Archive for the ‘New York Harbor’ Category
likewise inaccessible
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Earlier this week, one met up with his pal Val and we jumped into her shiny Valmobile with the singular intention of shooting ships. Accordingly, Val oriented the Valmobile in the direction of… Staten Island. After all these months of quarantine/pandemic walks around LIC and Newtown Creek, a humble narrator was positively squeaking with excitement as we heroically mounted the Verazzano Bridge and headed towards the Kill Van Kull waterway.
Adventure, excitement… a Jedi craves not these things, but I ain’t no Jedi.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our first stop was at “Skelson’s Office,” where my old and dearly departed pal John Skelson used to spend his time. This is a spot along the old and abandoned Vanderbilt Staten Island Railroad tracks which follow Kill Van Kull. KVK is often mentioned here during normal times, but for anyone not clued in – it’s a tidal strait that connects the lower harbor of New York with Newark Bay and another strait called Arthur Kill.
Kill Van Kull is the preferred approach route to the New York Container Terminal on Staten Island and the Global Marine/Port Elizabeth Newark complex in Bayonne, New Jersey for maritime shipping. For enthusiasts like my pal Val and myself, it’s “tugboat alley.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The show started as soon as we arrived at Skelson’s Office.
Our efforts later in the day found us over in Bayonne, and along the Hackensack and Passaic rivers. One thing that emerged during that part of the day was a sincere desire to find out more about the industrial sections of this section of New Jersey. I mentioned several times that I wished we were in a boat on the water, and that I was also anxious to find an analogue of Newtown Creek Alliance for this area to introduce me to the place.
A third person was in the Valmobile with us, my friend Scott, but he’s a Libertarian so we didn’t pay attention to anything he had to say. More tomorrow.
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, August 17th. 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 here, 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.
unpremeditated specimens
Friday is Shabbos, yo.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A last look from a recent trip to Randalls/Wards Island, which looks like the future but it’s an 80 years old version of future here in the House of Moses. Another cool thing about Randalls/Wards is the presence of the inspiration for Gotham City’s Arkham Asylum in the Batman universe. There’s also a sewer plant, the Fire Dept. Academy, all sorts of Cop infrastructure… the City keeps a lot of its toys here.
As mentioned, this day trip was a bit of a scouting expedition for my pal Val and I, looking everywhere and anywhere for interesting photographic opportunity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Personally, I couldn’t stop shooting the whole time I was there. Pretty much everywhere I looked, there was an interesting point of view. Our trip to the island occurred in the late afternoon and early evening, next time I come here I hope to do so in the morning to see what that looks like.
I am definitely coming back here, and next time I’m thinking about coming out on foot via the pedestrian approach on mighty Triborough.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Speaking of, me and my pal Val piled into her car and we headed back to the blessed shores of the ancient village of Astoria. She forked over a bunch of bucks in tolls crossing to and from on Mighty Triborough so to recompense a plate of food was bought for her at one of the neighborhood’s new out door dining piazzas.
I treated myself to a burger and a couple cups of Guinness, thereby calorically undoing whatever benefit the days exercise would have brought.
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, July 20th. 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 here, 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.
unknown spheres
Archive.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Shouldn’t have spoken so soon about wandering around with the camera the other night, as one ended up drinking a bit too much wine and went to bed early instead. Accordingly, a few shots from the Newtown Pentacle archives are on offer today. I did go for a short walk last night, but didn’t do too much shooting.
That’s a bee that was having itself a sunflower party in Astoria on a warm summer day a few years ago when I encountered it, one of the many hundreds of visually interesting things you might encounter here in the ancient village. Astoria is quite buzzy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A different day, while walking home from somewhere, I encountered a chicken corpse lying in the gutter. Did this chicken lead a dissolute life? Was this chicken a dick? Was it merely an escapee from one fo the local “Pollo Vivo” abattoirs? Did it not pay its debts? Who can guess?
Lots of mysteries here in Astoria, can’t begin to solve them all. I’m told by the local gendarmes that at least once a week somebody flips their car over within the confines of the 114th pct. Further, as I did inquire, it’s not the same person who is flipping their car over and over. Instead it’s a heterogenous population of lousy drivers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I like riding the Staten Island Ferry. One of the things which a humble narrator enjoys during these intervals on the big orange boat are the acrobatics of the seabirds which take advantage of its slipstream for a free ride between Manhattan and… Staten Island. Hitch hikers.
That’s some kind of gull pictured above, but one is always more than hesitant to offer speciation or classification for the avians. I will invariably get it wrong, which then invalidates every other statement I’ve ever made. Thereupon, I will be strung up and pilloried. There is no in between.
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, May 11th. 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.
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.
resident alienists
Friday bits and bobs.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last week and here in Astoria, just as a humble narrator was about to succumb to that daily interval of involuntary unconsciousness during which wild hallucinations occur, the windows at HQ began to strobe with a scarlet hue. Thinking that the Astoria Borealis might be occurring again, one rushed to the porch. It seems one of my neighbors was having a visit from both the NYPD and the FDNY, and since both of the municipal vehicles were quite static while the City’s preeminent staffers were busy within, one decided to get a couple of shots for the archive.
I do love seeing an unnaturally colored series of lights. A recent query offered by a passerby nearby Queens Plaza which was a variation on the standard “why are taking pictures of that”? My answer was “Y’know those old photos of NYC that people share on the internet? Somebody like me took those, and whereas these photos are new, someday they’ll be old.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luyster Creek is a lonely industrial waterway found on the forbidden northern coast of Queens, here in Astoria. A humble narrator is drawn to things forbidden, lonely, and industrial so a scuttle from HQ on the Broadway side of the neighborhood was enacted. Timing was key in this walk, as I wanted to get there just as the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself was dipping down beyond the western shore.
There’s a pretty active industrial driveway leading to the aforementioned western shore, leading to what’s soon going to be a new Department of Sanitation New York (DSNY) maintenance garage and salt dome complex. The City is moving operations from 21st street nearby the Ravenswood NYCHA campus over to the IBZ (industrial business zone) found on the north side of Astoria. DSNY is planning on spending a ball park number of $131 million back here.
Did you know that NYC has a 1% for art requirement in all new municipal construction projects? It’s how the Newtown Creek Nature Walk in Greenpoint got funded. Been on the books since 1982, the 1% for art requirement. You know who must have gotten that into the books, back in 1982? I’ll bet it was Astoria’s own Peter Vallone, senior. Hmmm.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One stuck around at Luyster Creek for a while as the tide was coming in. Saying that, Luyster is a lot like my beloved Newtown Creek in terms of there being a vertical rather than laminar or horizontal flow related to the tide. There’s a bunch of indeterminate muck in the water and its sediment bed due to industrial pollutants as well as a large CSO or Combined Sewer Outfall (BB-041) maintained by the DEP at the head of the canal. As a matter of fact, the shot above was gathered while standing on the pipe’s outfall weir.
NYC has a combined sewer system, meaning that sanitary and storm water use the same underground pipes to travel to the 14 sewer plants. A quarter inch of rain, City wide, means a billion gallons have suddenly surged into the system, and the agency responsible for wastewater management and the 14 plants – the NYC Dept. of Environmental Protection, or DEP – is forced to release the overage into area waterways.
The nomenclature of “BB-041” is explained thusly; the BB stands for Bowery Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant” which is just a few blocks away, the 041 indicates that this is number 41 of the 1936 vintage Bowery Bay plant’s 47 outfalls. BB-041 experiences an average number of 61 weather related discharges into Luyster Creek annually, and pours roughly 84 million gallons of untreated sewage per year directly into the water. Fun times.
“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 