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.
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particularly alien
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was quite an afternoon for a long walk, Sunday the 25th of April was, here amongst the rolling hills of Astoria. Speaking of, 21st Avenue at 43rd street seems to be the highest “natural” prominence on the north side of the neighborhood. Someday, I’d love to see a 3D topographical map of Astoria sometime. It’s fairly flat, yes, but there’s a series of shallow hill and valley formations encountered after crossing Astoria Blvd. while heading north. I like to imagine that they’re ridges of mud and stone deposited hydrologically in some unrecorded era of yore. I’ve never seen this elevation change between 20th Avenue and Astoria Blvd. described on a map, but there has to be a 40-50 foot differential.
That’s Astoria’s Luyster Creek pictured above. It’s also sporadically described in maps. A friend of mine who is an expert in the cartographic arts has been looking into the subject of this particular waterway for me, which has been immensely helpful.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After scuttling from HQ on the other side of the neighborhood, a humble narrator found himself next wandering about at Hells Gate nearby Astoria Park. For once, I was lucky enough to get there just as a train was passing over the eponymous bridge spanning this, the Hells Gate section of the East River.
Based on the reactions of passerby, my appearance must be shocking. Old ladies were clutching at their pearls, children cried, dogs growled. I saw a group of older Hellenic men preparing torches.
One decided to get out of the area quickly. The Greeks invented “peasant mob chases monster with torches” along with most other things.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While escaping the attentions of the mob, one noticed this particularly weathered fire alarm box mounted on a pole. The graffiti would indicate that this is a silent alarm… get it? Omertà… silence…
I have fun.
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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.
hieroglyphed dial
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Green Asphalt company operates out of a property in the Blissville section of Long Island City, along the inscrutable Newtown Creek. Green Asphalt is in the recycling business, ultimately. When the NYC DOT or its contractors are resurfacing a road, milling machines are brought in first, which scratch away the top layers of “road armor” which are collected in dump trucks. That road armor is asphalt, which is an admixture of concrete and petroleum oil and tar. It seems that asphalt can be renewed, rather than dumped, using an industrial process involving very hot steam and lots of machinery.
Green Asphalt operates within the regulatory framework of NYC’s 2010 Solid Waste Management policy. They divert literally millions of tons of asphalt from expensively going into landfills. They also employ a lot of Unionized Blue Collar employees. Win.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s some of the equipment they have deployed over in Blissville. My colleagues and I from Newtown Creek Alliance were invited to attend a presentation and open site day the company offered. There was a neat shwag bag on offer, and they gave us coffee and sandwiches during the event. The Deputy Borough President of Queens attended, as did a few of the other “powers that be” here in the World’s Borough.
Overall, some pretty nice people run the show over there, working in an ecologically important role. It’s a heavy industry, yes, and one that’s currently entirely truck based (they’re going to be expanding use of their maritime bulkhead along the Creek soon) but before companies like Green Asphalt came along, NYC used to pay through the nose for dumping asphalt in landfills located in distant places.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This post, by the way, is where the “adventures of vaccinated Mitch” really start. Like a bat let out of a cage is how I’d describe the last few weeks of activity. These photos were gathered at the end of April, shortly after the second shot had fully soaked in. I’ve been in 4 of the 5 Boroughs just in the last few weeks, traveling on boats and trains and of course by foot.
What’s been really weird for me has been being awake during the daylight hours after the long nocturnal interval.
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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.
apparent sphere
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We’ve covered a lot this week; how to dispose of a body, how to crime, explored a civil war between Brooklyn and Queens, and the intriguing technological possibilities offered by my newish camera. The shots in today’s post didn’t quite fit into the others but I like them anyway so…
This one is from Long Island City, nearby the Dutch Kills tributary of the loquacious Newtown Creek. It depicts the operational equipment utilized by an aggregates processing yard. What that means is that stones and soil go in, get fed into gizmos, and get sorted by particle size. Rock, gravel, sand. In the fullness of time, even the sand will face away. Nothing lasts.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over in the happy place of Industrial Maspeth, there is a gargantuan NYC Department of Sanitation maintenance facility and garage. They have all kinds of cool stuff there, including this absolute specimen of kit. I don’t even know what to call this thing. A front loader? A bull dozer? A mobile oppression platform? It’s cool, it’s orange, and they left the door open so I was sorely tempted to take it for a joy ride because I’m from Brooklyn.
Freaking Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the burned out Goodfella’s Diner in Maspeth, nearby the fabled Haberman rail siding of the Long Island Railroad – specifically in the Diner’s parking lot – I spotted this cool looking truck. What? It’s a truck. I like taking pictures or trucks. What do you do? Practice spitting?
On a side note, what the hell is up with all the spitting these days? If you’re a male under the age of 30 and live in Queens, it seems you produce copious amounts of saliva and need to bleed some out roughly about every three sidewalk boxes. This isn’t “hawking a loogie,” mind you, this is a little “psst” bead of snot and spit which gets expelled at regular intervals. Have any of you blokes heard about about public health, or the whole pandemic deal?
How much saliva do you generate, brü? See a doctor.
“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.
outflung folds
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, what happens when you use a lens designed for “crop sensors” on a “full frame” mirrorless camera? As I discovered, vignetting! Also, I can set my camera to think it’s a crop sensor, which produces a RAW format file that is cropped accordingly. What photoshop shows me however, is a full frame image with a vector crop mask applied to it. The rest of the image is still captured even if I tell the camera to do a square format, so, thought I – why throw away all those pixels?
You’re actually seeing the inside of the lens in the shots above and below, and that’s what’s causing the black circular edges to manifest. I’m thinking that if I made these high contrast and grain black and white, it would create something that looks like it came from an old timey box film camera.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Now that I’ve returned to the daylight, which has had the unfortunate consequence of shocking the general public due to my countenance, I’ve finally been able to start “straight up playing” with the new camera. Finally got to test out and figure the nuances of its sophisticated face and eye tracking autofocus system, screw around with shots like the one above just to see what would happen, and have gotten to know the thing in other capacities than the extremely capable low light shooter that it is.
Saying that, the small collection of lenses which are “native” to this particular camera mount (RF) which I’ve got in my bag are amazingly capable devices. Get a cheap camera and an expensive lens is the logic many will offer you. I say get the lens you need, not the one you want. There’s definitely a lens I want, but it’s price tag is equivalent to that of a decent used car. I’m buying the car first, if I’ve got any cash left over I’ll think about the lens. Besides, with a car I don’t need that long a telephoto option, since I I can get closer to things quicker.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shot above is from one of the native lens, an f 1.8 35mm prime lens. Prime means it doesn’t zoom. It’s actually shot wide open, as in at f 1.8 which is a wide aperture for this sort of shot. Another experiment.
I’ve actually come round the bend on this camera, and am rereading the instruction manual in order not to miss out on some of the deeper nuances of the device. I still haven’t shot a single frame of video with it. Imagine that.
“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 