Archive for the ‘Sunnyside Yards’ Category
prismatic vistas
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned earlier this week, ye olde Project Firebox is once more receiving a bit of my attention. Nobody notices these bits of street furniture, so I make it a point of doing so. Fire alarm boxes, technically speaking, used to operate using the sort of technology you’d associate with telegraph lines, but my understanding is that the vast majority of them now use the telephonic copper wire network to report trouble to the FDNY.
What do I know, I’m some schmuck with a camera wandering around in the dark in Queens, not an alarm box technician.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Remember when movie theaters were a thing, in the before times? Check out the lobby of one, with its snack bar, pictured above. This is the largish multiplex operated by the AMC company as part of the so called Kaufman Astoria Arts District, which is a dark and somewhat dangerously disconcerting area to walk through at night. One hopes that the same people who created this abrogation of the principals of urban design never get the chance to expand their empire of empty glassine storefronts and forbidding streetscapes.
Seriously, there are sections of industrial Maspeth which are friendlier to visit.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As has been mentioned repeatedly – whomsoever it is that is in charge of poking new holes in the fences at Sunnyside Yards – I love you. I’ve never seen a Pennsylvania RR branded locomotive here before – normally, it’s New Jersey Transit, Amtrak, and Long Island Railroad you see at Sunnyside Yards.
Thanks, Federal Hole Director, or Chairman of Holes, or perhaps Minister of Holes.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, February 1st. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
further liberation
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You can have Manhattan, Long Island City is the most visually interesting part of New York City’s center core. Center core, you ask? If you’re in Bay Ridge, you ain’t in it. St. George on Staten Island is core, but a half mile back from the water ain’t. Everything west of Jackson Heights, west of Bushwick. Everything south of the Bronx Zoo, except for Manhattan above about 150th Street. A big chunk of western New Jersey is also core. I have spoken. Are you core? I’m hard core, here in Astoria.
Like Police cars, yellow taxi cabs are vehicles which seldom stop moving, with the exception being the last 11 months of this interminable pandemic for the taxis. I’ve been seeing entirely inert cabs all over the place, and a lot of them have had their medallions and other TLC flair removed. I have no idea how this industry in particular is going to find a road to recovery after this is all over. By my estimate, we’ve got at least another year of this ahead of us, by which point I’ll have watched everything Netflix has to offer.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One mentioned both Project Firebox and the native art form of the Borough of Queens – illegal dumping – in yesterday’s post. Here on Skillman Avenue, you’ve got both. That’s value for money right there, lords and ladies, just like dinner theater.
This particular stretch of Skillman Avenue, found between 39th street and Queens Plaza, is a favorite for the race car boys to meet up along. I’ve seen them drifting and fading multiple times over the last year, sending up plumes of tire smoke. The asphalt is scribed with black spirals and figure eight donut patterns. It’s a madhouse.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another fence hole I’ve recently been able to exploit allowed one a view of this Amtrak train set moving itself around at Sunnyside Yards. One good thing – for me – about the pandemic period is that since I’m not rushing around to get to work or something important anymore is that I get to photograph the efforts of people who still have jobs.
Fun for me, who is little more than a whirling mass of filthy black clothing concealing a wandering mendicant.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, February 1st. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
close correspondence
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As has often been asserted, illegal dumping is the unofficial art form of the Borough of Queens. Nowhere else, even in that runner-up section of Brooklyn which the children call Greenpoint, do you see the careful attention to arranging your junk so carefully. Composition is the difference between the amateur and professional leagues in most of the visual arts, and if one considers the sculptural qualities of these ad hoc installations… the mind boggles at the implication. One should spend a moment contemplating their navel – the omphalos of their very soul – right here.
Really, this is a growing problem, and 11 months into the Corona Pandemic a humble narrator can report that there’s observably a LOT more illegal dumping going on. Good news is that the art galleries of Manhattan haven’t figured out a way to charge you admission for this sort of thing yet, so get out there and look for a stack of tires.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m quite fond of this Sunnyside Yards/Amtrak shot. I’m also fond of the official at Amtrak responsible for poking holes in the Yard’s fences just big enough for me to maneuver a camera lens next to. It’s also the first shot I made a 35mm lens I picked up that made me say “huh.” The new camera I’ve mentioned a few times in the last month has been quite busy as I’ve been teaching myself how to use it. There’s a few things – like the fold out touch screen, for instance – that I’ve had to keep on reminding myself to use and that “I can do now.” That touch screen is how I was able to shoot through a fence hole that was maybe 3/4 of an inch square, and in a spot I’ve never been able to get a composed shot through before. The 35mm also easily sees through the diamond shaped apertures of standard chain link fencing.
I’ve also solved an annoying photoshop problem which was plaguing me a month or two back – a distracting cross hatch pattern manifesting in low pixel density parts of photos, specifically skies and water. Turns out that modern adobe camera raw has a weird default which turns off a certain form of “luminance noise” suppression. Suppression of noise used to be a default, but somebody at adobe decided to give you granular control over it with three sliders and set the default state on all three to zero. Sigh.
Y’know, I literally installed photoshop off of 16 floppy disks onto a Mac at my first advertising gig as “Stat Boy.” It wasn’t Photoshop with any numbers or letters after that, just Photoshop. I’m old. Kids these days… changing things for no reason so they can tell their bosses that they fixed something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Project Firebox. Remember when I used to do that, and there was a sixth post every week at Newtown Pentacle? Wow, those were the days, huh? Seriously, this project spun wildly out of control for me, and I found myself weeping while wandering through the City for miles and miles looking for fireboxes I hadn’t shot yet. Also, there’s only so many portrait shots you can do of fireboxes. Saying that…
Project Firebox is low key underway again, and we’ll be checking in on a few old friends to see how they’ve been weathering the storms of time.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, February 1st. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
copious seepage
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent wanderings, as mentioned earlier in the week, have seen me sticking fairly close to HQ due to the cold. Luckily, I happen to live within walking distance of some visually interesting sections of Long Island City such as the Sunnyside Yards, a portion of which is pictured above. Those are Amtrak train sets, overnighting in Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m a big fan of whomsoever it is at Amtrak who is responsible for poking holes in their fences. I’m an even bigger fan of whomsoever it is at Canon who has been designing lens with a smaller than usual lens element which I can fit into those pokey holes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another thing I’ve become a fan of are the few remaining gas stations in Western Queens, islands of saturated color and cold light shining in the night.
More wandering, in tomorrow’s post, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, January 25th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
mist maddened
Apocalyptic Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s lovely feeling the earth shift under your feet, ain’t it? There’s little I can do about the state of the world, so the only option is to continue walking the earth alone and at night. This is the bad time of the year for me, as it’s so very cold, but that – at least – is something predictable which I can cling to. Given that what I’m trying to do when leaving the house, in addition to getting some exercise for both my rotting body and the camera, is avoid the presence of disease carrying humans my routes usually involve walking through the most deserted and lonely places I can think of.
Luckily, Western Queens offers a lot in the way of deserted and lonely. Also lucky is the recent activity of whomsoever it is that Amtrak has put in charge of popping tiny holes into the fences surrounding the Sunnyside Yards in recent months.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I detest having to wear an extra layer of insulating clothing under my normal “mitchsuit,” but what are you going to do when it’s freezing cold outside? What? Stay at home when it’s below freezing, you say? That would be insane.
As I’ve often opined, NYC looks best when it’s slightly moistened and the streets are all shiny with slime and ice. One of the things catching my eye at the moment are the creepy looking skeletal trees of the industrial streets, grasping their bony branches accusingly toward the sky. Everything smelled salty, due to the de icing efforts of the Department of Sanitation, and furtive shadows were observed darting around the dumpsters. At night, the rats come out.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On this particular evening, wherein I described my goals to Our Lady of the Pentacle as being a “short walk,” my path led from Astoria to some of the less travelled sections of Long Island City surrounding the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek and then through Blissville on my loop back home – about 4-5 miles. My practice through the pandemic has involved doing all of the banal things I do during daylight hours here at HQ, then donning “outside clothes” and the filthy black raincoat and venturing forth. Upon arriving back at HQ, whatever photos have been collected are then transferred from camera to computer and the “first pass” is done. What that means is that I look though the average 2-300 shots on my camera and throw at least half of them out. Before I go to sleep, the remaining shots have been keyworded and cropped.
The next day, I do the developing process and upload them to the web. An every other day schedule has been more or less maintained during the pandemic, with a few hiccups here and there. You control what you can control, and don’t try to control what you can’t.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, January 11th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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 