Posts Tagged ‘kosciuszko bridge’
malignity now
Being careful.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is operating under the theory that a hang nail could end up being fatal right now, as could a fractured bone or infected pimple. Accordingly, one is being exceptionally “intentional” and paying attention to every action before executing it. Every footfall is considered, as are the various pathways I’m using on my “constitutional” walks. When I find myself heading towards a place where a population of humans might be encountered, an navigational alteration is instituted. Even while scuttling along the familiar 1848 vintage fence lines of First Calvary Cemetery here in LIC’s Blissville section, an area not exactly known for its crowds, one is wary.
Given my notoriously paranoid sensibilities, innate desires for solitude and isolation, and general distrust of the human infestation… well, let’s just say that I’m a bit better prepared for the situation we all find ourselves in than most. Saying that, I’m really worried about the folks for whom “normal” life is psychologically unbearable. There’s a saying which goes something like “in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.” I mentioned this to a friend of mine recently, a fine young fellow long diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome (a population of people partially defined by innate social distancing and a severe desire not to be emotionally or personally engaged with or to be physically touched), and commented that he is now poised to lead us all into the future here in CoronAmerica.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The streets in the industrial zone were eerie quiet, but there was still a bit of activity amongst the so called “essential” trades – garbage, trucking, transit. I normally stick out like a sore thumb on purpose, hoping to not get squished by a truck or just being so obsequious while I’m photographing things that the various security guards and cops who notice me figure that I can’t possibly “be up to something.”
That’s the new Koscisuzcko Bridge pictured above, as seen from Review Avenue, with the fence of Calvary Cemetery behind me. Calvary, like most of the cemeteries in Western Queens and North Brooklyn, was created in response to a series of epidemics which swept through NYC at the start of the 19th century. See what I did there? Topical historical reference…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The drive to eliminate burials in the crowded city center, which were thought to be the cause of several of the Typhus and Cholera epidemics that scythed through the tenements of pre Civil War Manhattan, began with the Rural Cemeteries Act of 1847.
The new law demanded that the denominational religious organizations of the time acquire land outside of Manhattan in pursuance of creating cemeteries for,their flocks. First Calvary was established by the Roman Catholics in 1848, and their funerary operations continued to expand well into the 20th century here in Queens – there’s 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Calvary properties due east of Blissville, over in Woodside.
Pictured above is the former location of the Long Island Railroad’s Penny Bridge station, currently occupied by the green box cars of the so called Garbage Train, where mourners from Brooklyn would enter into Queens for funerary ritual and rite.
Tomorrow, a bit more from Blissville. Stay safe, lords and ladies, and leave some comments for a humble narrator as I could use the virtual company.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the end of the week of Monday, March 30th. 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.
ancient overmantle
Walking in Blissville.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A recent night found one scuttling about in the darkness while drawn towards the weird illuminations of the Kosciuszcko Bridge, which spans the fabulous Newtown Creek. Pictured above is the northeast corner of LIC’s First Calvary Cemetery, a photo which was shot using a somewhat different technique than the now tried and true methodology I use for night shots, which is why it looks a bit “different.”
An observation made during the walk, from Astoria to Blissville via Sunnyside, was that since all of the humans are staying in at night now, and automotive traffic is at an all time low, the normally furtive eidelons of nature are free to wander about.
Lots and lots of Raccoons, Opossums, and Rodents of all typologies were spotted along the way. Proof of what I’ve been saying for years, that if we were able to allow the mechanisms of the natural environment just a little bit of room, we’d lick the various problems facing our civilization pretty quickly.
Unfortunately, it’s taken the near collapse of that civilization to prove my point.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Growing up in a home where the reaction to leaving a faucet dripping was greeted with the same emotional and tangential severity as having discharged a firearm, one developed a series of coping mechanisms which have served me well over the years and have gained me the reputation of being “good in a crisis.” Unlike most, when I see that the house is on fire, my first instinct isn’t to assign blame but rather to pick up a hose or fire extinguisher and fix the problem in the most expeditious fashion possible. “Plenty of time to freak out afterwards” I always say. I guess I learned something from my batshit crazy mother after all, which at least takes the form of how and when one should react to random stressors.
Saying that, even my legendary ability to subsume and bury emotional stress is fracturing. Periodic walks like the ones described in recent weeks are sanity inducing.
Just as I was shooting the image above, a couple of plain clothes NYPD officers rolled up on me and began asking the familiar “why are you taking pictures of the bridge” queries. The encounter was short and non eventful, but it actually made me feel “normal” for a few minutes. Afterwards, rumination revealed that whereas I’ve had this exact same conversation with private security dozens of times in the last few years, it had been a long while since I had to have it with a badge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not having the super bright lights of the new Koscisuzcko Bridge blow out the highlights of any night shot they’re in is still a challenge which I haven’t been able to conquer, in a single exposure, yet. The middle shot in today’s post was severely underexposed to compensate for the bridge lighting, as I wanted to get the “red, white, and blue” pattern it was displaying. The shadows were “pushed” during processing to allow for detail in the shot. One technique I’ve experimented with is to do two exposures and then marry them together, but it’s a lot of work to get them to look “right.” I prefer to “get it in one” and whereas I know all about HDR, that technique really isn’t the answer either.
Luckily, I have lots of time on my hands to experiment. How are you spending your Quarantine, Lords and Ladies?
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the end of the week of Monday, March 30th. 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.
awful formula
Bridge2bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has been spending quite a bit of time around the fabled Newtown Creek since the first of the year, after suffering through months of broken big toe infirmity and de facto isolation, and shots of the type above – depicting the new Kosciuszcko Bridge from alongside the fenceline at First Calvary Cemetery – have been gathered, but recent endeavor found this particular troll underneath a completely different bridge.
Temperature inversions usually bring fog as well as rain, both of which can either enhance or eviscerate photographic opportunity. Not having quite enough time during a recent foggy episode to head down south to my beloved Newtown Creek, one instead found himself pedantically scuttling northwards.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Astoria Park offers gorgeous views of both the Hell Gate and Triborough Bridges, but the winter time opportunity for me involves finding ways to incorporate its skeletal trees into the shot, to act as a frame for the mighty spans. I love me a creepy looking tree, I do.
This was a shot of opportunity, as in it wasn’t “intentional,” rather it just popped up at me while I was wandering past. Weirdly enough, despite the February cold and damp, people were running the track and doing all sorts of exercising. Freaks.
Since I set the standard for sanity in this world, just like Caligula did in his day, I say that the only logical pursuit on an evening like this would be listening to Black Sabbath’s entire discography on shuffle while carrying around a camera and tripod and trying not to fall into the East River.
I have spoken.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I had to walk in gooey mud for this one, so for those of you who like this shot, part of its journey to you involved me having to first break out a broom and then a vacuum to clean up the mud which I accidentally tracked back into the house upon returning to HQ. Yuck.
Unfortunately, the fog on this particular evening wasn’t quite the “pea soup” that I was hoping for. There’s definitely a bunch of moisture hanging in the air, but it was nowhere near as opaque as I wished it to be.
“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.
reticent stranger
High over Greenpoint.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One enjoys the walk over the new Kosciuszcko Bridge so much that I actually walked nearly a mile out of my way to use it the other night. A meeting required my attendance at Newtown Creek Alliance HQ, which is located in close proximity to the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge, and afterwards I headed eastwards towards the pedestrian/bike path entrance for the Kosciuszcko span over Newtown Creek. I will opine that shooting from up there is a fairly complicated process at night, due to the contrast of the endemic shadow which the industrial zone in Greenpoint offers and the bright lights of Manhattan off in the distance, as well as the vibratory effects of heavy traffic hurtling along this section of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway.
You’re looking downwards into Brooklyn, at the very intersection of Meeker and Varick Avenues, in the shot above. It’s a pretty unfriendly street scape down there, and the business on the lower left hand side of the shot with the high steel fencing still had guard dogs patrolling their lot until just a few years ago. The fencing isn’t exactly flush with the ground, and while walking by several years ago one of their Rottweilers had almost worked itself under the fence in pursuance of biting a humble narrator’s bottom. I’ve sort of avoided this section of Varick since, and have largely concerned myself with documenting the NYS DOT project of replacing the 1939 Kosciuszcko Bridge above.
I refer to this area as Brooklyn’s DUKBO – for Down Under the Kosciuszcko Bridge Onramp.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s a waste transfer station you’re looking at there, loading a municipal waste truck. Specifically it’s called the Brooklyn C&D Transfer Station, or Varick Avenue Transfer Station by its operators, a company called Waste Connections. Don’t know much about them, and I’ve never met anyone from the company. Apparently – and this is based on a single google search, so don’t hold me to it – they accept construction and demolition materials, asphalt, concrete, and “special waste.” The latter is an industry catch all term for waste materials that can include; Cement Kiln Dust Waste, Crude Oil and Natural Gas Waste, Fossil Fuel Combustion Waste, Mining and Mineral Processing Waste. It seems to be a 24 hour business down there on Varick Avenue, and I’ve never personally seen it closed. There’s usually a line up of privately owned dump trucks waiting to get in there and “tip” their collections.
Companies like this one process, separate, and then ship out all sorts of unwanted material to either other shipping outlets like rail or port facilities, or truck it out of NYC in huge vehicles like that pictured municipal waste truck. Waste handling is a big industry at the Newtown Creek, I tell you. Garbage industry folks, however, will often chime out the adage “It’s got to go somewhere.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
They seem to have a separate yard for metals here, and luckily for the wandering photographer, one of the laborers was using some welding equipment while framed up all nice by a well lit materials handler. This is what recycling actually looks like, incidentally. Most people seem to think it’s an occupation populated by Hippies and Oompa Loompas dressed up in clean white uniforms, but it’s quite a heavy industry by definition. It’s also quite a dangerous industry for laborers. There’s all sorts of slippery material on the ground, heavy tools and machines rolling about, multi ton piles of stuff… easy place to get dead, a waste transfer station is. People who work here have to be very, very careful at work.
Back Monday… 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.
virtuous bluster
Happy Monday!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recently, a few of my friends have received a request to “be a guinea pig” for a new walking tour I’m planning on conducting this year. Accordingly, I recently dragged one of them up onto the Kosciuszcko Bridge, which will be a part of the experience. That’s one of the literally hundred shots I gathered in under twenty minutes up there, a frequency that was indicated by something like every five to ten steps. Lots to see up on the Kos. We didn’t hang around for sunset, as my friend on this particular day was desirous of heading over to Queens Blvd. and the 7 line tracks, so that she could wave her camera at the oncoming trains.
So far, one hasn’t been hassled by any of the new Subway cops when sitting in the system, and in fact, haven’t perceived their presence whatsoever in Western Queens. I’m looking forward to the hassle, as “Giuliani Time” is so long ago at this stage that I’m actually nostalgic for the over reaching and invasive enforcement of no actual law. It’s one hundred percent kosher to photograph non commercial work in the MTA system, barring the use of tripods, lights, and flashes. If you wanted to use any of that equipment down below or up above, you need to contact the MTA and get a permit.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has always been enamored with the design of the 7 line concrete aqueduct on Queens Blvd. Concrete and steel go so well together, especially when they were combined in the era of the First World War. So utilitarian! So retro!
My favorite thing, though, about the stretch of Queens Blvd. between 33rd and 48th streets is the way that the vaulted concrete arches form a “whisper gallery.” Don’t ask me to explain the physics of it, but if you’re so happy (and you know it) that you clap your hands, the percussive sound waves will travel for blocks and blocks under this structure. If you speak loudly, your voice will echo and boom. I’d like to stage a concert down here someday, one with somebody playing drums. Actually, drums and bagpipes.
File that one under “how to annoy all of Sunnyside.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Upstairs, of course, you’ve got the IRT Flushing or 7 line. I’ve got to admit, since they finished the signals upgrade – and in my experience – the 7 is arriving far more frequently than it used to. It’s also a lot more crowded than it used to be, particularly at either end of its course in Queens. I’ve also observed the train completely emptying out at its Manhattan “Grand Central” stop and have ridden in a totally empty car to the end of the line at Hudson Yards more than once. A private ride to the camera store, for a humble narrator, essentially.
I’ll let y’all know about the new walking tour when I’ve got it all set up. Going to be a good one, that. Bring a camera.
“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 