Posts Tagged ‘Long Island City’
steaming planet
With dread do I pronounce this day as being a Monday.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These shots were gathered during the second week of February, on a brutally cold night in Long Island City. One had geared up in response to the wind and cold, as well as the crunchy ice coating the sidewalks and roadways. Gearing up – for the curious – takes the form of thermal long underwear and a pair of walking boots that sport hard plastic cleats on their soles, in addition to the usual “Mitch suit” and ubiquitously filthy black raincoat. I’ve also got a snazzy new pair of gloves which allow for the interaction with and usage of touch screens.
The shot above, depicting an Amtrak holding area at Sunnyside Yards here in LIC, is one of the first ones cracked out with the third member of my new trinity of lenses for the Canon RF Mount on the EOS R6, specifically an 85mm f2 prime lens. I tell you, the amount of stress and effort that went into choosing the new lens kit was immense, but I think that I’ve made the right choices – from a budget versus technological point of view. There’s a few mouth watering lenses that Canon offers for this new camera mount of theirs, but you’d be able to put a down payment on a decent automobile for what they’re asking for them. In a couple of years when there’s a used lens ecosystem, maybe, but right now… no way.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned several times over the years, if you want to figure out which buildings in your neighborhood are owned by NYC, wait until it snows. The ones that don’t make any attempt to shovel their sidewalks are going to end up being City owned. Even abandoned or “awaiting demolition” buildings get shoveled somehow, but City properties don’t. That’s what I call “political privilege” at work right there, boy.
As I was saying to a friend the other day – Coke and Pepsi are fundamentally the same thing – carbonated sugar water or “soda.” Doesn’t matter if you like the one in the red can or the blue can, soda is pretty unhealthy and the people who fill and sell these cans don’t care about you, they just want to sell more of the stuff. They’re not going to do one little thing to let you know about green cans like 7Up and Ginger Ale, or healthier choices like Seltzer unless they’re filling those cans or bottles too. Want to read that as a metaphor for politics, or a caution about the privilege of politicians? That’s on you, girl.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My wandering through the cold wastes found me, as usual, nearby the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek and at the former headquarters of Irving Subway Grate. The Lyft ride share outfit has recently moved into a factory building nearby, and stout gates have been erected around the entire Irving Campus. A demolition project is underway on the two industrial building ruins on the property. The office building on the property has become a hive for raccoons in recent years, and there are apparently a couple of burst water pipes within, which created a fairly magnificent ice sculpture.
More tomorrow.
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, March 22nd. 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.
last void
A nightmare to some, Shabbos to others, Friday has come.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Yup, fence holes day! As mentioned last week, several new apertures in the fence lines around Sunnyside Yards have appeared during the Annum Pandemicum and a humble narrator has been assiduously cataloguing and exploiting them. Pictured above is a Long Island Railroad trainset heading towards Manhattan.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another Long Island Railroad train, this one heading away from an accursed island called Manhattan, and photographed from a fence hole I call “the old reliable.” Truth be told, the old reliable almost caused a case of frostbite for me when shooting this. There was a steady 10-15 mph wind, and given that the old reliable is a 3 inch square hole found in the middle of a large steel plate, all that wind pressure was focusing through it like a laser.
Good news is that all that air pressure really cleaned up the lens, blowing any and all dust off the glass. Multi task, motherflowers, multi task.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At Sunnyside Yards; you will commonly see Long Island Railroad, New Jersey Transit, and as pictured above – Amtrak rolling stock. Amtrak has their Acela high speed service here too, but the fence holes surrounding that service’s facilities are difficult to work with. One can hope that somewhere down the line they’ll need to pop a hole in one of the fences and… what dreams may come, huh?
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, March 15th. 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.
undreamed of
It’s called Thursday, if you’re bold enough to speak its name.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s Gas Station day at Newtown Pentacle. The one above is the first thing you see when entering Long Island City after crossing Newtown Creek on the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge and it’s in the Blissville neighborhood. Remember the long gas lines after Hurricane Sandy back in 2012? They sure do at this gas station, as a 2012 customer lost their patience when the pumps got shut off, produced a firearm and proceeded to murder somebody who worked here. I think there’s different owners for the franchise location, and if memory serves – I don’t think it used to be a Gulf filling station. Might have been a Sunoco. Have to look in my archives.
Motherflowers. People walk around like they’re safe or something… what this City really needs is a good plague… oh… whoopsies…
Wonder how many of the other things we used to say while milling about in front of CBGB’s will come true someday.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One hasn’t got a murder story to tell about this gas station, found at the corner of 49th and Greenpoint Avenues at the risible border of Blissville and Sunnyside, nearby the Long Island Expressway. A Mobil franchised filling station, this is a deucedly difficult setup to photograph. Something about the contrasty lighting and “red, white, and blue” neon brand colors necessitates a complicated and somewhat contradictory exposure triangle for the capture.
49th Avenue proceeds in a generally westerly direction, transversing from the altitudinal prominence of Laurel Hill, which Greenpoint Avenue rides along and Calvary Cemetery sits atop. 49th Avenue crosses Van Dam Street, and in doing so transmogrifies into Hunters Point Avenue shortly before crossing the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek, and then regains it’s numerical dub at 21st street nearby the 7 train station.
It’s all very complicated.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When you start with homicide, that’s all people want to hear about. This Sunnyside/LIC gas station on Queens Boulevard also sports a car wash, but I don’t have any tales of death or dismemberment associated with it in my quiver.
Another one of the weighty questions I’ve got about Queens is “where does LIC stop and Sunnyside begin”? I kind of place “proper” Sunnyside at no farther west than 36th or 37th street along Queens Blvd. If you’re south of Queens Blvd., however, Sunnyside continues all the way to the LIE. The eastern border is definitely Woodside Avenue/58th street, and Northern Blvd. provides another hard border for the area. Saying that, I consider Northern Blvd. to be an “LIC corridor” just like Skillman Avenue west of 39th street is, all the way from 31st street to Broadway.
Of course, any neighborhood in Queens whose zip code starts with a “111” is part of the historic municipality of Long Island City, which actually includes all of Astoria and most of Sunnyside – or at least the 11104 part of it.
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, March 15th. 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.
monstrous arch
Monday gnashes into toothsome view again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Well, here we are in Long Island City again, wandering about in the depths of a frozen nightscape. For the last year, my personal stations of the cross have included several prominent and photogenic spots here in the still quite industrialized sections of LIC which are surrounded the waters of Newtown Creek and its tributaries. What have I learned during this pandemic year?
First, I’ve learned that my mind has been reduced to jelly and that I now have an attention span which only an insect would be envious of. Secondly, my body has turned to jelly as well, and I’ve put on a bunch of weight which needs shedding. Third, that circumstance is actually far more tenuous in these United States than it should be and that once this crisis is receding in the rear view mirror we need to start addressing that fact. Haven’t we been spending trillions for more than 75 years on National Defense and “readiness” and when the shit hit the fan we couldn’t figure out a way to feed old and poor people during an emergency?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the stations of the cross for me has been the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek, and my search for “it.” I’ve been scanning the water for “it” but haven’t witnessed or photographed any visual phenomena. I have heard inexplicable splashes and seen odd movement in the surface waters, but so far – no “It.”
These shots were captured on a particularly cold night in early February. It was “what the hell am I doing this for” cold. My fingers were numb inside of the gloves I was wearing, and I was wearing a thermal under layer beneath the normal “outside clothes” and filthy black raincoat outer. Marcus Aurelius’s recommendations for a proper life advise one to wear different clothes within the domicile than one does without. This was good stoic advice, even if it has come down to us from a long dead Roman Emperor. A humble narrator offers this – grasping at crumpled up paper towels, stored in your coat pockets during a cold snap, is a quick remedy for warming up the hands. Paper is an excellent insulator.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One looks forward to next week, when the second stage of my COVID vaccination will occur. I’m already making plans for the “after times,” and whereas I never thought that I’d be looking forward to descending down into the sweating concrete bunkers of the MTA to ride the Subway – there you are. One has already ordered and received a new pair of hiking shoes, and the first part of my plans involve stitching back and forth across the East River on its various bridges. I’m going to ride the Roosevelt Island Tram, and visit the Empire State Building Observation deck at night, and do all the “tourist” stuff before the tourists reappear. Probably going to ride on one of those double decker buses too. I’m going to eat at a restaurant and drink beer at a bar.
In short, when this bat escapes his cage…
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, March 15th. 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.
terrestrial scenes
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Concluding a late night scuttle around Long Island City in today’s post, my aching feet were kicking the dust about in the Degnon Terminal section. Pictured above is what I’ve come to refer to as the “Empty Corridor,” a post industrial hellscape of “used to be” and “once was” which has gotten sort of “crimey” during the pandemic year.
I’ve seen young men hammering at padlocks, been circled around by other young fellows, and wandered through what I later realized to be a big money drug transaction hereabouts. Luckily, having lived in NYC all my life, and specifically having grown up during the late 1970’s and 1980’s the maxim of “keep moving” is part of my general mindset. If somebody asks you for a quarter, what they really want is for you to put your hand in your pocket so your defenses are halved. Half of these “mofo’s” would boil you down to sell the elements if they had half a chance, so don’t give them a chance. Keep moving. It’s harder to hit a mobile target than a static one. In the high crime years of my “Ute” I was stabbed, shot at, beat up, and also chased by packs of feral dogs. No, really.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Accordingly, I steered myself past the empty corridor in pursuit of heading over to Hunters Point Avenue to check in on that brave little tree growing out from under a factory found on the shoreline of Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kills tributary which I’ve become obsessed with over the last year.
Along the way, I couldn’t help but crack out a shot or two of a UPS last mile shipping center. Seriously, these folks – along with their competitors at FedEx – have become American Heroes over the last year. The economic picture would be a whole lot different, regionally and nationally, if it wasn’t for the efforts of the people who work for these companies. I’ll also mention the United States Postal Service in the same breath, and the people who work for the Amazon empire.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s my little baby. I’ve been paying this little cultivar a lot of attention over the last year. I’m told that it’s likely a “Tree of Heaven” or Ailanthus altissima. It’s the eponymous “a tree grows in Brooklyn” from the 1943 Betty Smith novel, if it is indeed that cultivar. An invasive species native to East Asia, Ailanthus altissima has a life span of 50-100 years and will grow back from its roots even if you cut it down.
Tenacity, bro, tenacity.
Speaking of, tomorrow is the one year anniversary of Darth Cuomo issuing the stay at home Covid order for NYC, on Friday the 13th of 2020.
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, March 8th. 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 