Posts Tagged ‘Long Island Railroad’
dizzy precipitation
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Seriously, how happy is a humble narrator when his pedestrian crossing of the Pulaski Bridge gets interrupted by the double bascule drawbridge opening up to allow a vessel navigating along the fabulous Newtown Creek to pass by below? Everybody else just gets annoyed at the obstacle, I get busy with the camera. Joy.
Luckily, just like at Sunnyside Yards where there’s seemingly an Amtrak employee whose duty revolves around creating and closing holes in the fences, there seems to be an analogous job title at the NYC DOT. Therefore, after getting my open Pulaski shot done, I went over to one of my favorite holes. (That last sentence sounds like a dirty series of sex metaphors, doesn’t it? I wonder… What sex act would be called an “open Pulaski”?)
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At my favorite Pulaski hole – which I’m going to ask you to interpret literally – as in it’s a hole in the fence on the Pulaski Bridge – I saw a Long Island Rail Road engine pulling a train… wait… oh… damn it… everything I say is contaminated now…
If you’re nearby the LIRR’s Hunters Point rail yard you really only see trains moving around a couple of times a day, usually in the 2 or 3 hour long intervals known as “rush hour.” The trains leaving this yard cross Borden Avenue and enter the Sunnyside Yards coach yard, where connections to both Eastern Long Island and Manhattan can be accessed. The Long Island City based Hunters Point Yard is where the LIRR parks rolling stock during the day.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned last week, since I’m all vaxxed up I’ve been riding the subways again. I’m entertaining myself while waiting for Astoria bound N trains to arrive at Queens Plaza by working on capturing an “iconic” shot of the IRT Flushing line 7 trains entering the station on the high elevated tracks. I’ll be shooting this particular angle for a bit, in all kinds of different weather and at varying times of the day for a bit so there you are.
Funnily enough, when I pulled the camera down from my face I noticed that there was a cop quietly standing on either side of me. There was no encounter with the gendarmerie, but they did follow me onto the N train which I made it a point of riding to the last stop on. When the train rolled into the station I smiled, waved my hand at them, and reversed course.
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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.
last void
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured above is one of Amtrak’s Acela trains in its maintenance facility at the gargantuan Sunnyside Yards, which a humble narrator was crossing on a north to south vector not too many weeks ago. As a note, while I was taking my sanity break last week, WordPress (the platform which Newtown Pentacle operates through) decided to do the most annoying thing that tech companies do – i.e. fix things which weren’t broken – and have thereby introduced a lot of “random” and “hope this still works” into my work flow with a new upgrade to their software. What I always hope for during a system upgrade is to have the system demand my attention and take me away from writing or whatever I’m doing regularly. If the operating system or software environment doesn’t pop up with a chorus of dancers and announce itself every five minutes, it just ain’t modern design. Hopefully they’ve inserted a really proactive but fairly illiterate version of spellcheck, the sort of thing that Facebook currently uses, which alters entire sentences into gibberish after you type a period.
Invasive update cues annoy me, especially when they’re covert marketing ploys from hardware manufacturers letting you know it’s been a while since you gave them your money. Looking directly at you, Apple. In WordPress’s case, they’ve just introduced a learning curve into something I’ve been “workflowing” for more than a decade, so thanks for the extra work.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m a “production guy” in the advertising world, meaning that I polish and deliver final product to publications and clients. You can measure how productive your production is by counting “clicks.” True productivity comes from knowing the key combo commands rather than hunting through tool palettes and menus. Software design in the last five years or so has retarded productivity through its inefficient habit of adding “clicks.” The Adobe Creative suite, in particular, no longer uses common key commands internally – Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom, which are all essentially the same thing, use different key combos to do identical tasks. I don’t refer to anything complicated, either. Adding a 1 Star or 2 star rating to an in progress image is accomplished 3 different ways just within photoshop. That’s stupid, wasteful, and bad user interface design.
When you spend all day working in a software environment, this sort of thing just eats away at your time, and patience. Good software is invisible, you focus on the creative product which you’re working on, rather than the tool you’re using. Bad software takes you out of the creative flow, in the manner which this new WordPress “upgrade” does. While writing this, I’ve had to stop and fix something stupid it’s done on its default settings about twenty times. Imagine a screwdriver suggesting you try the new Phillips Head tooling, then suddenly retiring flat head screw functionality. Surprise!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Until I get a handle on what’s going on with this new software I’m apparently stuck with using, it would be appreciated if y’all cut me a break. Should some weird turn of phrase or out of context word seem to signal offensive intent or mental incapacity, realize it’s likely a software rule inserting itself which I missed fixing. The fragility of opinion and unyielding moral high ground in our modern times is terrifying. Say the wrong thing, they’ll shut your ass up quick. Imagine if a badly functioning spellcheck suite effectively cancels you?
This is literally possible.
“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.
secrets stood
Friday, brü.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, by the time you’ve received this latest installment, a humble narrator has had to endure about 20-25 hours of Zoom meetings in just the last week. Monday was a swearing in ceremony for Community Board Members, Tuesday was the actual Community Board, Wednesday was the Newtown Creek Community Advisory Group public meeting with EPA, Thursday the Steering Committee for the same organization. Unsurprisingly, the totality of this experience is somewhat Kafkaesque. I feel hollowed out by all of this, for some reason.
Luckily, I had a live and in person “thing” this week, along the fabulous Newtown Creek, in Long Island City’s Blissville section. The Green Asphalt company invited a few of us to attend a meet and greet at their site. Nice folks, good meet up, interesting conversations were engaged in. Real life. Not Zoom. Got caught out in the rain, perfect.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Any photo now, you are going to cross the vaccination threshold with me. It’s been a year of darkness here at Newtown Pentacle, a cavalcade of night time photos gathered in the most socially isolated places that I could describe as being “walking distance” from HQ here in Astoria. Then I got vaccinated, and the camera began turning up in the daylight again. There will still be a lot of night shots in the future, lords and ladies, but for right now…
Let there be light.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Sunnyside Yards, nearby Queens Plaza, with a 7 line subway up top on the elevated track and a Long Island Rail Road work train on the tracks below. While I was shooting this, a fellow sucking down a paper bag clad can of beer approached me. His name was Renny, and he described himself as a Physicist originally from Poland. His conversation began with “Einstein was an idiot.”
Back in session.
“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.
blasphemous daring
Friday is back.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When I’m heading out in the direction of Newtown Creek or industrial LIC, the only way to “there from here” involves me crossing the truss bridges carrying local street traffic over the Sunnyside Yards. Hence, I’ve developed an appreciation and fascination for the place over the years. You commonly see the rolling stock of three different rail companies here – Amtrak (pictured above and below), New Jersey Transit, and Long Island Rail Road. The northern side of Sunnyside Yards is filled almost entirely with Amtrak related trains and maintenance buildings, whereas the southern boundary sees a lot of LIRR activity.
During the last year, a multitude of East Side Access construction related holes have appeared in the fencing of the yards, which has been awesome.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I have friends who describe their favorite hobby as “railfanning,” meaning that they are fans of rail. I’d describe myself as a fan, but I’m nowhere near as serious as railfans are. A railfan will tell you that the train is using the wrong screw to hold its headlight on, and is possessed of a deep and insightful narrative regarding the various modern rail operations and the historical forebears which laid down the systems that today’s outfits use. Pennsylvania Railroad, NY Central, etc. I can talk history on this topic, but it’s broad stroke. A railfan gets granular.
As a note, the truss bridge you see in the background of the shot above is 39th street, which is where the first shot was gathered from. I was clicking the shutter on the Honeywell Street Truss Bridge for this and the one below.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m actually pretty happy with this one, depicting a LIRR train moving through the Harold Interlocking, right in front of the Harold tower. I’ve taken a million shots of this action from the 39th street truss at a fence hole which I call the “old reliable,” but a brand new fence hole which appeared in just the last few months has materialized at Honeywell. The tracks in the trench at center left are part of the massive East Side Access project, I’m told.
Back Monday 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.
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.
The Newtown Pentacle 