Surf and turf
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My Pal Val and I met up, after I flew in from Pittsburgh. She picked me up at LaGuardia airport, and we rode on the NYC Ferry from Astoria to Manhattan’s Pier 11. We then marched over to the Staten Island Ferry and were soon on… Staten Island… now you’re caught up.
I was absolutely famished, with the last caloric installation having occurred some 400 miles west of NYC, in Pittsburgh at about two in the morning. There’s only so far that a homemade egg sandwich is going to carry you, so we decided to grab some eats while in St. George.
That’s the predicate of how I ended up ordering a $20 Wagyu Beef burger at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. It was a good burger, but no burger is worth $20 except to a weary traveler in need of a hot shot of fat and protein to fill his empty fuel tank.
Good news about this spot were the views, which were spectacular.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was nice seeing the familiar ‘color way’ heraldries of NYC’s tug fleets again. Val and I finished our luncheon, and headed back into the terminal to catch a big orange boat back to Manhattan. Along the way, we spotted multiple tugs waiting their turn at dock.
My day was at roughly at the median point, and after landing in Manhattan, Val and I would be splitting up. She needed to catch a ferry back to Astoria to fetch her car, and I would be plunging right up the middle of Manhattan Island on the subway towards Midtown.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A couple of last shots of the maritime world were gathered, and I adjusted the intricate web of straps arranged about the torso. I was carrying a week’s worth of clothes in addition to my camera bag, and the camera itself was in my hand. My usual formula for this sort of ‘heavy carry’ looks like an old timey soldier’s setup – the camera and the clothes bag straps arranged in an X shape across my chest, with the knapsack/camera bag shoulder straps locking the two other straps into place while I was moving about.
We arrived back on Manhattan Island, and Val and I bid each other adieu.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I didn’t necessarily miss the subway all these months, and my only thoughts about the subject while sitting in that wheelchair were ‘glad I don’t have to deal with the subway right now.’
One decided to get off the Subway at Herald Square, and walk from 34th to 42nd in order to get to Grand Central Terminal. At least it used to be a terminal, before the LIRR opened up down below.
Does that reclassify the place as a station/terminal now? The terms are specific. For most of its existence, the last stop on Metro North (a public passenger service, nationalized from private rail companies by the noted Liberal and Socialist President Richard Nixon) was here, hence terminal.
Saying that, 7 train subway service has been passing through here for quite a long stretch, but that didn’t make it a ‘station.’ It’s all very confusing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Leaving ‘the system,’ I stepped back into the sunlight after riding the R to the 34th street hellmont, which is just a slight bit better experience than the one at 42nd street. I had swapped lenses while on the subway, and reentered the street level milieu with a 16mm wide angle prime on the camera. I wanted to ‘take it all in.’
The plan from this point involved getting to Grand Central and catching a Metro North train up to my buddy’s house in Cold Spring, upstate. That’s where I’d be spending the night, and given that I’d been awake for something like fourteen hours at this point, I was growing pretty fatigued.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My toes were pointed in the correct direction, and thereby I followed them. Grand Central was a 15-20 minute walk away (I’m moving a LOT slower than I used to, although the ankle was not at all getting in my way, my legs are still somewhat atrophied from the long recovery period) and I was intent on getting upstate and out of the City as quickly as possible.
More tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Working the harbor
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In a lot of ways, I spent my time on a recent NYC visit reminding myself of who I actually am – or at least who I was. My activities on this visit weren’t consciously planned that way, but given the far flung nature of my activities in NYC, it was hard not to reminisce.
That’s the Manhattan Bridge above, and I served the City of Greater New York as a Parade Marshall for its centennial. I’ve also done hundreds of ‘on microphone’ narrations about that bridge on boat tours while passing under it. –
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Mexican Navy ship which allided with the Brooklyn Bridge.
If both objects are moving it’s a ‘collision,’ whereas if one object is moving it’s an ‘allision.’ A few people asked me, after the incident, what all the sailors were doing up in the masts. Here’s some shots from 2012’s ‘Op Sail,’ where you can see other tall ship sailors performing similar ‘parade duties.’
As a note: annoyingly, Flickr has altered their code in the last few weeks, which has caused a number of images on older posts to lose their previews. Not sure what to do about that at the moment, and I really do not want to dive into recoding 16 years worth of daily posts to start fixing links.
Hopefully, they’ll resolve this on the server end, but that’s why a bunch of previews are ‘404ing’ at the moment on older posts. Sigh… the future kind of sucks, doesn’t it?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The NYC ferry docked at Pier 11, and my Pal Val and I began heading towards the big orange boat. It had been about 12 hours at this point, relative to waking up at 1 in the morning back in Pittsburgh. Fatigue was definitely setting in, as was the desire for luncheon.
It was nice to smell salt in the air again, although I was frankly overwhelmed by the sewerage smell several times. My environmental adaptations have faded in my absence from ‘Home Sweet Hell.’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The big orange boat left its dock at Whitehall and started the thirty minutes long journey to St. George on… Staten Island…
Along the way, I was busy with the camera, spotting tugs and getting shots of the maritime show on hand. I’ve always been amazed at how seldom most New Yorkers take advantage of the ferries – if nothing else – just for a change of scenery and to get out on the water for cheap.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Nearing Staten Island, and the Kill Van Kull (aka tugboat alley) was busily spitting shipping out into the main sections of the lower harbor, from Port Elizabeth Newark at Newark Bay.
Funny thing is that I haven’t thought about this sort of thing much, or at all, in the last 2.5 years. It was when I was sitting in that damned wheelchair after breaking my ankle that I began longing to see this again.
I alluded to this the other day, but this visit ‘home’ was a surprisingly emotional experience for me. Normally, I suppress and ignore my ‘feelings,’ as being over emotional in daily life is how you make stupid mistakes and often costly errors, while offending others. I realize that this is exactly the opposite of what mental health professionals advise, but it works for me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m like a mafioso in terms of ‘never let anyone know what you’re going to do or say next,’ and one of my little mottos is ‘do what you say, say what you do.’ What that means is that people who know me in real life are often puzzled by my seemingly random decision making process and pivots, and they are often treated to long polemics about my personal rules, and subjected to apologetic confessionals about when I break one of those rules – usually due to expedience.
The tyranny of ‘the now’ rules over most days.
Back tomorrow with more from NYC.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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Puddle people
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Long Island City. All this has been built out without a single new firehouse, or police station, or sewer plant, or even a single new hospital bed. Great planning, NYC. The amount of new construction that has occurred here just in the last three years is frankly staggering. It’s not like there were just shacks here prior to my departure, but holy smokes.
The building on the left side of the shot above sits on top of a benzene plume, as it was built in the footprint of a former Standard Oil canning factory, as well as a ‘white lead’ factory, and a paint manufacturing outfit.
The source of the benzene surprised the heck out of City Planning and the developer when the State environmental people made an issue of it during the ‘Brownfield Opportunity Areas Remediation’ era. After the third try at remediating the benzene, it was decided to just dig a deep hole and then fill it with stone excavated from the second avenue subway project. Once the stone was in the pit, the tests for benzene came back ‘clean enough,’ so they built the residential tower after excavating all the loose but clean stones. Benzene? Still down there, probably.
History is important, especially so with personally observed narratives.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hunters Point on the left, Greenpoint on the right. Look at that, will ya?
It’s like an invasion of blue glass and steel monoliths has occurred, an incursion that seems to be entirely focused on embedding a dense urban population on and around current (Newtown Creek) and future (East River) superfund sites. Tens of thousands are housed in those giant shiny rhombuses, on land that was once called ‘the workshop of America.’
What could go wrong?
Seriously Mitch, ya bleeding heart NIMBY lib: show me one recent example where the ambitions of the Real Estate industry and their thralls in City Government – regarding the post industrial landscape of the outer Boroughs and specifically the ill advised idea of spurring residential real estate development around Federal Superfund sites – has ever steered the municipal ship wrongly or gone badly. Just one example?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Bah.
A NYC DEP Sludge Boat was exiting Newtown Creek just as the ferry I was riding on passed it by. Largest sewer plant in NYC is about a mile back from the Gold Coast of the east river. It drains Manhattan below 79th street, but don’t pay attention to that, the asphalt plants, or the waste transfer yards.
Amenities. What amenities do the luxury towers offer? Foot buttering?
The sky has been stolen. For comparison, here’s a similar ‘POV’ from 2009.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My usual bad luck held up for this trip. I arrived in NYC just as ‘summertime swamp ass’ season did. It was hot, hazy, and humid the entire time I was in town. When walking around with my full pack on my back during the next few days, your humble narrator was literally dripping with sweat.
Also, ‘bah!’
I had crafted a fairly ambitious schedule for myself. I wanted to see certain people and places, and there was a pretty decent amount of intra urban travel involved in doing that. As described yesterday, this journey started at one in the morning, so I also needed to plan fatigue and diminishing returns in as well. To complicate matters, I was carrying four days worth of clothing in addition to all my camera gear.
That’s the ConEd facility which exploded during Hurricane Sandy, btw.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Ferry turned into the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and that DEP Sludge Boat seen exiting Newtown Creek was now maneuvering under the Williamsburg Bridge, with Manhattan as a backdrop as an FDNY Fire Boat motored by. This is the sort of thing I’ve missed, living in Pittsburgh. There, you have to go looking for ‘it’ and usually wait around a bit. In NYC, it’s a rapid fire and visually rich environment composed of concretized ambition. ‘It’ comes to you. Gotta be quick, head on a swivel.
I’ve also missed bitching about NYC as well, so thanks for indulging me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My Pal Val and I began readying ourselves for the next leg of things, which involved a debate about which ferry to take and where. We were initially going to try for a free transfer to the Rockaway boat, but it’s was seriously crowded and we decided instead to shlep over to the Staten Island Ferry for the best free attraction in NYC.
More on that 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.
Homeboy
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It all started at one in the morning on a Tuesday.
I had a 6 a.m. flight, leaving Pittsburgh International AirPort and bound for LaGuardia. Had to bathe, eat breakfast, and double check my packed bags. An Uber picked me up at 3:30 a.m. and I was at the airport by 4:05.
Got through security, which is a bit of a ‘thing’ when you’ve got a camera bag with you, and was soon cooling my heels at the gate drinking an expensive cup of coffee, purchased at the terminal. The plane landed on time, and my Pal Val picked me up in her car. The plan was to park her auto nearby the ferry stop in Astoria, and then board a boat for a NY Harbor Photo Safari.
I needed to smell salt water again, Y’see.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I will admit to getting a bit emotional at times during the four days I was back home. It had more to do with the broken ankle situation, and reclaiming the walking physicality I’ve been working so assiduously to regain, than any sort of homesickness. Really felt like the end of the ankle story had finally arrived. Seeing my friends and colleagues again was just icing on the cake.
Physically speaking, I was running on adrenaline and caffeine. Back in Pittsburgh, I’m sleeping a solid eight hours a night. Get up early, go to bed early. It’s not like NYC back in Pittsburgh, as they roll up the sidewalks by nine or ten even on a weekend in the Paris of Appalachia.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An interesting wrinkle discovered during this visit was that my environmental adaptations have faded away. As the folk wisdom states ‘if you live by the sea, you don’t smell the salt or hear the waves,’ meaning that your brain ‘tunes out’ environmental background stimuli which it deems unimportant.
What that means is that I could smell it, all of it. I could hear it, I could feel it. Everything stunk, the entire city with its standing wave of 15-20 decibels noise, and the mixed aroma of garbage, deep fat fryers, and human shit.
The East River smelled like an unflushed toilet to me, although it wasn’t ‘in a state’ or anything. Nothing’s changed on the waterway, my perceptions of it have.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The cops appeared, as they always do in NYC, while the ferry navigated first to Roosevelt Island and then to Long Island City.
That’s another thing which is quite different in Pennsylvania – far fewer cops. One of my neighbors suggested we start up a bonfire in his back yard. I said no, claiming that NYPD would show up and hand out tickets and the. conduct warrant checks. My neighbor reminded me that we were in Pittsburgh. I laughed and said ‘you’ve never met the NYPD, have you?’
The ferry continued down the East River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the last things I’d do before heading back to Pittsburgh would involve the Queensboro Bridge’s newly opened pedestrian walkway, as a note, but you’re not going to see those photos for a while. During the four days I was in NYC, I walked close to thirty miles and shot close to 2,200 exposures – with much of that distance was expressed around a certain waterway which provides the currently undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens, as you’d imagine.
One of the goals for this trip was to test out my newly reconstructed ankle, and determine exactly how screwed I am moving forward. I brought the joint back to my testing environment, for a shake down cruise, basically.
I’m all ‘effed up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There was a not insignificant amount of swelling going on after returning back to Pittsburgh 96 hours later, but it’s also the first time that I’ve asked the assembly and meat and metal which my ankle has become to ‘push’ for multiple consecutive days in a row without any sort of rest period.
The past couple of months have seen ‘exercise days’ and ‘photo walks’ separated from each other by at least 72 hours of recovery time, post facto. All in all, the joint held up to my abuse and I didn’t find myself walking like the Batman villain Penguin again.
Back tomorrow with more from NYC.
“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.
Memorial Day Parade
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The various municipalities and Boroughs of the South Hills region of Pittsburgh participate in a Memorial Day parade, including Dormont where Newtown Pentacle HQ is found. Our Lady has been hanging out with a local arts outfit, and was marching in the parade with the group.
I volunteered to get shots of her when she appeared, but what? I’m not going to shoot everything and everyone? Pfah. Selects are in today’s post, if you want to see the whole magilla, click here for the Flickr album.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That lady is apparently Miss Pennsylvania. I had no idea.
It was, at least, a perfect late spring morning with bright sun and temperatures in the mid 60’s. We’ve had a series of weather systems dumping rain on Pittsburgh for the last few weeks, so the fact that the skies were perfectly clear was astounding.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All of the volunteer fire departments sent representation. There were marching bands and classic cars, old men wearing military uniforms, lots of happy kids and dogs. The parade marchers were throwing wrapped candies at the cheering crowds. The whole town shows up for this.
I kept on shooting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Air Force national guard did a flyover, in what I think is a ‘C-17 Globemaster III’ cargo plane. From a branding point of view, Boeing really went over the top with ‘globemaster,’ if you ask me. Saying that, were I to be sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, my totally unhinged executive orders would include reverting the Air Force’s logo back to the bicycle wheel with bird wings that they started out with.
I’m all ‘effed up.
On with the show…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Does this happen to anyone else? As soon as someone in a mascot suit spots me with the camera, they focus in and do a little dance for me. I find anthromorphised stuff like this off putting, but I also don’t like interacting with anybody in a full mask. Can’t look ‘em in the eye…
Our Lady appeared and I joined her in the marching, essentially as far as where I had parked the car in a municipal lot.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just before we split, all the old soldiers rolled through. Military is a common experience for Pennsylvanians, the state has one of the highest enrollment rates in regular military and national guard, and a tremendous population of Veterans.
Also, the first American Civil War was largely fought in Pennsylvania, and that ‘leaves a mark.‘ First, you ask? I think 2026 is going to be a very interesting year in this country, and probably not in a cool form of ‘interesting.’ Hope I’m wrong.
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 