Archive for the ‘newtown creek’ Category
essential salts
Monday, from the old German word “mōnandæg,” means day of the moon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A little bit of continuity with last Friday’s post is seen above, depicting the same tug and barge combination passing the Meeker Avenue/Penny Bridge street end along Newtown Creek. The difference in today’s shot are the three jet skis which got into the tug captain’s path, which sped past the combo. Yes. People are jet skiing in Newtown Creek nowadays. I know, I know.
If these recreationalists only knew about the rumors which have plagued me about “it” all summer. “It,” if “it” exists, would likely regard these jet skiers as little more than a snack.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For the shot above, I lengthened the exposure time in pursuit of getting the water all mirror like. Sometime in the next week or two, my plan is to acquire some polarized filter glass for the camera, which should aid in peering below the surface by reducing the reflected and scattering ambience of the sky.
Perhaps it will help me reveal its presence, if it does exist. Thing is… who can guess, all there is, that might be swimming around down in the gelatinous fathoms of the Newtown Creek?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A parting shot from the Kosciuszko Bridge walkway, captured as dusk was giving way to full night time.
More tomorrow, at your Newtown Pentacle.
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 3rd. 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.
almost unassailably
Well, flippity floppity floop, it’s Friday again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent endeavor found a humble narrator scuttling through the humidity thickened July atmospherics typical of Western Queens and heading towards Newtown Creek for a session of waving the camera around. Pictured above is the 1848 vintage First Calvary Cemetery in Blissville, looking westwards from Laurel Hill Blvd.
What with all of this pandemic business and the new Kosciuszcko Bridge offering a pedestrian and bike path between Greenpoint in Brooklyn and Blissville here in the Long Island City section of Queens, there’s now a lot of people milling around. For years and years, it was just me wandering around this area. It’s taking a lot of “getting used to” seeing others in my happy place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The views from the Kosciuszcko Bridge are epic, and I timed my walk to put me Center span just as the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself was descending behind Manhattan and New Jersey. This point of view is 2.1 miles from the East River, for the morbidly curious. The right side of the shot is in Queens, the left is in Brooklyn.
Newtown Creek is a tributary of the East River which extends south/eastwards 3.8 miles from its junction with the larger waterway, eventually terminating in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood. There are multiple tributaries of Newtown Creek which snake off the main stem of the waterway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, for me, a tug and barge combination was navigating its way eastwards while I was set up and shooting. Once one fo the busiest maritime industrial waterways in these United States, Newtown Creek is still quite busy. While I was out shooting, I saw the Greenpoint Avenue Draw Bridge – roughly a mile to the west – open and close three times.
A recent meeting with the United States Army Corps of Engineers described the ideal depth of these waters as being 23 feet. The last time a proper navigational dredging of the entire Newtown Creek occurred (other than a minor channel maintenance operation performed at the behest of the NYC DEP a few years ago) was in the early 1970’s. Tug and barges, therefore, stick to the center of the channel where the water is deepest when navigating through.
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 27th. 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.
bygone penmanship
Terrific, it’s Thursday.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One managed to shvitz his way out last night and there’s a fresh batch of photos I’m cooking up on my hard drive, but couldn’t quite get them finished by this afternoon so a few recent archive shots greet you today. “Recent” as in late spring and early summer of 2020, as a note.
Pictured above is an Amtrak maintenance barn at the Sunnyside Yards, captured via a newly discovered hole in the fences surrounding the place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Skillman Avenue in the Long Island City section of Queens is where you’ll notice the remains of the Montauk Cutoff trackage crossing the byway on an overhead viaduct.
For some reason, and despite the fact that the overpass truncates and is abandoned, the Long Island Railroad keeps their signal boards electrified.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This one is from the Penny Bridge site found along my beloved Newtown Creek. Penny Bridge is at the extreme north end of Meeker Avenue in Greenpoint. My pal Will from Newtown Creek Alliance just installed a historical sign board at Penny Bridge describing the site, so if you pay it a visit, you’ll understand why it’s called Penny Bridge.
Back tomorrow with some fresh steaming photography.
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 27th. 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.
adroitly pumped
Wednesday has happened again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Still on Randalls/Wards Island, but looking wistfully towards Astoria Park and Queens whilst under the Triborough Bridge, imagine my joy at the sudden arrival of an NYPD Harbor Unit vessel which pushed through the scene. There’s a base and berth for the gendarmes on the Harlem River side of the island, but I don’t know if that’s where they coming from or going to.
One refuses to use the secondary name for Triborough Bridge, or for the Queensboro, until they rename the Brooklyn Bridge as the Michael Bloomberg Bridge. Sounds crazy, huh? Renaming Mighty Triborough or the majestic Queensboro after other politicians doesn’t? No respect, I tell ya, no respect.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s no possibility that something like what you see above can cross in front of my lens with me not being drawn to capture it. I’ve talked about this many times during tours conducted on the Soundview Ferry line, but Triborough is one of the great historical feats of civil engineering and industrial power. There’s a theory which postulates that this bridge is the reason that WW2 went as well as it did for the United States, offering that the Triborough operations orders for steel alone restarted that entire sector of the American economy during the darkest years of the Great Depression. Factor in the labor, the concrete, the forest of wood needed for scaffolds…
That’s something to consider, while looking forward at the next few years.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Randalls/Wards Island offers an up close and personal look at another one of NYC’s wonders, the Hells Gate Bridge. Carrying railroad tracks rather than vehicle lanes, as Triborough does, this arch bridge is thought to be the most permanent structure in the entire city. Supposedly, long after the Empire State Building has collapsed and the other East River bridges have been reduced down to masonry piers with no span between them, the Hells Gate will still be more or less intact.
In the foot steps of giants we do walk.
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.
obsolete phraseology
Thursday, in LIC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Frustrated by yet another unsuccessful expedition and attempt to photograph “it,” one decided that since midnight had been arrived at it was time to begin plying a course back to HQ in Astoria. The night was hot and humid, and despite the absence of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself bobbing about in the sky, sweat was running freely from my skinvelope. It had rained heavily earlier in the day, and olfactory observation indicated that NYC’s Combined Sewer system had contributed some meaningful amount of untreated sewage into the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek, here in the Long Island City section of Queens.
Also, I’d been on my feet for hours at this point.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The latter statement proved my undoing. Knowing this area as well as I do, places where one can take the proverbial load off for a few minutes are a part of my list of features and attractions. In the shot directly below, you’ll notice a picnic table and umbrella in front of the surprisingly excellent delicatessen “Sparks.”
I did mention the heavy rain? Did I mention that before I sat down at the picnic table I didn’t check to see if the seat was concave in shape and hosting an absolutely terrific amount of rain water? Well, I hadn’t, and so didst one sit down. As I felt the liquid penetrating up through my pants, and underpants, it occurred to me that I should have – in fact – checked to see if it was wet. I didn’t, and now I was.
At least it is was quite cooling.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This incident prompted one to summon a cab, which is something I’ve only done twice in the pandemic period. Not having wet skivvies, as far as “twice” goes. I mean taking a cab. Nothing is more miserable than walking multiple miles in wet clothing during a heat wave. Chafing, it affects us all, and some more than others. Masked up, a car was summoned for my trip home via the miracle of cellular telephony.
Everything mundane is scary now, in the age of the killer cooties, even calling a Lyft.
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 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 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 