he shuns
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described, last year, a humble narrator’s perambulatory pursuits found him shambling eastwards on Brooklyn’s Meeker Avenue from the Brooklyn Navy Yard towards Astoria in Queens. My route was entirely encapsulated by the miles long steel and concrete pergola formed by the elevated roadway of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. There has always been a population that dwells in this corridor – unfortunates and inebriates who set up camp sites constructed from tarps, cardboard, and shipping palettes – but during the pandemic months their numbers have exploded.
Empathy for their plight and situation would be expressed if I was still capable of experiencing emotions. Instead, one has become not unlike a stick of wood – dry, unyielding, uncaring, ready to burst into flame at the first hint of a spark. I’m intolerant of nonsense now, and it’s nonsensical that the greatest City in history cannot do anything about this situation other than build luxury condominiums in Manhattan’s Soho… but, alas, my new motto still applies – “Nothing matters and nobody cares.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This section of Brooklyn was once where the political boundary between Bushwick and Greenpoint was drawn, back when your electeds were called “Alderman” or “Ward Boss.” That’s before Robert Moses arrived on the scene in the late 1920’s. Moses was quite keen on something he referred to as “The Brooklyn Queens Connecting Highway” and after his ribald success in building both Mighty Triborough and the Grand Central Parkway, the Federal Government agreed to fund his ideation. Moses made the case that the multitudes of Brooklyn would choke local street traffic as they made their way to his 1939 World’s Fair in Flushing, and that a high volume/speed road was required.
Moses showed a certain predilection for building his projects right on the border between two political districts. The highway above required the whole scale demolition of a city block wide corridor, and thousands of homes and businesses were eradicated to clear the space. I’d imagine having two politicians feeding at his trough rather than one made the disruption to the locals easier to handle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The modern day Brooklyn Queens Expressway was christened in the post WW2 Urban Renewal era. The original road was a highway, which means a high speed road with frequent exit and entrance ramps and in places – bike and pedestrian paths – but when it became an expressway it lost several of those ramps and any thought of pedestrian access was removed. Parkway (planted shoulders), highway (high speed), throughway (no exits except at start and end), expressway (limited exits). These are all self explanatory terms, Moses would tell you, before offering analogies about breaking eggs and omelettes. The usage for the space below the elevated truss road was meant to saturate parking availability, but as you can see – “world longest homeless camp” is largely how it’s being used today.
The Brooklyn Queens Connecting highway, or at least the sections of it north of the Williamsburg Bridge leading into Queens, opened for business during the month of August in 1939. August 23rd, to be exact.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is supposed to be empathic towards those who dwell below. That’s virtue signaling horse shit, however. Nobody cares, nothing matters, and these people will be taken care of when the politicians and the crooks who buzz around them like shit flies figure out a way to make political capital and money off of the situation. Personally, everytime I buy a new bag of socks, the older ones get washed and thrown in a shopping bag which I leave nearby similar campsites, or are handed off to one of the many people I encounter in Queens who are living rough. I’m one bad month away from being in this situation myself, and my resources are best analogized as “not enough butter spread over too much bread.”
Life is cheap in the big city, but living costs a fortune.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
By this stage of the walk back to HQ in Astoria, one was beginning to experience fatigue. The trick left foot was singing an opera, and since my left leg was dragging a bit due to the foot, that caused a cramp to set up in my back. NYC doesn’t acknowledge human biology and thereby a series of urine splotches marked my northward progress. I also had to poop, but I’m not that far gone yet. I’ll gladly slip between two parked cars and piss into a sewer grate, but dropping a deuce in the open air isn’t a line I cross.
Also, what if somebody saw it? That’s how you end up on Instagram. “Hey, check out Mitch from Newtown Creek Alliance, he’s shitting in the street now.” Clearly, this signals that their entire thing is a corrupt eidolon offered up by real estate interests and morally bankrupt politicians. Told you he’s no good. I have a friend who advocates for bike lanes and safer streets, and he got photographed jaywalking and that spawned several days of commentary, for instance.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My destination in this section of Brooklyn was ultimately the Kosciuszcko Bridge, which would carry me into Queens. There’s a neat bit of public space under the new bridge, where – coincidentally – I know there would a “Porta Potty” where I could solve my alimentary issues in private. Along the way, a park bench of two offered some relief for the operatic conditions being offered by the left foot.
More pedantic adventures tomorrow, at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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“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.
sweat beaded
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My walk home from the Brooklyn Navy Yard to Astoria was governed by proximity to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, and the conscious intention followed was to never let it out of my sight. After entering Williamsburg, the theoretically high speed road runs in a trench surrounded by some of the most valuable real estate in New York City. A few decades ago, when I was in High School, this section of Brooklyn was analogous to Batman’s Gotham City – crime wise.
How crimey? Back in the 1980’s, if smoking cocaine was your deal, you’d either be “basing” as in “freebasing” or “doing flake.” A news crew for ABC’s 20/20 show did a feature on a local drug distribution racket in this part of Brooklyn. The gangsters interviewed offered that they called their “flake” by a different name – Crack. That’s literally where the national “crack epidemic” started, on tv, which fueled the “war on drugs” rhetoric and ultimately provided a legal pretense for Police officers to enter schools and search for drugs without warrants. That was also when the militarization of the local cops got started, as well as draconian measures like “three strikes” laws.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Scare the shit out of people and they’ll rip up the Constitution for you. Crack, crackheads, war on drugs. Terror, terror wars, homeland security. There’s a play book.
Truth be told, back in the day, this was a pretty dangerous part of Brooklyn. It was one of those zones where my Dad would say “lock the doors” while driving through. The old man was a house painter by trade, and one of his suppliers was based somewhere around here. My Dad and one of his brothers used to work out of a store on Grand Street in the 1970’s, but the familial legend passed to me was that my Uncle lost the business to a Mafioso in a card game. My dad and his brothers would bet on which color car was going to pass the corner next, so that tale holds water for me. The old man got a job working for the “catlicks choich” doing maintenance at a kid’s hospital in the City. Not sure what my Uncle did afterwards, but he drove a Cadillac, whereas my Dad drove a Plymouth.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An artifact of that era was encountered on the way, a firebox that has a two way speaker in it, which theoretically connects you to a 911 operator. This sort of device is called an “ERS” or Emergency Response System alarm box. The City began deploying these in the 1970’s, seeking to modernize the older spring wound alarm boxes which – believe it or not – still (as in today) use telegraph wires. ERS boxes are connected to telephone wires, specifically the fairly blackout proof system installed by “Ma Bell” which translates in modern day to the Verizon corporation. The City has been attempting to eliminate alarm boxes utterly since first Giuliani, but court orders have precluded their removal.
Anyway, that’s it for 2021. Back next year with more, 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.
grisly claws
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s not like this in other cities. Not even Philadelphia. After having ridden on the NYC Ferry from Astoria to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a humble narrator began a long scuttle northwards back towards Queens. One followed the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, and used its shadowed under vaults to escape the deleterious brightness of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself. Shadow and filth.
This is a horrific corridor, as a note. Abandoned cars, mystery trucks without license plates, camp sites. Above are legions of fowl, and splattered below is their collective foul. Garbage turns in wind driven vortexes, stagnant pools glimmer with slime, the residue of spent petroleum coats everything in soot. The very air you breathe is a poisonous fume.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is figuratively the sort of New York City which Jakob Riis wrote about, where the toll of political corruption is writ large. This is literally the New York City spoken of by Robert Caro, and since 1939 this has been the House of Moses. Robert Moses, that is.
Hey… wait a second… did you notice… I was almost starting to care again. Woah. Glad I caught myself. “Nothing matters and nobody cares… Nothing matters and nobody cares… Nothing matters and nobody cares.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Don’t believe me that “Nothing matters and nobody cares”? Just look at that one above, Bro.
There’s a runoff pipe from the BQE, positioned right over a sewer grate that empties into the East River without ever entering a sewer plant first. It’s packed in with garbage, in one of the few open parking spots, where any random person can park a panel truck without license plates indefinitely. Think that nobody who works for the City or State has spotted this? Worried about “homeland security concerns” the way they would under the FDR Drive? Answer is yes, but it doesn’t matter to them and they don’t actually care.
Hey, do you know who the current President of the Borough of Brooklyn is? Do you suppose this sort of scene matters to him, and whether or not he cares about it? Within the next 48 hours, he’s got a new first name – Mayor.
“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.
feeble pages
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned, one needed to get a picture of a NYC Ferry entering the Brooklyn Navy Yard for a freelance gig, and what was described to me as being the ideal image is only possible at sunrise or shortly thereafter. That’s why I boarded a NYC Ferry while it was still dark and headed over to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, from Astoria.
After accomplishing my goal, and let me tell you – meteorology was not on my side for at least nine full days before this particular morning – one decided that “what the hell, might as well walk home.” On my way out of the Navy Yard, I was very much in “lookitthat” mode and couldn’t help but crack out a few shots.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Everybody I know has a story about getting hassled while waving the camera around at the Navy Yard, but nobody ever bugs me here. I walk with a purpose, and project an aura of rectitude… that’s what I tell myself… but the security people probably just think I’m just some homeless guy who found a camera and is wandering around with it.
My plan for the walk back to Queens was simple. I’d hang a left when leaving the Navy Yard, then a right and another left. That would put me under the BQE, which runs on an elevated truss in this section of Brooklyn, and I’d follow it back through Williamsburg and Greenpoint where I’d cross Newtown Creek on the Kosciuszcko Bridge and enter Queens. A mere stroll, I tell’s ya, a wee walk.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This isn’t the shot I came to Wallabout Bay for, above, but it gives you an idea of the sort of light my assignment required. The pinks and oranges on the white hulls of the ferry boats were the stage lights I needed to get what I was asked to photograph. There’s a ferry conference next year, and the shot I came for is meant to be the program booklet cover – so no pressure there.
Tomorrow, we make a left, a right, another left, and then head north.
“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.
harmlessly mad
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A client of mine recently asked for a very specific shot, one that would require me to leave HQ in the dead of night and catch the first ferry out of Astoria just as the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself began to peek out from behind Nassau and Suffolk counties. Coffee was quaffed, a humble narrator was bathed and soon clad in his black sackcloth, and the camera gear was vouchsafed as ready to deploy. A man up early and on a mission, I was there as that first ferry boat arrived at Hallets Cove, and thusly was it boarded with a jaunty step.
The assignment involved the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the NYC Ferry, specifically to get a shot of the latter entering the former at sunrise. The sunrise deal wasn’t part of the original brief/conversation, but from the description of what they wanted, that’s what they wanted.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What? I’m going to get up at 4:30 in the morning for a job and not get a few in for myself, too? Sheesh, who ya talking to here? Yeah, it was chilly up there on the top deck. Kee-reist, why not just stay at home in your warm bed and whine about the winter? If Marcus Aurelius was here, he’d “tsk tsk” at you. Lazy bones. Sleep when you’re dead.
That’s the Roosevelt Island Bridge at the center of the shot, with the Queensboro in the distance.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Astoria line NYC Ferry makes a few stops after leaving its former terminal stop nearby the NYCHA Astoria Houses campus at Queens’ Hallets Cove. Former terminal stop, actually, since there’s now a stop on the extremely Upper East Side in Manhattan that supersedes. After the Hallets Cove stop, where I usually board the service, the Ferry goes to Roosevelt Island, LIC North, 34th st. in the City, then Brooklyn Navy Yard, and finally Manhattan’s Pier 11. The ferry ride is a little bit more than a half hour, going from Astoria to the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
I’d offer that this is the one thing that the NYC EDC has done right in the last ten years, the ferry. I won’t give credit to De Blasio, as I personally witnessed the plans for it circulating near the end of third Bloomberg. Word has it that the Dope from Park Slope asked for something “ready to go” when he came into office and they handed him the plan which ended up being called “NYC Ferry.”
More tomorrow, from an early morning on the East River.
“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 