Posts Tagged ‘Manhattan’
objectless writhing
In today’s post, the tallest manmade thing in the western hemisphere is noticed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s actually starting to grow on me. Third tallest thing on earth at 104 stories, One World Trade (aka the Freedom Tower) has been steadily dominating or demanding my attentions of late. Generally, I’m not a fan of this style of architecture, but the effect that the structure conveys is one of awe. A lot of it has to do with the mirror like surface, and some of it is associated with the way that the building seems to interact with the environment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Its visible from pretty much everywhere around the archipelago now, and big enough to be masked, obscured, and offered perspective by atmosphere alone. The mirror surface pulses with light, which in turn makes altitudinal mist and ambient humidity in the air glow, imparting to the structure a sort of halo. The reflective surface offers the same luminosity enjoyed by the sky to the Freedom Tower, which is an interesting caprice.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot was gathered a week or so ago during heavy weather whilst onboard one of the “Working Harbor: Beyond Sandy” boat tours, and depicts the lower Manhattan skyline at sunset as a thunderstorm moves north and east behind it. The scene looks photoshopped, but this is what it actually looked like. The sky was in a dynamic mood with the setting sun low on the horizon. It was dark and bright orange all at the same time.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, June 22, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
The Insalubrious Valley– Saturday, June 29, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
Modern Corridor- Saturday, July 13, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets on sale soon.
necrophagous feelers
Today’s post walks around in the dark.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you may remember, South Street Seaport and the surrounding area in Manhattan experienced a bit of trouble last year during the storm. What’s surprising is that so little of the area has recovered by now. I’m led to believe that electrical systems in particular still haven’t been restored, and based on the number of shuttered store fronts, inclination to accept this theorem is found.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few of the bars and restaurants are open, but the streets are dark and an area, which is observed normally as having a moderate pedestrian population moving about in the evenings, was a ghost town when transversed recently. Hopefully it was just the weather.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It is odd that basic services are taking so long to reassert, in this place so close to the center of political and corporatist power.
Heading up to the train and pondering this dilemma, one noted that the truly important things have been seen to with due alacrity by the powers that be, for ultimately- one must have an interesting project to mention at cocktail parties and fundraisers.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? June 2013 Walking Tours-
The Poison Cauldron– Saturday, June 15, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, June 22, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
The Insalubrious Valley– Saturday, June 29, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
tightly packed
Today’s post is a bit of vouyerism from under the FDR Drive.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pathologically early, your humble narrator is often observed loitering about in locations wherein a future appointment will take place. Menacing aspect and suspicious body language betray one such as myself as an odd but otherwise harmless outsider, rendering and relegating me down to background status. You stop noticing me, in my cloak of social invisibility.
Accordingly, I enjoy sneaking up on and photographing photographers these days.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When you’re in the spot that these guys are, you stop noticing everything but what you’re shooting. Gear, pose, background, settings, trying to squeeze every drop of light from the scene that you can, composition- all that. On top of that you’ve got the problems of corralling the group into the shot. No fun whatsoever, except if you’re just a few yards back and like shooting shoots.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The photographer was lucky, a good looking bunch of kids willing to play along and follow instructions is a godsend. Where he wasn’t lucky was that it was raining and misty, which reduces what you do with the flash a bit. It wasn’t this scene that really drew my attention though, not at first. I had noticed this bridal party, of course, when I arrived down at South Street Seaport for a boat tour, but what had originally drawn my eye wasn’t them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was this other bride, who seemed to be standing alone as her friends went to the limo. I was actually hoping that some sort of bride fight might break out, but no such luck.
Now that would have been some photo, two brides duking it out under the FDR drive.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? June 2013 Walking Tours-
The Poison Cauldron– Saturday, June 15, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, June 22, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
The Insalubrious Valley– Saturday, June 29, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
steamy shadows
Today’s post follows Old Mitch home to Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A marriage ceremony, uniting an old friend with his beloved at the Frying Pan restaurant and bar in Manhattan, drew me to the cruel streets of “the City.” Distaste for the island of Manhattan is a growing and risible inclination for me, but fealty nevertheless pulled me in. After the occasion, Our Lady of the Pentacle and I splurged on a taxi for our return journey to the glories of Astoria and I decided to make use of the rare indulgence to crack out a few more shots for “operation: night shooting.”
Unfortunately, being amongst others set me off (especially if they knew me as a child), and I fell into a bit of mood.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The darkness of Manhattan is palpable, as the Shining City only actually shines high above the vomit and urine caked pavement. The high flying kabuki offered by the oligarchs is hollow, a monument to themselves, and one which foreign tourists travel far and wide to witness. For those of us who reside in the boroughs, the truth of such things is always apparent- and behind the facade is naught but corruption, rot, and a banal sensibility.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As the Taxi careened through the teeming streets, filled with those who acquire and purchase, anxiety ruled over my thoughts, and my own carefully maintained facade of civility and sanity fell away. Beneficent, Our Lady of the Pentacle attempted to smooth the furrows in my brow, assuring me that we would be home soon enough. Everywhere I pointed the camera, throngs of people wandered, seeking something new to consume or buy. Big night out in the city, I guess.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Mighty Queensboro allowed egress back to the big island, away from the rats maze and exploitations of midtown Manhattan. As the gaze of that thing which cannot possibly exist in the Sapphire Megalith of Long Island City once again fixed itself upon me, at last was I able to breathe easily.
Home awaited, a refuge found amongst the raven haired slopes of ancient Astoria, and the concrete devastations of Western Queens.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? June 2013 Walking Tours-
The Poison Cauldron– Saturday, June 15, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, June 22, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
The Insalubrious Valley– Saturday, June 29, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
idle curiosity
In today’s post- The New York Marble Cemetery on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If your view of second avenue in Manhattan’s East Village looks like what you see in the shot above, there’s only one place you can possibly be.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You would be standing on the other side of these gates, found at the end of an alley, and within a walled off corridor which was established in 1831- the same year that the French Foreign Legion first deployed and Charles Darwin left England for the Galapagos onboard the Beagle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the perks of working with Atlas Obscura is that I can sometimes insert myself into somebody else’s adventure, and in this case, it was Allison Meier’s walking tour excursion to the New York Marble Cemetery at 41 1/2 Second Avenue. She graciously allowed me to attend her sold out tour.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Check out this page, which I think Allison wrote- at the Atlas Obscura– for the full history of the place (there’s no point in me paraphrasing it). The tombs are all underground, with the grave markers arranged on the walls in the form of stone plaques. The surrounding neighborhood has literally risen around the place, with every building style from 19th century tenement to ultra modern luxury hotel represented around it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The president of the cemetery association was there to talk to the attendees, and she described the walls as being quite fragile and in bad condition. Nearly two hundred years of New York air, and vibration, have taken their toll on mortar laid down just ten years before Mary Rogers “the beautiful cigar girl” was found in a trunk floating along on the Hudson- sparking the interest of none other than Edgar Allen Poe.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured above is the plaque denoting the tomb of Uriah Scribner, father of the eponymous founder of the publishing house “Charles Scribner’s Sons.” Uriah died in 1853.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
1830’s New York City is literally the stuff of legend.
It’s Poe’s town, as well as the NYC that Herman Melville and Washington Irving and William Cullen Bryant knew, a city which had less than a quarter million inhabitants. What we call the lower east side was farmland back then, and the center of town was down near the Battery.
The river fronts were described as a “forest of masts” for all the merchant trading vessels found docked there.
Check out the New York Marble Cemetery here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? June 2013 Walking Tours-
The Poison Cauldron– Saturday, June 15, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, June 22, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
The Insalubrious Valley– Saturday, June 29, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
The Newtown Pentacle 