Archive for the ‘Photowalks’ Category
linger strangely
The fedora district of Long Island City.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last week, one found himself wandering desperately through the Fedora District.
A term of my own invention, as it seems like the sort of spot built for and by fellows who routinely placed felt hats upon their heads when leaving the house. My sweaty desperation was brought on by certain bodily functions which were calling for, nay, demanding attention.
Simply put, I had to poop, drop a deuce, or extrude ex food.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the big problems experienced all over the megalopolis is a lack of publicly available rest rooms.
For some reason, the credentialed urban planners of the world do not acknowledge human biology in their calculations, nor require accessible bathrooms from the real estate people in exchange for their tax breaks and $1 land deals.
This is why people piss on their green infrastructure, there’s no where else to go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I should have stopped at the diner on Jackson to take care of business, but didn’t have the money or time to spend on a cup of joe or similar item as a ransom for relief. Urgency commanded one to double time it back to Astoria and the comforts of those porcelain fixtures which we keep confined in a tile room. I, for one, urge the incoming Mayor’s transition team to consider the fact that humans will need to crap and pee occasionally.
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uneasy voices
Quite the hullabaloo over in Astoria last Friday.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Rainy, last Friday evening, a sudden explosion of sirens and a characteristic strobing of red and white light announced that members of the Fire Department had arrived to pursue their occupation. I grew interested when Rescue 4 showed up, which I understand to be a sort of mobile command post and which I’ve only seen when the situation is truly serious.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There were two crewed trucks, a hook and ladder unit and an engine unit. In addition, the Rescue 4 truck and this “Haz Tac” unit arrived on scene along with a couple of ambulances. The setting is Broadway in Astoria, by the way, between 43rd and 44th streets.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There were enough FDNY personnel down there to start a soccer team, but they all seemed to be milling about, rather than the rushing around and “crash bang” action which normally describes the pursuit of their occupation.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
NYPD sent an ESU (Emergency Services Unit) truck as well as a highway patrol and several ordinary unit cars, and being the nosey sort, this motivated me to throw the filthy black raincoat on and find out what was going on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The municipal employees were tight lipped, as usual, but my network of local Croatians had already created a cogent narrative. The whole thing revolved around this van.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As transmitted to me by the Istrian witnesses, there was an accident. A typical fender bender with no injuries, the driver of the van nevertheless fled the scene and abandoned the vehicle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Some unknown municipal threshold must have been achieved, in terms of ascertaining the threat posed by the vehicle, and the FDNY began to pack up and leave. NYPD got busy with traffic cones and redirecting traffic. One wonders, however, what triggered this massive response to an abandoned van.
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inevitably drawn
Where oh where can I find the direction home?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Everybody is going somewhere, coming from someplace else, or running errands. A humble narrator has no direction, no destination, no desire. All I want is to acknowledge Newtownian physics and prove that objects in motion tend to stay in motion until they encounter a force strong enough to arrest or alter their movement. Also, energy cannot be created nor destroyed, but that’s a longer term project that involves hanging odd charms from string in a series of bottles, and I’m still collecting the necessary glassware.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The world only makes sense when you force it to do so. This statement is something I constantly convince myself isn’t true, but unfortunately its diabolical truth is proven to me time and again. Tendencies to reticence and a desire to “trust,” which is a vainglorious attempt to believe in humanity as a whole, seem to be my metaphorical achilles heel. Experiences amongst the monkey tribes over the last few years argue against the mendacity of these apes, and one such as myself can only laugh his scary laugh and retreat back into the night.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I aspire to be “nice,” struggle with notions of absolute morality, and attempt to keep my true nature under some sort of control. Most of those who have long populated my life know this side of me, understand what it is that I keep chained up in the attic and basements of the soul, and have learned how unpleasant things can get when the fetters are loosed. Do not push a creature like me, as you will find the road you’ve entered upon to be quite a bumpy one.
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pitying moon
Darkness abounds in otherwise wholesome locales.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The dystopic setting of Queens Plaza, where tombstone like shards of cement and soaring steel parabolas rise, seems hostile to human life. That’s its paradox, of course, as the transit hub is all about human life but the only things missing from the scene are broken ended pipes that randomly shoot out fire and scarlet demons whipping the damned with barbed flails. The place is agonizing upon the ears, filled with fumes and engine exhaust, and if there is a public lavatory there- I haven’t found it yet. Gazing upon Queens Plaza, one realizes that this is one of the most populated spots upon the Earth- with a proviso that most of the people there at any given time are merely passing through on the subways, cars, bicycles, and buses they’re riding in.
Few ultimately set out with the destination of either Hell or Queens Plaza, but everyone ends up at one or the other sooner or later.
from wikipedia
Reduplicative paramnesia is the delusional belief that a place or location has been duplicated, existing in two or more places simultaneously, or that it has been ‘relocated’ to another site. It is one of the delusional misidentification syndromes and, although rare, is most commonly associated with acquired brain injury, particularly simultaneous damage to the right cerebral hemisphere and to both frontal lobes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Offered above is Dutch Kills Street, just down the block from the infernal conglomeration, looking south off of Jackson Avenue. A medium large (by LIC standards) residential property (of the modern sort) is nearing completion on one side of the street and a far larger project is set to begin on the other. The auto bridge above the roadway carries traffic from Queensboro towards Thomson Avenue over the Sunnyside Yards.
This street isn’t the same post industrial set piece riddled with green steel columns just exited, mind you, instead these steel beams are brown and beige and there’s no traffic except above. There’s something one might describe as foreboding about the street’s current incarnation, for some reason, a preternatural darkness. Intuition demands that one never find himself at the dead end of this street at night, although I have no empirical reason to believe that there is much lurking back there other than the odd feral cat or two.
There’s just something about the spot that feels sinister to me, perhaps the new real estate developments with their mirror glass walls shall brighten the street’s outlook in future times, or at least flush out whatever may dwell therein.
from wikipedia
Delusional companion syndrome is considered a neuropathology of the self, specifically a delusional misidentification syndrome. Affected individuals believe certain non-living objects possess consciousness and can think independently and feel emotion. The psychosis must coexist with a detectable brain pathology for delusional companion syndrome to be diagnosed. The syndrome is most often identified in patients who suffer from damage to the brain due to physical trauma, neuronal degeneration or developmental abnormalities. Especially in the latter case, patients also tend to present with many other symptoms and are diagnosed as having other established conditions. Comforting objects like cuddly toys are often the focus of delusion.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The mirror glass frontages currently in vogue do little to suit the tastes of a creature such as your humble narrator. Devastating planar surfaces rising inorganically, the logical melancholy and joy starved jaundice of a decadent and jaded age, covered in reflective materials whose action reveals too much… No, one such as myself prefers the inhuman scale of earlier times and the fortress of factories at the Degnon Terminal on Thomson Avenue. Their day is long past, the tenants today are colleges and offices, but the structures still exude solidity and inevitability nearly a century after they were rudely erected from the swampy waste meadows surrounding the Dutch Kills tributary of that squamous cataract of urban legend called the Newtown Creek.
from wikipedia
The criteria for failure are heavily dependent on context of use, and may be relative to a particular observer or belief system. A situation considered to be a failure by one might be considered a success by another, particularly in cases of direct competition or a zero-sum game. Similarly, the degree of success or failure in a situation may be differently viewed by distinct observers or participants, such that a situation that one considers to be a failure, another might consider to be a success, a qualified success or a neutral situation.
It may also be difficult or impossible to ascertain whether a situation meets criteria for failure or success due to ambiguous or ill-defined definition of those criteria. Finding useful and effective criteria, or heuristics, to judge the success or failure of a situation may itself be a significant task.
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Project Firebox 98
An ongoing catalog of New York’s endangered Fireboxes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sharply attired in stainless and scarlet, this guardian of the public trust was encountered over in Jackson Heights nearby 34th avenue. It only speaks a single tongue, is not vibrant, but is kind of diverse as you don’t see stainless steel used all that much for municipal street furniture. Sparkle on, firebox 7864, sparkle.
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The Newtown Pentacle 