Archive for the ‘Blissville’ Category
First DUKBO
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Kosciuszcko, men have named you, Kosciuszcko… I’m told by native speakers of the Polish language that it’s pronounced ‘Kos Shoos Ko’ instead of ‘Kos Kious Ko’ or any of the other English language variants commonly offered by residents of the area.
I’ve spent a LOT of time on and around this bridge over the years. The entire replacement project was documented over a multi-year period, and I was there when Cuomo pressed the big red button and lit up the bridge while Billy Joel played ‘New York State of Mind’ at Madison Square Garden. I was also there when a different big red button was pushed to demolish the old bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Recreational Vehicle or ‘RV’ situation is very much present on Review Avenue alongside the bridge in Blissville. The semi trailers parked along this stretch are carrying municipal solid waste, which is scratched out of the sewer flow by the NYC DEP and then carried away by private contractors. The contractors often leave their quite full truck trailers parked nearby the sewer plants, in industrial zones, for sometimes weeks at a pop. According to one of the former DEP Commissioners this does not happen, despite me having personally presented photos of the circumstance to the management team. Imagining it, I guess.
Again, a wrinkle of NYC’s Parking laws allows a vehicle with commercial plates to park in an industrial zone indefinitely. RV’s have commercial plates, so…
Today’s ‘Bah!’ goes right here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One scuttled up onto the ramp which connects the Kosciuszcko Bridge’s pedestrian and bike lanes to Queens. As you’d imagine, it was quite a bit warmer up here, and especially so when I reached the main section of the span over Newtown Creek.
Traffic was standstill/rolling forwards at under 5 mph on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, which the bridge carries.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is a well practiced pathway for me, back when I lived in Astoria. I’d often find myself having to go to Greenpoint for a Newtown Creek Alliance event or meeting or something, and I’d use 43rd street through Sunnyside to get to the Kosciuszcko. Alternatively, I’d walk up 39th street to Skillman, hang a right, and then a left on Van Dam. The K-Bridge path was a few steps shorter, and far more interesting visually. Also, no homeless shelters to pass by on this route.
It’s not the homeless, really, it’s their friends who come to visit them at the shelter that are the problem.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’d suggest clicking through to Flickr for the shot above, which is a mega massive panorama of the ‘DUKBO’ section of Newtown Creek. Queens is on the right, Brooklyn on the left, with the shining city of Manhattan forming the backdrop. North, south, and west.
Me? I continued on, shvitzing along the way.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The next destination would be in Greenpoint, at Newtown Creek Alliance’s HQ at 520 Kingsland Avenue nearby the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge. About a mile’s walk. I stuck to building shadows to avoid the sun, threading my way through the industrial zone.
Back next week with more, at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
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Archives #049
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned the other day, this week’s posts are being written on Friday the 6th of December, and with any luck at all I’ve been out for some sort of limited walk by this point. The broken ankle situation has been traumatic, and I’m exhibiting somewhat phobic behavior towards flights of stairs – particularly during descent. This is natural, I guess, but every rise and run that I cross reminds me vividly of the fall which snapped my ankle in three and condemned your humble narrator to months of painful hell.
2011’s ‘An Oil spill… in Queens’ detailed a location on the Queens side of Newtown Creek from which oil was seeping from the bulkheads into the water. In the years since, containment and a plan for remediation are underway, or so I’m told.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One hopes that ‘overstatement’ isn’t the reaction to that declaration.
This was a dramatically painful and literally crippling injury. Required surgical correction, which itself was painful in the extreme, and the recovery period was marked by two months of constant nerve activity which felt like a burn. It’s expected, I believe, to be a bit apprehensive as you approach the very same physical tasks which ended so badly not too long ago. Gun shy, me. Step shy, actually.
2018’s ‘frenzied letter’ showed off a few night shots gathered around Newtown Creek and summarizes the locations where they were gathered.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Since the surgical cast came off, which was a little over a month ago, your humble narrator has been ‘playing ball’ with the physical therapy operation connected to the Surgeon’s office. Things there have been going very well, and I think that my PT folks are actually a little surprised at how fast my recovery is moving along. ‘A plus-plus’ is how they’ve rated my situation. It’s why I’m wearing shoes again rather than one of the braced walking boots.
I’m walking slowly, however, and with a pronounced limp. Still having problems with the ‘push forward’ part of my gait.
These archive posts are reaching into Newtown Pentacle’s backups, and are pulling posts that went public on this date, in their respective years, going back to 2009. This practice will continue until I’m back on both feet full time, and new photos and stories can be gathered. For anyone who hasn’t heard the news, I broke my left ankle at the end of September.
2022’s ‘ruptured hopes’ was gathered during my last weeks in NYC, after a lifetime tenancy. I wanted to see everything, one last time.
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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.
Archives #013
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My beloved Creek, how I miss thee… This shot looks towards Brooklyn’s Greenpoint from LIC’s Blissville along the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge. What’s missing here is a rail bridge which used to connect LIRR freight trains to the Brooklyn side, where the Mobil Refinery used to stand.
Today, another archives post from broken ankle country (#brankle) greets you, with all represented posts having been originally presented on this date in their respective years.
This 2015 post discusses the garbage train in LIC’S Blissville section.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I always figured that if I broke an ankle it would be all the way back in Brooklyn at the end of English Kills, which is also the end of Newtown Creek, and is found some 3.8 miles from the East River. I never liked going back here alone, either. Too easy to get hurt and too difficult to get help if you did.
This 2017 post visits the actual last mile of Newtown Creek in Brooklyn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
End of December in 2022 is when I left NYC and moved to Pittsburgh. No regrets, I would add. Again, it’s an interesting thing for me to recollect about the actual sensory experience of this particular day when viewing the photos. I remember the day this shot was captured as offering near perfect weather conditions for a long walk.
This 2023 post from October 23 involved me trying to ‘get back on the stick’ exercise wise, after an interval of being stuck at home while caring for Our Lady of the Pentacle after she endured a medical procedure. A year later and our positions have reversed, and I’m the one in trouble.
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.
Archives #008
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve mentioned this show to a few friends, but I’ve been loving watching a Turkish TV series – about the Ottoman Sultans – which I happened across on YouTube called “Magnificent Century.” There’s a sequel series called “Magnificent Century: Khosem,” which presents the Sultan Murad as having been something of a medieval John Wick who often went undercover to fight crime. Good stuff, and it’s helped to pass a bunch of my empty time, as the broken ankle heals.
Back in 2009, this post described what I saw in NYC’s Chinatown when I was lucky enough to stumble across a group of Lion Dancers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s interesting for me to comb through the archives and see all of these early Newtown Pentacle posts again. The way I do things here hasn’t changed all that much since the start, from a technology point of view, but the way I slam posts together has. Experience, I guess. Do something often enough, eventually it’ll get a bit easier.
In 2018, this post was offered, and it’s focused in on DSNY’s toys.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m hoping that this week I can make it down the stairs and out the back door, to get to the car. For too long has the Mobile Oppression Platform sat idle. Also, I need to pick up a prescription at CVS. The plan includes Our Lady of the Pentacle coming along, and doing the actual ‘picking up.’ Long suffering, Our Lady.
From 2020, and a post that was part of the Pandemic series of night time walks.
“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.
Let’s review
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
During a brief visit back home a couple of weeks ago, which I’ve been describing all week, one made it a point of visiting all of the old familiar places. After walking up on the Kosciuszcko Bridge, I scuttled back down to the cursed earth of Queens and headed down onto Review Avenue and into Blissville. Along the way, my eye kept getting caught by a plethora of heavy vehicles.
This is another one of the street corridors which I’ve spent a LOT of time along, and I’ll never forget the sights and sounds I’ve experienced here. For instance – during COVID’s mid lockdown period, I saw people using the high walls of First Calvary to practice rock climbing. Also during that interval, I saw the cemetery people digging up roads on their property to make room for an abundance of new graves, which was space that observationally filled up pretty quickly.
Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was odd, I’ll admit. Being home again. I’ve said it a million times at this point, but whereas I now live in Pittsburgh and I’m building a new life there, NYC will always be what I refer to as ‘home.’ Especially so this section of poisoned terrain found amongst the concrete devastations which are line the banks of a ribbon of municipal indifference which the kids call the Newtown Creek.
Historic, it is, especially so for me.
I was dressed for Pittsburgh winter, unfortunately, wearing a heavy winter coat which I’ve adopted in place of the filthy black raincoat that was always my go to for outer garb here in NYC. It was an unusually warm afternoon for mid February, and one was perspiring freely. I took the opportunity for a quick sit down on an industrial building’s concrete siding, pulled off my coat and allowed my body temperature to drop.
Back in Pittsburgh, I’ve started a new habit of carrying a thermos bottle of water with me, but I didn’t bring it with me on the road trip – which I was cursing myself for at this particular moment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Before y’all ask – no, I didn’t visit my favorite tree on Dutch Kills during this trip. There were a variety of reasons for that, which I won’t bore you with. I wasn’t back home for photographic pursuits I’d remind, instead I had some personal and familial business to take care of, and my behind the camera time was fairly limited. Also… is there a photo opportunity at Newtown Creek which I haven’t taken advantage of?
Back next week with just a few more shots, from my beloved Creek.
“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 