Archive for the ‘East River’ Category
doubtful alchemy
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in prior missives, one last ride on the NYC Ferry was on my NYC bucket list to accomplish, before the big move to Pittsburgh. My pal Val and I had boarded the service in Queens and ridden the Astoria line boat southwards to Pier 11 in Manhattan, whereupon we then transferred to a Soundview line unit heading northwards.
The East River gave me a good day, for this last outing. The Queensboro Bridge was lit up all pretty like.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One thing I laugh about continually, since having arrived in Pittsburgh, is when the locals complain about traffic. There’s certainly road congestion here in Western Pennsylvania, but traffic? Look above, at the FDR Drive. That’s what traffic looks like. Pittsburgh traffic, even when it stacks up around the pinch points of tunnels and bridges at rush hour, still moves at 15-20 mph. Normally, it’s flying along at highway speeds. The average speed of a motor vehicle in NYC is 4.1 mph. …traffic…
Val and I had timed our afternoon out perfectly, as it turned out. Despite the complete lack of clouds in the sky, there were already hints of golds, oranges, and scarlets appearing in the early winter sunset.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After visiting one of the ferry’s stops at 34th street, the boat headed northwards. After 34th street, the Soundview boat moves into the westerly channel of the East River, found between Roosevelt Island and Manhattan, as it navigates north. This is more or the less the pathway that the ill fated General Slocum followed, all those years ago in 1904.
Next stop for the ferry is at East 90th street, nearby Gracie Mansion. The Astoria line stops here as well, and it’s one of the points where you can transfer between the two. Until they get wise to this exploit I’ve been taking advantage of, you’ve got a 90 minute period after activating your ticket during which you can transfer from one line to another. If you play your cards right and time it correctly, you can get from Soundview in the Bronx – nearby the Throgs Neck Bridge – all the way to Rockaway on $2.75.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the northern edge of Astoria pictured above, where thousands of people will be occupying newly developed luxury apartment houses within just a few years. It ain’t exactly prosaic that the City is putting this sort of population density in place along the waterfront, in an era when the term “managed retreat” is about to become quite familiar to most New Yorkers, but there you go.
Somebody else’s problem, as I now live on the side of a small mountain of coal and shale nearby three rivers, some 400 miles away from NYC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So many memories bounce about in my mind about the Hells Gate narrows area of the East River. Truly, this is one of the most amazing places, in a place known for being amazing. Don’t forget, for those of you who are staying in NYC, to stop and smell the roses every now and then. Gaze in wonder at the marvels, and appreciate the billions of hours of labor that they represent. Robert Moses didn’t build that bridge, tens of thousands of our grandparents did.
Mighty Triborough. The Hell Gate Bridge. Randall’s/Ward’s Island.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Soundview boat crossed under the two great bridges at Hells Gate, past Astoria Park, and continued north. Our plan, as it were, was to be riding southwards on the return trip at more or less the moment when the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself descended behind New Jersey. In the intervening period since shooting these photos, I’ve made a discovery or two which I’d like to share.
Turns out that the burning thermonuclear eye DOES NOT descend into New Jersey, as I’ve learned clear on the other side of that state. Recent observation has suggested to me that it instead descends somewhere else, perhaps even behind the State of Ohio.
More astronomical discoveries, and other updates tomorrow…
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standard works
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
November 22nd was a busy day, and one that was full of “last times.”
My pal Val and I met up and headed over to the East River for my last ride on the NYC Ferry. As mentioned in the past, one absolutely refuses to write one of those cliché soliloquies which New Yorkers feel hell bent to offer when they finally leave NYC.
I’ve lived my whole life in this crazy place. School, career, friends and foes, love and loss – all of it happened here. For broad ranging criticisms of how the City functions, its endemic corruptions or temptations or dangers – all of that – just read through the archives linked to just to the right of this text. There’s posts in that list which span back to 2009 that will spell out my various opinions on the milieu.
Saying that, on our way to the boat, I got to grab a shot of the Real Estate people’s minions at work, demolishing yet another small business’s premises in order to make room for luxury waterfront condos.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Nobody in my world could believe it when I said that I would be moving at the end of 2022. “C’mon Mitch,” where are you going to go? What will you do? You’re “Mr. Newtown Creek!” Why Pittsburgh?
The escape plan for Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself, one we hatched during the COVID isolation months, has played out over the last 14 months or so. We started with the question “what do you want?” This allowed for the creation of a data set built around these wants, one which could be sought and pursued. That’s when the question of “who are you” and “what do you need” took primacy.
I’m a city boy – so urban, and given the stage of life Our Lady and myself are entering, pretty decent health care resources coupled with a quieter form of life that offered fewer existential dangers due to living cheek by jowl with the random madmen who howl on the other side of the wall. Pittsburgh, in the final analysis. offered the “wants, where’s, and who’s” we were looking for in “Act 3.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
First tasks involved solving a few paperwork issues on my end. An expired drivers license’s replacement was complicated by a similarly expired passport. That was January. By April, I had solved both problems. Next up, we needed to buy a vehicle, since you can’t live in “America” without a car. Research, consciously saving the cash for a down payment all year, and a couple of car rentals later – the Toyota RAV4 had risen to the top of my list, and an order was placed for a new one with the Queensboro Toyota outfit on Northern Boulevard. It wouldn’t end up arriving until the week before Halloween, due to the supply chain problems, but that fit our timeline.
In September, I began to quit jobs, and sever my ties with the various organizations that I was associated with. First one to go was Community Board 1 in Astoria, where I was the Transportation Committee Chair. For those of you interested in serving on a CB, it’s definitely worth the effort, and there is a “Jeffersonian responsibility” to participate in the mechanics of the Democracy but there’s also a whole lot of bullshit you have to put up with – mainly from your fellow board members.
I next rolled up my business with all of the non profits that I either worked with, or was on the board of, over the next two months and made arrangements for a few “goodbye” moments like the Fireboat trip mentioned a couple of weeks back.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Riding the NYC Ferry one last time was on my list of “have-to’s.” Particularly during the COVID interval, access to the ferry has been nepenthe for me. For just a few bucks, you can get out on the waters of NY Harbor for a bit, and if you time it correctly – be out there for sunrise or sunset during the flood tide when the rivers are thick with maritime traffic. Photographer paradise. Particularly this photographer.
When I told my pal Val (also a photographer) that I wanted to do this trip, she insisted on coming along for one last go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All year, I was telling my friends that when things got to late November, things would be moving at a thousand miles an hour. My prediction was correct. I had to work doubly hard for the five days or so leading up to the 22nd in order to buy enough time to get this day off. Boxes to pack, cupboards to be emptied. All that. I got lucky as far as weather goes.
The plan for late November and early December included spending about a week at the new address in Pittsburgh, where I’d be driving Our Lady of the Pentacle and some bare essentials out to Pittsburgh in order to set up housekeeping in the new digs. After a week or so, I’d need to drive back to Queens to handle the final stages of the move and supervise the moving crew, leaving Our Lady of the Pentacle out west in the new PA house while doing so.
After the movers left the Astoria HQ, I’d have to drive back out to Pittsburgh on my own, this time with a carload of hard drives and camera gear, which I don’t trust anyone else to handle. Thereby, in an 8 day period, I ended driving something close to 1,600 miles with all the back and forth. Post facto, this is all kind of a blur for me at this point.
This ferry day in November was, thereby, my last dance with the East River in NYC. It’s so weird saying that.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I know what’s in those blue boxes on the barge, can describe what the bottom of that tugboat’s hull looks like, and there’s also a story I can offer about each and every thing in the frame. The sort of knowledge I’ve gained in the last twenty or so years can be suffocating.
Want to hear about the time that Mose the Fireboy, the legendary giant of the 19th century “Gangs of New York” era Bowery B’hoys, wrestled a serpent out of the water here at Corlear’s Hook? How the skin of the water monster was draped over the bar mirror at McGurk’s Suicide Palace on the Lower East Side near St. Mark’s? How about the Constellation fire at the Navy Yard? The Sewer Rats gang who would paddle out to anchored ships at night to rob them at knife point? General Slocum, as in the politician whom they named the infamous excursion boat for? Boss Tweed, who lived in George Washington’s Presidential Mansion on Cherry Street in Manhattan, a few blocks back from the water?
More tomorrow…
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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.
forward slumping
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The thing which a humble narrator is currently obsessing about, while you’re reading this, involves finding a job in the Pittsburgh area. There’s entire sections of my work life that are simple to describe – there’s a “Madison Avenue” advertising resume I can present, and I used to write and draw comic books as well as package other people’s stuff for publication so there’s that too. My photographer resume ain’t terribly shabby, nor is my tour guide one, and I can write stuff too. The question I’m struggling with is how to combine all of what I can do under a single job title, and does that position even exist in Pittsburgh? How on earth do I describe Newtown Creek Alliance and the constellation of federal and state agencies I help deal with all the time?
According to Jerry Seinfeld, most Americans would rather die than speak in public. Me? Easiest thing in the world, if you have something worth saying.
Existential crises are best experienced in September, I believe. Sweatshirt weather.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I like pondering things while I’m shooting photos, always have.
That’s the tug Joker that I pointed out in last Friday’s post, in an aerial shot captured at the One World Trade Center Observation Deck. Joker was docked at the concrete company which operates along the Williamsburg waterfront at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The barge full of sand makes a lot of sense, thereby.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There was also an agglutination of maritime cranes and all sorts of heavy equipment on display at the Navy Yard as the NYC Ferry’s Astoria line boat which I was riding on made one of its appointed stops at the venerable campus. It was a pretty nice day, if memory serves – August 19th. Fairly hot, but not horrific.
I’ve announced to anybody who will listen that I have no intention whatsoever of getting close to anything remotely non-profit or governmental in Pittsburgh, but that probably means that… crap.
Really, I just want a normal gig where I do mildly interesting photoshop stuff for some company all day, and then go home. Collect a salary 9-5, live for the weekends. An American sort of life.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What we have here in NYC is not an American form of life. NYC is an archipelago nation state that’s found off the coast of America, not an American City. Life here is quick and often fun, but it’s also mean and short. In America, there’s no “finding an open bodega” at 3 a.m. Transit, as we know it in NYC, does not exist beyond a daytime schedule and is extremely limited in scope. Adapting my frenetic “get it done” energy to the local frequencies on the other side of my move is going to one a real challenge.
Luckily, I feel like I’m a thousand years old and a medium strong wind will shatter me into sand particles. I could end up like Manhattan’s East River Park, pictured above. Annihilated.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just the other night, somebody said to me that “of course, you’re going to be coming back regularly to do Newtown Creek tours.” That part of my life is over, I’m afraid. I’m planning on doing one last burst of them in October and November, but no.
I have to remember to include being a NYC Parade Marshal for the centennials of Queensboro, Manhattan, Hunters Point Avenue, and Madison Avenue bridges on my resume. Oh yeah, the Community Board thing too, as well as the non profit stuff too.
Dear Nelly, who am I? What am I? Why am I?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As I mentioned, existential wonderings are on the menu right now.
The NYC Ferry dropped me off in Astoria, nearby Hallets Cove. My foot was hurting, so I limped over to a nearby bus stop and rode the thing back to HQ. Planes, trains, automobiles – that’s me.
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stealthy whirring
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
June 19th saw Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself riding around on NYC Ferries for the afternoon and evening. I often espouse the virtues of this service, given its thrifty nature and the fact that you’re traveling around the City with a somewhat clean toilet nearby.
We were all over the East River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We boarded the Astoria Line, which carried us southwards down the East River towards Manhattan’s Pier 11 Wall Street stop. Along the way, I spotted the Roosevelt Island Tram coming in for a landing from the East Side of Manhattan.
Have to ride that thing again, soon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Astoria line makes a stop at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which always offers you something interesting to point a camera at.
Next stop is Pier 11, where we transferred onto the South Brooklyn line and headed over to Red Hook. Our Lady wanted one of those Key Lime Pie thingamabobs.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There was a bit of schedule disruption at the South Brooklyn Line’s Atlantic Basin/Red Hook stop and we got hung up there for about an hour. That sucked, but what are you gonna do?
Finally, the boat which would take us to Manhattan arrived.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the financial district, there’s an imposture set up for tourists called “Stone Street” which goes out of its way to look “old timey,” but other than some barely utilized historic building stock – it’s the financial district. There’s a pub called “Ulysses” there which has pretty decent burgers and the beer is only $8 a pint. By the financial district’s standard, that’s as cheap as it gets.
We had a drink and a meal, and decided that we would splurge on a nice air conditioned cab ride back to Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When I’m paying for a ride, I like to at least get something out of it that I can keep, so my habit is to rig the camera up for high speed and low light shooting. Got this one just after we got onto the FDR Drive.
Tomorrow – something completely different.
“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.
neurotic virtuosi
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
May 9th, after spending a day riding on the NYC Ferry back and forth across the harbor, one set up his tripod in Lower Manhattan at sunset in the vicinity of the Brooklyn Bridge. On both sides of the river, you’ll notice photographers agglutinating along the fences about an hour before the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself descends.
I had a funny encounter with some kid who doesn’t understand the way things work – etiquette wise – in photo circles.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Part of my “get there early and stay late” thing revolves around claiming a vantage spot which I’ve chosen. In the unspoken etiquette of the picture taking community, that means that if I got there before you – you have to find another spot. This kid, who was in his late teens or early twenties, says to me “excuse me, are you doing a time lapse” and then indicates that his goal is to shoot such a sequence of images. I say “no” and he asks me to move so that he can. Now… I am pretty amenable to helping a guy out, but since he was being a dick…
I say to him “just to get this straight, you’re telling me you want me to get out of your way because you couldn’t be bothered to be here earlier.” The kid says “yes.” I say to him “Tell you what, I’m going to be a nice guy and move two steps over, but you do realize how special an asshole you are, and that you should seek medical advice about this malignant narcissism you display, right?” Being a child of his generation, he said “yes,” not understanding what I was saying to him. He didn’t care, he got what he wanted.
I stepped two side steps to the right so that he could have his time lapse position, and just stared directly at him with my heat vision eyes until his soul curdled and he sulked away. He didn’t shoot a time lapse during this interval, instead he waved his little Sony A3 with a kit lens on it at the river like the camera was a little flag. Guarantee he was set to “auto” or “program” mode, as not once did he adjust his settings.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Take my word on this one… for the sorts of shots you commonly see here at Newtown Pentacle, the difference of a few yards right or left in terms of the “POV” is seldom an issue. It’s the Manhattan Bridge you’re looking at there, and said mega infrastructure offers one several POV locations. The notion that this kid had to be standing exactly in the spot I occupied was simply annoying, and its positional unimportance as compared to another spot two steps away is staggering.
There’s a few “narrow” POV spots which I wouldn’t abandon once I’d already set up the tripod… but here? At the edge of South Street Seaport? This isn’t even the best view of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, I just didn’t want to head any further uptown from Pier 11, and end up having to take the subway instead of the ferry home to Astoria.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Speaking of the NYC Ferry, I boarded the Astoria bound boat shortly after the sunset ebbed away into dusk. My lenses were swapped – day kit stored away and night kit deployed – and I kept on shooting.
The nice thing about shooting digital is that you can just keep on going, experimenting, shooting until either the battery is spent or you’ve run out of storage space on the camera’s memory cards. I’ve got two spare batteries in my bag, and an empty set of backup memory cards with me at all times. Last summer, I managed to shoot for four straight dawn to dusk days without having to install the backup cards, and seldom if ever needed to do a battery change in the field.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Logistical issues abound, however, when returning from a day long photo expedition like this. Night shots, captured from a moving boat and depicting highly detailed scenery like the Manhattan skyline and Brooklyn Bridge above, have a fairly high failure rate. By failure, I mean they’re not optimally sharp or the focus landed on the subject in an unanticipated fashion. Thereby, I’ll crack out nine or ten exposures of the same basic shot and choose one to keep. The rest get trashed.
Again, the benefit of shooting digital. I came home this particular night (after riding the ferry all day between Astoria, Manhattan, Rockaway, and back to Astoria) with something like a thousand shots on my memory cards. My habit is to do the first pass on a set of images the same day I shoot them, and before I went to bed the group had been reduced down to about 250. By the next evening, I had edited out all but 130. Something like 100 ended up getting uploaded to Flickr.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If you click through to see the original of the photo above at Flickr, you’ll be able to see the structure of the steel of the Queensboro Bridge in the shot, which was captured at f2 at ISO 128,000 from a moving ferry boat at night. Because of the f2/High ISO you can’t quite see the rivets and this image is also heavily cropped in on. Still, you do what you can with where you are when you can.
“Are you shooting a time lapse”…
“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 