Archive for the ‘Queens’ Category
Project Firebox 57
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Getting on the train is contingent upon it entering the station, and on this day, the MTA neglected to oblige their part in this social contract. After an interminable 35-40 minutes of waiting at the 23rd Ely or Court Square station, your humble narrator elected to walk instead. Upon arriving once more in the surface world, this sentinel greeted me at the corner of 21st street and 44th Drive. Its message is one of finding patience.
Also:
Remember that event in the fall which got cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy?
The “Up the Creek” Magic Lantern Show presented by the Obscura Society NYC is back on at Observatory.
Click here or the image below for more information and tickets.
colossal portrait
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A constant desire for your narrator is the betterment of his palette wherein the esthetic appreciation of high culture is concerned. Accordingly, a recent perambulation brought me to the galleria of the native art form of the Borough of Queens, which is illegal dumping.
This salon is found on 29th street, adjoining that loquacious tributary of the Newtown Creek which men have referred to as Dutch Kills for better than three centuries.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The rotating displays offered here are many, and varied. Currently installed is an anonymous work comprised of empty vessels which formerly held liquor. Wry, such commentary on the human condition does not escape one as highly cultured and trained in the arts as myself.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Neither is the sly repetition and utilization of manufactured items, nor their seemingly random pattern, unnoticed. Random takes a lot of effort to get right. So does the solemnity of a suggested narrative.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The entire piece speaks to one on a visceral level, intoning mental images of some lonely bacchanal besottingly acted out- over and over during the course of weeks- happening in the same spot. Kudos are awarded the designer, for the subject matter and overall composition.
Well done, sir or madam, lord or lady.
Also:
Remember that event in the fall which got cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy?
The “Up the Creek” Magic Lantern Show presented by the Obscura Society NYC is back on at Observatory.
Click here or the image below for more information and tickets.
inspiring and stupefying
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Longtime readers will no doubt recount stories of my endless complaining about the harsh climes of winter, its effulgent and preternatural darkness, and the limiting of photographic opportunities created during the 15-20 minutes of daylight we get during December and January here in a City which doth not sleep, but may forever lie dreaming. Saying that, when the light is good at this time of year, it is very good.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A recent trek across Western Queens, following the littoral edge of the borough, was cut short at the realization that sunset was approaching.
Your humble narrator is fully aware, more so than most, of what comes out only at night in Western Queens and made haste for Astoria so as to affix fresh wreaths of garlic, polished mirrors, and crucifixes to my doors and windows. Along the way, such sights presented themselves, that I grew distracted and began to lose track of the time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I am legend, at least in my own mind, and there was little chance that one such as myself could endure long in the presence of that which sleeps by day and prefers instead the sodium lamp lit landscape. Better to batten down the hatches at base, lock down all port holes, and run silent during these long January nights of pregnant malignancy.
Also:
Remember that event in the fall which got cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy?
The “Up the Creek” Magic Lantern Show presented by the Obscura Society NYC is back on at Observatory.
Click here or the image below for more information and tickets.
ghastly stillness
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whilst scuttling across Jackson Avenue in the venerable section of Long Island City recently, the ebb tide of traffic emerging from infinite Brooklyn carried a small vehicle which caught my eye. It was an Italian motor scooter, the perennially in fashion Vespa, but this one had a sidecar.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator has a soft spot in both heart and head concerning the subject of attaching sidecars to any sort of two wheeled transportation devices, as well as an acquired appreciation for the finer points of Italian vehicle design. I’ve never owned one, but were I to purchase such a conveyance, a sidecar for my little dog Zuzu would be part of the deal. I suppose Our Lady of the Pentacle could ride around in it too, but this desire is really built around seeing the dog in a leather aviators cap and goggles.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Practical transportation like this is commonplace in Europe and Asia, where streets are Medieval in size and scope, and the price of Petrol makes even the outrageous modern rate of $3-4 a gallon seem cheap. One of the things which future generations of Americans will never experience, and this may or may not be a bad thing, is cheap gasoline.
Also:
Remember that event in the fall which got cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy?
The “Up the Creek” Magic Lantern Show presented by the Obscura Society NYC is back on at Observatory.
Click here or the image below for more information and tickets.
inquisitive and malignant
“follow” me on Twitter at @newtownpentacle
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whenever the weather has been tolerable by one so accursed as myself, efforts have been made to get out and wave the camera about. In the shot above, ongoing construction of new bulkheads at Whale Creek captured my interests. There will be quite a bit of activity along this section in the near future, as the NYC DEP requires that a new channel be dredged which will allow their sludge boats to transverse the section of Newtown Creek between the East River and the Whale Creek tributary.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As part of the construction master plan for the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, the sludge tank at the East River will be decommissioned and the docking which currently feeds the after product of the plant to the sludge boats for further processing will be moved closer to their source on the Whale Creek tributary, which is just under a mile back from the East River. A new class of sludge boats is currently under construction, and will require a deeper draft than the Newtown Creek currently offers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One such as myself is excited by the prospect of dredging on the Newtown Creek, and the spectacular images such industry will present. Of course, I don’t live on the north side of Greenpoint, which will undoubtedly experience a less than admirable stench as the foul ichors which line the bed of the waterway are torn away from the bottom and exposed to both the air and to the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself.
Also:
Remember that event in the fall which got cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy?
The “Up the Creek” Magic Lantern Show presented by the Obscura Society NYC is back on at Observatory.
Click here or the image below for more information and tickets.
