandoned car was encountered. This one was electric, and tiny. Rumor has it that there’s a community of Homo Floresiensis who have recently moved into and taken up residence in Middle Village. Perhaps this was theirs? May I refer to Middle Village as the Shire now?
Really, the world I live in is so much more interesting than the real one.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I walked up a somewhat private road, past the former Van Iderstine rendering plant, and back out onto Review Avenue.
One wasn’t quite done with Dutch Kills, and since the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself was exiting the sky’s vault – that was what I was waiting for to complete my task.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shots in today’s post date back to the 12th of February, incidentally. As mentioned in prior posts, the usual three image posts will be cast aside for a bit, in favor of six shot ones until I manage to get back into sync with the actual calendar.
Also, just in case you don’t scroll all the way down to the bottom – The Newtown Creekathon is happening on April 10th.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Having looped back to Review Avenue, a humble narrator pointed his toes back in the direction that he started from – Dutch Kills.
Trucks, trucks, trucks. For some reason, I’m fascinated with trucks at the moment. Don’t know why, they just catch my eye.
The Newtown Creekathon returns!
On April 10th, the all day death march around Newtown Creek awakens from its pandemic slumber.
DOOM! DOOM! Fully narrated by Mitch Waxman and Will Elkins of Newtown Creek Alliance, this one starts in LIC at the East River, heads through Blissville, the happy place of Industrial Maspeth, dips a toe in Ridgewood and then plunges desperately into Brooklyn. East Williamsburgh and then Greenpoint are visited and a desperate trek to the East River in Brooklyn commences. DOOM! Click here for more information and to reserve a spot – but seriously – what’s wrong with you that you’re actually considering doing this? DOOM!
“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.
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Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Scuttling, always scuttling, from place to place with camera in hand. Filthy black raincoat flapping about in the poison wind. Sometimes, the light is absolutely glorious.
We pick up where last week left off, at the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek in Long Island City. One had set up the camera into its long exposure/landscape modality, with filter and tripod and the rest of the deal. Sunset was just getting underway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When leaving HQ, it had already been decided that this was going to be a long walk, and that a lot of ground would be covered. That’s the LIRR’S Cabin M railroad bridge, which was described in some detail in last Friday’s post.
Before you ask, this was a Sunday, and there’s virtually zero chance of getting in the way of freight rail operations along Newtown Creek on a Sunday.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a not exactly secret pathway along the water down here, between the two rail bridges on Dutch Kills. I seldom walk it, as it’s pretty obscure and were I to find myself in trouble down here I’d have a hard time explaining to the 911 operator where I was.
Saying that, I do roll through here occasionally.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s DB Cabin, another LIRR rail bridge, but one whose tracks are normally pretty active. It connects two freight rail yards across the waters of Dutch Kills, and carries the LIRR’s Lower Montauk tracks.
Kills is “old Dutch” for Creek, I’m told.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A new player has emerged in the Blissville yard, which is a good thing. Not sure what they do, but it’s good to see freight rail being embraced by industry.
One continued scuttling along in an easterly direction, towards the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured is DUGABO – Down under the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge Onramp. The surface street is called “Railroad Avenue.”
On my Amtrak travels last fall, I discovered that there’s a street called “Railroad Avenue” in nearly every City that I went looking for one in.
More tomorrow.
The Newtown Creekathon returns!
On April 10th, the all day death march around Newtown Creek awakens from its pandemic slumber.
DOOM! DOOM! Fully narrated by Mitch Waxman and Will Elkins of Newtown Creek Alliance, this one starts in LIC at the East River, heads through Blissville, the happy place of Industrial Maspeth, dips a toe in Ridgewood and then plunges desperately into Brooklyn. East Williamsburgh and then Greenpoint are visited and a desperate trek to the East River in Brooklyn commences. DOOM! Click here for more information and to reserve a spot – but seriously – what’s wrong with you that you’re actually considering doing this? DOOM!
“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.
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Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Scuttling, always scuttling. Camera in hand, filthy black raincoat flapping about in the poison wind, sometimes the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself hangs pregnantly in the vault of the sky.
I knew this was going to be kind of a long day for me, so my first steps involved using the Subway to cut a bit of walking off of the trip. The R carried me east to Jackson Heights, where a transfer to the 7 was enacted and one proceeded westward. My ultimate destination was the same place where every other bit of wind blown garbage goes – Newtown Creek. Specifically, the Dutch Kills tributary of the larger waterway found in Long Island City. One exited the Subway system at the Hunters Point Avenue stop and got busy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My first stop was to check in on the collapsing bulkhead along 29th street. Said collapse is causing the underpinnings of the adjoining roadway, the aforementioned 29th street, to empty out into the waterway. This is called undermining.
So far, my pals at Newtown Creek Alliance and I have managed to activate every single elected official in western Queens, from Borough President to dog catcher, about this issue. Interested in reading the actual signed letter we sent to Janno Lieber at MTA about the bulkhead? Click here for a Google docs link.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The odyssey since has involved a bunch of lawyers and an admission from MTA that this is, indeed, their property. No tangible or material progress has manifested itself yet, because the lawyers are still lawyering, and luckily the street hasn’t collapsed in on itself while we’re waiting for them to finish all that stuff up. Yet.
Nothing matters, and nobody cares.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My “artsy fartsy” section of the day could commence, after having captured reference shots of the bulkhead to show to the various entities who might own it or have a regulatory stake in it, one headed over to the Montauk Cutoff. It was, after all, nearly time for sunset.
I’m not one of those photographers who only shoot during sunrise or sunset, but if the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself is about to paint the sky with color, and you’re already out…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s Cabin M, the “abandoned” railroad drawbridge which is part of the Degnon Terminal Railway – aka the LIRR’s Montauk Cutoff – a similarly “abandoned” rail spur that used to connect Long Island Railroad’s Lower Montauk tracks along Newtown Creek to the nearby Sunnyside Yards, and the LIRR Main Line leading to Woodside and Jamaica. The reason MTA owns that bulkhead on 29th street is due to the bankruptcy of the national Penn Central Railroad company, which by the 1960’s owned LIRR and all the other private rail spurs in Long Island City. Richard Nixon nationalized the assets of Penn Central, with its passenger service becoming Amtrak and its freight business becoming Conrail, and their intra city or commuter rail operation was given to the states. Philadelphia created SEPTA, Massachusetts established the MBTA, and here in New York – Governor Nelson Rockefeller created the MTA. Rockefeller combined the bankrupt New York City Transit Authority’s Subway and Bus operations, as well as the profitable bridges and tunnels which he stole away from Robert Moses, into what he dubbed as the “MTA.”
Believe it or not – the paragraph above is a quick summary. I did a video about Sunnyside Yards a few years ago that discusses this complicated saga in some detail – click here for a YouTube link.
Cabin M, like the 29th street bulkhead, is infrastructure which MTA didn’t design or build but they’re responsible for maintaining it – maybe. Like I said, lawyers are lawyering.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s DB Cabin, a swing bridge which sits at the mouth of the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek. Before you ask, “Cabin” is railroad talk, I don’t know. The bridge connects two Lower Montauk track rail yards – Wheelspur and Blissville. Best date I’ve been able to find for it being built was 1919, but this structure replaced earlier ones. There’s been railroad tracks in this zone since at least the late 1860’s. Definitively, the date for rail in this zone – connecting Jamaica to the east with the industrial heartlands of Newtown Creek in Maspeth, Bushwick, and Ridgewood to the East River in the west is 1870.
Back next week with more, at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
The Newtown Creekathon returns!
On April 10th, the all day death march around Newtown Creek awakens from its pandemic slumber.
DOOM! DOOM! Fully narrated by Mitch Waxman and Will Elkins of Newtown Creek Alliance, this one starts in LIC at the East River, heads through Blissville, the happy place of Industrial Maspeth, dips a toe in Ridgewood and then plunges desperately into Brooklyn. East Williamsburgh and then Greenpoint are visited and a desperate trek to the East River in Brooklyn commences. DOOM! Click here for more information and to reserve a spot – but seriously – what’s wrong with you that you’re actually considering doing this? DOOM!
“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.
laminar dissection
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Keep on truckin – as the kids used to say. Unfortunately, the kids who used to say that are now retirement age, but there you are. A recent scuttle through Industrial Maspeth at night saw a cavalcade of diesel powered steel rolling past the camera and I just got caught up in the moment.
The one pictured above was hauling municipal waste products, aka the solid materials which the NYC DEP filters out of the sewer flow. That’s pretty common, as is the habit of parking the trailer’s carrying this redolent cargo – as displayed by several of the hauling contractors employed by DEP – on area streets for weeks at a time. That sad story wasn’t what drew my eye, instead it the Green Goblin lighting kit which adorned the tractor section of this rig.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a company over on 48th street nearby the on ramps to the Long Island Expressway (or is it BQE?) which has several impressive vehicles in their inventory. This particular outfit seems to be who’d you’d call if your truck or bus has broken down and you need a tow. The wrecker pictured above is one of a pair of giant vehicles they operate.
I was actually asked by one of its drivers if I was up to something, whereupon I asserted that I’m just a wandering photographer in an industrial zone at night who has a keen appreciation of heavy machinery. Yup, not suspicious at all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Graffiti’d panel trucks abound. This has become a regular sight for me, and is something that’s really accelerated during the Covid months. This sort of tagging on commercial vehicles is nothing new, of course, but seeing a panel truck that hasn’t been “bombed” by a crew of taggers has become the exception rather than the rule in the last couple of years.
Scuttling, just keep scuttling.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Certain trucks and operations never get tagged… for reasons. There’s an enormous concrete operation in Industrial Maspeth called Ferrara Brothers. You see their trucks making deliveries all over NYC, but where they fill them with the good stuff is right back here in Queens.
I’m told that there’s a National level company which is buying up and consolidating all of the individual players in NYC’s concrete industry. Several of the medium sized companies, like Ferrara Brothers and NYCON, have already been gobbled up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
FDNY’s Ambulances are damned difficult to photograph when they’re flying past on a call. It’s all “worst case scenario” for operating a camera. You’ve got seconds to spin the dials and adjust the settings to compensate for a) night, b) flashing lights, c) subject moving at 50mph.
This one is from the border of Woodside and Maspeth, in case you’re wondering.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Closer to home, along Northern Boulevard, I spotted this fairly old tow truck parked nearby a car mechanic. Something about it just caught my eye. It’s a 1990 Ford F-Series, I’m told. Given the weird time warp we are all experiencing these days, I’d point out that “1990” makes it a 32 year old tow truck.
Ahh, 1990, when a young Bill Clinton taught us all how to laugh again.
The Newtown Creekathon returns!
On April 10th, the all day death march around Newtown Creek awakens from its pandemic slumber.
DOOM! DOOM! Fully narrated by Mitch Waxman and Will Elkins of Newtown Creek Alliance, this one starts in LIC at the East River, heads through Blissville, the happy place of Industrial Maspeth, dips a toe in Ridgewood and then plunges desperately into Brooklyn. East Williamsburgh and then Greenpoint are visited and a desperate trek to the East River in Brooklyn commences. DOOM! Click here for more information and to reserve a spot – but seriously – what’s wrong with you that you’re actually considering doing this? DOOM!
“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.
inappropriately enrobed
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another night, another scuttle. This was a longish sort of walk. Starting in Astoria, along Broadway in the 40’s, I carried the camera into Sunnyside, then Long Island City, Blissville, and into industrial Maspeth. What fun.
First up was a stop at “ole reliable,” an oft visited fence hole at the Sunnyside Yards, one which provides a great point of view on the Harold Interlocking. The busiest passenger train junction in the United States, this spot is where both Long Island Railroad and Amtrak pass through on their way to and from Penn Station.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A taxi company in Sunnyside is based in a structure reminiscent of the sort of early 1970’s toys that little boys craved. They have ramps and lifts and pipes that bellow steam. Also, since every parking spot on the blocks surrounding this company is claimed by one of their cabs, I don’t feel guilty peeing in between two of their taxis so it’s a bit of a destination.
One of the weird leave behinds of my experiences during the Covid period relates to the fact that the very few places you used to be able to piss – a McDonald’s or Diner bathroom for instance – have been closed and off limits. This means that I’ve gotten into the habit of “taking care of business” in the manner of a domestic dog. This has become a bit of an issue for me during the various travels to other cities detailed in earlier posts, as the citizenry of other communities generally take a dim view of such practices. Well, you can take the boy out of the dystopian shithole…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My fascination with gas stations is another Covid period “thing.” To be fair, though, they’re very difficult subjects to photograph in low light – just like the LIRR train in the first shot – and that sort of camera related challenge draws me in like a moth to a candle’s flame.
At the start of Covid, we had pantry moths show up in the house. They arrived in a bag of dry dog food. It took the better part of two years to exterminate the little bastards using pheromone scented traps. Freaking Lepidoptera.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Queens Boulevard, the so called “boulevard of death,” was crossed next, and south did a humble narrator walk. Given that the streets of Queens aren’t quite as “crime lite” as they were a few years ago, one has renounced the habit of listening to audiobooks or music via headphones. I want to be able to hear someone’s sneakers slapping the pavement as they’re coming for me.
It’s actually amazing how quickly the entire City fell apart under the rule of De Blasio and his fellow fun lovers. Mr. Fairness and Equity oversaw a widening of the gap between rich and poor, an explosion of racially motivated crimes directed towards people of Asian descent, and every time he opened his mouth he would piss somebody off. Truly, that man was the Trump of the left. Incompetent, high on his own supply, and every opportunity to learn something new was rejected in favor of an ideological interpretation. At least Adams is fun.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Blissville, a section of Long Island City which borders industrial Maspeth, was the next place to be blighted by my foot steps. Blissville in the centuried home of First Calvary Cemetery, the polyandrion of the Roman Catholics. As a note – I never cross a fence line, and almost never trespass. The shot above was instead captured from the public way’s POV and I used the stout iron fences of the cemetery to steady the camera.
The mausolea pictured above is sort of unusual for a Catholic cemetery. The human remains encapsulated aren’t in the ground, rather they seem to reside within the granite capsule guarded by the Angel statue. Normally, the Catholics use the loam for the disbursement of their departed, burying the box (coffin or casket) about six feet down. Jews do the same, except when it comes to Mausolea. In Jewish funerary tradition, a mausoleum shelf or compartment is meant to be lined with soil from the Levant (Israel) prior to the placement of the box and its dearly departed cargo. Yes, it’s a racket.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Having fairly exhausted myself, after arriving at the “Crane District” of Industrial Maspeth, one summoned a ride share service to cart my sorry butt back home to Astoria. As mentioned in the past, I seem to have developed some brand loyalty towards the LYFT service as opposed to the Uber one.
One of my practices is to use a subway or bus or cab to deposit me somewhere, and then walk back to Astoria from… say… Flushing or Bushwick. This is something I started doing back before Covid, in fact. It vastly increases what I would consider to be walking distance, since the trip is sort of one way.
The Newtown Creekathon returns!
On April 10th, the all day death march around Newtown Creek awakens from its pandemic slumber.
DOOM! DOOM! Fully narrated by Mitch Waxman and Will Elkins of Newtown Creek Alliance, this one starts in LIC at the East River, heads through Blissville, the happy place of Industrial Maspeth, dips a toe in Ridgewood and then plunges desperately into Brooklyn. East Williamsburgh and then Greenpoint are visited and a desperate trek to the East River in Brooklyn commences. DOOM! Click here for more information and to reserve a spot – but seriously – what’s wrong with you that you’re actually considering doing this? DOOM!
“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 