intuitive knack
Thursday, it seems.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Archive shots again today, as a humble narrator has a bit of a situation playing out here at HQ and Newtown Pentacle’s never ending cavalcade of adventure and imagery has had to take a back seat. Zuzu the dog is quite elderly, and quite ill at the moment. One has therefore been trying to spend as much time as possible with her. When you’ve got a dog like Zuzu in your life, you signed a contract with her when she was a puppy. She’s always been a very good girl, has made my life immeasurably better, and keeping her comfortable at the end of it all is my end of the bargain. Zuzu is 14 years old, and is a fairly large dog in all actuality despite my usual description of her as “my little dog.” She’s been suffering from arthritis and spinal issues for a few years.
Overall, things are looking pretty grim for her at this writing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The conqueror worm gets us all in the end, though.
Saying that, googling what to do in NYC if your dog dies is pretty depressing. There are private services that will collect and cremate the cadaver, but the City’s DSNY will take the body on garbage pickup day. Procedure, as described by the official 311 site, is to put your dog in a black plastic garbage bag and label it “dead dog.” The garbage guys will grab the body and then carry it off.
Jesus, that’s cold.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We almost lost her a few months ago, but Zuzu rallied and recovered. Last week she messed up her back and hasn’t been able to use her back legs at all for a few days. The palaver of finding a Vet who does house calls during a pandemic is playing out right now for Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself. Her regular doctor doesn’t do house calls.
“Tsuris,” that’s the Yiddish word for “troubles.”
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, August 24th. 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.
unplumbed voids
Nobody ever says “Thank God, it’s Wednesday.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Three archive shots greet you today, all of which are rail based. Pictured above is the New York & Atlantic engine 400, which I got to ride on last year. The tracks it rides on are part of the Bushwick Branch, which is itself a part of the larger Long Island Railroad system.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few miles west of the first shot, which depicts a freight train, is the LIRR’S Blissville Yard in Long Island City. Oddly enough, there was a defunct passenger train being stored at this freight yard on the Lower Montauk tracks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A different kind of train, those are IRT Flushing line subways sitting on the tracks in Roosevelt/Corona – I’m never sure where one starts and the other ends – in between rush hours.
Back tomorrow.
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, August 24th. 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.
absorption in
It’s always Tuesday, somewhere.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One last shot from the waterways of New Jersey, depicting the MV Port Richmond sludge boat, part of the NYC DEP’s fleet, negotiating under one of the many bridges in New Jersey which I don’t know the name of. When I don’t know the name of a bridge in this neighborhood, I say it’s probably the Pulaski Skyway, but I’m almost always wrong. I do it to get a rise out of people.
I believe that the bridge in the shot above is the Vincent R. Casciano Memorial Bridge, aka the Turnpike Extension Bridge. If I am correct, it was built in 1956.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My pal Val, who was operating her Valmobile through often heavy automotive and truck traffic, proferred that it was time to start heading back towards more familiar territory. In the back seat Scott the Libertarian had little to say about the matter, but as a Libertarian that’s his lot in life. Majority opinion was located in the front seat.
Unfortunately, given the section of Bayonne we were in the only logical way home was through the Holland Tunnel and then lower Manhattan. I can report that traffic has ticked back up to not quite pre pandemic levels but pretty close.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Soon, the Valmobile was chugging across the Manhattan Bridge as well. Luckily there wasn’t a toll on this crossing, but over the course of the afternoon we racked up a good forty to fifty bucks worth of bridge and highway tolls. That’s how they get ya, huh?
A quick meal in Astoria was quaffed, and my pal Val managed to get home before yet another thunderstorm lashed through. Scott the Libertarian lives nearby HQ.
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, August 24th. 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.
vestiges of
How many times a week can you say it’s Monday, huh?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described last week, my pal Val drove her Valmobile – with myself and a libertarian named Scott within it – out to a photogenic spot on the Kill Van Kull waterway which forms a busy martime shipping channel as well as the border betwixt… Staten Island… and Bayonne, New Jersey. After visiting this spot – known to my circle as “Skelson’s Office,” it was decided to make like a chicken and cross to the other side. Our path carried the Valmobile over the newly reconfigured Bayonne Bridge.
By reconfigured, I mean that the Port Authority has just finished spending multiple millions of bucks to raise the roadway from its original height in pursuit of allowing ever larger cargo ships access to the Port Elizabeth Newark complex in Newark Bay.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In Bayonne, which is largely the unknown country for a humble narrator, we floundered around a bit but managed to find a couple of opportune spots that largely looked westwards towards the port facilities. We were becoming increasingly apprehensive about weather, which as you see from the shot above, was forming up an afternoon thunderhead of the type you expect to see in late August around these parts.
If I was a superhero, my nom de plume would be “Captain Vocabulary.” On that note, the beams of light at the left side of the shot are referred to as “crepuscular rays.” Scott the Libertarian didn’t care, which is a big part of that particular political philosophy – not caring – and he was busy trying to figure out a spot where we could buy lunch in the surrounding neighborhood on his phone while Val and I waved our cameras about.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the control tower at Newark Airport just left of center, which kind of suggests where this shot was gathered. The blue tug is part of the DonJon outfit, and it was wrestling a seemingly empty group of barges into place.
More tomorrow at this – you Newtown Pentacle.
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, August 24th. 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.
less annoying
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned yesterday, a recent day trip with a couple of friends found the camera being waved about at “Skelson’s Office,” a particularly photogenic spot on Staten Island’s Kill Van Kull waterfront frequented by a dearly departed photographer pal of mine. The bridge in the background is the Bayonne Bridge, which acts as a gateway to the Port Elizabeth Newark shipping complex. A significant percentile of the economy of the entire United States is focused through this tidal strait, I would offer.
Pictured is the Highland Eagle, an offshore supply vessel flagged in the UK.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Bayonne coastline of Kill Van Kull is all about petroleum and the various refined products derived from it.
Pictured is the Ernest Campbell, a 1969 vintage Tugboat, wrestling a fuel barge away from its dock and into the currents of Kill Van Kull. The structure behind it hosts the various hoses which the upland tank farm uses to move the product around. A bit of maritime trivia – the various hoses and fuel barges have different connectors on them to keep one product from mixing with another. The kerosene pipe doesn’t connect to the gasoline or #2 fuel oil gasket, which keeps volatile mistakes at a minimum.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Moran Towing’s Turecamo Girls Tug was likely returning to their base at Kill Van Kull when this shot was captured. Moran Towing has the iconic NYC tugs, with the red wheelhouse and big letter “M” on them. Moran names their boats after family members, generally, but in this case the 1965 tug was acquired after a merger with another towing corporation (Turecamo Towing) back in 1998.
Back Monday with more from the waterfront.
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, August 17th. 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 