Archive for the ‘Long Island City’ Category
choking gasp
Great Gallopping Golly Gosh Gee, it’s Wednesday again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
High over Hunters Point in Long Island City, the POV looks southwards across the Long Island Railroad’s terminal passenger stop on the Lower Montauk line, various incarnations of which have been found here since 1870. In place even longer than the LIRR station, is the intersection of Newtown Creek with its parent waterway East River. Beyond is Greenpoint, which has been there for a good stretch, and that’s Manhattan on the right side of the shot which has also enjoyed a long occupancy hereabouts.
That’s the Williamsburg Bridge at center distant, which has been hanging out over the river since 1903. It’s an immigrant superhighway!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
September of 1954 is when the children of Brooklyn and Queens exploded into revelry over the opening of the Pulaski Bridge. One always refers to the area seen above as “DUPBO” or Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp, opining that “you need to get ahead of the Real Estate guys on this sort of thing or you’ll wind up living in “Westoria” or something.
The Pulaski Bridge is also an immigrant superhighway of sorts, connecting Queens’ Long Island City to Greenpoint in Brooklyn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot looks northwards, where you can still spot the three major bridges of Western Queens all in one go by peeking over and around the residential towers of LIC. The Queensboro (1909), Hells Gate (1918), and Triborough Bridges (1936).
Tower Town, indeed.
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complete vacation
Happy Tuesday, Lords and Ladies.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A couple of friends answered my request to get “high in LIC” in the last week. Last week, on Thanksgiving and the Black Friday following it, views from my pal’s roof deck high above the Queens Plaza/Court Square area were on offer. On Sunday last, another friend allowed me onto his roof deck over in Hunters Point. The birds eye shots from Sunday will be presented in tomorrow’s post, for the most part.
While I was in the neighborhood, I did a little bit of wandering about, and had a very odd experience.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is one of the birds eye shots, from about twelve stories over Long Island City, looking towards East River past the Queens Landing section of Hunters Point Park South.
Shortly after recording this shot, I bid my host “adieu” and made my way down towards the street. Heading off towards Newtown Creek to the south was my goal. Upon reaching the corner, a sudden panicked call of “please help me, sir, please help me” rang out. An unusually tall blonde woman, my impression was that she was Russian (or some similar flavor of “Slavic”), approached and beseeched me to escort her back to her apartment house as she was terrified of a “driver” who “said all these things, horrible things, things…” She was brandishing her phone, which was on speaker with a man she said was her father. Fully aware that I might have wandered into the jaws of an old street grift called “cat fishing,” one nevertheless guided the lady back towards her building whereupon she disappeared within. Strange encounter with a quite hysterical person, but I got to feel like I helped some stranger out of a jam she was in, so “win.”
Life on the streets of NYC for an itinerant photographer.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I wasn’t at all nervous about having to possibly “handle” a Russian hooligan if indeed I was being catfished (modern context notwithstanding, this is the one where a lady gains the attention of a man, whereupon she appeals to him to help her in a variety of circumstantial but always urgent situations, counting on his gallantry, who then leads him to usually male confederates who beat the tar out of the fellow whereupon the gang splits whatever loot he’s carrying) I was apoplectic about the masses of unsupervised teenagers gathered about the well lit East River waterfront.
Brrr, teenagers.
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intervening hours
Friday has come at last, whew.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As I mentioned yesterday, my stated desire to get high in LIC received a few answers, and one of them presented an opportunity to access the roof decks at one of the titanic new residential towers in the Queens Plaza area. One was offered a fairly limited period of time in which to get busy with the clicking and whirring, as my friend’s generosity was limited by him having preexisting plans for later in the evening.
Pictured above is the zone found around and about the Court Square section, with the Sapphire Megalith at center.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking southeast towards Brooklyn, that’s the Kosciuszcko Bridge and the Brooklyn Queens Expressway at the top of the shot, and the dark mound just in front of it is Calvary Cemetery in the Blissville section. The bright line is the Long Island Expressway, and in the foreground is the Degnon Terminal nearby the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek.
This is how City Planners see things, I suspect. Neat little blocks and distanced “zones” devoid of the complications or existential realities of humanity. Personally, I spend so much time scratching around in the filthy substrate and granular truths of these places, this point of view is like an alien reality to me. Saying that, even all the way up here, there are construction cranes visible.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking west and slightly northwards towards Manhattan and the Queensboro Bridge, the Queensbridge NYCHA houses are filling the right hand side of the image and looking for all the world like charcoal briquettes on a BBQ.
Have a nice holiday weekend, lords and ladies, and I’ll be back Monday with something completely different at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
momentus talk
Thanks…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all an indigestion free night.
Shocking news arrived last night, when news of the death of State Senator Jose Peralta at age 47 arrived in my inbox. Sen. Peralta was a really nice guy, and 47 is way too young for anyone to check out. Condolences are offered to his family.
Pictured above is the view that the Amazon folks will be enjoying as they work late into the night in LIC. More on that next week.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My clarion cry to “get high in LIC” was answered by my pal Joe, who lives in one of the tower buildings that have recently risen in the Queens Plaza area. Pictured above is a birds eye view of the same Queensboro Bridge pictured in the first shot, and the intertwining arterial roadways that feed into the span. Unfortunately, the Newtown Creek aerial POV I’m hungry for wasn’t available from this vantage point, but there you are.
A couple of others who live a bit further to the south have responded to my request, and I’m hoping to get the shots I want this weekend. Cross your fingers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Same point of view, which is close to sixty stories above Queens, but is a bit more zoomed in. Tomorrow, I’ll show you some more of what I saw from up on high.
Happy Thanksgiving, lords and ladies.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
professional duty
Friggin Wednesdays…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One suspects that this will be a seldom read post, given that the vast majority of New Yorkers will be going somewhere else today. I plan on staying in Astoria, just to defend the neighborhood against burglars and sneak thiefs.
I also plan on walking out into the concrete devastations of Newtown Creek a few times, in pursuance of more nocturnal shots like the ones in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The City has been replacing its street light heads with cold colored LED luminaires in recent years, which are meant to provide brighter and more directed light onto roadways. The State is still using the old school sodium lights which produce a warm yellow-orange light.
A humble narrator is often fascinated by the spots where these two different colors of artificial light mix, as in the case of the shots above which is in DULIE – Down Under the Long Island Expressway – here in LIC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As it happened, when I surmounted the Pulaski Bridge in pursuance of gathering a shot from the span (a photo which was unfortunately blurry due to the transmitted vibrations of passing traffic), workers from the NYC DOT Bridges unit shooed me back along the walkway so that they could safely open the draw bridge for a passing tugboat.
Wasn’t that nice of them?
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 