writing impossible
Wednesday photos of the after times, and the search for “it.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Nothing to see here, Officer, just an old schmuck with a camera hanging off the side of the Borden Avenue bridge at midnight, shining a laser into the water to excite the schools of little fishies in the hope that their activity will attract “it” into frame. Of course, if any of the rumors about “it” are true, it would be big enough to pull a large dog off the shore and drag it to the bottom of Dutch Kills.
Excitement abounded, during the process described above, when a sudden flurry of shoreline movement and chittering began to emerge from the darkness.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whipping out my pocket flashlight, I soon discovered that the sound wasn’t coming from “it” but rather from “them.” On my way to this particular location, one encountered a lovely woman named Virginia whom I discovered as being the mysterious person that had been feeding the colony of feral cats along Dutch Kills for the last few months. Her deposits of cat food and water, apparently, had been contributing to the growth of a family/colony of Procyon lotor – or Raccoons if you must. The notion that wild mammals are inhabiting the banks of Newtown Creek is encouraging, given the fearsome reputation and environmental issues which put the waterway on the Federal Superfund list.
I only got a clear shot of the one pictured above, but I counted around seven sets of eyes shining back at me from the self seeded brush lining Dutch Kills’ banks. Speaking as I do on behalf of other creatures of the night, being shy and careful is a great survival mechanism.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My inspection for “it” continued, and given that “it” has always been reported to me as being aquatic, the camera was again pointed at the water. Unfortunately, the mirror surface of Dutch Kills betrayed the fact that not too much in the way of living activity was occurring this particular night. During the summer months, oxygen levels in the waters of Newtown Creek fall precipitously due to the heat. The warm water, which is fed into by NYC’s Combined Sewer system, becomes a haven for algae that live and die in the stagnant water. When the algae die off, their remains precipitate down into the water column and bacterial entities go to work consuming these leave behinds. The life cycle of the bacterial world consumes dissolved oxygen in the water and produces carbon dioxide and other gases in its stead. The bacteria then die and putrefy, which in turn promulgates the growth of the next algal bloom.
If you spend enough time around Dutch Kills, you’ll notice the waters are sometimes yellow ochre, then olive green, then black, then silver, and then the cycle repeats.
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, July 13th. 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.
blood secured
Tuesday searching for “it” at Dutch Kills
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just the other night, one began to wonder about “it” again and a walk over to the Dutch Kills tributary of the fabulous Newtown Creek ensued. My first stop was nearby the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge, found in the remains of the Degnon Terminal.
As mentioned in the past, the modern day shaping of Dutch Kills occurred in the first decade of the 20th century at the same time that the Pennsylvania Railroad Company was building the Sunnyside Yards. Michael Degnon was a construction magnate whose company completed the Williamsburg Bridge’s masonry, and famously finished the construction of the subway tunnels which carry the 7 line from Queens to Manhattan. Digging out the subway tunnel generated a lot of rock debris which he needed to dispose of, which was accomplished when Degnon purchased the estate holdings of former Governor Roscoe Flowers here in LIC, an area referred to as the “waste meadows.” The fill was used to reclaim and raise dry land from the wetlands, and Dutch Kills was canalized under supervision from the United States Army Corps of Engineers into its current form. That’s when the modern Hunters Point Avenue and Borden Avenue Bridges we’re built. Degnon built an industrial park surrounding the canal which offered rail to barge infrastructure and attracted enormous concerns like the Loose Wiles bakery, Chicle Gum, and Ever Ready Battery to Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
21st century industrial degeneracy aside, Dutch Kills was an absolute mirror on the hot and humid night which I most recently visited it during. There is little to no laminar flow in Dutch Kills, which causes sedimentation and shoaling. Rumors from my network of local informants and Creek watchers have reached me in recent months describing something which strains credulity, but since I have very few things to occupy my time otherwise during this interminable pandemic, one is on the hunt for “it.” I won’t bore you with the rumors, as I don’t pass on stories which I either can not verify or that I don’t have photos to back up.
On this particular night, one spent a bit of time shining a green laser into the depths, which excited the schools of small fishies that nocturnally shelter from predators here. Since “it” would likely occupy the niche of a top predator, exciting the prey animals might have drawn it to me, hence the laser.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As above, so below, the saying goes. Never is the case more so on Dutch Kills on a night when the poison winds are quiet and the gelatinous fathoms are calmed.
The thick humidity hanging in the air made this particular walk perspiratory in the extreme. While shooting these shots, I encountered employees of the NYC Department of Transportation’s Bridges unit, a nearly invisible organization which has been curiously present in recent months during the pandemic. You normally never see these folks unless a bridge needs to open for passing maritime traffic, but for some reason I’ve encountered them repeatedly at both Borden Avenue and here at Hunters Point Avenue in the dead of night.
Perhaps they have heard about “it” as well?
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, July 13th. 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.
particular period
Monday shots from the after times.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent endeavor found one walking a friend who has recently acquired the photography habit around the industrial quarters of Long Island City. My intent was to inculcate a few safety oriented customs into his mind, since the first rounds of photos he had been posting scared the heck out of a humble narrator. As is often repeated, Newtown Creek and the industrial business zone areas surrounding it are an easy place to get dead if you’re not cautious, careful, or have some background knowledge of the way that the “hard hats” operate. Photos my friend had been posting demonstrated that he had no understanding of the place’s code, which I set out to rectify. Dutch Kills in LIC was a great place to start.
I sort of gave him a tour, which is something I miss doing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One did not gather too many pictures on this outing, but I couldn’t resist a shot of this ivy which had been graffitied over. The weird sodium lamp light pouring out of a nearby shipping company’s property just added to the attraction.
The shipping business continues to expand and expand around the Newtown Creek, and despite the fact that I broke the story last year that an enormous Amazon facility is about to be constructed over in Maspeth on Grand Avenue, other people are acting like it’s news. Of course, nobody cares about this, until the tractor trailer and delivery trucks leave the IBZ and drive through the residential neighborhoods lying between it and the highways or the approaches to Manhattan.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I can’t say this scientifically, as in I can’t point to a traffic study conducted by a professional outfit like the one run by Sam Schwartz, but observationally I’ve seen heavy traffic in and out of the Newtown Creek Industrial Business Zone magnify significantly over the last few years. It’s all part of the ever evolving national economy, of course, and what with the pandemic and all, we’re all relying on businesses like United Parcel Service or FedEx to service our needs more and more.
I do wish that our elected officials would demand that these companies incorporate more rail and water transport into the plan. The UPS barn pictured above is across the street from Dutch Kills, and a giant FedEx facility is directly located on the bulkheads of the same waterway about a block away, and there are freight tracks everywhere in LIC just awaiting reactivation. Saying that, there’s some fairly big news on the water transport front along the Creek that is still forming up. I’ll keep you posted.
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, July 13th. 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.
obvious effort
Friday shots from the before time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Critters greet you today, photos of which were captured prior to the war on statuary. Amongst those whose political dial leans toward the left, a humble narrator maintains an unpopular opinion that iconoclasm is never a good thing. If a statue of Godzilla is encountered, you are not going to bring Tokyo back by destroying the statue. Perhaps, you might want to create some signage for the statue describing what the beast did, and all the people it hurt, but you aren’t going to change history by knocking the face off of the Godzilla statue. Such practice has a long and ugly history, and usually signals that “the revolution” has run out of steam. Ever lament at the works of figurative Roman or Greek art in museums which are missing their faces? Roiled when the Taliban blew up those Buddha statues 20 years ago? Should the Polish Government grind away the remains of Auschwitz and build a shopping mall on the site?
Sometimes, when a statue of a bad person stands in the public square, you can change the message originally intended to illustrate evolving morals and modern points of view. Do you think Putin would be able to do what he’s been doing if statues of Stalin and Lenin were still glowering over and reminding the Russian people of the price of “strong leadership”? Also, you can’t exact revenge on somebody who has been dead for centuries by knocking down a statue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Personally, I like to wallow in my sins, and am proud of the fact that my points of view are always evolving and changing. It indicates, to me at least, that I still have an open mind and that empathy and compassion haven’t died within. It also indicates that I haven’t become an ideologue governed by some anonymous hive mind idea.
Of course, free thought and a personally arrived at point of view are things you’re not supposed to have anymore. Follow the leader, kid, or you might get cancelled. Otherwise – some jackass bike enthusiast in Astoria might tweet mean things at you at 3 a.m., or a firearms enthusiast might…
Pepsi comes in a blue can. Coke comes in a red one. It’s all carbonated sugar water dosed up with caffeine. Drink some water.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Beyond the brave new world of calcified support for people who couldn’t care less if you lived or died, something which has come up in conversation repeatedly in the last few days with a certain segment of my friends is the fact that this is the first time in our collective memory during which we’ve actually had the summer off. For me, it’s nearly 15 years since I haven’t been waking up at six in the morning on summer weekends, then leading a walking tour of Newtown Creek and coming home at “hot o’clock” in the afternoon.
I certainly miss going to work, doing “my thing” as it were, and wish that this summer off didn’t involve a plague. I always said that what this City needed was a good plague, and here we are. Be careful what you ask for, I guess. See y’all next week with some photos collected during the after time.
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, July 6th. 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 as we move into April and beyond, 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.
non committal
Thursday photos from the before time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Having grown up in Southeastern Brooklyn, my natural inclination in all things is to be a wise ass. Even if it means I’m going to piss off the listener, there’s absolutely zero chance that I can contain my urge to say something either off color, salacious, sarcastic, or just plain mean. The odds of me not complimenting the local green grocer by telling him “Hey, you gots a nice set a melons on you, bro” shortly after snapping the pic above are astronomically against.
For those of you reading this who are of the Hellenic persuasion, I’m seeking out the “nom de plume” for a species of melon commonly available in Crete – said cultivar resembles a small cantaloupe from the exterior, but internally looks like a honeydew. It’s a fragrant and juicy melon which doesn’t have much of shelf life, which is probably why I don’t see it on sale here in Astoria. Any idea what the thing is called? I’d like to have one at breakfast time, with some feta and eggs.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Adages abound about life, cherries, and pits. I haven’t had any cherries yet this year, for many reasons, and would like to have a pile of them with lunch. Pictured above are the fruits of Prunus Avium, or sweet cherries. Technically speaking, cherries are “drupes,” which indicates that the delicious red exocarp surrounds an inedible woody endocarp which carries the actual seed within.
As to why I haven’t had cherries this year, the most “handled” item at the fruit stand are cherries. The old ladies of Astoria need to touch each and every drupe when filling their plastic sacks. I’m trying to avoid eating things which a lot of random people touch due to the cooties plague.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I use a lot of carrots when I’m cooking, which requires getting creative. There’s a giant resovoir of vitamins and other beneficial chemicals contained in these roots, and given a choice twixt the potato or the carrot I’ll always go for the latter. Potatoes are easier to cook, but carrots taste better and are actually better for you.
The modern carrot is actually fairly modern. Wild carrots are Persian in origin, and were described in many ancient texts dating back to Roman times. The modern orange colored domestic carrot seems to have been arrived at in 10th century Afghanistan, or at least that’s where the earliest evidence of them can be found. Carrots are also one of the few agricultural cultivars – unlike melons and cherries – which offer an entirely edible plant from root through stem, leaf, and seed.
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, July 6th. 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 as we move into April and beyond, 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 