Archive for the ‘Sunnyside Yards’ Category
Archives #052
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On February 21 of 2013, Newtown Pentacle subscribers saw ‘somehow impelled’ arrive in their inboxes, which described part of a walk down Northern Boulevard, and explored my fascination with photographing car washes. Before I left Queens, the gas station which this car wash was a part of had been shuttered, the buildings were awaiting demolition and environmental remediation for the tanks, and is likely ‘affordable housing’ by now. Corner of 39th and Northern… can it still be there?
These archive posts are reaching into Newtown Pentacle’s backups, and are pulling posts that went public on this date, in their respective years, going back to 2009. For anyone who hasn’t heard the news, I broke my left ankle at the end of September, and I’m not screwing around with ice and snow if I don’t absolutely have to. Pittsburgh has been regularly coated with the white stuff for the last few weeks, which has really crimped into my ability to be out and about. #1 priority is the ankle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This 2019 post, dubbed ‘radical profundity’ visited Flashing Creek. I used to really get around, huh?
‘What does it have to do with Newtown Creek’ is a question I often asked myself, in pursuit of avoiding ‘mission drift’ and not getting sucked into the hot passions and political seasons of the day. Focus is difficult in a feature rich environment, and especially so when negotiating the endless sea of political frenzy. It often annoyed people, me refusing to pick up their flag and run with whatever madness they happened to be pushing that day, week, or month. Everybody forgets their movement a year later, as they’ve usually moved on to new ecstasies, scandals, and outrages.
People who identify as ‘leftists’ have a real hard time staying on one topic for long, in my experience.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In 2022, ‘rumour ran’ brought y’all to the Sunnyside Yards at night. That is the Harold Interlocking pictured above, which is one of the most important bits of infrastructure in the entire country. There are surveyors holes in the fences of the yards, and I had all of them inventoried. My walks to Newtown Creek from Astoria always crossed some section of the Sunnyside Yards, and I never missed an opportunity to get in a few shots of the place.
Back next week, hopefully with fresh photos and views of the Paris of Appalachia, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
Archives #025
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These archive posts are reaching into Newtown Pentacle’s backups, and are pulling posts that went public on this date, in their respective years, going back to 2009. This practice will continue until I’m back on both feet full time, and new photos and stories can be gathered. For anyone who hasn’t heard the news, I broke my left ankle at the end of September.
This post is from 2012, and it’s a part of the post Hurricane Sandy survey I was conducting along Newtown Creek’s Queens side.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the time this post publishes, a humble narrator is once again at a ‘physical therapy’ or ‘PT’ appointment, exercising and stretching the broken ankle under medical supervision. Apparently this is now how I spend a significant amount of my time, three times a week in the office with homework assignments for the entire week. An interesting movement exercise is that three times a day I’m meant to draw the shapes of the alphabet, using my great toe on the affected foot as a pointer. The letter ‘Y’ really hurts, as a note.
This 2019 post was published when I had a different severe injury on my left foot than the one at crux of my current dilemma. It’s always my left foot that gets busted up for some reason.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This weekend, I’m planning on finally programming a radio scanner I bought, which will let me listen to locomotive radio communications and preclude the ‘standing around for two hours and nothing’ factor of photographing trains. Used to be, I’d just stand at a rail choke point and they’d come to me.
This posting from 2022 is from the period when I was trying to see everything one last time before moving away. I spent a lot of time and effort photographing Sunnyside Yards, during all of those years that I lived in Astoria.
Back next week.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
Archives #015
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I miss walking, mainly. This broken ankle business is absolutely no fun at all. Today’s archive posts are plucked from previously published stuff, all of which was made public on this date in their respective years.
This October 25 post was published in 2013, and scuttles about in a section of LIC defined by Skillman Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I am not a huge fan of the showrunners at South Street Seaport, but I’ve got a lot of respect for the people who maintain and operate their small fleet of historic vessels.
Back in 2017, this post discussed a Working Harbor Committee get together onboard South Street Seaport’s Wavertree.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Every single hole in the fence at Sunnyside Yards which you could fit a camera lens through was catalogued and regularly visited, pretty much for the entirety of the time I lived in Astoria. This was along my walking route back and forth to the creek, after all.
Talking about one of the apertures – which I called ‘hole reliable’ – at Sunnyside Yards is what this 2022 post discusses.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
brood capriciously
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sometimes you get lucky, as I did on September 29th.
It had been raining for a couple of days, and the clouds began to clear just before sunset. One set out for a short constitutional walk.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The light was staggering. Saturated and warm.
As soon as I got to Northern Blvd. I knew where I’d be heading.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sunnyside Yards, which is within throwing distance of HQ.
Just as I got there, it looked like the sky had caught on fire.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I made my way to “Hole Reliable” just as an LIRR train set was passing beneath it.
Continued on, a humble narrator did.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Skillman Avenue at Honeywell, just as the light show was ending.
This was a short walk, stretching my legs, as it were, so I headed back to Northern Blvd. intending to head back to Astoria.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
By the time I got to another one of my catalog of fence holes, dusk was giving way to night.
“Every time might be the last time.”
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
tenebrous others
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the 26th of September, one perpetrated a short scuttle around a long set of railroad fence lines. A hurricane was tearing up Florida, and we got lucky hereabouts in terms of spectacular skies for about a week. Eventually, NYC was going to get hit with 6 or 7 dreary rain days due to the weather system, but on the evening of the 26th it was perfect photo weather, so off I went.
A humble narrator crossed Northern Boulevard out of Astoria heading south along 39th street – aka the Harold Avenue truss bridge over Sunnyside Yards.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Progress was made towards “hole reliable,” a surveyor’s POV cut into the steel plate fences of the rail coach yard. There’s actually two holes there, reliable and “hole alright.” The shot above is from the alright one. It’s inferior to reliable because of that metal bar in the foreground. Reliable? Unoccluded!
That’s the Long Island Railroad, heading towards the City, at the Harold Interlocking. This is one of the top ten bits of infrastructure in New York City, in terms of importance on a National level.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An LIRR train set heading eastwards and away from the City.
What makes Harold Interlocking so important is the commuter rail, pictured above, which connects Nassau and Suffolk Counties to the five Boroughs of NYC. What makes it even more important is Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor service used to share this route. Amtrak moves north bound trains through a tunnel under the East River, then emerges at Sunnyside Yards, travels through the yards to the New York Connecting Railroad, and then over the Hell Gate Bridge. This Harold Interlocking is one of the strategic pinch points in our National system, which is the sort of thing that should make the Homeland Security crowd unable to sleep at night.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the wonders which I’ve been privileged to get a LOT of photos of is due to the discovery of Hole Reliable. Since 2009, the East Side Access project has included an incredible amount of construction work at Sunnyside Yards. Part of that has been the addition of additional tracks here at Harold. Yeah, I know, I’m a nerd.
Saying that, a derailed LIRR train no longer shuts down rail traffic on the East Coast of the United States within a couple of hours as Amtrak’s resultant “situation” ripples out of Queens. LIRR service is fairly frequent, and actuaries will describe a predictable number of annual incidents of every type to prepare for – including derails.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One scuttled down Skillman Avenue and headed for the 7 train station at Hunters Point Avenue. On my way, yet another LIRR train was spotted, this one heading towards Manhattan.
As mentioned, short walk for me. A constitutional during which I cracked out a bunch of photos. Managed to find about 90 minutes or so to stretch my legs, in the midst of all the tumult back at HQ. Moving is always stressful, and you lose all sense of comfort at home due to constant “have to” and stacks of boxes. Also, there’s always something to do. Never ends.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The 7 train arrived, one boarded it, and whereas my plan was to linger around Queensboro Plaza for a bit while waiting for the N to arrive, my intended ride was arriving just as I did. Not wanting to look a gift subway in the mouth, I quickly transferred and headed back to HQ.
I had kind of a big thing coming up the next morning, after all.
More on that tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
The Newtown Pentacle 