Archive for the ‘Long Island City’ Category
unaltered bone
A bit of detail at Dutch Kills.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One tries to shoot a few abstracted shots in between the sweeping landscape stuff when the camera is up on the tripod. At Dutch Kills the other night, I reminded myself to do so a few times. Check out yesterday’s post for the overview shots, and today’s for the “points of interest” ones. The bulkheads along the 29th street side of the canal have been collapsing into the water for a year or two now, and one particular event carried a self seeded tree down into the water column along with the rip rap and concrete.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The peculiar color of the water at Dutch Kills has always fascinated. I once had a City Council Member in Maspeth ask if I had manipulated an image I was showing her to make it look radioactive, which I should have been offended by the accusation thereof, but given the martian landscape of Newtown Creek… No, I assured Liz Crowley, this is what it looks like. Why she didn’t know that herself, I can only wonder. I have to say, if I was a Council Member, I’d know every square inch of my district like the back of my hand just in the name of not being surprised by anything.
Back to yesterday’s post, I mentioned the abandoned fuel barges at Dutch Kills, one of which is pictured above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Here’s a different view of that collapsed bulkhead, which is a bit of exposed archaeology as to how they filled in and reclaimed land at the start of the 20th century. This area was known as “the Waste Meadows” until the start of the modern era, a tidal wetland renowned for its ability to produce vast clouds of mosquitoes and breed other pests. When the Pennsylvania Railroad Company got busy draining and reclaiming the land which they’d carve the Sunnyside Yards into, the waste meadows were bought up by a real estate speculator and construction guru named Michael Degnon.
The industrial park surrounding Dutch Kills was created, and called the Degnon Terminal. Via Dutch Kills, there was water access, and Degnon built ship to rail facilities which allowed for the transference of cargo from one to the other.
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.
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.
nocturnal prowler
Rippity dippity doo.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve always been a fan of Skillman Avenue for one reason or another, and one of the “dad jokes” which I inflict on people walking with me along it, when we reach 39th street, is that “it’s all downhill from here.” Skillman follows a ridge which overlooks the southern border of the Sunnyside Yards. Between 39th street and it’s terminus at Hunters Point Avenue in Long Island City, Skillman Avenue runs through what’s largely an industrial zone but there’s a couple of exceptions along the way – notably LaGuardia Community College down at the bottom of the hill.
The views are pretty epic for a scuttling photographer, and especially so during this interminable quarantine. One tends to walk down and record it often.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sandwiched between Northern Blvd. and Skillman Avenue are the Sunnyside Yards. Pictured are a bunch of Amtrak trains just seething in the middle of the massive coach yard, whose main function is actually what you’re looking at. Providing storage for trains between periods of peak demand in Manhattan and beyond is what the Pennsylvania Railroad built the facility to do a century ago. On the Skillman or southern side of the Sunnyside Yard, you’ll find tracks used by the Long Island Railroad for commuter service, which travel through the busiest rail junction in North America – the Harold Interlocking. 39th street used to be called Harold Avenue, incidentally, which is where the name for the junction comes from. This shot isn’t from Harold, rather it’s from Honeywell Street – or at least the truss bridge over the tracks that’s so called.
Seriously, I know where almost every hole in the fencing of Sunnyside Yards is at this point. I’ve had Government people ask me how I managed to get inside the rail yard for some of the shots you’ve seen here over the years. They don’t believe me about the fence holes, and I won’t tell them where they are.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the Northern Blvd. side of the yards, and again at Harold or 39th street, is pictured above. Northern Blvd., or as I call it during normal times, the “Carridor.”
To make things even more complicated as far as street names here in Queens, 39th street transmogrifies into Steinway Street once you cross Northern. Why is this?
Because modern day Northern Blvd. was once a municipal border between the Village of Astoria and Middleburg/Sunnyside once. Robert Moses always did his best work in the areas that were neither “here nor there” found along legal borders between municipal entities. When he widened Jackson Avenue and turned it into Northern Blvd. during the early 20th century, these were “the sticks.” Population centers, as they stood back then, were far away on both sides of the 183 square acre Sunnyside Yards – which itself was opened in 1910.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the end of the week of Monday, April 6th. 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.
phenomenal softness
Back in Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A longish night time walk from Astoria to the Pulaski Bridge spanning Newtown Creek, and then over the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge and back into Queens, was punctuated by FDNY activity at nearly every step of the way. A deployment at one of the homeless shelters in Blissville actuated not only the fire house on nearby Greenpoint Avenue, it also pulled in units from Brooklyn’s Greenpoint as well. Engine 238 (pictured) and Tiller Truck 106, if you’re curious about Brooklyn fire units. I can’t help but take photos when FDNY is doing their thing. Firemen, firemen!
This shot is from the corner of Greenpoint and Review Avenues, looking towards Brooklyn across the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My pathway home took the shape of walking along Greenpoint Avenue, where the startling view of a Long Island Expressway with no traffic whatsoever greeted me. Earlier in the evening, one observed something similar at the Queens Midtown Tunnel.
Last time I saw anything like this was in the week or two following Hurricane Sandy. Should one be lucky enough to survive this pandemic business, I hope to be awarded a three disaster ribbon by the City. It’s been one heck of a couple of decades here in the megalopolis, hasn’t it?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Of course, just as I arrived back in the zone of HQ, an ambulance went screaming past. I’m not going to launch into some speech here, rather…
You want to underexpose for a passing ambulance, due to the strobing light. I already had the color temperature of the camera set to 3750K, my standard “go to” for modern day NYC street lighting at night. It’s f2.8, 1/200th of a second, and at ISO 6400. The shot did get noodled around with a bit in the developing process, but most of that involved dealing with sensor noise.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the end of the week of Monday, April 6th. 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 