Archive for the ‘Broadway’ Category
debased attainments
The ole 11103.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Given my current limitations, let’s just say that one of my normal pedestrian based travelogues through industrial Maspeth isn’t going to be on offer for a bit. One is more or less confined to a very narrow slice of almond eyed Astoria, and unless it’s directly related to a “have to” or work I’m not going to mess around with the healing process for the broken big toe. Luckily, Astoria is seldom boring.
Yesterday, my “have to” related to limping over to my optician to get the lenses in my spectacles updated with a new prescription. While waiting for the process to finish, I noticed this artifact of the recent holiday displayed vulgarly atop a fire hydrant.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Returning towards my side of Steinway Street along Broadway, laborers were busy clearing out the remains of the Duane Reade which has occupied the corner of Broadway and Steinway for the entire time I’ve lived here. Duane recently announced that their landlord had raised the rent for this cavernous space to usurious levels and the corporation decided to shutter this location.
Man, if Duane Reade can’t pay the rent…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I don’t title photos, since I’ve always hated the ego which such a practice displays. Back when I was a retoucher working on Madison Avenue, a standard refrain one might hear being shouted from my cubicle was “I HATE PHOTOGRAPHERS.” The level of preciousness attached to imagery by some of us just drives me crazy. It’s not an oil painting, despite the amount of skill and practice it takes to produce quality shots. Studio or big outdoor shots with props and lighting equipment do not change the equation all that much, in my mind. I know comic artists and fine art painters who don’t treat their works as preciously as some photographers do. The only members of the discipline whom I’ll grant the preciousness thing to are the photo journalists who work in war zones, capturing scenes of combat from “within the trenches.” That shot up there is a “snapshot” of a garbage can on 43rd street in Queens, and it doesn’t deserve much in the way of preciousness.
So, as mentioned, I don’t title photos. If I did, the one above would be called either “Childhood’s End,” or “Mommy and Daddy don’t live together anymore.”
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Come to the library!
In the Shadows at Newtown Creek – The Roosevelt Island Historic Society has invited me to present a slideshow and talk about my beloved Newtown Creek at the New York Public Library on Roosevelt Island, on November 14th, 6 p.m. Free event!
Click here for more information.!
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.
nervous coordination
Wet, that’s me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These shots aren’t from yesterday’s rainstorm, instead they’re from last week’s deluge. My little dog Zuzu and I were eagerly awaiting the eventual return of Our Lady of the Pentacle from a social engagement last Wednesday when the sky opened up and biblical amounts of rain began to fall. What was odd about that particular storm was that the airborne droplets seemed to be swirling on their way down to the mean streets, negating any chance of finding a “rain shadow” to record the scene from. Even setting up my camera on a windowsill inside HQ didn’t really provide the lens with much cover as the rain seemed to be falling sideways. Weather is weird.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the interesting things that has come out of all the long exposure stuff I’ve been doing for a while now has been the revelation that you can visualize traffic patterns moving through urban streets using this technique. Head lamps, and running or brake lights, leave behind tell tale trails. For some reason this is fascinating to me, and since anything that isn’t standing still in the frame for at least fifteen to twenty seconds is effectively “ghosted” those trails are the only indication of where a vehicle was and what its path was. The reduction of item based distraction allows one to record actual “desire paths” chosen by the driver.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of these days, I’ve got to do a series of these and then blend them into a time lapse video. I’d love to somehow take up position thirty to forty feet over the double yellow line, of course, but you’d need one of those mobile oppression platforms used by NYPD or a cherry picker basket on a telecom maintenance truck to do so. The mobile oppression platform would be best, of course, since it’s got a solid cop roof on it.
I spent a lot of time shooting stuff in the rain this last week, and it’s going to be a moist five days here at the Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Come on a tour!
With Atlas Obscura – Infrastructure Creek AT NIGHT! My favorite walking tour to conduct, and in a group limited to just twelve people! October 29th, 7-9 p.m.
Click here for more information and tickets!
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.
ultimate abomination
Hullabaloos.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last Sunday, whilst enjoying an autumnal afternoon with the neighbors at the local pub, a sudden explosion of noise and tumult occurred when the FDNY suddenly arrived at a call on 42nd street right off of Broadway here in Astoria. Given that – despite my advancing age – I still run down the street yelling “Firemen, Firemen” when the big red trucks are screaming past, one couldn’t help but get excited and start waving the camera at them.
Predictably enough, it was the engine and hook and ladder you’d normally associate with Astoria who answered the call – Engine 263 and Ladder 117 – who are based out of a house on Astoria Blvd.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not sure what the emergency was, based on what I was seeing and what they were carrying with them, I’d guess that somebody had reported smelling gas or something. They didn’t stay too long, which usually indicates that the emergency conditions were overstated and that the talents of the FDNY weren’t required to ameliorate it. Not pictured was one of those red big jeep vehicles which the FDNY brass ride around in, but which was present. There were no ambulances either, so it must have been purely a structural call. We get a whole lot of FDNY personnel showing up whenever a drunk is being scooped up by EMS units for some reason.
A few people at the bar were grousing about overkill. I offered one of my little aphorisms about not questioning the appropriateness of what professionals think is correct, and especially so in the case of FDNY. If they think it’s right to show up with a small army…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Thankfully, the emergency – whatever it was – was resolved quickly. The normal pattern of life in Astoria resumed, and as the photo above can confirm, delivery bicycles began to flow freely about without impediment again.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Come on a tour!
With Atlas Obscura – Infrastructure Creek AT NIGHT! My favorite walking tour to conduct, and in a group limited to just twelve people! October 29th, 7-9 p.m.
Click here for more information and tickets!
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.
oblong apartments
Three Assholes, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An anti-vaxxer has been sticking their pseudo scientific call to arms and meme based advice on the lamp posts and mail boxes of Astoria and Sunnyside all summer long. Coincidentally, all summer long I’ve been prying stupid stickers and flyers off of lamp posts and mail boxes. Champion level dumb assery, the Anti-Vaxxers are admittedly one step closer to reality than the flat earth crowd, but there’s always the chance that some badly educated or gullible new parent will take the advice of these people and their innocent kid will die of a preventable disease or start an epidemic which will hurt me and mine. What’s next? Witch panics?
Here’s my take on things – electricity, airplanes, and nuclear bombs work, as confirmed the underlying scientific assumptions which their technologies are based on. So too do antibiotics, fungicides, and so on work and confirm their underlying theorems. Given that the viewpoint of what these dopes called the “science industry” has real world efficacy and results – Measles and Rubella or Whooping Cough or Polio, for instance, are no longer major concerns for most of the world’s population (there are 250 cases of Leprosy in the U.S. diagnosed in a average year, as a note) due to modern medicine’s embrace of the “Germ Theory of Disease,” I choose to stand alongside the pro vaccination majority. If you’re an Anti Vaxx person, cool, but go live in the woods. Also, you don’t get to pick and choose which scientific facts you like and which ones you don’t. Autism and Aspergers are nothing new, jack holes, and the reason there’s “an epidemic” is that the diagnosis has been expanded to accommodate a “spectrum” of disability rather than a narrow and severe slice of the condition. It’s not because of vaccination.
Asshole.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s not lens distortion in the shot above, rather it’s the severe overload of the electrical transmission wires which those utility poles are carrying that is causing them to bow and bend. You see this all over LIC, Astoria, and Sunnyside.
There’s a few similar looking utility poles on Broadway in Astoria, and I can predict that they will either break in half or drop their cables during a storm in the near future. When someone dies, the local government people (who are fully aware of this situation) will act shocked and call for the creation of a blue ribbon committee to study what happened. The committee’s findings will be submitted to another committee that studies the findings of committees. Ultimately, this citywide existential problem should go to City Hall and the Mayor’s office, but word has it that Bill De Blasio is going to run a campaign to be named Sultan of the Ottoman Empire after his doomed and quixotic effort at becoming President of the United States goes down in flames.
Asshole.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Queens Cobbler’s handiwork has been observed in the neighborhood again, after a summer long interval during which few or no single shoes were observed. The Queens Cobbler is a likely serial killer who leaves these single shoes as taunts for the Police in the districts surrounding the Newtown Creek in Brooklyn and Queens, and the infamous trophies are found displayed along area streets. The Cobbler has been written about in the past, here at Newtown Pentacle, and in fact I’ve been talking about this for over five years at this point.
Asshole.
“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.
groaning below
Jiminy the Parrot!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m continuing my little summer vacation this week, which actually hasn’t been much of a vacation – truth be told. A couple of projects have landed on my desk, which is good, as my landlord likes it when I pay my rent. Bad, however, as I really just wanted to go out and aimlessly wander around Queens and have some fun for once. There you are. Being busy is a problem you actually want to have.
Single images will be found here, refreshed daily, until Monday the 26th when I’ll resume my complaining and kvetching.
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 