Posts Tagged ‘New York City’
terrifying delight
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sunset is fairly spectacular this time of year, if you get your timing correct. A recent scuttle found one heading towards the familiar destination of Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kills tributary in Long Island City’s Degnon Terminal section. This is a familiar path for me, and is one of the regular night time walks which I’ve been engaging in throughout the endless pandemic months.
That water tower pictured above is on the roof of the Standard Motor Products Building, which also hosts the Brooklyn Grange Urban farm.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When I was crossing the Honeywell Truss over the Sunnyside Yards, which is one of the street bridges spanning the rail complex which connects Skillman Avenue with Northern Blvd., I got the fiery skies I was hoping for.
One was, of course, about a half hour late relative as to where I wanted to be when the sky went orange. I really wanted to be near the water, but had a bit of trouble dragging my butt out of HQ on time. This is one of the effects that the pandemic months has created for me, an inability to rush about.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s been a while since I’ve left HQ with the entire photo kit on my back – y’know, the tripod and everything. A point was made of intentionally using my zoom lenses while walking, since most of what I’ve been shooting over the last few months has been accomplished with two prime lenses. Given that I’ve brought a long lens out of retirement, I’m trying to mix things up a bit and “reach out and touch something” with it.
As mentioned, a bit of travel is in the cards for me in September. Definitely going to be visiting the pretty city of Pittsburgh with its amazing collection of bridges and funiculars, Burlington up in Vermont is on my list, as is Washington D.C. If I can make it work, I might come back from Pittsburgh via Chicago. I also have a wedding to attend in a rural section of New York State next month. Exciting, no?
“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.
glutless zeal
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s an example of a Flopwhistle’s Water Hen pictured above. Given that I’m always wrong about what kind of a bird a bird is, one has undertaken the practice of just assigning random names to the various avians I encounter. This particular “bird on a wire” was hanging around HQ here in Astoria during the 72 hours I got to spend quarantining myself from the exposure to Covid which offered by an anti-vaxxer friend of mine. Grrr.
This particular person received a verbal dressing down the other day. For those of you who haven’t experienced what it’s like when a humble narrator drops the facade and stops pretending to be a nice guy… it ain’t pretty. I’ve been told it’s like having a thesaurus yelling at you, since I also drop all pretense of colloquialism and the carefully constructed artifice of my working class persona.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This week, since nobody who works for New York State – nor Con Edison or Spectrum cable – can visualize the hornets nest of dead wire and overburdened utility poles without photos of it, one has to go out and perform a photographic survey of the ludicrous situation hanging over our heads. Literally the entire regional economy hangs off of utility poles, and it can be derailed with a single fallen tree. Y’all want it, you’re gonna get it. Then you can found a blue ribbon committee that recommends things which will never happen.
I am so tired of fighting, lords and ladies.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, a negative Covid test for both Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself has ensured that we haven’t been derailed from the extensive travel schedule which is in the works for September. My anti-vaxx friend’s defenses of his perceived “freedoms” came close to attenuating my own freedom – see? I’ve got an Amtrak package which I’ll be spending in that interval, and bringing the camera to new and different locales for a change of pace. It’s been so long since I left NYC…
Vacation, all I ever wanted…
“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.
surpassing despair
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator is continuing his short break from normal posts this week, and single shots from the archives will be presented.
Pictured above is the Brooklyn Bridge, shot back in 2010, when the NYC DOT was doing a largish maintenance project on the span. Right place, right time.
“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.
dazzling violet
Thursday, they’s.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After the whole Staten Island Ferry leg of a recent day was over (described earlier this week), getting back home to the rolling hills of almond eyed Astoria involved using the NYC Ferry Astoria line. Even pre pandemic, one preferred this mode of transit to the hurtling metal boxes moving through the rotting concrete of buried tunnels variety, and prefer it even more so after the emergence of the virus. One of the stops offered by the ferry service is at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which is where I cracked out the shot above.
Yeah, I was intentionally trying to get a bit minimalist with these three. Artsy fartsy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One wishes that East River water was as clear as glass, and that we would be able to peer downwards and see all the wonders down there. Just in the shot above, you’d see gas pipelines and electrical conduits, an enormous pipe carrying Manhattan’s sewage to Greenpoint, and theoretically a long rock mound or berm which the Subway and Long Island Railroad tunnels are armored against the tide and other elemental forces with. There would be hundreds of conduit pipes carrying electrical and communications wires as well, and there’s likely a few unplanned features down there involving vehicles and household appliances which found their way into the water somehow. I’m told by professional divers, however, that the East River has so much solute suspended in the water column that you literally cannot see your hand in front of your face once you are a meter or two below the surface. They work by touch and feel, in absolute darkness, these divers.
Who can guess, though, all there is that might be buried down there?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another stop on the Astoria line is found at Roosevelt Island, right under mighty Queensboro. Luckily, just as the boat arrived in the shadow of the great bridge, the Roosevelt Island Tram was seen dangling from its harness of transport wires.
What fun.
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, October 5th. 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.
gray veined
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One last shot of the NYC DEP’s aeration system at Newtown Creek’s East Branch in operation, with the MTA’s fortress like counting house in the background.
That’s one of the facilities which the transit agency uses to count the money from bus boxes and subway token booth collections. I’ve been told that workers who do this within the fortress are compelled to wear jumpsuits with padlocks on the zipper to discourage theft. The only theft allowed at MTA is at Jay Street in Brooklyn, or in Albany’s corridors of power.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Leaving Brooklyn, reentering Queens, one last look at the venerable Grand Street Bridge was enacted. This span is going to be replaced in the next few years, and there’s a considerable amount of work that the NYC DOT needs to do before that process can fully begin. There’s a long list of weekends and evenings during which the bridge will be closed to both vehicular traffic and to pedestrian or bicycle access this autumn and winter, so if you cross it on the regular like I do – plan alternate routes.
Industrial Maspeth, which I’ve long described as my happy place, was echoing with Mexican music on this particular night. One found himself pursuing the sound, which led me towards the Haberman section of the Lower Montauk tracks maintained by the Long Island Railroad.
It sounded great.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I won’t snitch on the various illegal parties, raves, concerts, and gatherings I’ve witnessed in the industrial zone during the pandemic months. As an old fart, I’ve actually been enjoying the opportunity to spend a lot of quality time at home with Our Lady of the Pentacle. We’ve been cooking at home, spending leisurely and sometimes boozy nights talking about things which concern and inform our days, and in general making the best of it all. My sympathies during this interval have been applied to those who are going it alone, and to the young.
I cannot imagine what it’s been like to be in your late teens or early twenties and endlessly trapped in the house with your parents. Somewhere out there – hidden in the preternatural darkness of the happy place, young people were finding ways to enjoy themselves.
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, September 28th. 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 