Archive for the ‘East River’ Category
Archives post #051
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As threatened, today brings you an ‘archives’ post, as a continuing spate of winter weather has absolutely grounded all of my ambitions and I’ve got nothing new to present today.
On February 20th in 2014, a similar climatological situation saw me offering a post on a few of my favorite NYC bridges. Check out ‘approaching triumph’ if you’re interested in such matters.
As established during the hermitage which saw me recovering from the busted ankle, the conceit underlying exactly which posts I’m pulling out of backup for a second look is entirely calendrical in nature. Everything presented as a part of these archives posts were published on this date, in their respective years, sometime between 2009 and 2025.
Yes, I’ve been doing this blog for a pretty long time now.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On this date in 2018, ‘scarcely be’ described the scene, as observed in the dead of night, at the fabulous Newtown Creek’s Grand Street Bridge where the currently undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens can be both experienced and surmounted. Miss those nights, wandering around the concrete devastations all by myself. This was when I still was using headphones when scuttling about, a habit I had to drop during COVID when things starting getting weird out there.
There were just a few times that I thought I was in trouble during that interval, and I either got lucky or the other guy decided that it wasn’t worth the trouble to jump me. There was one interaction with a creature of the streets that was extremely disturbing, one I’ve mentioned only to a few close friends and my old bartender in Astoria. Weird shit, yo.
Don’t ask, won’t talk about it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In 2020, ‘those miniscules’ was published here, which confessed to a bout of trespassing around Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kills tributary. The focus for these shots was the DB Cabin rail bridge. What you don’t see in these shots is who I was trespassing with, an elected official who represented this section of LIC whom I was attempting to ‘sell’ the concept of converting the Montauk Cutoff into public space. Didn’t happen, and now the cutoff is basically a homeless camp. Good show, NYC.
Back tomorrow, likely with another archives post. Good news is that the weather is meant to cure up around Pittsburgh over the next week, meaning I get to resume my happiness.
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Archives #041
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Happy Monday, lords and ladies. Progress, recovery from the injury wise, continues here at HQ. Hoping that sometime towards the end of this week or the start of the next… I might just be able to wield the camera again. Cross your fingers, mine are.
I think I’ve mentioned it previously, but since I started receiving physical therapy treatments for the ankle recovery my healing factor has gone into overdrive. This week’s posts are being written on Thanksgiving, I’d mention, so you’re a few days into my future while reading this.
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.
2013’s ‘monstrous guilt’ appeared today, addressing a few of the many accusations leveled at your humble narrator in the early days of this publication by various malcontents and madmen back in Queens, in a post illustrated with photos of walking around in Manhattan. Paranoid, much? Sheesh. Don’t miss a certain subsection of y’all at all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m still under Doctor’s orders to wear the walking boot when I’m out and about, but around HQ I’ve just been instructed to wear just a pair of my normal shoes again. I’ve also been growing capable enough to handle the bare minimums of adulthood again, cooking light meals and such.
Just watch, though… the day I say ‘I’m going out to go get some shots’ is the same day a blizzard appears and buries Pittsburgh in thirty stories of snow.
2014’s ‘faint draft’ saw me attending the christening and launch of the NYC DEP’s newest (at the time) sludge boat on Ward’s Island in the East River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It grinds that I’ve lost three months out of my life to this experience, but hey – I’m still kicking. I’m constantly reminded, however, that time grows short and the shadows are stretching out long. I’ve got a lot of dead friends, Y’see.
Time is precious, don’t piss any of it away if there’s a choice about it.
2015’s ‘marine things’ is a lament about another friend of mine dropping dead, this time it was Staten Island’s own John Skelson.
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Archives #015
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I miss walking, mainly. This broken ankle business is absolutely no fun at all. Today’s archive posts are plucked from previously published stuff, all of which was made public on this date in their respective years.
This October 25 post was published in 2013, and scuttles about in a section of LIC defined by Skillman Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I am not a huge fan of the showrunners at South Street Seaport, but I’ve got a lot of respect for the people who maintain and operate their small fleet of historic vessels.
Back in 2017, this post discussed a Working Harbor Committee get together onboard South Street Seaport’s Wavertree.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Every single hole in the fence at Sunnyside Yards which you could fit a camera lens through was catalogued and regularly visited, pretty much for the entirety of the time I lived in Astoria. This was along my walking route back and forth to the creek, after all.
Talking about one of the apertures – which I called ‘hole reliable’ – at Sunnyside Yards is what this 2022 post discusses.
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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.
treasure house
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Well… this is it. The shots from my last ride on the NYC Ferry, and the literal sunset for my interval shooting NY Harbor. It’s hard not to feel all choked up, as the harbor has been at the literal center of my life for decades. The tugboats, the bridges, Fireboats, the… Creek.
Usually, when I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed or emotional, I’ll put on some appropriate music to lighten my mood.
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– photo by Mitch Waxman
Eric Burdon often finds himself in heavy rotation on my various playlists, at least the playlists that don’t involve Cthulhu. Burdon’s talents are many, and I would urge you to particularly seek out his collaborations with LA’s Funk outfit “War.” The tune below could be used as the theme music playing over a montage sequence of me packing boxes and driving back and forth to Pittsburgh.
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– photo by Mitch Waxman
Astoria gave birth to one of my favorite hardcore punk bands, Murphy’s Law (actually, the Dutch Kills hood did, but close enough.)
“Pit Bulls, Beer, and herb – aww right!” This does kind of sum up the experience of living in Astoria. Really, Astoria smells like a combination of college and burning brake pads.
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– photo by Mitch Waxman
LA punk band Fear are intentionally offensive, and in the modern era their albums would likely be considered a hate crime by either the overly sensitive “Ute’s” or the deeply offended “Normals.”
Great live band, Fear was. Saw them at cb’s a bunch. The only thing that offends me, really, are people who are easily offended.
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– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of my little open secrets was that before each and every tour, I would listen to two particular songs on my headphones at top volume, in order to get “amped.” The Dropkick Murphys “Bastards on Parade” – below – is one of them.
In many ways, my entire philosophy is elucidated in this song.
The other song, as in the other one that I listened to right before every boat or walking tour, is this one.
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– photo by Mitch Waxman
And so, at last, my season on NY Harbor came to an end. I still had another destination to go to on this particular evening, but this was it for NY Harbor.
As far as what it’s felt like to be in the skin I’m in, quitting and abandoning everything I’ve worked to become or be, while throwing away half of my worldly possessions, all in pursuance of starting over in a new City while in my middle 50’s – how does that feel?
well…
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bodily dislodgement
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
October 21st, and I was continuing my exploration of a few spots in College Point and Whitestone which seemed promising. These were located during a session I spent with Google Maps’ street view feature. The 1961 Throgs Neck Bridge is what it depicts. The Google map said I was in a dog park, but it was actually just a parking lot alongside a parkway.
The hour was growing a bit late, and plans to meet Our Lady of the Pentacle back in Astoria were in the offing, so I packed up my troubles in the old kit bag. Yes, I did, indeed, “smile, smile, smile.”
For those of you under the age of 1,000, that’s a jokey reference to this song.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
October 22nd saw me in Flushing, at the Queens Botanical Garden.
There were pumpkins.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
October 25th and I was scheduled to spend a day with one of my closest friends driving around Southern Brooklyn, but it was very foggy when I left the house about 8:30 a.m. My ultimate meetup destination was in Park Slope, and there’s an obvious way to get there by car from Astoria, one which unfortunately involves sitting in a lot of Manhattan bound traffic on a certain expressway that connects Brooklyn and Queens.
I decided to go there via the less obvious but more interesting route, by driving to Ridgewood and then hanging a right and then a left or two in Bushwick and then proceeding through that central part of Brooklyn which nobody ever talks about these days. Along my way to the first right in Ridgewood, I crossed Newtown Creek and couldn’t resist a shot or two of the Grand Street Bridge all cloaked up in mist.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The new car has a moon roof. I don’t know what the actual difference between a sun roof and a moon roof is, but there you are. As I was driving along, whenever I got stuck at a light, I’d shove the camera up through the moon roof and turn the camera’s LED screen to a convenient angle so I could compose and record a quick shot.
That’s Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza, all fogged up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I did the same thing with the camera and moon roof on my way home. The fog had cleared by the afternoon, and the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself had burst into view. I was driving down Flatbush Avenue, this time headed in the direction of the aforementioned expressway betwixt Brooklyn and Queens.
I’ve been doing this sort of shot a bunch the last couple of weeks, as I’ve been driving a lot since receiving the car. It’s an interesting perspective for me, since the position of the lens to the car’s roof as it stands relative to the ground – if it were “eye level” – would indicate that I’m about six inches taller than I actually am.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An errand got me off the expressway and into the Woodside and Jackson Heights zone, where I had to weave an automotive path through the various “improvements” to traffic flow offered by the City in recent years. While driving down Roosevelt Avenue, a splotch of pigeon scat landed on the hood of my car, and I decided that it would be good idea to close the moon roof.
Hey, they say that’s lucky, having a pigeon poop on you.
“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 