Archive for the ‘Borden Avenue Bridge’ Category
Brentwood and Thomas Jefferson
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the many, many things I’ve been busy doing since arriving in Pittsburgh has involved taking advantage of the fantastic medical systems they’ve got here. Nothing particularly wrong, except for the hundred physical ailments which you’ve read me complaining about over the years. None of these aches and pains are particularly “treatable” unless they’ve discovered the fountain of youth somewhere, but it’s been a while since I had the folks in the white coats poke and prod and it’s best to let them work their arts periodically. I actually have a series of these appointments this coming week, establishing a base line and a relationship with the new medical peeps.
Our Lady of the Pentacle has also been getting checked up by the Doctors who practice her various specialties, and after a drop off at an appointment in the nearby community of Brentwood, I had about 90 minutes to kill. Luckily, I’m easily entertained and since I hadn’t set foot in this section of the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area… I decided to set the car tires down and a ride around survey occurred. Nice little suburban style spot, this.
I tooled around in the Mobile Oppression Platform – aka the Toyota – and found myself on a series of somewhat serpentine local roads which wound their way around the hills. There was a golf course/country club, and a couple of cemeteries, which all seemed visually interesting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This one, and the next shot too, were gathered within the fencelines of a cemetery which I hadn’t had the chance to record the name or location of when I was entering, since I was driving. Grr. A half hour of scouring Google Maps later…
Turns out that this area is called “Pleasant Hills,” and that the cemetery I had blundered into also functioned as a park, and is dubbed “Jefferson Memorial Cemetery.” Here’s a nice and fairly succinct article about the founding and creation of the place in 1929. I literally drove into the cemetery just to get off the road and out of the sort of high speed traffic that’s pretty common here in Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The titular center of the place is the Thomas Jefferson Mausoleum (the 3rd President is buried in Virginia, as a note), which I kind of blundered across just after getting a call from Our Lady informing me that it was time to pick her up from that Doctoral assignation back in Brentwood.
I’ve got a few Doctor appointments myself, coming up, and I plan on taking a better look at this place on foot – after I’ve been poked and irradiated and sampled – at some point in the very near future. Interesting structure with a cool history.
Back tomorrow, and don’t forget to share this post of you like it.
“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.
especially after
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After capturing images of a super saturated sunset in Long Island City, one converted the camera back into its handheld mode and began scuttling towards the train at Hunters Point Avenue. Along the way, something caught my eye at the bridge house for the Borden Avenue Bridge.
There’s graffiti everywhere, but most of the extant paintings are “tags” left behind by “punks.” Every now and then, it’s something different.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This particular monologue seemed to written in either chalk or grease pencil, and asked several pointed questions. This messaging stood out, and was intriguing.
I did a bit of looking around in response to the curious screed, which led to an internet rabbit hole.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a small population of people out there who claim that they are being stalked by organized groups, and believe that the group has some sort of connection to shadowy intelligence world entities. Sometimes these groups are governmental, or part of a “globalist cabal,” or they’re connected to some corrupted local branch of law enforcement.
There’s more than one subreddit for “gangstalking” and it’s a “thing.” I watched a couple of videos offered by psychologists who have studied and attempted to treat what they described as a paranoid delusion, and the Docs reported problems with getting these patients to accept help because “the shrink is in on it, and working with the persecutors.” Gang Stalking is described by these medical professionals as a paranoid delusion which is built on top of other psychological pathologies. The bit about “the light” can refer to two things in this world view – one is the weaponry used by the cabal to torture the victim of the gang stalking (said “light” has a variety of effects, from burning the skin to triggering programmed behaviors to somehow surveilling the subject), to the “light of god” as offered by lay priests leading suspect storefront church organizations that offer protection and comfort to the “targeted.”
Disturbingly, several mass shooters (notably the fellow who shot up a Navy Base in Virginia a few years ago) have left behind manifestos that discussed gang stalking as being part of why they did why they did. Most of the people who describe themselves as being “targeted” seem to have a host of other intractable problems – drug addiction, homelessness, mental illnesses. Like I said, “Internet Rabbit Hole.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Spotted a cool car as well, while changing the subject.
A late model Ford F-150 pickup.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking north, along Dutch Kills, from the Borden Avenue Bridge towards the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge with the 106 feet over the water Long Island Expressway’s Queens Midtown Expressway Truss framing the shot.
My trick left foot was starting to sing it’s song again, so I started limping towards the train station and a ride back to Astoria.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
More tomorrow – at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
“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.
furry blasphemy
Friday, it’s Shabbos to some, a nightmare for others.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My initial reaction to the new camera system (the Canon R6) has been pretty positive so far, can recommend. Last night at three in the morning, I finally figured out how to use about half of my lens collection with the thing as well, so there’s that.
Also, the Montauk Cutoff should be open to the public, I can recommend that too. As promised, I did get up there last night, and I did a whole photographic walkthrough at night which you’ll see sometime in the near future.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve often referred to the series of streets – 50th and 51st avenues in particular – shadowed by the steel truss carrying the Long Island Expressway’s “Queens Midtown Expressway” section as “the empty corridor.” In the shot above, you can see why.
Personally speaking, I’m kind of digging the reappearance of epic street graffiti in LIC. The old white washed “Giuliani time” streetscape has needed to reintroduce a bit of chaos and color, in my mind.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So… I’m all geared up and ready to rock. Where do I go next? When leaving the house, after all these months of pandemic isolation, my feet are basically on autopilot and they turn the toes towards LIC and the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek. Either that or industrial Maspeth, and sometimes Greenpoint.
Just saw an ad on Facebook from the Empire State Building people, claiming that I can spend a bit of time on their observation deck in return for a fairly affordable and pandemic era discounted admission price, so I might just venture into the City at some point in the near future. Who can say?
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, November 30th. 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.
slackened metabolism
Borden Avenue, Long Island City
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator has nothing new to show you this week, so archived shots are on offer. Fear not, as you’re receiving this, one is running about the City whilst the camera is clicking and whirring away. In the meantime, enjoy yourself, as it’s probably a lot later than you think.
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
Regular posts resume next Monday, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“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.
imaginative stimuli
In today’s post- the chiaroscuro of Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Visual splendor makes Queens remarkable, with its open vistas and relicts of vainglory. Whenever the City of New York, since its consolidation, feels itself broken or in need of some experimental improvement- Queens is the place where it has tinkered with rail and expressway, bridge and tunnel, or with municipal zoning and tax abatement schemes. The old girl supports a lot of people these days, and all signs point to the Queens family growing larger.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are things which we aren’t talking about in this election cycle, like what happened to the Bowery Bay Sewage Plant during Hurricane Sandy, or the alarming antiquity of the electrical grid. If you spend as much time as I do around Newtown Creek, specifically the Dutch Kills tributary of that infamous ribbon of urban malfeasance and political neglect, the future of Queens is very much reflected in its past.
How long, I wonder, how long before the tinkering begins anew?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My predictions for the future are dire, as one is pessimistic both by nature and through experience. The growing modern corridors of western Queens will require new power plants and a modernized waste water control system before long which “somebody” will have to pay for. How long before stainless steel digester eggs reminiscent of the type found in Greenpoint tower over Astoria? How long will it be before red and white smokestacks rise over Dutch Kills here in Queens?
When will the tinkering begin?
Things to do!
Working Harbor Committee presents: Great North River Tugboat Races and Competition, September 1st, 2013
9:30-11:30 a.m. at West 42nd Street and the Hudson River. Spectator Boat tickets now on sale.
The Newtown Pentacle 