Archive for the ‘Photowalk’ Category
winks ruddily
More things I am irrationally afraid of in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whilst transversing a vast system of labyrinths, those ones which underlie the shining city, and anxiously awaiting the arrival of a certain chain of electrically driven aluminum and glass boxes whose motive path would carry this humble narrator deep into the expanses of infinite Brooklyn, my attentions became fixed upon this ridiculously steep staircase and the so called escalator it adjoined. The term “Escalator” has always sounded kind of French to me, and anything emanating from what Caesar called Gaul is not to be trusted.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This particular escalator steeply spans an incredible distance, here in the center of a great human hive which is known as Manhattan. Populations of labor and management utilize it to move between high and low throughout the day, and few realize the existential danger which an individual dares when surmounting one of these Gallic sounding things. Have you ever seen what happens to primates when one of these escalator mechanisms malfunctions?
These stairways to heaven can chew up flesh and bone, inhaling living meat into their spinning gears – spitting out the sort of crimson spray one would expect from a Sam Raimi film – and are capable of reducing a wholesome citizen down into a broken chowder of gruesome countenance in mere seconds. Brrr.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Vertigo inducing, examining this “via subterranea,” with its vastly Euclidean angles, caused a humble narrator to experience no small amount of nausea. The horrible potentialities of “might” or “could” began to overwhelm, and no small amount of nervous energy powered an anticipatory hopefulness that the electrically driven chain of aluminum and glass boxes might hasten their arrival at the platform, announced by the usual piston blast of powderized rat feces driven before them and gathered enroute via pneumatic action. One such as myself no longer feels disappointment, as it is my fate to experience only a lukewarm existence, but I was crestfallen when no sign of relief thundered in.
Darkness began to creep into the periphery of my vision as I pondered the possibility of falling up, instead of down, this soaring flight of mechanically moving steps.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Afraid of the dark- a humble narrator always carries a variety of portable lights with him, just in case of the unplanned absence of light on my daily round. When I stop to think of all that must scurry about within these tiled walls of rotting cement, the untold things which slither amongst those shadowy pillars of concrete, iron, and brick which encase and imprison the trackways, it is enough to drive one to the gates of a madhouse forthwith.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
public squares
Prejudice and Ursidae derision in today’s Columbus Day post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Call me Ursophobic, but your humble narrator has had it up to some proverbial line – drawn somewhere around his eyebrows – with these occasionally bipedal inebriates who have been turning up in Astoria for the last few years. Admittedly, their days are difficult, but that’s no excuse for them to just pass out on the street in some honey induced stupor, like the derelict pictured above. Who are these bears, where did they come from, and why were they allowed to come here in the first place? Is it ok to pass out in the trash where they come from? I think not.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Does he have a family somewhere nearby, with a brood of anchor cubs? Is there some she bear staring out the window wondering where he is, growing increasingly anxious that he might be honey drunk again, or that the bees exacted a horrible revenge upon him? Where are the cops? How can a dangerously besotted creature like this be allowed to just pass out on Broadway in Astoria? This neighborhood is going to the caniforms, if you ask me, and I won’t be a bit surprised if in a couple of years Astoria is known as an Ursidae neighborhood. This is how it starts.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
trivial impression
Maritime Sunday.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A 5,100 HP, twin screw Z Drive tug, Laura K. Moran was built in Maine by Hodgdon, Washburn & Doughty Associates, is 92 feet, 184 GT, and was launched in 2008. Our buddy at tugster did a nice portrait of the Laura K., and this ship was the last command before retirement of legendary Tug Captain John Willmot.
from washburndoughty.com
Washburn & Doughty Associates, Inc. of East Boothbay, Maine specializes in the construction of steel and aluminum commercial vessels. Founded by Bruce Doughty, Bruce Washburn and Carl Pianka, the yard began building fishing boats in 1977. Since then, the yard has continued to prosper by diversifying its capabilities, developing innovative designs and building techniques, and reaching out to new markets. Washburn & Doughty has delivered of a diverse mix of tugboats, commercial passenger vessels, fishing boats, barges, ferries and research vessels.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Project Firebox 92
An ongoing catalog of New York’s endangered Fireboxes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Found amongst the blessed hills of Astoria, this scarlet soldier of the realm enjoys long tenancy along 31st avenue nearby Steinway Street. Its been in Astoria for a long, long time and remembers a mythological day when “things were different” and “people cared” unlike today. Dross neighbors notwithstanding, it serves its vigil endlessly.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
calmly gazing
Wrapping up the 400 Kingsland Avenue posts.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in earlier posts, Kate Zidar of Newtown Creek Alliance and Kevin Thompson of ExxonMobil created an opportunity for artist Jan Mun (pictured above) and her collaborator Jason Sinopoli to work on an installation at the 400 Kingsland Avenue ExxonMobil property in Greenpoint that would demonstrate the efficacy and possibilities of mycoremediation- the usage of oil eating mushrooms as a bioremediator on contaminated sites. The project took the form of earth work “fairy rings,” a play on European mythology, which would act as a platform for the fungus. I was there to photographically document the project, which played out over the summer of 2013.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The earthworks were arranged around defunct well heads, and hosted two specie of mushrooms. A growth medium of “inoculated” hay stuffed into burlap bags hosted one specie, while the other fungal family was installed directly into the soil. Jan Mun was building on the concepts and work of a fellow named Paul Stamets, who is a leading authority on the subject. The mushrooms took root, as it were, and by late August and early September, we began to see the literal fruit of Jan Mun’s efforts.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The mushrooms began to fruit, as they absorbed nutrients from the soil. Interestingly enough, the bags of fungus also began to host a colony of what the kids in my old neighborhood would have referred to as “curly bugs.” That’s the sort of critter which curls up into a ball when you poke them with a stick, which I believe those outside of Canarsie refer to as “Potato Bugs.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The fungi weren’t the only thing that grew here in the summer of 2013. The NCA and ExxonMobil folks began to form a working relationship and friendship, an organic and unplanned consequence of close contact. Your humble narrator, in particular, found a friend in the site manager of the property- Vito- who is also a bit of a history buff. He exhibited some of the artifacts which his crew had dug out of the ground over the years, leave behinds from the long tenancy which the Standard Oil Company of New York enjoyed at this location.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The vernal project concluded, for me at least, with Jan Mun presenting the work to the team of engineers who labor at the site during a “toolbox talk.” Some of these folks worked directly for ExxonMobil, others for the larger company’s subcontractor Roux. The workers here are the men and women who are directly laboring on the remediation and cleanup of the Greenpoint Oil Spill. We shared a meal with them, and then went out to Jan’s work area to discuss the project and the concept of using fungus organisms in the pursuit of our shared organizational goals- achieving a restored and revitalized Newtown Creek environment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Jan Mun and Jason Sinopoli continue to care for and work on their garden, here at 400 Kingsland Avenue. My documentation of the project is over for now, and I have returned to my solitary wanderings through the concrete devastations. The darkest of the hillside thickets awaits, and I turn away from this brightly lit and illimitable corridor found along the insalubrious valley of the Newtown Creek.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 