Posts Tagged ‘Long Island City’
insipid novels
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The first decent snowfall of this year was at the end of the first week in January, and like the heavy fog which drew me over to Astoria Park, the weather system produced an interesting series of atmospheric conditions. This time around, I left HQ in the late afternoon, as I had timed this “long walk” to the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek in Long Island City to coincide with sunset. Luckily, the storm which had just dumped the snow was still visible, but moving quickly away towards the south.
High clouds equal lots of color in the sunset, low clouds mean murky and muddy skies.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Far and away, my favorite part of Newtown Creek is Dutch Kills. Lots of bridges which offer points of view over the water, and a feature rich landscape of fairly low lying industrial buildings that don’t block the light. I’m quite fond of other spots on the creek, Industrial Maspeth and the area surrounding the Kosciuszcko Bridge are “happy hunting grounds” for the camera. What all of my favorites have in common is some form of access to the shoreline without having to climb a fence or trespass on private property to get there.
Dutch Kills is my jam, though. It’s the first section of Newtown Creek that I explored and studied, all those years ago, and is a relatively “easy reach” for me when I’m headed out for a walk from HQ in Astoria.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The leftie contingent of politicians here in Queens hate capitalism, but they love big real estate, which is a dichotomous situation. They believe in the “YIMBY” or “yes in my back yard” ideation, which states that in order to have “affordable housing” you need to demolish the existing and currently affordable housing stock, and then replace it with luxury condo buildings which will offer a small percentage of rooms in the new structures as “below market rate” “affordable apartments.” Given that “below market rate” is often offered at a 25-35% higher in rent price than what they replaced…
Nothing matters, and nobody cares.
Hey, check it out – from what the YIMBY’s refer to as “a transit rich corridor along Borden Avenue” you can see the sewer plant in Brooklyn, looking south past the tracks of the garbage train, and a giant recycling oriented waste transfer station which is down the block from an even bigger facility that handles putrescent garbage, alongside a Federal Superfund Site. Or, as the real estate people refer to it – the Borden Avenue Corridor.
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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.
strange dolphins
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A short walk found a humble narrator at one of his many holes. That’s a fence hole at the Sunnyside Yards, you pervert. Jeez.
I got there just as a LIRR train was rattling through the Harold Interlocking on its way to Manhattan, and since I had just updated the firmware on my camera to a new version that Canon claimed to have programmed vehicle based focus tracking into, I figured that this would be an ideal opportunity to test out the improvements to my technology.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned, this was a short walk. I scuttled up 39th street, past the hole mentioned above, then hung a right on Skillman Avenue and walked past a taxi depot which uses street parking spots to store their vehicles for free. The bike people use this term all the time – free car storage – to describe street parking. It’s an effective bit of political language, since it reframes something ubiquitous into an issue oriented phrase. For me, though, I see “free car storage” with a different lens.
Private businesses parking their commercial vehicles for free, and government agencies doing the same thing, eat up hundreds of parking spots which they’re not paying for. The vast amount of space eaten up by the NYC DOT’s vehicle fleets along Queens Blvd. just pisses me off, given that they’re the ones whose policies reflect a desire to eliminate as much citizen parking as is possible. Who watches the watchmen, huh? Me, that’s who.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I swung through Queens Plaza, then started scuttling along the diagonal lots along Northern Blvd. on my way back to Astoria. Along the way, this FDNY Ambulance caught my attention with its ribald strobing.
This is just about the day in middle December when the Covid Omicron spike was really getting started and ramping up. This time around, unlike March and April of 2020, you didn’t see all that many people getting carted off to Hospital. Hmm. It’s almost like the vaccines did their job and kept people from getting dangerously sick from the virus.
That can’t be true, though, because Jewish Space Lasers.
“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.
perfumes from
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Three Queens neighborhoods in one scuttle, now that’s what I’d refer to as a “long walk.” It’s everything I can do not to just end up at Newtown Creek every time I leave the house, so an effort is made not to do so.
That’s an N train on the Astoria Elevated tracks, found along 31st street. The cross street is Newtown Road, which I’ve been told is a pathway through the area that predates the arrival of the Europeans and that once followed the course of running water.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Spotted this one on 39th street in Sunnyside, and found it comical. The reference is of course to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation at the Federal Dept. of Homeland Security. The reason I find it comical is the absolutism of the slogan. You really, really don’t want to abolish the Customs Dept., in particular. I’d be in favor of some reform when it comes to the Immigration Dept., but suspect that what I’d have in mind differs wildly from what the writer of this graffiti has in mind.
Y’know, I advise my leftie buddies all the time to be mindful about giving Tucker Carlson something to talk about on Fox, but there you go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over at the border of Blissville and Sunnyside, you’ll find the Long Island Expressway. I’ve always been fascinated by the design motifs and cues offered by the design teams at the “House of Moses” back in the 1940’s and 50’s. That’s Robert Moses, of course. I mean, it’s an inherently ugly thing – a highway off ramp – but there’s something esthetically pleasing in the design, to my eye at least.
More 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.
watcher’s window
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Firstly, as I’ve “caught up with myself,” Newtown Pentacle is returning to the familiar three images a day format for an interval. One had quite an abundance of photos to display from before and after the recent trip to Pittsburgh. Back home just in time for the Omicron surge, a humble narrator has resumed his “every other day” schedule of long and short walk around Western Queens.
Recent endeavor found one scuttling about Long Island City’s Court Square section, which has come to resemble Manhattan in terms of population density and building typology. One will point out – again – that despite this massive build out and investment in converting the “mixed use” zoning of LIC over to high density residential zoning, there has not been a similar investment in municipal services. Cops, fire, sanitation, hospital beds, transit. What that means is basically more mouths to feed with the same amount of bread as before. What could go wrong?
Nothing matters, and nobody cares.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The stolen sky of Long Island City is now populated by dormitories for the aspirant class and the already well heeled. One question that continually nags is why the new people don’t have or use window coverings. Drapes, Venetian Blinds, curtains – they seem to prefer letting it all hang out and displaying their lives to each other. I was visiting a friend a couple of years back who lives in Hunters Point, and was looking out of the windows of his tower apartment and noticed a guy across the street, clad only in his underwear, who was doing the dishes. I wondered why he didn’t have curtains, and more importantly – why you’d pay $3,000 plus a month in rent for a “luxury apartment” which didn’t have a dishwasher appliance installed. Weird.
Pictured above is what they call Five Pointz. Personally, I’d rather that the old Neptune Meter company building with its amazing artwork which the tower apartments have stolen the name of was still here, but that’s big real estate for you.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My neighborhood in Astoria is about to be similarly destroyed by a project called “Innovation Queens.” Proposed by Kaufman Astoria and Larry Silverstein, this monstrous ideation will decimate the south eastern section of Astoria by erecting a series of 20-30 story tall towers in a triangular section defined by 38th street and 35th avenue on one side and 43rd street and Northern Blvd./36th avenue on the other.
For those of you who know the area – the movie theater, PC Richards, the pool hall, Malbin Pipe, Harley Davidson, and all of those mechanic and used car businesses are toast. All of the blue collar “walk to work” jobs hosted by these businesses are similarly going to go bye-bye. If you want to make an easy $5,000 bucks, contact the Innovation Queens people and tell them you’ll advocate for the project.
You’ll have to get in line, though, since they’ve already bought off a local bar owner, the driving school people on Steinway, a couple of the NYCHA tenant association presidents, and a “community leader” to flack for them.
“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.
vague tradition
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A demolition crew has come in and eradicated the remains of Irving Subway Grate in LIC, along the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek. It’s been coming for a while, I guess. Apparently a concrete company is going to set itself up on the property, one whose operations have been based over in Ridgewood for a while.
Sigh. Another heavy truck based business from an industry notoriously noisome and noxious, water pollution wise. Whatever. Nothing matters and nobody cares.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s some of Irving’s grate, embedded in the sidewalk of 27th street. Exciting, no?
The green plywood and chain link fences with green fabric coverings have gone up around the site, so something is likely to start happening there fairly soon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When I was shooting this image, a group of teenagers were noticed a few blocks away and noisily coming my way. Brr. Teenagers lack impulse control and a humble narrator would make for a great target, so I kept an eye on their roving and undirected pack. This group moved in a terrifically unorganized manner, loping and leaping while exclaiming loudly. You could hear them from blocks away.
The only thing scarier to me than a regular mixed up group of teenagers is a group of teenage girls. The latter might say something mean to me, something really cutting, which was designed to mock or make me feel bad about myself. It would be like junior high school all over again…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Despite the adolescent threat’s approach, one continued on with his tasks. I kept an eye on them, as they brandished their phones and exulted gutturally to each other.
Said tasks being the capture of photos, walking around, and generally side eyeing things I don’t like or don’t approve of.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The teenagers were getting closer, only a few blocks away, so I quickened my steps. Seriously, I treat other people that are walking around these areas at night in the manner of them being a horde of zombies. Best to avoid, lest something bitey might happen.
After shooting this one, I ducked down a side street and hid behind a dumpster for a while.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One truly detests the idea of “others” these days. Staying away from these others, with their bizarre ideations, display behaviors which connote societal rankings to each other – that’s my mantra.
That, and “nothing matters and nobody cares.”
“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 