Posts Tagged ‘New York City’
ugly trifles
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Nothing matters. Nobody cares.
One has been keeping an eye on the collapsing bulkheads of Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kill tributary along 29th street in LIC for a while now. We’ve activated the politicians and officialdom. Right now, they’re arguing over which agency is at fault, and the land continues to crumble into the water and undermine the roadway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been wondering, what if I was to buy a few cans of green paint and fake a bike lane here? That would get some action out of the powers that be, I imagine. Bike lane, after all…
Is there some way to spin a collapsing street as racist, or phobic about sexual orientations?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There was something alive in that hole, incidentally. It was hissing and growling at me while I was shooting these. No, really.
Probably a mama raccoon or something, or at least I hope that’s what it was.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s all so god damned depressing. This City has a budget larger than the GDP of most nation states, and NY State’s annual budget is competitive with those of countries with significant military footprints. With all that cash flying around, they can’t even swing putting out a few bollards and some caution tape of the road side of this.
Nothing. Matters. Nobody. Cares.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Bah. One continued one with his long walk along a short creek. I headed over to Hunters Point Avenue and its eponymous bridge.
I was operating the camera entirely handheld, incidentally, as I didn’t want to slow myself down while “futzing” about with gear.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At least my beloved little tree of paradise still stands, and continues to stretch towards the sky from under a factory wall.
More tomorrow.
“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.
titanic chisel
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back home in Queens, after my day trip to Philadelphia, and I’m sorry to report two things. First, a combination of obligation and precipitation conspired against me taking a single picture for a week after the 7th. The second is that the obligations took the form of an endless series of Zoom meetings which just happened to occur on the few days when it wasn’t raining in the second week of March.
The only good news about this series of Newtown Creek related, or non profit advocacy group focused, or Community Board meetings I participated in is that while the “blah blah blah” and virtue signaling was happening, I was developing all the shots from Philadelphia that you’ve seen over the last couple of weeks on a different screen.
Multi tasking!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the 14th of March, a Monday, a very long walk was undertaken. My pathway involved first crossing the Sunnyside Yards, and then scuttling along the Skillman Avenue corridor which follows the southern side of the vast Federally owned railroad coach yard.
Famously, a humble narrator has a catalogue of every hole in the fences which is large enough to allow a lens sized point of view. After a spate of outings during the winter months, ones which saw me going out in the early hours of the morning in pursuit of the rising of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself, this was the first of several spring outings timed for the recession of the fiery orb to its receptacle somewhere behind New Jersey.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“Hole reliable” is actually two holes. They appear to be surveyor’s points, and they are cleanly cut apertures punched out of the steel plate fences. There’s four kinds of fencing around the yards, with three of them being absolutely disastrous in terms of photos – save for these rare surveyor points.
The funny thing about the so called “security” situation here are the rail cops sleeping in their cars alongside wide open gates, contrasted with an abundance of “block the view” or “unclimbable” fences.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot was gathered while lingering, unchallenged, at one of those open gates. There was a cop sleeping in his car directly behind me, with a tablet playing a TV program in his passenger seat.
I literally could have done anything I wanted here – walked right down to the tracks and waved at passing trains. Anything. It’s all theater – security kabuki.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the 7 line subway heading eastwards out of Queens Plaza towards Sunnyside pictured above. The tracks it travels on are suspended high above the ground level tracks used by Long Island Railroad and Amtrak. In between, there’s a truss bridge which carries vehicle traffic into and out of Queens Plaza, where the travel lane approaches to the Queensboro Bridge are found.
I moved on, the cop never woke up. Maybe he was dead.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, just as I arrived at my first actual destination, the sky lit up with oranges and yellows. I miss the old days in Long Island City, before big real estate crossed the river from Manhattan and stole the sky.
More tomorrow, from Long Island City, 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.
fleecy flocks
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the iron road again! Amtrak isn’t cheap if you’re buying your tickets the day of travel, but when buying tickets well in advance – it’s super affordable. One randomly purchased a round trip ticket in February for the 7th of March. I had to get to Moynihan/Penn Station before sunrise, and left Astoria at something like 4:45 in the morning.
While waiting for a cab, I had an ugly encounter with a drunken asshole here in Astoria, which was a lovely start to my day. Seriously- when you see a dude wearing his Riker’s slippers on the street so as to display his cred, you’ve crossed into the danger zone of stupid.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Of course, I could have taken the subway here, but I had the entire kit with me and didn’t want to chance of having the MTA “MTA” me. Clown shoes, they are, and especially so in the wee hours of the morning when they know they can get away with it.
The good news is that I was happily standing by the departures board at Moynihan in Manhattan in under 30 minutes, waiting for my train’s track to be announced. Amtrak ain’t clown shoes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The blessed moment came, and soon I was pulsing down into the train. This was a day trip, as mentioned above, and my return to the City would be some 16 hours away.
As is the custom, a conductor checks your ticket and inquires as to your destination. You are then directed to this train car or that one where passengers with a destination common to yours are also seated. I settled in, and set my camera up for shooting out the window.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve fashioned a foam collar for my lens, which negates window reflections. ISO is set to “auto” and the aperture opened as wide as it can go. The shutter time was very fast, measured in the thousandths of a second. As is my habit with such shots, I cropped them differently than normal to distinguish them.
These aren’t “composed” shots, rather it’s a random form of shooting out the window as the Amtrak rolls along. In this case, we were heading first west and then south.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I won’t bore you with all that I captured along the way. The one above was from somewhere around Newark.
The train was surprisingly crowded.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My destination for the day is 90 minutes from NYC by train, and it’s America’s consolation prize.
Philadelphia, there I went. More tomorrow.
“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.
kindled flame
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the 6th of March, one was visiting the Montauk Cutoff in Long Island City. A student photographer had contacted me and asked for a bit of guiding around the place. This fellow was testing out a revolutionary new lens that Canon has recently released which allows for capture of the kind of imagery you need to create a “virtual reality bubble” with the Oculus headset in mind as the display portal.
He had some very expensive equipment on loan from the university he attends, and was interested in this particular location to work with and test the capabilities of the gear. While he was doing his thing, I was doing mine. My pal Val also came along, as she cannot resist the Montauk Cutoff’s charms. Pictured is an Amtrak train on its way to Manhattan via Sunnyside Yards.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We headed over to the Dutch Kills section of the Montauk Cutoff, which is an “abandoned” set of rail tracks in LIC that used to connect LIRR’s Main Line trackage at Sunnyside Yards with its Lower Montauk tracks along the northern shore of Newtown Creek.
Abandoned doesn’t mean the same thing in “railroad” as it does in colloquial english, but suffice to say that there is zero chance of encountering a train on the cutoff these days. The shot above was captured on one of the two rail bridges at Dutch Kills – Cabin M.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s Cabin M, as seen from the shoreline of Dutch Kills. In the distance is the Queens Midtown Expressway section of the Long Island Expressway, soaring some 106 feet over the water.
As far as the “cabin” thing, that’s what the train people call it. As far as I know, when they call something “cabin” it’s about signals and geographic markers for the engineers, and there was likely some lonely soul who sat in a shack and governed operations here once upon a time. Everything is “automatic” these days.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Given that the fellow I was accompanying and guiding around had this weird lens that creates a “bubble” for VR experiences, I kept on pulling him deeper and deeper into the Newtown Creek world. These are the sort of spots I won’t normally bring anyone to, given the myriad ways to get dead encountered here.
Saying that, these are exactly the sort of spots which a 220 degree bubble capture must look great in. Funnily enough, he kept asking me if I wanted to try out the device but I refused, fearing I’d want one and go down yet another technology rabbit hole.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While he was operating his gizmo, and my pal Val was waving her camera around, I was using my normal tripod setup. Normally, I see the perspective down here when I’m in a boat with my pals from Newtown Creek Alliance, a circumstance which negates this sort of “look.”
It was getting late, and the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself was lowering in the sky. We headed back up to Montauk Cutoff.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Never waste a sunset, I always say. That’s the LIRR platform, and the Paragon Oil/Subway/Point LIC building which was mentioned a couple of days ago. I had to get back to HQ shortly after the sunset, as I had a big day planned for the 7th which needed a bit of preparation.
Tomorrow – something completely different 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.
curious ears
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A bit of personal business found a humble narrator at the zone in Queens where Flushing and College Point wash over each other again. There’s a Department of Motor Vehicles outpost here – which is fairly inaccessible by mass transit (well played DMV) – and I had some paperwork to deal with.
A couple of transfers on the subway and soon was a humble narrator scuttling down the street, heading for the greatest Kafkaesque bureaucracy ever created by anyone other than the crew who used to run the Soviet Union.
What? I’m not going to take pictures along the way?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s a concrete mixing factory and distribution center, based right along the waterfront at Flushing Bay. The street I was walking along leads to the on and off ramps of the Whitestone Expressway.
Not exactly pedestrian friendly, this area. And that’s coming from the Newtown Creek guy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is not terribly familiar with this section of Queens. My expertise revolves around the industrial corridors surrounding Newtown Creek, which I refer to as “the study area.” I can speak pretty intelligently about the zone between Woodside Avenue/58th street and the East River (and a similar section of Brooklyn) from Newtown Creek to Bowery Bay, but Flushing and the College Point area are very much their own thing. Broad stroke stuff would be all I can offer and I’d refer you to the Queens Historical Society for a detailed POV on the subject.
It bears mentioning that I find the historical community in Queens increasingly toxic these days, and will actually recoil when I see any of them coming. A lot of this toxicity is due to infighting, and a lack of funding for the various groups interested in the subject. For the one or two of you who are reading this and thinking “is he talking about me?” – go fuck yourself. Show up, do the work, stop being an asshole.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Having accomplished the filing and whatnot that I had come to the DMV to handle, it was decided to take a little walk on my way back to Astoria. My pathway to Flushing saw me depart the 7 train at its Main Street terminal stop, but I was a half hour walk away from the Mets/Citifield stop and it was a really nice early spring day, so…
Why not wave the camera around a bit? I didn’t go all fancy with these, and just cracked out shots of whatever happened to cross in front of me. I had a big “operation” happening a few days after this and didn’t want to go to nuts. This was March 4, btw.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It really is a shame, the way that the Borough of Queens treats the waterfront in areas where it hasn’t gentrified yet. Zero access here, there’s illegal dumping everywhere, and garbage is floating around in the water. I get so annoyed at the government types about this sort of thing, who “yada yada” about environmental issues but do nothing to fix them until the luxury condos projects are announced.
New York City’s government is a lot like your loser sibling who proclaims “this next year I’m going to get my shit together” at Christmas dinner before calling their dealer to deliver “las drogas” to your parent’s house, and who then crashes your dad’s car and tells your Mom that everything they just did is her fault because she served the wrong cranberry sauce.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Something I tell people these days is “that there is no threshold moment in your life when you will declare your shit as being together.” There is only now, so just do it. Whatever it is, just do it. If you’re fucking up, then maybe today you can try to fuck up a little less. Do the laundry.
Pfah.
“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.
