Archive for the ‘Long Island City’ Category
hellish altar
Kitty!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m continuing my little summer vacation this week, which actually hasn’t been much of a vacation – truth be told. A couple of projects have landed on my desk, which is good, as my landlord likes it when I pay my rent. Bad, however, as I really just wanted to go out and aimlessly wander around Queens and have some fun for once. There you are. Being busy is a problem you actually want to have.
Single images will be found here, refreshed daily, until Monday the 26th when I’ll resume my complaining and kvetching.
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.
piled coffins
Friday odds and ends.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Queens Cobbler knows no shame, as evinced by the baby booty pictured above, which the probable serial killer left behind as a ghastly trophy and taunt on Northern Blvd. Babies, Cobbler?
Today’s post carries a few images I captured while doing something else or heading towards a location where I was intending to do some shooting. “Catch as catch can” shots like these fall under my category of “snapshots” rather than the ones I consider “photographs.” What’s the difference? “Intentionality” would be my answer.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To wit, that’s a fairly nice shot from the Celtic Park section of Sunnyside depicting the Empire State building rising on the horizon. I didn’t set out to get the shot, rather I was walking over to the Kosciuszcko Bridge to get some “photographs” and while crossing the street this image just jumped out at me. I’m not downplaying serendipity, and being ready for captures on the fly, but you could have just as easily gotten this shot with your phone as I did with the dslr I always have dangling off of me.
I’ve always got the camera ready to fire, as a note. Always.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over in Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay section, this butterfly suddenly appeared. How can the itinerant photographer not capture its splendor?
I’ll be conducting a tour on the NYC Ferry Soundview line tomorrow morning, link is below. Come with? Looks like it’s going to be a perfect summer day. Back Monday with something completely different at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours and Events
Saturday, August 10, 10 a.m. – 12.00 p.m.
Exploring the East River, From General Slocum Disaster to Abandoned Islands – with NY Adventure Club.
June 15th is one of those days in NYC history. In 1904, more than a thousand people boarded a boat in lower Manhattan, heading for a church picnic on Long Island — only 321 of them would return. This is the story of the General Slocum disaster, and how New York Harbor, the ferry industry, and a community were forever altered.
Join New York Adventure Club for a two-part aquatic adventure as we explore the General Slocum disaster, and historic sights and stories along the East River, all by NYC Ferry.
Tickets and more details here.
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.
obscure foothold
It’s not you, it’s me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are things which puzzle me, such as why there aren’t an abundance of street lights at work found at the off ramps of the Queensboro Bridge in Queens Plaza. You’ve got pedestrian islands to facilitate foot crossings of the traffic lanes, and there are even bike lanes, but there are few if any lamps hung from the elevated tracks above the roads. This doesn’t make sense.
“Welcome to Queens, now go fuck yourself” really should be the Borough Motto.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Queens Plaza Park is what the Durst Organization is calling its 67 story tower, which is currently rising towards an eventual seven hundred and seventy five foot zenith. Future home to nine hundred and fifty eight apartments worth of people, right here in Queens Plaza, this will be one giant mother flower.
Hopefully one of the people who will be living here someday will allow me to take a few shots out of their window or off their roof deck or whatever. I’d like to get some shots from up there before we go full “Mega City One.”
I’m too old for that dystopia crap.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lastly, as you may have noticed by now, I’m in a fairly foul mood. There’s some people who need smiting, and others who need to be made an “example of” as a cautionary tale for others. It’s best to keep to myself for a bit, wandering through the concrete devastations in the dark, drifting with the night winds like a ghast.
Bah!
“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.
falsetto panic
A few more archive shots, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As one hasn’t had anything particularly interesting going on for the last couple of weeks, or at least “interesting” visually speaking, so a humble narrator finds himself a bit short on content for the moment. Luckily, a great deal of time was spent during the cold months of this and last year scuttling about Long Island City in the dark of night and making with the camera clicking.
I’ve always thought the accidental compositions left behind by the workers of NYC are incredible looking, the middens of waste left behind by industrial labor.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shot above was gathered one night when I was photographing the neighborhood which the City and State intended for the habitation of Amazon’s HQ2 project. Those of us who live in Western Queens are not surprised or shocked by such sights. The dearest secret kept away from potential customers by the Real Estate crowd relates back to the tremulous state of the centuried municipal infrastructure underlying the shiny new tower apartment buildings.
“Writus Postus Interruptus” occurred right here, at about 12:15 a.m.
So, as I was sitting and writing the above drivel last night, a sudden screeching of breaks and THUMPF broke into my reverie at about 12:05 a.m.. Didn’t see it, but when I stuck my head out to see what happened, a bike rider had been struck by a pickup truck on my corner. The bike guy was laying in the street and screaming at the driver. Always a good citizen, a humble narrator initiated a 911 call.
By the time that the operator was about to dispatch help, the bike rider had recovered and was preparing to ride away. I reported this to the operator, who told me that “we can’t cancel a call once it’s started.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The consequence of me being a good samaritan involved then receiving multiple phone calls from various emergency services – first from onboard a fire truck, then about ten minutes later from an ambulance. About two hours later, my phone rings – at 1:48 a.m., and it’s the cops, whose response time to this was an hour and forty three minutes. Had to spend a good fifteen minutes on the phone with the officer explaining the above, and being a cop he made me go back into the story at different starting points to ascertain whether or not it was a made up story or it really happened.
Sheesh, try to do the right thing and next thing you know the cops have you up until two in the morning. My delicate equilibrium upset, didn’t get to bed until the wee hours, and I was so distracted by the encounter that I didn’t get today’s post done until just now.
Long story short, infrastructure of all kinds – including emergency response – is stretched paper thin here in Queens.
“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.
feebly leaped
A few archive shots today.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Meetings, have to’s, places to be and toes to break – these things affect us all and no one more so than I. Accordingly, a few archive shots are on offer today whilst one awaits the Götterdämmerung thunderstorm on schedule for this afternoon.
Pictured above and below are Flushing Bay, as captured one very cold night back in January of this year. In all actuality, the shot above actually depicts the intersection of Flushing Bay with Flushing Creek, but why get all technical?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All of this rain has caused an absolutely horrible consequence for the inland waterways of NYC, or so I’m led to believe by my friends who participate in the Citizen Science water testing program who have spoken of off the chart levels of sewage bacteria in their samples. The metric which is generally accepted by those in the know is that the Combined Sewer System can begin releasing untreated waste water into the harbor due to a tenth of an inch of rain falling on the City. A quarter inch of rain translates into a billion gallons of water entering the system, and virtually guarantees that the overage will start flowing into area waterways. Pictured above, you can see a containment boom surrounding one of the outfall pipes that empties into Flushing Bay.
Prior to today’s storm, the City has received 6.85 inches of rain just in July of 2019. Using the quarter inch equals a billion gallons equation, the City has had to deal with an extra 27.4 billion gallons of storm water just in the last month, which is on top of the normal wastewater flow coming from homes and businesses.
Bubble bubble, toil and trouble, indeed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Way on the other side of Queens, nearby Queens Plaza in LIC, you’ll find the Queensboro Bridge and the elevated tracks of the 7 line. Neither one of these structures has a drainage system directly feeding into the sewer system, instead, multi story tall pipes carry storm water and whatever else might get washed off the tracks or roadway down to street level where the water is expected to find its way to a sewer grate.
They look pretty, at least.
“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 