Archive for the ‘Subway’ Category
crystal dais
Everybody has someplace to go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
New York City marathon day offers one the opportunity to wander around a largely traffic free Queens Plaza. An event I used to photograph regularly, I avoided it this year in the wake of the Boston bombings. Didn’t want to get all tangled up in the security web of the terror warriors.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
moist verdure
A life well lived is a series of dull events.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My annual pilgrimage to the MTA Holiday Nostalgia “Shoppers Special” Subway event carried me to Queens Plaza one recent Sunday. It’s a fun and wholesome thing to do.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, I have more than just a few acquaintances and friends who also enact this yearly journey, wherein legacy subway cars are run on the M line in a circuit between Queens Plaza and 2nd avenue in Manhattan.
It’s always nice to see someone you know.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The weird thing, for me, is that it involves willingly heading down into the rat infested tunnels- an activity which normally fills me with a malign dread.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These are all retired subway cars, once typical, that represent various eras of design. At the time of their original deployment, each of these legacy units were state of the art.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The legacy cars performed well, although they are quite rickety in comparison to modern subways units. There was a brief interval wherein a door got stuck in the open position, but the MTA guys sorted that out in no time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An odd mix of folks were observed onboard. Some were ordinary commuters and customers of the M line, while many were hardcore rail fans. More than one photographer was spotted shooting models in period dress.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The rail guys, they’re mostly guys, are the quiet ones on the train who watch every little detail and are listening to the machine. These cats can tell you the part number for individual screws on these trains, and you ignore their knowledge at your own peril. Foamers indeed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This show will be running every Sunday on the M line in December, operating between Manhattan’s 2nd Avenue and Queens Plaza. Check out the MTA Holiday Train page for schedule info.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
discern nothing
Always moving, no place to go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As one who detests entering the Subway system, it fits neatly within New York City’s macabre sense of humor to force me to enter the labyrinth on a fairly regular basis. The fits of depth born panic and revulsion suffered whilst encased in the rotting concrete bunkers must be controlled. It would be untoward to inflict my own insecurities and phobias upon those fellow unfortunates traveling alongside me, and positively dismissive of a social order in which “anything goes.” Why shouldn’t one defecate in public?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Fear of offering loquacious discomforts to others isn’t something reflected by the general population, for course. It would be ridiculous to complain about the manner in which some behave while down here. Eating fried and highly aromatic dishes, performing basic grooming of hair and nails, or applying face paint- there are those for whom the Subway is an extension of the home. Last week, a woman I was sitting next to was utilizing the atomizer of a perfume bottle to liberally paint the confined air, and the rest of us, with her chosen scent.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It must be a wonderful thing, to be so confident in one’s self. The thought of exposing one’s private moments in such a brazen fashion is beyond me, as I was urged during toilet training to consider certain acts as “private.” Just the other day I was thinking, while watching a mid 40’s woman squeezing out a zit on the R train, that we really need to reintroduce the concept of shame and shunning back into society. You are not, my pimply friend, simply “free to be you and me” when out amongst the other humans. Decorum, please.
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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
suffocating crawl
Moon crazed scenery in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally, the swelter and perspiration choked season of summer has ended, as signaled by the appearance of the eye of Hecate in the eastern sky. One such as myself normally enjoys the summer, but the season just passed in 2013 bore more than a passing verisimilitude to tropical climes, weather which produced naught but dripping perspiration and dangerous levels of ennui. The filthy black raincoat has left the closet and hangs upon a hook awaiting a return to duty and its winter campaign. Finally, it is spooky time once again, in the Newtown Pentacle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Diana is best appreciated when she hangs over the water, say I, lending her bluish glowings to the inky waves of NY Harbor. That glow is the reflected magnificence of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself, of course, which travels through weird wavelengths on its journey to the water. My little dog Zuzu is often in an odd psychological state during this time of the month. The moon provides a psychological menses for the canine race, during which they are prone to nervous barking and short tempers. Perhaps the keen sensory prowess for which Zuzu’s kind are renowned are cogent enough to realize that which we can or choose not to witness, and that the dogs know something about the planetoid which we dross primates cannot discern.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Selene herself appeared before me recently, her position in the sky during the autumn months is complimentary to the position of Newtown Pentacle HQ upon the earth, and one decided to break out the whole kit and kaboodle to capture her likeness. Using one of my worst (albeit “longest”) lenses, whose already spotty resolution was further degraded by the use of a “teleconverter”, I managed to pull the shot above off somehow. This was a tripod shot, which is a necessity when attempting anything involving the night sky with a somewhat telescopic lens attached. I set the camera to f18, iso 100, and left the shutter open for nearly a full second. The moon is nearly as bright as the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself, despite appearances to the human eye, and it is quite a challenge to capture in a fashion acceptable for one such as myself.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday- September 28, 2013
Newtown Creek Boat Tour with the Working Harbor Committee- tickets on sale now.
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale soon.
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 