Archive for the ‘Sunnyside Yards’ Category
hushed evening
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What with the vaccine and everything, I’ve been out a lot during daylight hours and have been missing my nocturnal scuttles. To remedy this, one packed up his old kit bag and smile, smile, smiled. This was a relatively short after dinner walk, one which saw me head out of Astoria in the direction of Queens Plaza where I looped back around onto Skillman Avenue for the return trip. Luckily, this is a feature rich and visually interesting pathway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Evidence suggests that wherever the Queens Cobbler went to during the pandemic, said Cobbler being a probable serial killer who leaves behind single shoes as macabre tokens, they have returned to continue their campaign of savage conquest here in Queens. This particular momento was observed in the gutter on 42nd street at Northern Blvd.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On my way back home, which found me walking along Skillman Avenue, several examples of Long Island Railroad’s inventory were observed hurtling along the tracks. The particular nature of the fences along this stretch negate photographic opportunity, but there’s a spot or two just big enough to squeeze a lens into.
You have to know where they are. I do.
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had ventured
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A problem often encountered regards the motivations of other people. I understand it when someone is beating the drums and they are advocating for an urgent issue of the day in vociferous fashion. Also “got” is when somebody is at their wit’s end and frustration with the various processes offered by Governmental authorities boil over. Thing is, there are some you encounter who are just plain mean.
I don’t want to indicate that they’re “mean” to others as a political tactic, since there’s apparently a validity to the strategic move of being a colossal dick – it might even make you Governor or President someday. Why be ugly when you don’t have to be? Why make enemies when you don’t have to? If you can see trouble coming, why not take steps to avoid it? Pissing contests and dominance displays amongst the mice don’t even amuse the elephants, since they’re not paying attention to what’s going on down on the ground.
Seriously, every single day that a humble narrator has to deal with this sort of thing is just one day closer to the day that I say “I’m out” and drop the mike. I’m really, really, trying to allow my better nature to remain dominant at the moment. Spring loaded, however, is “full Brooklyn.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My fascinations with the tracking systems on the newish camera continue to fascinate. I’ve been trying to figure out where it fails, and giving it difficult things to lock onto, such as the shot above with trains and overhead wires and a million little contrasty features in frame. So far, it’s a champ. At least I have technology, huh?
I should explain, in a vague way, that I’ve become embroiled in a controversy or two not of my making. A particular fire starter here in Western Queens is actually the “maker” of these imbroglios, and they have caused me no end of angst and worry and forced me into “having to deal with this.” Said arsonist will discover in January, after the current Mayor has left office, that all of their bridges have long since burnt away and that the people who currently lend them legitimacy will have either left office or will be done using them as a stalking horse. Lessons will be learned, subsequently, about arson. Be toxic, live toxic, die toxic.
On that note, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if this particular player’s “cancel crowd” came after me or mine in the near future. Maybe they’ll succeed. Others have tried. Where are they now? I’ll point out that over on Newtown Creek I often tangle with trans national energy companies and Federal level regulatory entities, employees of which tell me that they’ve got private detective produced file folders on me which include my high school transcripts. Somehow I’ve survived that sort of inspection.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, while testing the autofocus setup on the camera rig, an Amtrak trainset came rolling by while lit up all nice by the setting sun. Something to hang my hat on for a late spring afternoon’s effort. I like trains.
There’s a sticky NYC summer setting up, lords and ladies. Hope your hot weather clothes still fit. Back next week 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.
earthly logic
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One found himself at a Sunnyside Yards fence hole often referred to as “the old reliable” waiting for a train to roll by, a desire soon satisfied. There’s a reason I call it the old reliable, after all. I’m learning how to best utilize the subject tracking feature baked into my camera. By design the software which controls this looks for human/animal faces and eyes when directing focus, but it also allows me to lock onto something moving through the frame – like a LIRR train – and the camera readjusts focus continuously as the thing rolls through. This is neat.
During the few instances in the last few months which have seen me actually photographing human beings again, this focus tracking business has produced very nice results. I’ll post them in some future NP post, but you get a very nice separation twixt background and subject when using this particular setting. Good stuff.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the particular evening that the old reliable was being exploited, I kept on encountering cast off food, like the half eaten McDonalds double cheeseburger pictured above. Personally, I only eat McDonalds 2 or 3 times a year, and that’s usually when I’m either desperate or drunkenly craving fast food. I forego the fries, and my order at the Golden Arches is either a small coke with two quarter pounders w cheese or two regular cheeseburgers with no drink or fries. If it’s not on the dollar menu, it ain’t me.
It’s not like I don’t eat burgers and fries, before you ask. It’s just that McDonalds’ offerings pale before what you can get from any old Queensican diner or bar. Why spend money on semi expensive crap when you can have a decent meal for more or less the same money?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The next bit of food dumping encountered this particular evening is pictured above. Some veg, some garbage, all left out in the rain for someone else to clean up. Grrr.
I carry any trash I’ve generated while moving around in my pockets, and empty them when I encounter a waste basket or other receptacle like a dumpster. This really isn’t hard to do. The mental process involved in leaving the house with a box of cabbage and then carrying it to a fairly remote spot along the fences of a rail yard and saying “here, here is where I will abandon these cabbages” is something I don’t understand.
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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.
glancing backward
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One does wish that the pandemic related train cleaning regimen MTA has been observing included the polishing of the window glass on their rolling stock, but there you are. That’s part of the Sunnyside Yards pictured up there, shot through a 7 train window while heading west. A Long Island Rail Road train is at the bottom of the shot, and the owners of the trains parked in the colossal coach yard behind it include New Jersey Transit and Amtrak.
Someday I will get invited to walk around down there. Someday.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Visible from another subway line is this view of the Triborough Bridge. Specifically, it’s the Astoria Blvd. stop on the N/W service. That’s the onramp of the great bridge, and the transitional point where traffic leaves the Grand Central Parkway. Local traffic west of 31st street travels on Hoyt Avenues North and South. East of 31st street, it’s officially the “I-278 Truck Bypass” but we common mortals refer to the travel lanes as Astoria Blvd. N & S.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the extreme western end of Sunnyside Yards is the section called “Yard A” or the “Arch Street Yard.” MTA has a train maintenance facility here, and for the last few weeks they’ve been playing around with a new series of LIRR trains which they just got delivered. I’ve noticed them doing “shake down” trips at night with these new units, which I’m told is probably in pursuit of testing their signaling systems. In the foreground is an Amtrak train emerging from the tunnel which allowed it to escape Manhattan.
“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.
hidden legacy
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These shots are from Monday the 26th of April, and collected during an evening walk from Astoria to Long Island City’s hinterlands. The route I walked was largely my “stations of the cross” walk, perpetrated regularly during the pandemic year, with the notable difference being that since I’m fully vaccinated these days the walk took place right around sunset.
Perihelions at this time of year, given the relative angling of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself relative to the street grids of NYC, are efficacious. Within 4-6 weeks, the light simply won’t be as good. That’s the Northern Blvd. Shield Wall of the Sunnyside Yards, incidentally.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My walk from Astoria sees me scuttling southwards over the truss bridges spanning Sunnyside Yards, to Skillman Avenue which carries my bloated meat suit down to the Degnon Terminal section of Long Island City where Dutch Kills is found. Over at Dutch Kills, a tributary of the gruesome extravaganza known as the Newtown Creek, I spotted a bird.
Given that every time I try to describe a bird, its speciation, common name – whatever – I’m inevitably wrong, I now just make up invented names for them. That’s a Two Fingered Butter Hawk, I’d say. This is part of why the Audubon Society hates me. You should see their faces when I advocate for feral cats as an alternative for chemical pesticides for rodent control on industrial sites.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a bit of maintenance work being performed on Dutch Kills by contractors for the NYC DOT. They’re specifically working on the wood pile “dolphins” protecting the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge from non existent maritime traffic.
The barge they’re using is interesting, and something I haven’t seen before. There are multiple snap together sections of the thing. I guess it was chosen as a work platform because of that non functioning MTA rail bridge at the head of the canal. You need something you can unload from a truck and assemble directly in the water, presumptively.
“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 