Posts Tagged ‘Brooklyn’
triangularly tapering
Friday is urban bucolia day.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Marching, endlessly marching, one noticed that a bit of excavation has been performed on the former Mobil oil properties alongside the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge on the Brooklyn side of the fabulous Newtown Creek. This particular piece of American soil has long been owned by some third party, and it’s not a part of the modern properties which ExxonMobil’s tenancy is still extant upon.
Not sure what’s going on here, but I like a good hole, and the construction guys seem to have dug a truly ribald one. Huzzah!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
ExxonMobil is still working on the remediation of the semi legendary Greenpoint Oil Spill, along with their contractors – called Roux – for this particular situation. They maintain a large property at 400 Kingsland Avenue, which used to be the entrance to the Mobil refinery that operated here until 1966.
Just last year, the team at ExxonMobil invited a group of interested neighborhood people and activists to one of their offices to give us an update on the cleanup efforts, which are coming along nicely according to the their data. There’s a couple of recovery wells which are now bringing up ground water rather than petroleum, but they are still working with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation on cleaning up the historic mess left behind by their forebears.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One hasn’t spent too much time on the Brooklyn side of Newtown Creek during the pandemic, given that my walks would have carried me through some rather populated areas that I wanted to avoid.
There’s a window of cautious safety right now, according to my perceptions, that I’m trying to exploit before things get weird again. Things are going to get weird again, and I’m saying by middle to late October probably, by Thanksgiving definitely. Enjoy yourselves while you can.
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, September 21st. 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.
exotic delicacy
Wednesday? Now you’re talkin…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last week, occasion found one standing atop a NYC Ferry heading towards Lower Manhattan. Along the way, two Vane tugs were noticed as they moved in opposite directions along the East River. Both were towing fuel barges, and you’ll notice that the background one is riding considerably higher in the water than the foreground one. The one in the background, heading south, had therefore already delivered its cargo, whereas the barge being towed by the Charleston Tug in the foreground is full. Whether the tug is pulling or pushing, it’s called “towing.” It was all very exciting.
I like a good tugboat shot, I do.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This senior citizen of the harbor was docked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard when the ferry made its stop at the facility.
I ended up taking the subway home from Manhattan for a variety of reasons. Partially it was due to going fairly far afield of the River in pursuit of luncheon, a journey which carried me all the way to East Broadway for some pretty Dyn-O-Mite Chinese food at a sit outside table somewhere in the surviving tenements of the lower east side. Good times, we’re lucky to have them, good times.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was nice being in Manhattan again, for a change. That’s not something I’d normally say, given my antipathy to the place in recent years.
The extant tenements of lower Manhattan, found south east of Bowery and north of the Brooklyn Bridge, absolutely fascinate me. A general wander trough this neighborhood is definitely in the cards for me sometime in the next month. Planning stage, me. I’m going to hit the same Chinese place again for lunch, I think. Tastiest meal I’ve had in months.
Back tomorrow, with something different at this – your 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, September 21st. 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.
constantly persuading
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator is taking this last week of summer off from narrating humbly, so single shots from past adventures are on offer. I’m out and about all week, if my plans work out, and will be back with fresh views of a City that doth not sleep after Labor Day.
Erie Basin adjoins the Gowanus Canal and the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook. That’s where I was, quite obviously near sunset, one summer evening a few years ago.
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 31st. 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.
possible foothold
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator is taking this last week of summer off from narrating humbly, so single shots from past adventures are on offer. I’m out and about all week, if my plans work out, and will be back with fresh views of a City that doth not sleep after Labor Day.
Speaking of labor, this shot was captured at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and specifically at Wallabout Creek. It depicts a rotting bit of rail to barge infrastructure which allowed railroad cars to be launched onto the Wallabout and the East River.
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 31st. 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 