Posts Tagged ‘newtown creek’
crazier people
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned, a new habit I’ve been actively cultivating in recent months has been to commit to an early morning photo adventure at least once a week. I’m a night owl by nature, and it’s quite normal for me to be wide awake at 3 or 4 in the morning. The solitude and quiet offered by these midnight intervals is cherished, but it royally screws me up during the winter months due to a paucity of light and being out of sync with everybody else.
Sunrises are cliche, sure, but the light is nice and there’s that whole Marcus Aurelius thing – “At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”
Whenever you’re feeling lazy, or unmotivated, there’s always Stoicism and Marcus Aurelius to fall back on. At any rate, it certainly does make you seem smarter or better read than you actually are. Saying that, huddling under the blankets sounds pretty nice, if you ask me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Loving portrait compositions of sewers, that’s what I think about. The one above is an exposure stack of multiple tripod shots, actually. That’s how I spend my early morning hours these days, which is why I’m a schmuck with a camera and not a Roman Emperor like old Markey Marcus. My morning had begun with a pre dawn arrival at the Maspeth Avenue Plank Road and from there I walked westwards towards the Kosciuszcko Bridge, and these shots are literally from “DUKBO” or “Down Under the Kosciuszcko Bridge Onramp.”
Another one of Marcus Aurelius’ bits of advice I try to follow is to wear two entirely different sets of clothes – one for inside the house, another for the world at large. I tend not to wear the shoes I was walking around the Creeklands with inside of HQ, and make it a point of changing out of whatever I was wearing while photographing sewers when arriving back home. Saying that, when Zuzu the dog was still around, I would always get a full “sniff” inspection from her when I got home after proximity to this sort of infrastructure.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On this particular day, I had left HQ at 4:30 in the morning, and was on-site by 5 a.m. The shot above was captured at 8:14 a.m., so I was just north of three hours into the session. I didn’t get back to HQ in Astoria that day until about noon, so I guess I was out about 8 hours. I had other stuff to do, in addition to processing all of the photos, and didn’t get to bed until well after midnight. Suffice to say that I slept well that night.
Marcus Aurelius might have been proud, I would hope, but as a Stoic – he’d just expect this sort of effort.
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“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.
exotic workmanship
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s been a weird week for me, as I’ve been unusually “blocked” as far as writing goes. This happens periodically, and unpredictably. I’ve had a few things on my mind, but there’s never a moment when that isn’t true. My dilemma, though, has been about “voice.” I’m really, really down on, and frustrated by, NYC right now. It’s a struggle to not call out everything as being shit, or describe the distracting delusions offered by the Political state as being anything other than Matryoshka.
If you’re not familiar with the Russian term, Matryoshka is the name for those nesting dolls they offer, as well as a metaphor for hiding your true intentions within a series of false shells. The reason that the Soviets were great enemies for the West is Matryoshka, since you could never intone the truth of Soviet intent from the surface layer of their deeds. There’s always going to be another truth lurking within the surface layer.
My Ukrainian born Jewish Grandmother installed a deep prejudice in me when I was a child regarding the Russians. “Never trust a Russian. The only person a Russian loves, in their dog hearts, is the last one who fed them,” she would say. Hey – if you saw your little brother beheaded by drunken Cossacks, you’d have strong opinions about Russians too.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Thing is, the Russians are pretty smart. Never letting anyone know what you’re really thinking – aka – what the smallest and most internal of the Matryoshka stack looks like – is pretty good advice. The problem I’m having right now, writing wise, is that all of my outer shells are absent and I can’t pretend. I’d like to relentlessly pummel away at the universe in an adolescent fury of truth telling, but what does that accomplish? What can I do? What can you do? Why bother? Nothing matters.
When I’m leading a procedural meeting for the citizenry, I close it up with “well, thank you to everyone for participating in our Democracy, and working towards perfecting our Civilization. We’re not there yet, but maybe we got a bit closer tonight.” It sounds smarmy, but I’m trying to be genuine there. Or at least I used to be genuine. Nothing matters.
That aspirant optimism of mine, which is currently withering on the vine, is something my grandmother would have likely found hilarious and somewhat foolish. Granny would remind and opine that a cruel death was waiting just around the corner, and to stop wasting time on things that aren’t practical. Go clean your room, instead of worrying about the world.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Conversely, another voice in my head right now is my Dad’s. When I was a young but already humble narrator exploring sophomoric literature and ideations, the writing of Camus for example, and I began telling him about my existential concern about the meaning of life, the old man would screw up his eyebrows and look at me with concern. He’d say “that’s pretty interesting… why don’t you think about that while you’re washing the car.” My dad was a pretty simple guy, but…
I’ll be at the Newtown Creek, deep diving into the nesting dolls of truth it offers, while improving my practical skills and philosophizing, if anyone wants to explore these topics in person. I apparently require company, but I can’t promise which level of Russian Nesting Doll you’ll encounter. I’ll be the one in the filthy black raincoat.
“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.
tarnished silver
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few more shots from my happy place, Industrial Maspeth, in today’s post. There’s another enormous construction project underway on the Queens side of the waterway, which will see yet another last mile shipping center built. There will be more truck traffic thereby, and despite sitting on a rail spur and adjoining maritime bulkheads, nobody in the government compelled Federal Express to explore their usage.
It just grinds my gears, hearing the politicians talk about climate change and environmental issues – specifically heavy automotive traffic – and when they have the chance to actually do something about the concerning future they speak of it’s time to feign ignorance. Look at LIC – a brand spanking new and fully planned “City” in which all of the problems of the old chaotic “City” have been artfully replicated. Go see the garbage mountains of Court Square on trash day, experience the lack of public bathrooms, or street seating, or…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Private car ownership used to be far more common than it is today in NYC. Fleets of yellow cabs have been replaced by fleets of ride share vehicles, but there really hasn’t been an “add on” in terms of “cabs plus Ubers” as some think. What has increased? Truck traffic.
Every consumer good, scrap of food, and dog collar in Nassau and Suffolk Counties arrives on Long Island, from Port Elizabeth Newark, after being driven by truck through NYC. We need to break that particular chain, and establish water transport of bulk shipping between the Port of NY/NJ and Long Island. Why are there no docks for intermodal cargo shipping at or nearby JFK? JFK is a major shipping port for NYC, but it’s all truck and airplane based. It’s surrounded by water, and connects in several places to the LIRR network of rail tracks, but we unload cargo from jets and use trucks to move the stuff around instead. That’s where your magnification of traffic has magically appeared from in the last 10-15 years.
Don’t worry, the bosses have decided to add another half mile to the Second Avenue Subway to negate having Upper East Siders needing to walk the two blocks to the 4/5 on Lexington. It is uphill, after all, and what upper Manhattan needs is more Subway capacity, right? It’s not like all of the leading economic indicators and the actual non Wall Street economy are centered around Brooklyn and Queens where north/south transit is accomplished using a four car long G line train.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The sham of it all.
What NYC needs is a holistic master plan, one which governs in broad and not terribly specific strokes. You want to build an apartment building? Great. How are you going to engineer storm water neutrality into the structure? Check the requirements for that in the master plan and Mazel Tov on your new endeavor. Amazon or Fed Ex or UPS wants to expand their operation? Fantastic – NYC needs blue and brown collar jobs more than ever, but here are the electric vehicle/mass cargo intermodal shipping predicates which they’ll need to oblige.
Bike lanes will fix all problems instead. They are a panacea, a silver key which open up vistas of experience and reality that can only stagger the imagination. They’re like Coca Cola – the real thing.
“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.
something tangible
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent endeavor found a humble narrator in my happy place – Industrial Maspeth – before the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself emerged from behind Nassau County in the east. I was at the Maspeth Avenue Plank Road, with the tripod and full bag of gear.
Daylight savings time, coupled with the paucity of daylight hours and the atrocious angle of the winter sun relative to NYC’s street grid, negates a lot of photographic opportunities. Sunsets and sunrises are really your only chance for “magic moments” this time of year. One has been making an effort to commit to one or the other time interval at least once a week.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Maspeth Avenue Plank Road is the stubby remain of a bridge which last crossed Newtown Creek during the Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, and it’s found just shy of three miles from the East River. It adjoins a section of Newtown Creek called “the Turning Basin.” This area is conventionally referred to as being the most environmentally compromised section of the waterway, as a point of interest. Industrial usage of this zone of Newtown Creek included an enormous and quite dirty Manufactured Gas Plant on the Brooklyn side, and a chemical/acid factory and high volume copper refinery on the Queens shoreline. There were a lot of other businesses with lovely occupations housed on both sides – fertilizer and rendering mills, night soil processors, secondary manufacturers and packagers for petroleum refining byproducts like paraffin waxes and naphtha – for instance.
It’s nice. At sunrise, fleets of birds take to the air.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The big LNG fuel tank at the right side of the shot is one of two such apparatuses found in Greenpoint at the National Grid property. Grid’s footprint used to be Keyspan, and before that it was Brooklyn Union Gas’s. BUG was the manufacturer of the “natural” gas mentioned above. When Grid bought up all of the BUG assets, via their purchase of the Keyspan outfit who had previously acquired the property, they also assumed Superfund liability and responsibility for cleaning up all of BUG’s “yuck” here in Newtown Creek’s turning basin.
That’s the happy place for ya.
“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.
think slowly
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator found himself wandering across the loquacious Newtown Creek, as is often the case, on the Pulaski Bridge. Count Casimir Pulaski, whom the bridge is named for, was a Polish noble and accomplished military man who – after meeting Ben Franklin and Lafayette while exiled in France – joined the Continental Army as a Cavalry General during the American Revolution. Part of Washington’s executive staff, Pulaski died of wounds he received at the Battle of Savannah in 1779.
The 1954 vintage bridge over Newtown Creek, connecting what’s now called McGuinness Blvd. in Brooklyn with LIC’s 11th street, was a product of Robert Moses’ long tenure as the high lord of transportation spending and construction in NYC. Actual construction of the double bascule draw bridge was accomplished by the Horn Construction Company, with the assistance of Bethlehem Steel and the American Bridge Company. An earlier bridge, connecting Brooklyn’s Manhattan Avenue with LIC’s Vernon Avenue (as it was known back then), was also removed as part of the project.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Surprisingly well used stair cases rise up on either side of the bridge, allowing pedestrian egress. The pedestrian lanes do indeed flow from on ramp to off ramp, but the stairs are located a lot closer to the center beam of the span. The LIC side stairs are found just south of the Midtown Tunnel and Long Island Rail Road Hunter’s Point yard.
One hasn’t used the Pulaski all that much during Covid times. One of the guiding principals for me during this interval has been the avoidance of other people. Given the increased population density of Hunters Point and Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section that has come with the real estate build out of the last twenty years…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured above is the Greenpoint side, where McGuinness Blvd. slouches roughly downwards towards the waterfront. When the bridge was built, McGuinness Blvd. was created as a double wide “arterial” street designed to carry Brooklyn Queens Expressway bound traffic to Meeker Avenue, where the high speed road has travelled on an overpass since 1939. That overpass leads to another Robert Moses project – the Koscisuzcko Bridge – which leads to his 1940 vintage Long Island Expressway and his 1936 Grand Central Parkway.
It is no accident that the Pulaski and Kosciuszko bridges are named for Polish generals. Instead, it’s good politics, given the enormous community of Polish folks who live or lived in Greenpoint, Maspeth, and LIC’s Blissville.
“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 