Archive for the ‘Astoria’ Category
rigid objections
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One divides his outside time into “long walks” and “short walks.” A long one usually involves the words “Maspeth” or “Greenpoint,” whereas the short ones involve “Ravenswood” or “Triborough.” Sometimes a short walk will find me walking a mile one way, making a right turn and walking another mile, and then angling my toes back towards HQ here on Astoria’s Broadway. I’m always looking for something interesting to photograph along the way, and I have my “dance card” of subject matter in mind when setting out.
Automotive maintenance facilities have recently been added to my dance card, or “shot list” if you must – gas stations, car washes, tire shops. Luckily, Astoria’s 31st street offers opportunity on two of those three items.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These sorts of businesses are disappearing rapidly, given the current fashion amongst the Real Estate Industrial Complex and their conspirators in elected office to espouse bicycles as a “green alternative” to automotive transportation. Negating the need for these auto based businesses, you might as well build luxury condo towers where they used to be and act all sanctimonious about it. Whatever.
This particular short walk found me scuttling along Northern Blvd. to 31st street, making a right at 31st, and then shlepping northwards to Astoria Blvd., then looping back south to Broadway in a zig zag along the residential streets in the 40’s. I didn’t want to go too far from home as rain was forecast for the particular late January night I was out and about and shooting these photos. Freezing rain sucks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One adjures the NYC DOT, whenever the opportunity arrives, to do something about the street lighting situation along 31st street. My opinion that the Governor’s rebuild of the various stations of the elevated trackage has vastly improved the lighting situation at the various corners that you encounter them conflicts with the general ennui most political people feel about Albany’s Dark Lord of the Sith. Even a master of the dark side can brighten things up if he so chooses, and these precise bastions of illumination offered by the Empire State provide stark contrast to the dark and often disconcerting streetscapes maintained by the minions of the Dope from Park Slope – despite his Zero Vision mission. Or… Vision Zero, right? Got to stop confusing the terms, even though both Governor and Mayor are contaminant minions of the Dark Side of the Force.
Saying that, by the time I got to Astoria Blvd. my spectacles began to get stippled by the first drops of that freezing rain and a humble narrator decided to double time it back to HQ. Hooray, and may the Force be with you.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, March 8th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
dimensions dissolved
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Electrical transformer explosion season has come and gone here in the ancient village of Astoria, which is a shame since the folks who work for Con Ed’s Emergency Units are nice people who seem to drink a lot of coffee and eat a lot of sandwiches, so our local delis and bagel shops profit off of their presence. Without exploding manholes, this time of year, the local business forecasts and retail economy are flat.
Last week, a humble narrator made his way into Manhattan for the first of two COVID vaccine jabs. The process was very, very NYC. You waited in a line to provide your information and display your skill at filling out forms, which allowed you to queue up into a second line where the forms were discussed again, and then a third line which led to somebody in blue clothes and a white coat who did the deed after discussing the forms again. I experienced no side effects other than a mild headache, and a minor craving for human brains. I go back at the end of March for the second jab, and the particular flavor I received was the Pfizer version. I don’t know why that’s important, but people have asked me whether it was the Coke, Pepsi, or Sprite version in the last week. There you are.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the meantime, I’m still avoiding the rest of you and wandering around in the dead of night. Occasion found me cowering in fear when a group of teenagers were spotted. Luckily, I was able to dive into a pile of the omnipresent litter and garbage which distinguishes Queens, and secreted myself away from their attentions. While hiding in the midden of abandoned goods, one spent his time pondering the state of the world. I also checked my email and Facebook while submerged beneath the litter camouflage. Multi task! Cowering and productivity can and do go hand in hand neatly.
I’ve been allowing myself to feel emotions again, which has been a bit of a mistake, as the only portfolio of emotions enjoyed by a creature like me are classified as being amongst “the seven deadly sins.” I’m a particular fan of sloth and envy, but hatred – boy oh boy. Hate gets a bad rap, as does shame. If more people felt shame, I’d have less places to hide when I see a group of teenagers coming at me, since they’d litter less.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After the adolescent horde passed me by, a humble narrator shook off the detritus and candy bar wrappers he was immersed in and continued on his way. My next stop involved yet another inspection of the fence hole situation at Sunnyside Yards. There actually were a couple of new ones, but the shot above depicting a Long Island Railroad train roaring through the Harold Interlocking was gathered at a fence hole which I’ve come to refer to as “the Old Reliable.”
One looks forward to the end of March, which is rumored to leave in the manner of a climatological lamb in accordance with some old chestnut of a saying, and end of March will be the moment when my immunological armor has been affixed. Getting out of the box I’ve been in for the last year is tantalizing for me. Saying that…
There might be teenagers about. Delinquents! Ruffians! No impulse control!
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, March 8th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
limited causation
Friday is inevitable.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I like a cool car, and when I see one the camera is engaged. Spotted this one on 48th street in Sunnyside recently.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Don’t know what the story is with it, but I like the artwork a lot. If I was still drawing comics, odds are that if I was asked to paint a car similar themes and subject matter would be applied.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s all for this week, Lords and Ladies.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, March 1st. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
nameless expectancy
Monday is arrived.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator has been seriously applying himself to the pursuit of mastering his equipment in the first quarter of this new year, specifically the camera and lens combinations recently acquired. What that involves if you’re a normal person would be to take a few shots and see what you get. For me, this means wandering throughout Western Queens in the middle of the night and pointing the camera at fairly difficult to capture and ever changing subjects. Car washes, as pictured above, fascinate.
What makes the shot above difficult to capture is the combination of ambient darkness, ultra bright artificial light and abundant reflective surfaces, and the desire to “freeze” the scene so you could see all the soap and water flying around the brushes and car. This is a lot harder to calculate, camera settings wise, than you’d think it would be.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This particular excursion, which saw me leaving Astoria and heading eastwards along Broadway through Woodside in the direction of Jackson Heights, was undertaken for rather mundane reasons. I’m currently serving as Co-Chair of the Transportation Committee on the local Community Board and since the NYC Department of Transportation – or DOT – had recently informed the CB that they intended to strengthen certain aspects of the Northern Blvd. and Broadway bike lanes. Accordingly, I took a walk and explored the confines of their project to examine the street conditions. It’s best to observe in person rather than look at the place on maps, so as to spot areas that might end up being problematic.
Food trucks seem to draw my attention these days. Seldom do I partake, but I’m fascinated by the trade dress and attention grabbing signage of these things.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A new item on my “shoot this” list are Gas Stations. I’ve talked about this recently in some detail, but the disappearing filling stations of NYC are now something I’m making it a point of recording. From a camera POV, this is a damned hard subject to do justice to, given many of the same issues mentioned in the car wash shot at top. Reflective surfaces, super bright and or saturated neon lighting, ultra contrasty interaction with the dark street surrounding it… ain’t the easiest exposure triangle to figure out.
My photo gathering schedule continues to revolve around an “every other day” system, which sees a humble narrator leaving the house well after dark – 8, 9, sometimes even 10 o’clock – and then spending 2-3 hours burning through 5-10 miles of walking. These shots are about a month old, gathered during the last week of January.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, March 1st. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
silently gliding
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luyster Creek, lords and ladies. Also, a different day than the one I mentioned last week. I don’t get over to this side of the Queensiverse, the “Forbidden Northern Coast,” all that often these days. One thing Covid has made me absolutely long for is ownership of an automobile. At some point in the next year or two, I’m going to be purchasing a motor vehicle. The gyrations one endures getting around on foot during this period of time have been extreme. I make a big deal of walking just about everywhere, but under normal circumstance if my foot starts to hurt I’d just hop on a train or bus and come back home. Not an option due to mathematical probability of infection exposure, which reduces me down to taking the occasional cab here and there – but that gets pretty expensive, pretty fast.
As it turned out on this particular visit to Astoria’s loneliest and saddest waterway, a buddy of mine from the community board who wanted to check the place out picked me up in his car and we rode over.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the factors which is playing into my continuing thought process regarding personal transportation is what I’d be trading away – dealing with alternate side parking, the cost of insurance and maintenance – ugh. Alternatively, it makes day trips in a roughly 100 mile circle around… let’s use the Triborough Bridge as a center point reference… to photogenic subject matter possible. So, then the question about what kind of vehicle – Jeep, Van, SUV for instance – would be best for that sort of endeavor. Something I could conceivably sleep in? I don’t know. I can’t afford a car, currently, so I’m just fantasizing out loud about it. Still, would’ve been nice over the Pandemic to pack up girl and dog and go somewhere. Dog’s gone, girl’s still here.
I tell you this, walking multiple miles every other day doesn’t get easier when you get older, and I definitely start to feel a bit tired after walking from Astoria to Greenpoint and back.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lottery winner Mitch would get one of those snazzy RV’s that are rolling around these days, the kind with satellite tv and water heaters. Regular Mitch would be lucky to be able to afford an aged mule pulling a third hand Romani wagon.
Man, it would be cool to own a mule though. I’d get her one of those straw hats and rig a tripod onto the saddle. Last time I mentioned Luyster Creek, and its generous apportionment of Poison Ivy, the fact that goats eat poison ivy (which I’ve also recently learned) came up. Further, the best of all the facts was offered, which is that you can rent goats in NYC who will graze away your poison ivy on a per diem rate.
Who needs a car if you’ve got your own mule and a set of rent-a-goats?
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, February 8th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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 