Archive for the ‘Long Island City’ Category
ghastly jest
Queensboro, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s an effort underway to create separate lanes on the lower level of the Queensboro Bridge, one for pedestrians on the southern side and one for bicycles on the northern. I’m in favor of this plan, personally, as I’ve long thought that the shared pathway currently offered is “piss your pants” dangerous. Long standing, the shared path has pedestrians dodging fast moving bike riders who pick up a generous amount of speed as they descend off the slope of the bridge. Doesn’t sound dangerous because “bicycle,” I know, but having 150-200 lbs of primate meat smack into you when it’s moving at 20 mph on a wheeled contraption isn’t pleasant no matter what the bicycle people say. With the recent addition of e-bikes and other novel forms of electrically driven transport added into the milieu, you’ve now got what are essentially motorcycles using the bike path and silently moving in excess of 30-40 mph.
Physics, bike people, physics.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s a devilish challenge doing any sort of long exposure work up on Queensboro, despite its apparent stolidity. The bridge is a cantilever type, meaning that each section is geared up to the next one, and each piece is constantly moving and vibrating, particularly when heavy vehicles like garbage or semi tractor trailer trucks are crossing it. Given the high volume of traffic on Queensboro, there’s a whole lot of shaking and moving going on, thereby.
That white line, incidentally, is the only divider between the bike lane (left side) and the pedestrian lane. There are no speed enforcement mechanisms in place here, or at least none that I can point to. Those e-bikes, the mono wheels, the hover boards, and all the other novel new methods of getting around can and do go as fast as they want to go. On the very cold evening I shot these photos, I had to duck out fo the way of a couple of groups who were riding four abreast. Dangerous, this. I have spoken.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The bicycle people will jump about and yell about how motor vehicles are the real menace, calling them two ton death machines. At least due to license plates and mandated insurance I have somebody to sue for damages. I’m at a loss as to how the city can classify e-bikes and the ilk as anything other than motor vehicles, but sense and logic don’t find an easy place to fit into the modern political dialogue. Everything is a life and death emergency, except when it comes to pedestrian safety. Given that my “Transportation Alternative” is walking, you’d think that maybe that POV would be a part of the conversation, but there you are, and there I am dodging bikes, e-bikes, and those weird wheel things.
See you next week, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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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.
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.
uncouth time
Death. Annihilation. Hatred.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All night long, on my trek to the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek, I was noticing and recording the unnatural colour offered to the sky vault by the Kosciuszcko Bridge’s bizarre lighting system. It’s like no earthly colour, rather it’s like something out of space, in my opinion. Darth Cuomo, in his infinite wisdom and bowel quaking power, has decreed that this prismatic display must occur.
Soon, we shall all know the colour, and it will be a part of us.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A rare vertical or portrait format shot, the photo above was devilishly difficult to capture. There’s the super bright campus of the Federal Express shipping depot, which was absolutely and positively not part of a quid pro quo for their lost facility at what’s now Hudson Yards. You’ve also got the out of gamut color spectrum offered by the aforementioned lighting system installed at the order of the Governor by the New York State Department of Transportation. Everything else in the shot was cast into fuligin shadow, and what I wanted was to find a middle point between the extremes.
I guess “middle point between extremes” describes the general desire one has for his life, but has always been denied.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Borden Avenue Bridge was the midpoint in my mission for the night, where a humble narrator reoriented himself back towards Astoria, Our Lady of the Pentacle, and my little dog Zuzu. Checking my phone, it was realized that I had again lost track of time, and it was quite a bit later than my perception would have indicated. One or two last shots of the Long Island Expressway’s “Queens Midtown Expressway” truss were executed before I made my way back to civilization in Blissville.
Well after midnight, one summoned a ride share cab home. NYC’s sardonic sense of humor manifested then, as two yellow cabs and a bus appeared while I was waiting for a fellow named Singh to arrive in his minivan.
“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.
scrawled message
Where I belong, leave my body here when I die.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I can now confirm that Dutch Kills is still where it was the last time I saw it. That was after the broken toe literally swept my leg out from under me. Despite the injury, I had to conduct a walking tour, or as I called it then – a limping tour – just two days after breaking the damned phalange. Only time ever that I fell down when conducting a tour. Ultimately, though, i screwed up by displaying weakness to the people in my life. Must never display weakness, because others will take advantage of it. If I’m taken advantage of, I have to respond in a widely inappropriate and disproportionate manner. Ask everyone who knows me – every single day is the first day in prison with me. I’m not locked up in here with you, you’re locked up in here with me. It’s exhausting, really, being me.
That’s the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge in the foreground, with the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek and the Long Island Expressway in the back. The original draw bridge on this site was made of wood, and was opened and closed by the actions of a donkey walking on a wooden wheel. Happy place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Irving Subway Grate site continues to decompose, an island of calm in the chaotic development landscape of LIC. Just down the block, the patrons of what has been described to me as the second worst strip club in Queens were smoking the weed while I was shooting this. I’ve never been a strip club guy, as a note. Not saying it’s bad if you are, but like the Karaoke and Dance Club scenes, it’s just not for me. I also don’t see the point of Casinos, loathe musical theatre, and avoid poetry readings.
I like irish bars, poisoned and highly industrial waterways, junk yards, waste transfer stations, sewer plants, and cargo docks. These are the places I belong.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking westwards along Borden Avenue, and its eponymous bridge, towards the Empire State Building. Back when I started wandering around Newtown Creek, you could easily navigate the surrounding neighborhoods by the position of three large structures – Manhattan’s Empire State and Chrysler Buildings, and the Citigroup Megalith at LIC’s Court Square. Recent real estate development has obscured the Megalith and Chrysler Building, hiding then behind banalities. Luckily, the Empire State is still visible, although it’s silhouette is often ruined these days by the architecturally dubious Hudson Yards development on Manhattan’s west side.
This is where I plan to someday celebrate the detestation of the water lizard, when the corporeal residue of my body is tossed – like every other bit of wind blown trash in New York City – into Newtown Creek.
“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.
acrid scent
I’m the thing on your doorstep at night.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Want to have people notice you? Stand on the corner of Skillman Avenue behind a tripod, while photographing scenes like the one above. People will literally walk directly in front of the camera lens and good naturedly ask you what you’re recording. “Right now, madam, your midsection” is something you can say. That’s why I had to stand there for about twenty minutes the other night, waiting for another 7 train to transit above. Shot needed the 7, after all, not some random woman’s abdomen. If you happen across a photographer who is set up with a tripod and all the other junk, and you’re feeling conversational, maybe it would make sense for you not to stand directly in front of their camera? As mentioned, hate for everyone and everything at the moment.
My goal, as mentioned in yesterday’s post, was to get down to Dutch Kills in LIC, which is one of my happy places. I need happy places at the moment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“Hell is other people” as the saying goes. Of course, without the other people, these shots would have been gathered in a primeval and legendarily mosquito rich swamp that was supposedly avoided by the native americans. This section of LIC was historically undeveloped until the early 20th century, when the fields of both construction technology and financial capital management had finally attained levels sufficient to not just conquer but totally annihilate the natural environment. You can destroy an ecosystem the old fashioned way (Rome was great at this task), but to totally erase any trace of flowing or flooding water, you need modern tools and lots of money. The Pennsylvania Railroad, Michael Degnon, and the City of Greater New York itself had both requirements sorted out back “in the day.”
This corner is where, instead of some nosey lady, I got to smile and wave at a couple of cops who were mildly curious about my activities. Not curious enough to roll down the window, or get out of the car, just curious enough to stare at me for a few minutes. I waved, smiled, and flipped the tail of my filthy black raincoat at them. Shaking their heads, they drove off.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally. When I say that I can only be happy when I’m in places like 29th street in LIC, a blasted railroad access route that masquerades as a proper city street. The bulkheads along the water side of the street have been collapsing for a couple of years now, but no one cares. The waters of the industrialized canal called Dutch Kills, which have tested positive for both Gonorrhea and Typhus, are poison but no one cares. Sick little trees line the banks, wicking up the heavy metals and other pollutants from the landfill used to conquer the swamp. I care.
Nepenthe.
“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 