Posts Tagged ‘newtown creek’
hadn’t reckoned
Thunderation, its Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One wore sunglasses. This is an increasingly rare statement for one such as myself, who has been scuttling about in the dark night for so long. Friday last, a humble narrator woke up in one of his dark moods, soon realizing that it was time to eschew the company of the humans and seek the succor of the Newtown Creek. Camera batteries were charged up, lenses polished, and my shoe laces were tied tightly. HQ was vacated, a course decided, and approximately 17,000 steps and six hours later one returned to Astoria with his desire to “do something” sated.
Before you might ask, the face mask is worn while in a center of habitation, such as Astoria or Sunnyside. Once I’ve passed through and into the deserted industrial zones of Newtown Creek, the obvious solitude encountered allows one to put the thing away and store it in a pocket. This is not offered as any sort of guidance or advice, incidentally, it’s what I’m doing. You do you, snowflake.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One still refuses to climb onboard a Subway, but I did hire a ride from a ride share taxi last week. The driver had created a plastic bubble for himself, and I insisted on opening all the windows in my compartment, while wearing a mask. The latest medical malady which I’m enjoying includes a bit of arthritic pain in my left ankle and foot – which is the same extremity that hosted that shattered big toe at the end of last year – and after several miles of loping about the ankle pain really began to speak up and demand attention. Discretion and valor calculations were made and I decided to slice off two miles of getting back home by dropping a $10 bill for the ride.
I am possessed with a notoriously high level of tolerance for pain, incidentally, something which various Doctors have commented on over the years when they were presented with whatever bleeding stump I’ve brought them to fix. I’m fairly sure that what I’m experiencing in the ankle would cripple most, but a humble narrator is made of sterner stuff. About once a day I like to let my mental discipline slip and allow all of the various aches and pains a voice. That’s when I drop to the floor and whimper like a wounded seal. My dog thinks it’s a game, and she lies next to me and also howls.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One was racing the descent of the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself as it slid behind New Jersey, in the name of getting to a certain spot along the Brooklyn shoreline of Newtown Creek for a dusk picture. Actually, for a series of dusk pictures. Pictured above, that’s the Metro Oil campus in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section with the Empire State Building peeking out behind it.
Noteworthy for a relative lack of atmospheric humidity, last Friday the gamey ankle wasn’t offering me any trouble. One strode the earth with vast and rapid movements, carrying his putrescent carcass mile after mile across the concretized devastations.
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, June 15th. 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 as we move into April and beyond, 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.
night watch
Borden Avenue Bridge, #LIC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is in the process of a quarterly exercise, visiting all of the corners of the Newtown Creek watershed. I’ve been doing this for awhile now, quarterly, and certain areas in the Borough of Queens which host the Newtown Creek’s tributaries have been positively haunted by my nocturnal inspections during the recent tribulations we have all been enjoying. Oft repeated, Dutch Kills is a tributary of the nefarious Newtown Creek which branches off of the main trunk of that waterway some .7 of a mile from the East River and proceeds roughly 3/4 of a mile into the Long Island City section of Queens. The Borden Avenue Bridge is one of several retractile spans across Dutch Kills, retractile meaning that the roadway retreats for maritime access, and was built in 1908. It is owned and operated by the NYC Department of Transportation.
It’s my second favorite Newtown Creek Bridge, after the Grand Street Bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One often comes here and scans the shorelines with a powerful flashlight. The eye shine of feral cats reflects back, but that’s not what one searches the rocky shores for. One is hesitant to describe the rumor which led to the activation of that pocket flashlight. You would think me credulous, or superstitious at best.
Suffice to say that some stories need to develop, and that still water may indeed run deep. I did take advantage of the fact that the local strip club remains closed, as the shot above was captured on their entryway steps.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Post facto gathering these shots of Dutch Kills, one has since been entertaining himself with walks heading both eastwards and southwards into Blissville and Greenpoint, with the product of said effort is being prepared for your consumption later this week.
As a note, today is the 130th 116th anniversary of the General Slocum disaster in 1890, 1904 for the historically minded amongst you. Thanks to George the Atheist for the fact checking on the date, not sure where I came up with 1890.
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, June 15th. 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 as we move into April and beyond, 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.
recent notes
Still no rat hordes, but I’m a-hoping.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described yesterday, a recent walk found one on the western end of Railroad Avenue in the Blissville section of Long Island City. Some people ignore the 10,000 or so industrial jobs and the businesses which employ them along the bulkheads of the Newtown Creek. That’s where I come in, My name’s Waxman, I carry a camera. The weather in NYC was cool, and I was working out of Newtown Creek Alliance’s Queens Division. Reports from Federal Authorities have warned about hordes of ravenous and cannibalistic rats of unusual size, so I was patrolling the tracks of the Long Island Railroad Lower Montauk Line in search of them. The garbage train parks here.
Thankfully, things were uneventful, and I moved on. This is based on a true story.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On my way home to the rolling hills of almond eyed Astoria, one eschewed the normal path back and instead proceeded northwards from Blissville through the “Crane District” of industrial Maspeth. Neither the Dept. of NYC Planning nor Google Maps have caught up with my daring nomenclature quite yet, still referring to the “Crane District” as “West Maspeth” or “Laurel Hill,” and only a few esthetes and scholars use the archaic “Berlin.” Savages.
Why do I call it the “Crane District”?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A heady mix of socialism and an indignant vendetta against societal norms have infected me with the need to tear away at the foundations of society, and rename places according to whatever whim strikes me. There are no cranes here, that’s fake news.
In all seriousness, though, people still live hereabouts, in the Crane District. There’s private homes all over the place.
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, June 8th. 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 as we move into April and beyond, 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.
dark spectacled
Hello, Sweetie.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Railroad Avenue is found along the fabulous Newtown Creek in the Blissville section of Long Island City. The name of the street belies it’s function and what it travels along, which are the trackways of the Long Island Railroad’s Blissville Yard, which itself is a part of the LIRR’S Lower Montauk line. Pictured above is a modern day movie studio, which used to be known as the Tidewater Building, or as the Lukoil/Getty dock more recently. I wasn’t focusing on history when shooting this series of shots, however, rather it was the subject of monsters that plagued me.
You saw that warning from the Center for Disease Control about the hordes of hungry rats? Christ almighty, if that’s going to happen anywhere and to anyone, if would here and it would be me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the titular western end of Railroad Avenue, you’ll find the gates leading to SimsMetal, a private company which handles the processing of the plastics, paper, and metals that are collected curbside by the NYC Department of Sanitation on “recycling day.” On the subject of seeing other people, who are not wearing hard hats and safety vests at least, in these places which have formerly been inhabited by only me – it happened again. A few people wandered past me heading this way and didn’t come back, and I ran into a nice guy naked Steve who had come back here to capture shots of graffiti for his website. Saying that – seriously – people on Railroad Avenue on a Saturday night? The world really must be ending, yo.
I was back here for the graffiti too.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been trying to get shots of this particular Long Island Railroad trainset for a while, but it’s been parked in a different spot which is decidedly more difficult – and far more “trespassy” – to get near it for the past few months. I’m told that what you’re looking at is either a giant pile of soon to be recycled metal, or the future foundation of a reef in some faraway patch of water.
The crazy lighting was generated by the weird emanations and the otherworldly spectrum of light which flows off of the Koscisuzcko Bridge, overflying the Newtown Creek about a mile east of this spot adjoining the Blissville Rail Yard on Railroad Avenue. It’s no ordinary or earthly color, that, instead…
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, June 8th. 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 as we move into April and beyond, 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.
shadowy cottage
It’s Friday!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Dutch Kills, as in the tributary of Newtown Creek and not the neighborhood just north of Queens Plaza, was where one found himself on a recent late afternoon/evening. I need a bit of exposure to the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself, so a point has been made of revealing myself to the world. For the last several months, one has been vouchsafing his travels in plague torn NYC by leaving HQ late in the evening or just after midnight when all of you cootie carriers have been locked away inside.
Avoidance of sunlight however, has rendered my skinvelope into a sort of translucent jelly. Pallor has contributed to deficiencies of certain vitamins generated when the skinvelope is exposed to solar radiates. One is brittle, stiff, and toadstools have begun to appear on my back. Lichens too.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At Dutch Kills, just like the scene of Skillman Avenue mentioned yesterday, other people were uncharacteristically present. They were jogging, bike riding, and some individuals were even seen scaling things. One was not amused.
Newtown Creek is not a summer camp, yo. Be careful around these parts, as it’s an easy place to get dead, fast. So’s everywhere else these days, I guess, but at least there’s symmetry.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On a somewhat more positive note, this spring’s cadre of feral Kittens have produced a fine corps of Cats. I noticed this adolescent gadabout stalking around on one of the rip/rap piles which form part of the shoreline here at Dutch Kills. I have friends in the bird appreciation world who hate seeing wild cats, since these critters like to eat their critters. Personally, I like seeing ecosystems recovering, and that includes having predators as well as prey (baby chickens). Also, the people who create shelters and leave out water and food for these cats aren’t using chemical pesticides to control their onsite rodent population in the same concentrate that non feline hosting site managers do.
Less poison, more cats, I say. A little predation also force the birds to up their game and evolve, possibly even start a Darwinian arms race. Did you know there used to a be a five foot tall terror goose (Garganornis ballmanni) roaming around Italy? How does a nine feet tall Australian “Demon Duck” sound to you? The only thing standing between you and a future encounter with a terror bird might be that cat. All it takes is one egg with a mixed up genetic formula to start us down a road no one wishes to travel.
Kitty!
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, June 1st. 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 as we move into April and beyond, 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 