Posts Tagged ‘Construction equipment’
Old fashioned
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That Porta Potty in the shot above might actually be a Tardis, used by a Time Lord like Doctor Who to travel through time and space. At least that’s what it looks like to me. The rubble used to be a cold storage warehouse which is in the process of demolishment, but there’s a stoppage at the site currently since the process has destabilized buildings on neighboring lots. Guess what they’re going to build here? Yup, ‘affordable housing.’
After the Doors Open tour we attended, which allowed us access to a few amazing spots including two very interesting Roman Catholic Churches, it was time to head home. Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself had left the Mobile Oppression Platform (the Toyota) back at HQ and were traveling ‘to and from’ using the T Light Rail system.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After negotiating our way on foot to one of the T stations in Downtown Pittsburgh, we had about a 15 minute interval to wait before we boarded. The T runs off a catenary wire when it’s outside, but I think it uses a third rail shoe underground. The service is fairly frequent, even on the weekends, and there are multiple lines. It costs $2.75 to get back and forth from HQ.
Seriously, I’m absolutely loving having a car, especially one with a hybrid engine that regularly clocks in at 39 mpg while I’m living in a City where ‘all day parking’ costs something between $6 and $9, but there are days when I’d rather cut my head off than drive. The availability of transit is one of the factors that drove our choice of location regarding HQ here in Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Red Line T arriving at the station. Notice the absence of garbage on the tracks, the lack of graffiti, and that nothing is dripping mystery sludge onto the platforms, and also the complete absence of pizza rats. Old ladies sat on a bench chatting while waiting for their train, without a care in the world. Nobody’s head was ‘on a swivel,’ except mine.
I used to always refer to NYC as ‘Home Sweet Hell’ in a joking matter. I don’t smile anymore when saying that.
Back tomorrow.
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“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.
I miss my Tonka trucks
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ok, one more from that long walk, an ‘odds and ends’ post. While walking off Pittsburgh’s Liberty Bridge towards the T Light Rail and my ride back to HQ, I noticed that the action at the concrete factory below me had ceased operations for the day and their equipment was sitting there lit up all pretty like by the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself. Couldn’t resist.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wouldn’t it be great to have a crane as your second car? Easy to park, when you think about it, a crane is. If you can’t find a spot, you can make one by hoisting somebody else’s wheels out of the way.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just as I was walking over to the T to get back to HQ, the light began to bounce around inside the steel of the Liberty Bridge which I had just walked over. Fun walk, this one was.
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.
fantastic figment
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back in NYC, just as the Omicron variant Covid surge began, one put all thoughts about holiday merrymaking and socializing out of his head. You can’t argue with a logarithmic curve, so the logic of the entire Covid period – at this particular moment, it’s been 1,057 days, if my math is correct – was followed. Go out at night, by myself, and wander around the industrial zones where I’m going to encounter few if any other people. As the old Christmas cartoon would offer: put one foot in front of the other, and soon you’ll be walking out the door.
Good golly, Miss Molly, are we ever going to escape from this looping form of existence? Everyday is like the last day, same old, same old. When this is all over, I’m going to start wearing different colored clothes or something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This particular evening in early December was quite a cold one. My simple desire was to get some exercise, but I was engaging in a “short walk.” For me, that meant heading out from Astoria, crossing the Sunnyside Yards to Skillman Avenue and following that to Queens Plaza and then back down Northern Blvd. towards HQ. Just under three miles, round trip, I guess?
Was wondering, while shooting these, if I had recently been riding on any of those trains down there. Sigh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sunnyside Yards is a railroad coach yard. What that means is that you can’t catch a train here, despite it being an 180 and change square acres Federal and State railroad facility. The purpose of the Sunnyside Yards is to provide holding areas and turn around trackage for commuter rail that’ve already been to Manhattan. You see New Jersey Transit, Long Island Railroad, and Amtrak units down there regularly. Every now and then you’ll see some train set branded with Pennsylvania colors. I always figure they must’ve gotten lost when I see them. “Queens, what do you mean Queens? We must’ve taken a wrong turn at Lancaster… Crap.”
The yards are divvied up between the various entities housed here. The official owner is Amtrak, but MTA has sway over significant acreages of the place. They’ve recently finished building out an enormous new holding yard on the north side of the facility, which is a part of the East Side Access project.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator famously maintains a catalog of the holes in Amtrak’s fences which are large enough to fit a camera lens into. The best of the Federal holes were cut for surveyor usage. They’re generally the size of a deck of cards, these holes, but are far and few between. There’s also tears in the chain link fencing, which is also fairly easy to work with. Then, there’s the set of holes formed by weathering and material failure. Those are irregular and difficult to use, but I manage.
The shot above comes from one of the latter kind, where – I think – what must have been a vehicle accident caused a steel plate to bend away from the rest of the fence structure. Holes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back onto Skillman Avenue nearby Queens Plaza, where I spent a few minutes pondering whether or not I wanted to head down to Dutch Kills for a lookie loo. One decided not to. It was, after all, freezing out.
One pointed his toes north and east, and started shlepping back to the rolling hillocks of almond eyed Astoria.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Along the way, a discarded Book of Psalms and pile of Cheerios caught my attention. Fascinating, the way that these manufactured items end up where they do once somebody is done with them.
One thing you notice, upon returning to NYC from nearly anywhere else, is how dirty it is. Piles of crap are everywhere.
“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.
frightful velocity
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Reliable actuations of the new(ish) camera, wherein I can point it at a scene and get back what I’m expecting, have been achieved. What I’m up to right now is figuring out how far I can push the thing before the images fall apart. These shots were captured at an ungodly high ISO (128,000) to see what that might look like if I needed it in a pinch.
The answer is that it looks fairly “otherworldly” and a little weird, huh?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shot above is beyond the range of human vision. Literally, I could barely make out anything but the shape of the concrete truck above when I was shooting it. Frankly, I was startled when the autofocus found something to bite into when the camera was pointed at the shadowy mass.
That puddle under the truck was basically the only standing water I encountered on this walk. And the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek is right on the other side of that truck, as a note.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Again, the startling fact that I was seeing so little damage in the industrial zone from the Ida deluge was staggering. I was expecting hydrological evidences – mud slicks, debris piles stacked against chain link fences, puddles. Nothing, nada.
Back next week with more wonders at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
“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.
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.
The Newtown Pentacle 