Archive for the ‘Sunnyside Yards’ Category
degraded parody
Thursday, and hindsight is 2020.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Survivors, rejoice. You made it. New Year’s Eve. It’s been 293 days since the New York State lockdown orders of Friday the 13th of March were announced. That’s 7,032 hours if you’re the curious type. There’s a few things I’d like you to think about as we move forward into the future, here in these United States…
The photo above depicts the Sunnyside Yards, which is rumored to have been the actual target used by the Soviets for their thermonuclear bomb tipped missiles. The United States has ostensibly been preparing and spending an astronomical amount of money for more than 70 years preparing for the various shapes which the apocalypse might take. That includes, as George W. Bush reminded us when updating the spending program twenty years ago, preparing and updating responses to attack vectors for “nuclear,” “chemical,” and “biological” weapons.
Where has all that money gone, and why were was the greatest military power in history caught so flat footed by a predictable respiratory pandemic whose scope doesn’t begin to touch what an engineered bioweapon would do to us?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Governor Nelson Rockefeller and President Richard Nixon oversaw the nationalization of local and inter city transit systems in the early 1970’s. Bankrupt private capital railroad firms were turned into publicly owned and operated “authorities” and “corporations.” Nixon created Amtrak for passenger service, and Conrail for freight. Rockefeller combined the subways, buses, and commuter trains in New York State into the Metropolitan Transit Authority. The MTA’s annual budget is 17 billion dollars. If you were to stack individual dollar bills until arriving at the amount of 17 billion, you’d have a stack of money which is 1,154.3 miles high.
Fifty years later the MTA still operates its systems as if it was day one after the nationalization of the Subways, Buses, and Penn Central commuter services, with little or no interoperability having been achieved between its various divisions in the interim, and they operate in a state of perennial near bankruptcy. Conrail is largely irrelevant these days due to the private capital underlying modern rail shipping companies like CSX, whereas Amtrak has become a political football bandied about and abused by Congressional game players. Where does all that money go, and why hasn’t NYC’s regional transit system been modernized with interoperability and shared resources in mind?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You can vow to wean your culture off of petroleum all you want, but without massive capital expenditures and tax breaks for those having to junk and replace their “installed base” of equipment you’re just blowing hot air. You can’t just quit heroin without withdrawal symptoms, can’t stop drinking without the “DT’s,” or just quit smoking the Crack without some sort of psychotic reaction. Petroleum is a drug, which you pour over your economy to make it go “vrooooom.”
Historically, any new or novel technology – let’s say that Star Trek style unlimited and non-polluting energy reactors appear tomorrow, for instance – it would be a good 50 years before they became commonplace. New fuel sources have historically had a long adoption period where the installed base of the last energy source is phased out and the new one is deployed. In the case of wood to coal in industry, it was about 150 years. Coal to Petroleum took around 75 years, and there are still several major industries (notably manufactured gas) which consume a magnificent amount of coal. Look to the United States Navy as the bel weather on this subject.
Happy New Year, ya filthy animals!
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, December 28th. 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.
utmost anomalous
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another night, another scary walk through the dangerously deserted and scarily dark streets of the Kaufman Astoria Arts District, with its inhuman and out of scale streetscape. Since nightlife has ended, the life of the night has taken over around here. You’ve got your four legged and two legged variants of rats crawling around here, and the oligarchs who remotely administer this area from their Manhattan penthouses simply don’t care about the people of Astoria. Street lighting is sparse, the blocks are defined by long and featureless cinder block walls, and were you to find yourself in trouble you’d soon find yourself yelling and screaming into a depopulated void. At least the ubiquitous security cameras of these oligarchs, maintained to protect their buildings, might provide the Police with some evidence of what happened to you.
These are the self same oligarchs who have proposed to expand their zone of control and dominion over this land, and to create new financial siphons to feed their overseas accounts, in partnership with REBNY President Larry Silverstein (self described as “Donald Trump’s best friend”). This development project of theirs would raze away multiple acres of small businesses and homes here at the southern edge of Astoria – making way for a residential tower development styled as Innovation Queens. This project would be yet another place for the powers that be over in Manhattan to wet their beaks on the blood of the masses, and slake their thirst for more. More. More. More.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My fascination with photographing gas stations continues unabated. I should say “successfully photographing” as the new camera is far more capable of capturing the fuller dynamic range of light and color offered by these spots than my older model was.
I’m told that the vast majority of gas station owners in NYC are franchisees, although there are a handful of independents in each Borough. At the moment, there 7 major franchise brands represented in the City, with the Hess people transitioning their business model away from retail at the moment. As mentioned the other day, there are an estimated 800 gas stations found within NYC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In order for me to get to one of the spots which I’m typically heading to along Newtown Creek, I generally have to cross the Sunnyside Yards. Accordingly, I have a catalog of “fence holes” which I’ve discovered over the years. The good folks at Amtrak will give – add a new hole for some reason or another – and they will take away. At the moment, the lovely view seen above is available for inspection by the wandering photographer.
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, December 28th. 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.
honest physician
Remember when Friday was special?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in the past, there’s something about the design principles of the “House of Moses” – which is what I call the teams of municipal engineers and architects that were employed by Robert Moses and who designed the network of highway, expressway, and parkway infrastructure of NYC between the early 1930’s and late 1960’s – which has always appealed to me. There seems to have been a governing philosophy back then that despite the mission calling for you to draw something utilitarian and inherently ugly – a high speed road, for instance – you should go out of your way to gussy it up and find ways to make it aesthetic. This is before Brutalism and massing shapes became the calling card of civil works.
I’m not being sarcastic, look at that 1940 section of the Long Island Expressway above. It could have been so much worse, and there’s all sorts of small detail built into what’s essentially an off ramp and an elevated travel lane. Truly under appreciated, I’ve always thought. The cloverleaf ramps nearby LaGuardia Airport are also quite visually pleasing to me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When I’m screaming at Government Employees in the modern day, I’m usually the only person in the room who’s not standing on a firm “Go ‘Eff yourself” on new or upgraded municipal infrastructure. Instead, I’m asking why they can’t spend a bit more time thinking about what it’s going to be like living with this stuff nearby. Why not make it visually interesting or even attractive? Look at the new Koscisuzcko Bridge, or the sewer plant in Greenpoint, for examples of what I’m talking about. I mean… you’re spending the money anyway, why not make it nice?
Pictured above is a Long Island Railroad train rolling through the Harold Interlocking at the Sunnyside Yards, photographed from my favorite hole in the fences. Want to talk about screwing up the public interface for a municipal facility? Look at the plate steel fences they’ve thrown up around the Yards, which are graffiti magnets. Uggh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Despite the pandemic, ChristmAstoria is risibly present again this year. Lights are deployed and electrified, and luckily the fad for light strings with xmas music speakers attached seems to be dying. I’m into the decorative lights, but detest the piping of holiday music into the streets.
Back next week with more shots from different adventures.
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, December 7th. 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.
stagger back
Friday odds and ends.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One finds himself constantly exhausted by and annoyed by all of these online Zoom meetings, as opposed to the sort of in person meeting fatigue that was experienced in the “before times.” On the plus side, I don’t find myself traveling around to some dusty school cafeteria or office building annex to be told by Governmental employees that something is impossible due to some arcane regulatory prohibition. Conversely, I don’t like being told no when I’m sitting in my own kitchen back at HQ. There’s also a whole lot of non verbal communication which gets lost – I’ve taken to describing my various postures, laser like stares, and other physical “tells” to whomsoever it is I’m talking to, as there’s a whole lot of communicative indication which don’t translate on video conferencing.
Y’know, it didn’t have to be like this, and if everybody had taken this plague seriously back in spring and summer we’d likely be half way back to normal by now instead of negotiating “new normal.” Idolators, that’s what you anti maskers are.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shots in today’s post didn’t fit into the other offerings this week, so they’re lumped together in an odd fashion today. The sheer scale of Long Island City’s Degnon Terminal Industrial Business Zone (IBZ) is staggering, and you never quite get past that when wandering the seemingly narrow sidewalks lining the massive factory buildings in this area. These are old school double wide factory sidewalks, btw, notice how that garbage truck in the lower right corner of the shot above only takes up half of the pavement?
Luckily, these old dinosaur factories have found new utility and life in recent years. Light industrial usages – commercial printing, garment assembly, etc. have recently found their way here. You want to talk about blue collar employment, you have to talk Newtown Creek or you’re just virtue signaling.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Speaking of my beloved Creek, here’s a shot of the Dutch Kills tributary in LIC, part of the series I’ve been presenting all week here at Newtown Pentacle.
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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, November 16th. 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.
wail hastily
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just because I was walking home from LIC’s Dutch Kills didn’t mean I was done taking photos, nor was I done experimenting with the focus stacking technique. Got this one on Thomson Avenue, corner of Skillman, across the street from LaGuardia Community College. I had become so focused on shooting that I had lost track of time, and this is about the moment I discovered that it was well after midnight and that my camera battery only had two bars of power left on it. Thing about this particular technique is that every single image represents 9 or 10 individual shots, so it’s pretty easy to chew through your camera memory cards and battery charge in short order.
Oops. I carry extra batteries with me, of course, so no big deal. Saying that, wow, I was something like 300 plus shots and six hours into the walk and I hadn’t even realized it. Additionally, this is also when I realized that despite the fact that the audiobook I was listening to at the start of the walk had long ago concluded, I still had my headphones in for some reason. Missing time, huh?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My toes were promptly turned towards HQ, and the slogging home section of my night. I had covered a lot of the same ground at the start of the evening, so photo opportunity on the way home was fairly limited. Saying that, there were a couple of shots that jumped out at me – like this little tree sapling that had somehow rooted itself alongside the fenceline of the Sunnyside Yards. I love this sort of sight – indomitability of nature and all that.
I was still playing around with the focus stacking technique mentioned in earlier posts this week, which allowed for a terrific amount of captured light and tint.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This image depicts the western looking pov from Skillman Avenue, where you can see the Queens Plaza South and North truss bridge over the rail tracks, and the elevated 7 line above the roadway. While gathering the focus stacking shots for this one, four distinct passages of rail train sets rolled through the frame, leaving behind light streaks to mark their passage.
Man, I just love Long Island City.
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, November 16th. 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 