Posts Tagged ‘Manhattan’
disjointed fragments
Hells Kitchen in the rain.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of my destinations last week was a Christmas Party get together with my pals from the Working Harbor Committee at a bar in the City, specifically in the Hells Kitchen section. Well, I guess it’s Hells Kitchen as it was on 9th and 50th, which sure ain’t what you’d call the theater district. One used to be employed nearby, when the Ogilvy and Mather ad agency was based in the Worldwide Plaza building. The building owners used to save money when stocking the toilets with “consumables,” and the 1 ply stuff they’d fill the men’s room toilet paper dispensers with just didn’t sit right with me. I’d keep a couple of rolls of Charmin in my desk for when nature called. It’s the small comforts which make life worth living, I always say. I’d always make a show of taking a crap at work, since I loved, and still do, the idea of getting paid to defecate.
Pictured above is a lineup of those pedal cabs on 9th Avenue which the tourists love so much. I’ve heard them referred to as “tuk tuks” but that’s a term normally used for a sort of motorized for hire vehicle common in south east Asia. A friend of mine held a part time gig once as a repairman for these things, but then he decided to devote himself entirely to his other and more lucrative career as a Union Glazier.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A core belief of mine, mentioned many times, is that NYC never looks better than it does when it’s raining. Sure, it’s often uncomfortable and inconvenient, but our town is usually in need of a nice bath and all the reflected and refracted lights rippling around in the puddles are just magic.
Frequent commenter George the Atheist asked recently why I eschew zoom lenses in such circumstance in favor a single prime lens (in the case of these shots, 24mm). Short answer is that when the zoom lens telescopes in and out of its barrel, it tends to pull dust and moisture into the mechanism, so… rain. Additionally, I’m digging on the challenge of the limitations offered by a single focal length lens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Tonight, there will be a Queens Community Board 1 meeting at Astoria World Manner at 6:30 which I’ll be attending. It doesn’t seem that there’s anything earth shattering on the agenda, but the good news is that as of right now it’s the last “have to” I’ve got for this decade. There’s a bunch of “I want to’s” between now and New Year’s Eve, which is good news, but they mostly revolve around libation oriented social events.
The wheel of the year turns and turns.
“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.
individual feature
Billious is what it’s called when you’re full of bile.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking northwards along the FDR Drive in Lower Manhattan towards the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridge with the first of 5 skyline destroying residential buildings dominating the horizon, my point of view in this shot was from the very foot of Wall Street in Lower Manhattan. The financial capital of the planet, this part of NYC is where people give their money to rich folks who then gamble with it. The South Street Seaport complex, and the museum ships it maintains, are on view in the Central right section of the shot. Did you know that the reason that the Seaport exists at all is because it’s the site originally chosen by Port Authority’s Austin Tobin and the Rockefeller brothers for the World Trade Center?
The highway is the work of everybody’s favorite NYC historical bogeyman, Robert Moses. The only good thing I can say about it is that when it’s raining outside, the FDR Drive acts as a megalithic umbrella. I often wonder what will become of it in the near future when privately owned automobiles are banned from Manhattan Island below 125th street. If you think that’s hyperbole, it’s ok. Goofy sophistry rules the roost these days.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This one is looking southwards towards the Staten Island Ferry, and at the upper left hand side of the shot you can just make out the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge, another product of that rascally Robert Moses. Speaking of sophistry, I’ve been greatly enjoying the conversations offered by some of the bicycle people regarding that span recently. The usual umbrage they offer has been focusing on the lack of a bike lane up there. What doesn’t seem to strike them are the physics of the gargantuan bridge, and the fact that vehicular traffic crossing it experience wind speeds – with some regularity – that negate the passage of trucks or buses over the thing due to concerns of them tipping over. What could go wrong with a bike lane twenty two stories over the open waters, anyway?
Man, I just hate everybody and everything at the moment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Having accomplished my pedantic goals in Manhattan, one descended back into the slime caked cement tunnels of the MTA and returned to the World’s Borough. On my way, as the train entered into Queens Plaza, I noticed the shop keep at the platform news stand eyeing me all suspicious like through the open door of an R line train.
I’ve often thought that anyone who spends their entire working life underground in the Subway system is actually a damned soul consigned to burn off a lifetime of sin in purgatory. That’s the way I feel for the brief intervals when I’m onboard the train. Imagine waking up early on a Monday morning and heading out for work with the expectation of spending the next 9-10 hours in a subway station. If that’s not some sort of punishment for your sins…
“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.
rough generalization
Into the Shining City.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The particular circle of hell which one had to navigate into recently involved heading down to Lower Manhattan in pursuance of particular shot for a client/friend of mine. Luckily, Our Lady of the Pentacle’s offices overlook the subject which needed to be recorded, so at least I didn’t have to sneak into an office building in the Wall Street area to get it, instead I was invited in. Like a vampire, that gave one leave to work freely. Saying that, one still had to negotiate the stinking concrete bunkers of the subway system, during the height of cold and flu season. All is darkness.
As you may have gleaned by now, lords and ladies, a humble narrator is in a bit of a mood at the moment. Frustration, Cronenbergian body horror, frustration.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lower Manhattan, as in the Financial District, is inhuman. Every architectural detail and street facing bit is designed to remind you of institutional permanence and the futility of individualism before the fiery event horizon of corporate collectivism. It’s not about “you,” and in fact, you don’t matter. Even the glowing emanations of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself cannot permeate down to the pavement here. The sidewalk isn’t even the ground in the financial district, rather it’s just another level of a vast complex of concrete and steel. As above, so below. At the top are the titans of industry and the Chief Executive Officers. Down here am I, an ant who is the Least Executive Officer. If I actually had two pennies to rub together, they would be used to start a trash fire in pursuance of creating warmth and illumination.
What this City needs, really needs, is a good plague – followed by a torrential rain which would carry away our filth and wash it out into the sea.
Did you know that it once rained every single day for 5.5 million years? That’s part of the process by which the Atlantic Ocean was formed. At the bottom of the Atlantic is the Marianas Trench, where untold monsters are thought to dwell. There are also gigantic and fairly primitive invertebrates down there in the pressurized deep, which consume all the dead flesh raining down from above. If any of these chitinous ghouls are dragged up to the surface, where the atmospheric pressure is comparatively slim to that of the deep, they swell up and pop in the manner of meat balloons. That’s your trivia fact of the day. Lords and Ladies.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, for a bottom feeder such as myself, the POV offered by the offices of Our Lady aren’t differentially high enough from my normal elevations to cause any physical symptoms other than nose bleeds. The shot above isn’t the one I went to the City to get, but since the East River was just sitting there like a revealed whore – I couldn’t resist.
Back tomorrow with another “ring ting tingling” dirge. Bah. Humbug, all that.
“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.
labyrinths impelled
Heading home.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I won’t lie, my broken toe was really starting to smart when walking down the marble staircases at Grand Central Terminal. I’d been on my feet shooting for around 4 hours at this point, and whereas flat ground and standing still has become normal again, stairs and in particular walking down stairs seems to aggravate the still inflamed nest of rubber bands (tendons and ligaments) and the busted piece of chalk (the broken bone) in my left foot and big toe.
Interestingly, when I had it x-rayed, the medical folks referred to it as “the great toe” but there really isn’t anything that great about it. It’s funny, we have special names for all the fingers, but toes are just toes in the common tongue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I made a special effort to find and use escalators on my journey into the deep. It seems that most people don’t understand the purpose of these devices and insist on running or walking down the moving steps. Seriously, I’m never in that much of a hurry given my nearly pathological need to show up early or on time with 15 minutes to spare for an appointment or obligation. Said pathology tends to negate and defeat the vagaries of mass transit.
In this case, however, I really couldn’t care less how long it would take to get back to Queens, as I was one stop away and would need to transfer anyway on the better side of the river anyway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A quick transfer to the N at Queensboro Plaza and soon I was back in Astoria.
A ten minute walk from 31st street, with a stop at the Pizza guy, and a humble narrator was limping in the front door with a full camera card worth of new images to noodle around with. Dare I say it, Lords and Ladies?
Back in session.
“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.
diminished perceptibly
Happy Thanksgiving.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a couple of hours spent along the urban corridors surrounding Grand Central Terminal, one acceded to the ideation of “not overdoing it” regarding my broken toe, and began making my way towards the entrances at the western side of Grand Central Terminal in pursuance of boarding a subway which would carry me back to the rolling hills of raven tressed Astoria back in Queens. Along the way, I couldn’t resist cracking out a few more shots.
The one above involved a bit of cheating. It’s actually two exposures blended together, with one set for the Chrysler building and surrounding background and the other for the brightly lit entrance to Grand Central Terminal.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a fancy pants skyscraper going up on the corner of Vanderbilt Place and 42nd street, the same one which I’ve been complaining about as ruining the fine silhouette of the Chrysler Building on the Manhattan skyline. As is the case with any construction job, even at night there’s a ton of activity going on.
Since I was about to enter the MTA properties again, and they have fairly iron clad rules about cameras, tripods, and so on… I broke down the kit I’d been using out on the streets and stored it away in my camera bag. The camera was then adorned with the sort of gear which isn’t forbidden by the MTA rules and I headed inside Grand Central Terminal.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Couldn’t resist capturing the cliche phot above, a time exposure which renders anybody not standing perfectly still as a shadowy phantom moving through the frame.
Often will I ponder about this sort of thing. Yes, it’s been done before, and thousands of times at that. Thing is, I haven’t done it before, so should I not do it? Is there nothing to be learned by capturing a familiar and quite “tourist” shot?
“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 