Archive for the ‘Photowalks’ Category
lapsed joy
Night time, right time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few more shots from a nocturnal walk earlier this week are on offer today. That’s the Pulaski Bridge in the shot above, as seen from a street end in LIC adjoining a colony of squatter boats which enjoy a total lack of will on the part of law enforcement as far as their occupation of both municipal and private property.
What I’d like to share with you today, however, is that Newtown Creek Alliance is holding a benefit party on Saturday night at 520 Kingsland Avenue to raise funds for our operations in 2019. It’s going to be a pretty cool party, I think.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
NCA was formed in 2002, as an ad hoc community group, by an amazing woman named Katie Schmid. Katie stepped back shortly after I started to get involved with NCA back in 2008, and another amazing lady named Kate Zidar took over. Kate carried NCA from being community group to “official status” as a non profit 501/3c corporation. Kate Zidar moved on to other projects, and the big chair was then filled by Willis Elkins, who serves as NCA’s executive director today.
A humble narrator is the group’s Historian, and as you all know, I’m on the “reveal” side of the mission conducting tours and lectures. All of us in NCA serve in one capacity or another on a multitude of citizen committees which revolve around the Creek – notably the Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee (re: the sewer plant in Greenpoint), The Newtown Creek Superfund Community Advisory Group (re: EPA’s Superfund designation). We also attend gatherings and meetings with other organizations whose territory touches the Creek; North Brooklyn Boat Club, HarborLab, Maspeth Industrial Business Association, Evergreen, St. Nick’s Alliance, Hunters Point Parks Conservancy, Hunters Point Civic Association, Blissville Civic Association, NAG, GWAAP, OUTRAGE… all are buddies of ours and part of the “Alliance” in one way or another.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In recent years, NCA has worked with Riverkeeper to create an extraordinary visiting document for the future of the Creek, and our volunteers have cleaned up and created multiple points of public access to the water at street ends like the Maspeth Avenue and Meeker Avenue street ends. We’re just getting started.
On Saturday, November 3rd, were asking the community to join us in Greenpoint for a benefit party to support the continuing work. Link below.
Upcoming events
Saturday, November 3rd – Tidal Toast, a fundraiser party to support Newtown Creek Alliance in our mission to “Reveal, Restore, Revitalize” the Newtown Creek. Since 2002 the Newtown Creek Alliance (NCA) has been the voice of Newtown Creek; working with industry, agencies, and residents alike to promote awareness, remediation, access, resilient businesses and ecological restoration. This celebration will champion the Vision for the future of the waterway and those that have contributed their time, energy and effort to it.
More information and tickets here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
denizens of
The horror…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Happy Halloween, Lords and Ladies. The shots in today’s post were actually captured last night, so the pixels are still wet on them. One had a sudden desire to “get out,” and wander through the night. Such sudden callings to commune with the darkness are impossible to ignore, and often it seems as if some other intelligence has taken possession of my actions when such moods suddenly manifest. The filthy black raincoat flapping in the oil stained breeze, a humble narrator often hears the call of the children of the night in the concretized devastations surrounding the loathsome Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s not a smell you encounter during low tide at Dutch Kills, rather it’s an aroma that greets you when the black mayonnaise is exposed to the air. That’s when the things which slither and slide through its greasy melange can be observed, and when other things best left uncommented upon are revealed. One is never concerned about those lower intelligences which feed upon and live in the toxic mud, as if you leave them alone they will ignore you in return, rather it’s the shadowy forms moving and chittering beyond the chain link fences which should raise concern.
Given the time of the year, Queens Plaza is avoided assiduously, for autumn is ideal vampire weather and the steel rafters of the elevated subways are infested with the things.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Coelacanths have not been spotted in the East River, yet. Saying that, other ancient forms of aqueous life are said to squirm about on the bottom. Were these impossibly intelligent and impressively ancient amphibian things ever motivated to do so, they would rise from the depths to strike down our civilization in order to teach mankind new ways to revel and enjoy ourselves. It’s happened in great cities before, elsewhere.
What do you think happened to the Mayans? Climatological collapse? Feh.
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stalking shadows
Doom… doom… doom…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So last week, I attended the NYC EDC’s soirée at LaGuardia Community College regarding their Sunnyside Yards Project. It was your standard “visioning” operation with poster board setup stations. You were supposed to progress from one to the next, deliver input, and then receive what turned out to be a really tasty plate of food. Pretty standard stuff for the non profit/public benefit organization industrial complex. The EDC were thrilled with the turnout, with their social media trumpeting vast support for the project and a turnout in the hundreds. They had to set up a line for entry. All the usual faces from LIC and Astoria were present, including a humble narrator. At every visioning station, the first question I asked the facilitator was “Where do you live”? The answer was never “Queens.”
In reality, the Building Trades Council organized a huge turnout by organized labor groups, which is how the EDC achieved that boast of “hundreds turned out for.” The place actually looked like a cast reunion for the Sopranos.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The EDC folks focused conversation on the imagined benefits to the communities surrounding the Sunnsyide Yards which their project would bring. They never mention the noise, tumult, and vastly increased flow of heavy truck traffic that a 24/7 multiple decade long project like this would bring along with it.
Don’t forget, the whole point of decking the 183 square acre property is that of a “land grab” with the intention of making it available for politically connected real estate developers to exploit.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Decking the Sunnyside Yards is a centuried goal of the Manhattan people. It defeated Robert Moses, Nelson Rockefeller, and Michael Bloomberg. The vain glory of the our current Mayor states that his administration can do this. Notably, the EDC and City Hall neglect to mention how we’d pay for this, although I’m sure terms like “value capture” will be bandied about.
The cost of the deck alone, if they put shovels in the ground today, would likely be $18-20 Billion. That’s money which the City would borrow. If the City was actually in the position to borrow that sort of debt, don’t you think fixing NYCHA would be a slightly higher priority for the self proclaimed “Progressive Mayor”? Funding the Subways? Hospitals? Cops? Bah.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
adduces many
Hello, sweetie, it’s me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A recent afternoon’s excursion to South Brooklyn and the Bush Terminal area in Sunset Park saw a humble narrator sitting in the passenger seat of my pal Val’s car as we inched through heavy traffic on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. Val is a photographer as well, and as we were riding along she revealed that her car had a sunroof. Out came the camera as we approached the ongoing construction site of the Kosciuszcko Bridge replacement.
We were driving, of course, on the completed first phase of the project.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has a weird perspective on this particular spot, where not two years ago I was standing around with Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams waiting for an inspection tour of the project to start. We were all done up in hard hats and orange vests. A little over a year ago, this is pretty much the spot I was shooting from when Governor Cuomo cut the ribbon for the thing. My memory bank includes several bizarre experiences, it should be mentioned.
Walking on the BQE with a Congresswoman, Borough President, or the Governor is one. Another is walking through a subway tunnel with MTA brass, and others include walking on the roadways of the Queensboro and Manhattan bridges for extended stretches. Really, the last decade has been odd.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Traffic was moving, albeit slowly, and while moving along I continued with the “spray and technique” system of image capture. That’s when you set your exposure and point the camera in the general direction of something and start depressing the shutter release button over and over in a somewhat blind fashion. I’m kind of sorta looking through the diopter, but the camera isn’t pressed against my face in the normal fashion.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Now, one of my little quirks involves saying hello to Newtown Creek whenever I’m passing over it in a car, something close friends and our Lady of the Pentacle are quite used to. Val chuckled a bit while operating the vehicle as I intoned “hello, sweetie, it’s me. I’ll see you later, as I’m going to visit your sister Gowanus today.”
Hey, if you got as little love as Newtown Creek does, you’d appreciate it if somebody took notice of you.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There she is!
I cannot describe how much I’m looking forward to the photo opportunities that the completed K-Bridge project will offer, as the pedestrian and bike lanes will be pretty much be offering this paricticular view.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We crossed over the Creek and into infinite Brooklyn, where we hit a continuing traffic jam that lasted all the way to Sunset Park. More on what me and my pal Val saw in South Brooklyn next week, as this, your Newtown Pentacle.
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deeply worried
Scuttling, always scuttling.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Don’t worry, a humble narrator won’t be waxing all philosophic or talking about camera settings in today’s post. Instead, a few odds and ends collected or encountered when wandering home from industrial Mapseth last weekend at night are on offer. If you’re wondering, yes I was wearing my reflective construction vest over the filthy black raincoat. As is my habit, main streets are avoided, as I prefer to wander along the fencelines of cemeteries and abandoned factories. These lanes less travelled, however, are often badly lit and act as high speed byways for errant vehicles. Best to stay visible.
Also, for some reason, when I’m wearing the vest, nobody asks me why – or of what – I’m taking pictures.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Carridor, or Northern Blvd. if you must, hosts a large number of used car dealerships. You often get to see a semi truck tagged with southern state plates hauling a delivery of cars here at night, and witness the frenetic unloading of vehicles which will be marked up and put on sale at the lots.
By me, it always makes for interesting photos, filed under “you don’t see that every day.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I suppose this scene is technically found in Woodside, although ai normally associate this zone with Maspeth. It’s actually Borden Avenue down below the elevated Long Island Expressway, which runs between Second and Third Calvary Cemeteries.
A visually interesting and lonely spot, and another one of the dimly lit corridors found in the Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 