terrific thundering
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s been a long time since I was inside of Grand Central Station, I tell you. After my visit to the Times Square Ferris Wheel, detailed in last week’s postings, a quick walk found a humble narrator heading towards the 7 train which allowed some quiet time for contemplation. In recent months, I’ve been avoiding listening to music or audiobooks through my headphones in the name of pure paranoia and wanting to ensure that my auditory “early warning system” was and is in no way impeded.
The streets ain’t so friendly these days, especially at night in the relatively deserted and depopulated midtown business districts of Manhattan. I mean… that photo above is Grand Central on a Monday night at about 8 o’clock. Outside, it was like a zombie movie, only with groups of teenagers riding around on bikes and texting each other after they rode past you.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My plan for getting out of dodge involved taking the 7 line subway back to Queens and then transferring over to an Astoria bound N train. What I was contemplating in this particular interval isn’t for public consumption quite yet, but there are weighty decisions being weighed behind my eyeglasses, even while you’re reading this post.
The saturated color profiles of today’s photos were intentional, incidentally. Always playing around with look and feel, me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Descending into Manhattan’s depths, it was absolutely bizarre moving through this particular space in solo fashion. Grand Central is defined by crowds and masses, and unending hordes of the human infestation. It’s beyond odd to be solitary anywhere in this building, let alone riding an escalator designed to carry thousands every hour all by yourself.
The 7 station here is very, very deep.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My pal Hank the Elevator Guy will expound endlessly about how deadly escalators can be. He points out that the actual mechanism of an escalator is fundamentally the same as that of an industrial meat grinder. It apparently doesn’t take much in the way of mechanical malfunction for the stairs to open up and pull you inside.
Most of that electronic sign’s messaging equipment in the shot above is burnt out, but the surviving LED’s on it say “Children should.” It doesn’t say what the children should, it just says they should. It is, after all, the MTA.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The most terrifying of MTA’s escalators are on the 7, incidentally. The Grand Central ones are just claustrophobic and deep, but it’s the ones at Hudson Yards that are actually vertigo introducing. Many have been the times that I worried about falling down a set of these moving stairs to an ignominious death.
I don’t mind the thought of dying. I mind the thought of dying in a stupid or comical way. Having an air conditioner fall out of a window on me, or down a flight of steps, or in some ironic circumstance. “Yeah, you heard what happened to Waxman? He died in a vat of molten wax at a candle factory.” At the beginning of Covid, I swore that I wouldn’t get sick as I couldn’t take a chance on dying at the Javitz Center. That’s a punk place to check out, yo.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the 7 platform, deep under Grand Central, the IRT Flushing Line – or 7 train – arrived just as I ran into a friend from LIC whom I haven’t seen since New Years of 2020. Good times, taking the subway.
Back tomorrow with something entirely different at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
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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.
tilted both
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After riding the Times Square Ferris Wheel, a humble narrator headed indirectly back to Queens. Along the way, I passed by a construction project occurring on West 47th street that involved using a crane to transport concrete to some unknown prominence high above.
Seriously, it never ends. Have you heard about the push by the Real Estate people to rezone midtown Manhattan because it’s not dense enough?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Union Guys generally hate it when I’m taking pictures of them working. They don’t like it in Queens and Brooklyn and all around Newtown Creek, where these trucks get loaded up, and they don’t like it in the City where the trucks get unloaded at the job site.
I don’t care what other people like or dislike anymore.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
About a block away, I was finally able to gain perspective on the scene, and see the crane. Manhattan always looks best from outside of Manhattan. The narrow streets and looming architecture lends itself to inky shadow and obscured views. Luckily, the construction guys had blocked off the street so I got to stand in the gutter – where I belong – and crack out a shot or two.
Enjoy your holiday weekend, lords and ladies, back next week with more wonders from the megalopolis.
“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.
impatient affirmation
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, on the negative front – the Ferris Wheel in Times Square’s gondolas are lined with a kind of flexible plastic that isn’t exactly optically ideal. Additionally, the plastic was quite filthy and covered with greasy fingerprints and “yuck.” Given that a humble narrator was shooting from within this hazed plastic enclosure (it’s also rather snug in there) at a brightly lit scene, photo quality suffered. Luckily, I’m used to brandishing the camera about in less than ideal circumstances.
For twenty bucks, you basically get three revolutions of the wheel to take your photos during. I anticipated the plastic problem, and made a homemade light baffle for the lens out of the sort of foam sealant strips you would use when installing an air conditioner. Didn’t fix the problem, but definitely helped ameliorate some of it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve got a collection of homemade camera equipment, I should mention. All the electronic stuff is store bought, obviously, but there’s all kinds of environmental adaptations which would cost a fortune if I bought it from the camera people. A year or two ago, a screw that attached the tripod mounting plate to my camera got stripped, and the camera store offered a replacement which retailed for $10. For a screw, $10. I got a box of 20 of them from Amazon for $6. I seem to spend more time scrutinizing Home Depot’s offerings than I do B&H’s these days.
A camera’s tripod mount screw is a quarter inch 20 turn screw. A tripod’s head mount is a three eighth’s inch 20 turn screw. Go to a hardware store, and use your imagination. One of my camera support mechanisms has furniture casters for feet. I had a carpenter body of mine cut an ARCA Swiss Mount into a block of hard rubber that another friend – Hank the Elevator Guy – suggested I use for a squared off vibration damper which I like to mount on my camera’s L Bracket. Ever try a string tripod? Cut a rain shield out of a soda bottle? Countersink a screw into a chunk of wood? It’s glorious, I tell you, DIY is, and kind of fun.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The one above is the shot I was hoping to get from up on the wheel. I had to play around with all the settings on my camera, while chatting with the other photographer who was randomly sharing the gondola with me, who coincidentally was using the exact same camera and lens model as I. Wonder how his shots came out.
So, that’s how I spent last Monday night. Minor adventures continued while walking to the train station through the weirdly deserted midtown Manhattan streets. There were plenty of people there, but given what the “normal” density encountered would be on a Monday night on the streets neighboring the 42nd street corridor, it felt like I was either in a zombie movie or it was Labor Day. Not done shooting, by a long shot, one walked away from the subway station which offered the most direct connections back to my section of Astoria. Instead, I headed towards Grand Central Station, where my intention was to board a 7 train. More 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.
unsuspected galaxy
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So… there was basically no chance that I wasn’t going to be attracted to Times Square to ride the Mayor’s Ferris Wheel – was there? Having a obligation along Newtown Creek on Tuesday evening, and the forecast of torrential rains occurring later in the week, the only night I could fit this in was Monday and that’s why and when a humble narrator found himself standing in Times Square on the 30th of August with a $20 Ferris Wheel ticket in his hand.
Times Square, the “crossroads of the world,” is also the exact spot where the biblical garden of Eden was located. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was more or less where the entrance to the IND Broadway subway station is at 42nd and Broadway. It’s an easy commute from Astoria, Eden.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After having to explain to a couple of con men that I in fact lived here and was thereby a bad mark – I did wish them luck, and instructed one of them that when he figured out “where da rich peoples at,” that he should find me and we’d team up to defraud them – one scuttled over to the 46th street side of Times Square and assessed the standing in line situation.
I could not help but think that the process which began here in Times Square some thirty years ago – the so called “Disneyfication” of “Da Deuce” – was now complete. There’s a ride here now. It won’t be long before there’s a permanent Roller Coaster installed. Manhattan’s Times Square is no longer a “central business district,” rather it’s a NYC themed amusement park laid out like a garish whore for tourists to admire.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I had purchased my ticket through the interwebs, which allows for scheduling your ride. My ticket engaged at 7:30 p.m. For your $20, you essentially get three revolutions in one of those goofy gondolas. For my $20, I’m getting at least two posts out of the excursion, this being the first.
It’s not easy being as cynical as this, but I put some effort into it. Tomorrow, I’ll show you what the view was like from onboard. Hey – how many times do you think it’s going to be possible to be 110 feet over Times Square? Can’t speak for the future, but in the last fifty and change years this is the first time I’ve been able to swing it. More 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.
awesome pulsing
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After spending a stinky hour and change at Penny Bridge in Greenpoint, one decided to walk back to HQ in Astoria via the pedestrian path on the Kosciuszcko Bridge. I ran into a friend and her dog on the way, and got to enjoy a bit of company. Having not seen this particular person since the start of the pandemic, she was a bit startled at how much my personality has changed in the last year and a half. I explained my philosophical embrace of sociopathy in recent months, and how freeing it is to just not care about anything anymore.
Really, I just give zero shits about anything. Nothing actually matters.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The “happy place” is my pet name for industrial Maspeth. The corner which that stop sign pictured above is found on used to host a Yeshiva, which closed under mysterious circumstance back in the 1950’s. Rumors abound, including wild stories about “Dybbuk” infestations, but it’s most likely something mundane that closed the religious school. The “Frum’s” were probably just consolidating themselves into Williamsburg and or Crown Heights during this era.
Translation of Frum for Goyem – many Jews refer to the Orthodox sects (Hasids, Satmars etc.) as “Frum.” It’s a Yiddish word, which I don’t know the exact meaning of, but it seems to be related to being strict. Frum are the people you see wearing the hats and formal clothes everywhere they go, and who rigorously follow religious law and custom, and are often in the camera retail business. Conservative Jews usually dress like everyone else, but wear Yarmulkes and observe both dietary and sabbath law pretty closely, but also often ski or take cruises and that sort of stuff. Secular Jews, which are my particular tribe, are basically assimilated Americans with funny last names, except we have Chanukah substituted for Christmas.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Almost back at HQ, and suffering greatly as the humidity had risen nearly 30 points since my time at Penny Bridge, a chance meeting with a New Jersey Transit train running on the turnaround track at Sunnyside Yards necessitated a photo as it passed. Boy oh boy, was I shvitzing when I walked in the house. Oy, it’s so humid!
Back 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 