Archive for the ‘Dutch Kills’ Category
formidable skull
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
May 29th, a humble narrator was out and about on a short walk, and Long Island City was on the menu for the evening. I should mention that I’m way ahead of schedule on these posts for a change, and this one is being written on June 7th. Why so far ahead? Well, in the interim of the month of June, I’ve been to Pittsburgh again, and this time around I rented a car. At the time of this writing, I have no idea what wonders I pointed the camera at or whether or not I got anything worth seeing. Saying that… tick, tick, tock said the clock.
As I’ve mentioned, it’s time for me to leave this place, and thereby I’ve been on a holy tear with the camera trying to record one last summer’s worth of photos. Hence – the 6 image posts are going to be continuing for a while.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kills tributary, where a bulkhead collapse is underway at the turning basin, alongside 29th street. This was a handheld shooting night for me, as I wanted to travel light and not be burdened down with a lot of gear. No tripods or zoom lenses.
All I had with me were 35mm f1.8 and an 85mm f2 prime lenses. I did have a bit of camera support, I would mention. My pal Hank the Elevator guy got me a chunk of hard rubber that used to be part of an elevator’s brake pad, and another buddy – Sean the Carpenter – cut it and shaped an ARCA Swiss tripod mount into one side of the thing using a miter saw when his boss wasn’t looking. This gives me a nice flush rubber foot for the camera, and allows for shutter speeds normally precluded during handheld sessions.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Camera gear is famously marked up. I once needed a screw for one of my tripods and the folks at the camera store wanted $17. For a screw.
Same screw ordered off of an industrial equipment supply website cost me twenty five cents for two screws, and I still paid a 500% markup. A big part of “photography” is learning how to improvise and make your own task specific equipment. Those air conditioner foam insulation strip collars I’ve made for my lenses allow me to shoot through windows without reflection, and cost me so little to manufacture that they were almost free, for instance.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are high;y engineered pieces of equipment that you’re better off just paying whatever they’re asking – tripod heads and that sort of thing really aren’t possible to manufacture at home. Also, given their critical role in holding the camera – you don’t want to experiment or be too budget conscious with that sort of thing lest you watch your camera tumbling down into Newtown Creek.
That chunk of elevator brake pad rubber attached to my camera when I’m just walking around is something that the camera shop would have likely banged me out of $50 for, however. Once, I dropped it shortly after leaving the house and then backtracked about two miles until I found it laying on the sidewalk about a block from HQ. It’s not something that somebody would assign value to, since it’s a chunk of hard black rubber. I assign a lot of value to it, on the other hand, since it absorbs vibration and offers me a friction inducing “camera foot” that doesn’t scratch the surfaces which I bring it into contact with.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I often refer to the two lenses I was carrying on this walk as my “night kit.” For those fo you who aren’t photography enthusiasts – a “bright lens” has a large aperture engineered into it – f1.8 for example. Zoom lenses become fiendishly expensive when the manufacturer incorporates a wide aperture into them – north of $5,000. The engineering is what you’re paying for on that sort of thing, as the optical formula is extremely complicated.
Thereby, the best I can do on my “day kit” involves what I can afford to own. That’s f4 for the 24-105, and my telephoto 70-300 is fairly untrustworthy in the sharpness department at anything under f8.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What trade off’s you have with the bright lenses, though, is a narrower field of focus. Notice how the Empire State Building is blurred out and the construction equipment in the shot above is sharp? That’s the narrower field depth at work. The smaller the aperture, the more is “sharp” whereas the larger the aperture is, less is “sharp.”
I won’t bore you with pixel density or color science. It’s terribly complicated.
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“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.
cacodaemonical ghastliness
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
May 21st and I was out for a short/long walk which ended up being fairly productive. I was heading towards Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kills tributary, and along the way I stopped off at “Hole Reliable,” which is found along the fencelines of the Sunnyside Yards.
The reason this hole is so reliable is that it overlooks the Harold Interlocking, a rail junction used by both Long Island Railroad and Amtrak which is the busiest such bit of infrastructure in the entire country. You don’t have to hang around Long before something rolls by.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The powers that be have been busy spending your taxes on improving the Harold Interlocking, which is part of the larger “East Side Access” project that will be bringing LIRR service to Grand Central Station, and there’s a couple of new sidings which have recently been completed and brought into usage – like the one pictured above.
Y’know, I’ve spent something like 15 years watching them do all the construction on this, and it’s kind of cool to see it being used.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Nothing new to report from Dutch Kills. Nobody cares, nothing matters, and 29th street continues to subside and sag into the collapsing bulkhead at the water’s edge. Turns out that the reason there’s always a puddle there is that the undermined street has broken a water line pipe. That’s great, as now it’s also a DEP problem – in addition to being an EPA, DEC, DOT, and MTA problem. Eventually, the entire alphabet will be involved.
Sigh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My tree of paradise seems to be embracing the warmer weather, and at the time this photo was taken, had just become clothed in foliage.
I didn’t plan on walking directly home on this particular evening, as I was desirous of getting a few low light shots of the 7 train. Accordingly, over to the Hunters Point Avenue stop did I scuttle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My 7 line plan was to take advantage of how frequently the service arrives – usually in about ten minute intervals – to hop on and hop off at the various stations that I don’t frequent.
As a note, I’m a fan of that new OMNY fare control scheme of theirs. Here’s a tip – the OMNY system lets you use your phone to pay for your fare. The credit card you thereby designate for transit use (I’m on an iPhone, can’t speak to how Google Pay works on Android) should therefore be one where you receive some sort of benefit for using it. Some cards have cash back rewards, others have airline miles that accrue with use, others send a few cents to a charity you support – you get the idea. I’ve tied all of my transit charges into a single card account – LYFT/Uber, Amtrak, Subway and Bus, Ferry. This also makes talking to my accountant about transit spending rather simple.
I have a friend who has all his monthly bills flow through benefits/rewards cards. This way he’s never late with a payment, and manages to get some benefit out of his outlandishly high electric bills.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I traveled on the 7 for a bit, following my plan to hop on and hop off. The shot above is from the 33rd Rawson stop, and it’s a Manhattan bound train rounding the elevated curve nearby the former Swingline Stapler building on Queens Boulevard. One night soon I’m going to doing this sort of night time excursion on every stop of the 7 all the way out to Flushing and back.
Keeps me out of the bars. Back next week with more, 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.
crystal coldness
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
April 22nd was yet another moment in my life where an absolute hatred of the incompetence and “ass covering” which describes the governance and agencies of the City and State of New York blossomed within my chest. A red hot flower of rage.
Fill in the blanks, again, for your weekly “29th street in LIC is collapsing into Newtown Creek” post – Nothing XXXXXXX matters, and XXXXXX cares.
Want to know how Newtown Creek, and in fact all of NY Harbor, have ended up in the state they’re in, this is how.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As it turned out, I had arrived here when a particularly low tide was in effect, and you can really see what’s going on with this bulkhead.
The roadway is being undermined by all of this. That chain link fence used to be about fifteen feet from the edge, about a year ago.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The abandoned oil barges have been here a lot longer, of course. When I first showed up on the Creek about fifteen years ago, I was told that these barges had been here since for twenty plus years. That makes 35 years, by the way, during which…
35 years ago, Ronald Reagan was President of the United States. There was a Soviet Union. Ed Koch was the Mayor.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This crap might qualify as a historic ruin at this point.
As I’ve said many times in posts about this subject – Bah!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Regardless of the comforting blanket of outrage, and disappointment at the government’s absolute inability to do anything at all without there being a luxury condominium involved, one continued on his scuttle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The tree. It’s all and only about the tree.
“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.
budding branches
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
April 12th offered an extremely productive evening up to me. The weather was perfect – crisp and clear – and I had no obligations to hold me back from just wandering around the “study area.” A long walk was on the menu, so here we go…
First stop was at “hole reliable” along the fence lines of the Sunnyside Yards, where a Long Island Railroad train was hurtling through the Harold Interlocking on its way into Manhattan.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Next up was yet another visit to Long Island City’s 29th street to document the continuing collapse of a bulkhead into Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kills tributary.
Fill in the blanks: XXXXXXX matters, XXXXXX cares.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Yup, getting worse, every time it rains.
Can’t wait to call out the elected officials and agency personnel at the funeral of whomsoever ends up dying here when the street collapses. I will happily testify at the court case too.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One continued on his merry way, and decided that tonight would a good one to loop across the Newtown Creek at the Pulaski Bridge and then use the Newtown Creek Nature Walk to connect to the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge via Kingsland Avenue to get back to Queens.
As it turned out, this was a fortuitous idea, as you’ll see later on this week.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Checked in on my beloved tree of Paradise, which was just beginning to bud with spring time foliage.
I continued up to Borden Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Long Island Railroad 404 was crossing Borden Avenue, on its way to the Main Line tracks at Sunnyside Yards. There’s a bit of complicated rail infrastructure nearby.
I’ll attempt to talk about that in some detail 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.
no singers
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After another depressing visit to the collapsing bulkheads of Long Island City’s 29th street, one continued his lonely scuttle along the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek.
My toes pointed towards Borden Avenue, so I followed them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A strip club nearby Borden Avenue has reopened after its pandemic slumber, it seems. I’ve always been a Star Trek guy, and don’t enjoy this form of bawdy adult entertainment, but to each his own.
Life, as it were, finds a way.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One decided to continue westwards along Borden Avenue, heading towards the East River where I would hang a right and begin scuttling back towards Astoria.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Along the way, the enormous construction site which used to house the HQ of the online grocery “FreshDirect” was passed.
I just can’t pass up a view like this one.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Long Island Railroad was operating at street grade, and two of their engines were heading towards the Sunnyside Yards. An absolutely terrific amount of FDNY traffic had been passing me by and heading west towards Hunters Point for about a half hour, a deployment which included that ambulance pictured above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the Vernon Jackson stop, a gaggle of fire chiefs and multiple engine and ladder companies were turned out. It seems that some sort of metal debris and reports of “people on the tracks” had drawn their attention.
I hung around for a while, waving the camera around. Anything the FDNY does is interesting.
“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 