Posts Tagged ‘Long Island City’
into life
Back in the saddle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Infirmity is conquered… sort of… and a humble narrator is back on the beat.
The first 2020 nighttime photowalk saw me scuttling southwards from the rolling hills of almond eyed Astoria all geared up and ready to go. To make it official, I keyed up one of my favorite audiobook iterations of “The Call of Cthulhu” on my headphones as I left Astoria about 9 in the evening. The chosen path carried me across a Robert Moses widened stretch of Jackson avenue which modernity calls Northern Blvd., up Laurel Hill Blvd. (now known as 43rd street), through Middleburgh (aka Sunnyside) and over to Blissville’s border with Berlin (West Maspeth). My goal was to arrive at the modern day version of the Penny Bridge, the Kosciuszcko if you must, and commune with that loathsome ribbon of municipal neglect and hidden history known simply as the Newtown Creek.
For too long have I been missing her. My path was chosen for its lines of ley, and carried me past the great polyandrion of the Roman Catholics, called First Calvary Cemetery. Why the lines of ley, you ask? Simply, my batteries are low.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The actual eastern border of historic Long Island City – on the southern side of the Long Island Expressway, Laurel Hill Blvd. – retains its ancient nomen, rather than masquerading as “43rd street” as it does on the northern side. Laurel Hill is the landform into which the farm and homestead of the Alsop family were built, and its geological prominences were reduced by Irish and German laborers not too long after the Roman Catholic Church purchased the Alsop properties in 1848. On the eastern side of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, which sits firmly upon the pre consolidated border, is industrial West Maspeth, once known as Berlin. There is a 43rd street in Maspeth, but it doesn’t concur with the southern iteration of the street, for which you can thank Robert Moses and the adoption of the so called Philadelphia plan in the early 20th century. Maspeth’s 43rd street was once called the shell road, and was paved with crushed oyster carapace. That’s before the forgotten Yeshiva, or Phelps Dodge.
The closer I got, the more I felt it calling. Like some great subterrene drum, whose emanations burst within my chest in inimitable sense impacts… a sound which certain groupings of the aboriginal Lenape would have pronounced “Hohosboco,”or the “Bad Water Place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Upwards on the path went a humble narrator, ever upwards.
Like every other piece of wind blown trash, discarded toy, or intestinal discharge in New York City, Newtown Creek is where I belong and end up. No destination is more final, nor more desirable for one such as myself.
Here amongst the ghosts, and in the night wind, belong I.
“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.
correlated little
Rounding the week out with the trains
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is just about done with 2019 here, as I imagine most of you are. It hasn’t been a great year, but there you are. As my old man used to say, if you’re able to complain about it you’re still alive so there isn’t that much to complain about. He’d then indicate that I was probably bored if I had time to complain and offered to fill my time with some chore. Nobody has wished me a Fun Festivus (which is Monday the 23rd, btw) at any of the holiday parties I attended, which I’m upset about. It’s good though, as I’m a little “partied out” at this point in time, and don’t have the bandwidth to gather around the aluminum pole and air my grievances this year.
What can I say, I’ve always been a grumpy loner, now I’m a grumpy old man.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Where am I going next? It’s an existential question I keep asking myself, and the answer is ultimately “where the world takes me.” One of the bits of sage wisdom this grumpy old man can offer is to not try to force things into happening. Paradoxically, I’ll also offer that the world only makes sense when you force it to do so.
To put it into mundane analogical terminology – it makes no sense to lean over the platform edge looking for the subway, as it won’t force the subway to appear. The train is going to get there when it gets there. Making good use of your “dwell time” in the station (as MTA refers to it) is forcing the world to make sense somehow. In my case, that means taking a lot of photos.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A recent encounter, which wasn’t the particular moment I was shooting this set of photos, involved the “what and why are you taking pictures of” trope down in one of the sweating concrete bunkers under Manhattan. This encounter wasn’t with law enforcement, members of which I had a couple of notable “in the field” conversations with in 2019, it was just some fellow commuter. I explained my activities to this particular petitioner by asking if she ever saw any of those cool old photos of NYC depicting subways or trolleys in BW photos from the 1930’s or 40’s on her Facebook feed. When she responded yes, I said “I’m the one whose photos your grandkids will be looking at.” She chuckled.
On that note, the 2020’s are coming and I plan on doing a lot of roaring in the next decade.
“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.
efflorescent powder
Thursday, it affects us all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One encountered this beauty over in LIC last week, a burned out vehicle which the coppers had parked nearby the Queens Midtown Tunnel. Some other bloke was examining the wreck at the same time I was, but we didn’t talk. I prefer it that way. Without loneliness and isolation, I just can’t be happy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A singular Christmas party is all that remains on my calendar for 2019, and then I’m free of having to pretend any sort of civility for a couple of weeks. This is awesome sauce, and what with the broken toe no longer broken (mostly healed, but still hurts) I can finally get back to wandering the concrete devastations of Newtown Creek like some mendicant in the new year.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On my way home from LIC, I found myself at the Queensboro Plaza 7/N/W platform. The fog which had defined that particular day had broken and transitioned to a light rain. As is my habit, as the trains were coming and going – I was waiting for an N – the camera got waved around. I’m fond of this shot of the 7.
“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.
flung carelessly
High flying, somewhat minimalist Wednesday is here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last week I had to conduct a walking tour of Newtown Creek, specifically my Infrastructure Creek tour, for Atlas Obscura. It was on that crazily misty day, and luckily I was able to conclude the thing before the fog broke and turned into a drenching rain. The walking tour ends at the waterfront in Hunters Point, where the final gyrations of the big real estate build out which have occupied the area for the last 15 or so years is playing out. Lots and lots of tower cranes are installed, and are busily at work on the new apartment buildings which will complete the Hunters Point South development.
These really are incredible machines, these cranes. Big, too.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A smaller, and self propelled, crane was available for inspection nearby the tower crane and construction site pictured at top. This would be one heck of a ride, in my eyes, and getting the weekly shopping and laundry chores up the stairs would be vastly simplified. I imagine it would be difficult to park, however.
Hey, are there any advocate groups out there fighting for dedicated “crane lanes”?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This kind of fire hydrant has lived up to its design specifications exactly. The old school hydrants with the fluting and rounded tops are directly welded onto the pipe in the ground, and when they get knocked over by a truck or whatever, DEP has to shut off the main feeding the entire line. These new school ones, on the other hand, are connected to a valve above the pavement, and designed to pop off the pipe when a truck or car backs into them. All DEP has to do is shut the valve and file a work order for a crew to come and reconnect the hydrant.
Modern design, huh?
“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.
betook himself
Till you’re blue in the face.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What’s wrong with the EPA Superfund people allowing NYC’s DEP to continue releasing 468 million gallons of raw sewage a year into Newtown Creek, as opposed to the 1.2 billion gallons they currently do, for the rest of time? That’s the 61/39 issue for you, and it’s the absolute focus of the Newtown Creek Community right now.
EPA is currently floating a proposal which would cap off the liabilities of the responsible party behind the “combined sewer outfalls,” the NYC Department of Environmental Protection (funnily enough), to a goal in which they would only need to attenuate 61% rather than 100% of the municipal wastewater flowing into Newtown Creek. Not exactly reaching for the stars here, are they?
The Federal EPA doesn’t think 468 million gallons of sewage released into a narrow industrial waterway – which runs through a highly populated area – is all that bad, since the flow isn’t carrying a legally actionable load of what they call “contaminants of concern,” with the short list of these chemicals including PCB’S, PAH’S, and organocoppers. Sewage doesn’t count, they tell us.
Over on the Gowanus Superfund, the goal state for CSO (Combined Sewer Outfalls) reduction was raised to 74%, but here on my beloved Creek, 61% is the goal. It should be mentioned that the 61% number is based on “right now” precipitation amounts, numbers which were actually compiled back in 2008, and that the remedy date they’ve set for this reduction in outfall is 2042. More to come on this subject in the coming weeks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is slogging through the customary December “show my face at” circuit of holiday parties this week and last, which is something I actually do enjoy. There’s been a lot of “going to’s” and “how do I get home from’s” in that equation, but at least MTA is always working to keep you on your toes with frequent night time service changes. Stay nimble, lords and ladies. If you don’t make at least two transfers, you’re not doing it right.
Funnily enough, I’ve gotten so used to transit gymnastics and taking the long way around during the evenings that when planning on how to get from Point G (Greenpoint) to Point MHK (Manhattan’s Hells Kitchen) recently, my convoluted plan didn’t even consider simply taking the E to the City from Court Square in LIC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking forward to gradually longer walks in the near future, a humble narrator is. The big toe situation is moving along, although it’s at that point where it aches and throbs while healing. If you’ve ever had a broken bone, you’re familiar with that particular phenomena. I’m just tired of sitting on my butt, which I fear my lack of exercise has made larger.
Back Monday with something new, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Come on a tour!
With Atlas Obscura – Infrastructure Creek! My favorite walking tour to conduct, and in a group limited to just twelve people! December 14th, 1:30-3:30 p.m.
Click here for more information and tickets!
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 