Archive for the ‘Citi Building Megalith’ Category
strained formalities
Ok, now I’m getting a little stir crazy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Something which has happened the last few times that I’ve left the quarantine of HQ for one of my constitutional walks is that before I even realize it, I’m at Dutch Kills. Maybe it’s because Dutch Kills, a tributary of the fabulous Newtown Creek in Long Island City, is a familiar and comfortable place for me. Perhaps it’s the fact that I can get to and from the place via depopulated corridors of illimitable solitude.
At any rate, Dutch Kills is where you can spread my ashes if the virus takes me.
Pictured today is the so called turning basin of Dutch Kills. The waterway averages a distance of about a thousand feet between its bulkheads, except for an area at its terminus, which is shaped like the head of a hammer and was designed to allow maritime traffic a point of easy rotation to reverse course rather than forcing vessels to back out to the main stem of Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Technically speaking, where I was standing while gathering these shots is public land. One of the property owners whose lot adjoins this spot erected fencing around it shortly after Hurricane Sandy. The lock on the fence… well… let’s just say that I know how to open it and that I wasn’t too worried about having to chat with private security during a pandemic. I know, I know. What’s the point of having rules if you never bend them?
That’s an abandoned oil barge, one of two, which have been slowly dissolving into Dutch Kills for decades. It’s been there for the entire time I’ve been on the Newtown Creek beat, and even my buddy from ExxonMobil and the team at EPA have no idea whom these barges used to belong to. These days, they belong to a bunch of Canada Geese who use them to sleep and sun on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These photos were gathered on a full moon night, during which a “king tide” was manifest. What that means is that the water level at high tide was a great deal higher than it normally is. I was reminded of this by one of my chums at Newtown Creek Alliance when I mentioned that I though the barges seemed to be sinking deeper into the mud. Perception, particularly at night is a weird thing.
I’m desperate to get out of “the zone” at the moment, and might just tie my face mask on and go ride on the top deck of the NYC Ferry one of these days – just to be able to focus my eyes on distant objects. I also need some sunlight.
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, April 13th. 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 as we move into April and beyond, 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.
suitable account
Happy Friday, shut ins.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wandering, always wandering, that’s me. I also formulate questions while walking, along, like “why do the people who have moved into the new developments in Long Island City eschew the use of drapes or Venetian blinds.” Also, while pondering subjects which randomly involve aspects of law, the proper cooking of pork, or societal engineering, one considers both past and future.
The lockdown here in NYC began shortly after the night of a full moon which coincided with Friday the 13th. The Ide of March, I believe, is when the Governor began exerting himself in muscular fashion. It’s now a month later – the Ide of April, as it were – and recent news reports have informed that not only has Krakatoa erupted but there’s also an asteroid which will be passing closely (in celestial terms) past the earth. There’s also a plague of locusts devouring Eastern Africa, but there’s always locusts in East Africa so that’s not really surprising. I’ve got a pot of ram’s blood to paint on my door, just in case the streets begin to fill up with hordes of toads or frogs.
Amphibians come in hordes, no? I know crows come in murders.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One somehow managed to pull off a hand held shot at 1/60th of a second just above, which is a new record for me. Normally, 1/100th is the best I can do on hand held shots before motion blur induced by my breathing and blood circulation obfuscates detail and sharpness.
That’s a near empty LIRR train riding through the Harold Interlocking at the Sunnyside Yards pictured, if you’re the curious type. I am.
Saying that though, my mind is dulling due to all the isolation, and Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself are developing a regional accent particular to our apartment.
Zuzoop the dyg has nary an idear whut we’s be speakins to hur in this new patois, but treats be rain on hur so no worry.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Tripod based exposures continue to be gathered, on the other hand, and a particularly productive walk over to Dutch Kills in Long Island City the other night will be described in some detail next week. It turns out that I had randomly and unintentionally turned up there during a so called “king tide” which saw the turning basin of Dutch Kills full up to the brim with Newtown Creek juices.
There were critters a splishing and a splashing in the darkness, and those disagreeable Canadian Geese are back in town, having ignored all travel restrictions. More on all this next week at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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, April 13th. 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 as we move into April and beyond, 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.
only acquiesce
Scuttle, scuttle, scuttle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One keeps on finding himself at the Dutch Kills Tributary of Newtown Creek, here in Long Island City, for some bizarre reason. Partially, it’s the lack of people one might encounter along the way. On the other hand, it’s a familiar place to me and therefore comforting. Pictured is the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge.
Dutch Kills, as the United States Army Corps of Engineers so rendered it in the early 20th century, averages about 150 feet of space between its bulkheads. It’s spanned by several bridges, and this particular single bascule drawbridge – which it’s owners at the NYC Dept. of Transportation will tell you – is the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge. Replacing an earlier wooden drawbridge powered by a donkey walking on a wheel, the modern HPA Bridge was originally erected in 1910 as a double bascule drawbridge with electric motors. The masonry, bridge house, and basic structure of the thing are original to that effort but in the 1980’s a retrofit of the bridge eliminated the double bascule mechanism with a simpler to maintain single bascule one.
What’s a bascule, you ask?
That’s the section of a draw bridge’s roadway which tilts upwards to allow egress to a passing vessel. See? You learned something in Quarantine.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What is a man? What has he got? Frank Sinatra asked that.
When is a road not a road, and a city street is not technically a street? When it’s 29th street between Hunters Point and 47th avenues in Long Island City. There are several roads and streets around here which are on the NYC map, host NYC street names and signs, and you can get mail delivered to structures which use those designations as addresses, but they aren’t actually city streets. Railroad access roads, they are called, and are the actual property of the MTA/Long Island Railroad. 29th street is one of them. If you know what to look for, beyond tracks rising up out of the asphalt, these streets are easy to spot. Long gentle curves between the corners, rather than straight as an arrow, and if the distance between the corners is curiously long… you’ve found a good candidate for “railroad access road.” You have to check the official record, of course, but 29th street alongside Dutch Kills is definitively part of this classification.
Back in the early 20th century, there used to be a “terminal railway” setup in these parts which provided “last mile” service to the factories and warehouses of “America’s Workshop” as LIC was known. This “Degnon Terminal railway” split off from the Lower Montauk tracks along Newtown Creek via the Montauk Cutoff.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A couple of blocks from Dutch Kills is the former Waldes Koh-I-Noor four building complex, which used to be able to accommodate a train set running between its various buildings. Waldes were manufacturers of milliners supplies – pins and needles, buttons, snaps. The metal pants zipper was innovated here during the First World War, I’m told. During the Second World War, Waldes ceased production of clothing items and retooled their factory for war production, manufacturing the internal components of artillery shells for both the Army and Navy.
Boy, do I love LIC. I guess this is part of the reason I find myself wandering around here so often. The stories I can tell… and wish I was telling… but somehow I don’t think that I’m going to be leading many walking tours this year.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the start of the week of Monday, March 23rd. 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 as we move into April and beyond, 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 hybrids
In the end, there is only one question.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve asked it time and again – who can guess, all there is, that might be buried down there? A recent scuttle found one headed towards Queens Plaza and discovering that a subterranean parking garage had been recently constructed that offered one a partial answer to that question. Cars. There’s cars down there.
Y’know, if you’re moving to a high rise building located at the destination point of nearly every bus and subway line in the Borough of Queens, and a couple of blocks from the Queensboro Bridge, a question to ask yourself is “do I really need to have a car, instead of renting one when I need one, since I live one subway stop from Manhattan”? Pfagh!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One remains endlessly fascinated by the visual splendors of Queens Plaza. Long exposure shots such as the one above, which captured the quick passage of a bus past the camera, are the sort of thing I’m after these days. When I see a bus coming, an attempt is made to get the shot set up and framed before it passes me by, as a matter of fact. That streak of light in the middle of the shot above is actually an N train entering the Queensboro Plaza station on the elevated track, so for once my timing worked out perfectly, MTA wise. I always say “the A in MTA is for adventure.”
This was a particularly cold night, but the recent desire for a return to physical and photographic discipline after the long convalescence related to that broken toe at the end of 2019 is something which I cannot deny myself. Also, by staying busy in the slack time of my year, I’ve avoided the depressed mood and doldrums which normally afflict me during the winter months.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Since the air temperatures were in the high twenties, and it was quite breezy, the only logical choice I could make was to visit the Queensboro Bridge bike and pedestrian path, since a cold January night is exactly when you want to find yourself about ten stories over the East River – right?
Used to be that I’d find myself walking over Queensboro a couple of times a week, but for the last few years not so much. I also never used to drink tea, but these days I look forward to a good “cuppa” now and again.
“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.
archaic symbol
The thing in the megalith has left the building.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A minor earthquake was recorded on Tuesday the 25th of June at 7:26 p.m. in Long Island City. According to the USGS (United States Geologic Survey), it occurred some two kilometers – or just over a mile – down into the ground, and in the vicinity of the Queensboro Bridge. It registered a 0.9 on the Richter Scale, and was reportedly centered below 43rd Road and 10th street. Obviously, this is a cover story offered by the government establishment for what really caused the earth to shiver.
The thing in the sapphire megalith, which hungrily gazed down upon LIC with its three lobed and unblinking eye since 1990, has left the building.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Citigroup corporation, a financial services company which the acolytes of the inhuman thing that dwelt in the cupola of the Sapphire Megalith think they work for, has been planning for several years to vacate LIC. The Amazon debacle accelerated their plans, and the Megalith – which is referred to by the innocuous “One Court Square” in official documentation – was meant to act as temporary housing for the Amazon people while their campus was under construction. Telling, the earthquake occurred one block from their proposed “HQ2” site. One presumes that the inhuman entity that occupied the Megalith has tunneled its way out of Queens and back to Manhattan where it belongs, causing the seismic activity.
I mean, that’s logical? Right?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In all actuality, even though we don’t associate NYC with seismic activity in the way we do the megacities of the West Coast, they do happen. A couple of years ago, there was a 4.9 richter scale quake recorded to east on Long Island. In December of 1737, what is forensically thought to be a 5.2 level quake hit Manhattan, knocking over brick chimneys and causing all sorts of property damage. Another in August of 1884 similarly knocked over chimneys, broke windows, and threw items off of shelves.
Whether or not that undying thing, which does not breathe nor sleep, and which occupied the cupola of the Sapphire Megalith of Long Island City for twenty nine years, was responsible for those tremors cannot be ascertained.
“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 