Posts Tagged ‘photowalk’
blood secured
Tuesday searching for “it” at Dutch Kills
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just the other night, one began to wonder about “it” again and a walk over to the Dutch Kills tributary of the fabulous Newtown Creek ensued. My first stop was nearby the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge, found in the remains of the Degnon Terminal.
As mentioned in the past, the modern day shaping of Dutch Kills occurred in the first decade of the 20th century at the same time that the Pennsylvania Railroad Company was building the Sunnyside Yards. Michael Degnon was a construction magnate whose company completed the Williamsburg Bridge’s masonry, and famously finished the construction of the subway tunnels which carry the 7 line from Queens to Manhattan. Digging out the subway tunnel generated a lot of rock debris which he needed to dispose of, which was accomplished when Degnon purchased the estate holdings of former Governor Roscoe Flowers here in LIC, an area referred to as the “waste meadows.” The fill was used to reclaim and raise dry land from the wetlands, and Dutch Kills was canalized under supervision from the United States Army Corps of Engineers into its current form. That’s when the modern Hunters Point Avenue and Borden Avenue Bridges we’re built. Degnon built an industrial park surrounding the canal which offered rail to barge infrastructure and attracted enormous concerns like the Loose Wiles bakery, Chicle Gum, and Ever Ready Battery to Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
21st century industrial degeneracy aside, Dutch Kills was an absolute mirror on the hot and humid night which I most recently visited it during. There is little to no laminar flow in Dutch Kills, which causes sedimentation and shoaling. Rumors from my network of local informants and Creek watchers have reached me in recent months describing something which strains credulity, but since I have very few things to occupy my time otherwise during this interminable pandemic, one is on the hunt for “it.” I won’t bore you with the rumors, as I don’t pass on stories which I either can not verify or that I don’t have photos to back up.
On this particular night, one spent a bit of time shining a green laser into the depths, which excited the schools of small fishies that nocturnally shelter from predators here. Since “it” would likely occupy the niche of a top predator, exciting the prey animals might have drawn it to me, hence the laser.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As above, so below, the saying goes. Never is the case more so on Dutch Kills on a night when the poison winds are quiet and the gelatinous fathoms are calmed.
The thick humidity hanging in the air made this particular walk perspiratory in the extreme. While shooting these shots, I encountered employees of the NYC Department of Transportation’s Bridges unit, a nearly invisible organization which has been curiously present in recent months during the pandemic. You normally never see these folks unless a bridge needs to open for passing maritime traffic, but for some reason I’ve encountered them repeatedly at both Borden Avenue and here at Hunters Point Avenue in the dead of night.
Perhaps they have heard about “it” as well?
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, July 13th. 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.
particular period
Monday shots from the after times.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent endeavor found one walking a friend who has recently acquired the photography habit around the industrial quarters of Long Island City. My intent was to inculcate a few safety oriented customs into his mind, since the first rounds of photos he had been posting scared the heck out of a humble narrator. As is often repeated, Newtown Creek and the industrial business zone areas surrounding it are an easy place to get dead if you’re not cautious, careful, or have some background knowledge of the way that the “hard hats” operate. Photos my friend had been posting demonstrated that he had no understanding of the place’s code, which I set out to rectify. Dutch Kills in LIC was a great place to start.
I sort of gave him a tour, which is something I miss doing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One did not gather too many pictures on this outing, but I couldn’t resist a shot of this ivy which had been graffitied over. The weird sodium lamp light pouring out of a nearby shipping company’s property just added to the attraction.
The shipping business continues to expand and expand around the Newtown Creek, and despite the fact that I broke the story last year that an enormous Amazon facility is about to be constructed over in Maspeth on Grand Avenue, other people are acting like it’s news. Of course, nobody cares about this, until the tractor trailer and delivery trucks leave the IBZ and drive through the residential neighborhoods lying between it and the highways or the approaches to Manhattan.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I can’t say this scientifically, as in I can’t point to a traffic study conducted by a professional outfit like the one run by Sam Schwartz, but observationally I’ve seen heavy traffic in and out of the Newtown Creek Industrial Business Zone magnify significantly over the last few years. It’s all part of the ever evolving national economy, of course, and what with the pandemic and all, we’re all relying on businesses like United Parcel Service or FedEx to service our needs more and more.
I do wish that our elected officials would demand that these companies incorporate more rail and water transport into the plan. The UPS barn pictured above is across the street from Dutch Kills, and a giant FedEx facility is directly located on the bulkheads of the same waterway about a block away, and there are freight tracks everywhere in LIC just awaiting reactivation. Saying that, there’s some fairly big news on the water transport front along the Creek that is still forming up. I’ll keep you posted.
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, July 13th. 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.
obvious effort
Friday shots from the before time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Critters greet you today, photos of which were captured prior to the war on statuary. Amongst those whose political dial leans toward the left, a humble narrator maintains an unpopular opinion that iconoclasm is never a good thing. If a statue of Godzilla is encountered, you are not going to bring Tokyo back by destroying the statue. Perhaps, you might want to create some signage for the statue describing what the beast did, and all the people it hurt, but you aren’t going to change history by knocking the face off of the Godzilla statue. Such practice has a long and ugly history, and usually signals that “the revolution” has run out of steam. Ever lament at the works of figurative Roman or Greek art in museums which are missing their faces? Roiled when the Taliban blew up those Buddha statues 20 years ago? Should the Polish Government grind away the remains of Auschwitz and build a shopping mall on the site?
Sometimes, when a statue of a bad person stands in the public square, you can change the message originally intended to illustrate evolving morals and modern points of view. Do you think Putin would be able to do what he’s been doing if statues of Stalin and Lenin were still glowering over and reminding the Russian people of the price of “strong leadership”? Also, you can’t exact revenge on somebody who has been dead for centuries by knocking down a statue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Personally, I like to wallow in my sins, and am proud of the fact that my points of view are always evolving and changing. It indicates, to me at least, that I still have an open mind and that empathy and compassion haven’t died within. It also indicates that I haven’t become an ideologue governed by some anonymous hive mind idea.
Of course, free thought and a personally arrived at point of view are things you’re not supposed to have anymore. Follow the leader, kid, or you might get cancelled. Otherwise – some jackass bike enthusiast in Astoria might tweet mean things at you at 3 a.m., or a firearms enthusiast might…
Pepsi comes in a blue can. Coke comes in a red one. It’s all carbonated sugar water dosed up with caffeine. Drink some water.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Beyond the brave new world of calcified support for people who couldn’t care less if you lived or died, something which has come up in conversation repeatedly in the last few days with a certain segment of my friends is the fact that this is the first time in our collective memory during which we’ve actually had the summer off. For me, it’s nearly 15 years since I haven’t been waking up at six in the morning on summer weekends, then leading a walking tour of Newtown Creek and coming home at “hot o’clock” in the afternoon.
I certainly miss going to work, doing “my thing” as it were, and wish that this summer off didn’t involve a plague. I always said that what this City needed was a good plague, and here we are. Be careful what you ask for, I guess. See y’all next week with some photos collected during the after time.
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, July 6th. 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.
momentous talk
Tuesday photos from the before times.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few more archive shots greet you today, captured during the before times. The shot above was captured prior to Antifa establishing its moon colony, or Jared Kushner’s daily release of a list of newly proscribed citizens to round up for ideological offenses. Good times, back then, in the before times. Bill De Blasio was still quite tall, not having been diminished by hubris, and Andrew Cuomo had not yet displayed his god level Sith Lord persona to the general public. Today is March 129th.
Managed to get out for a walk last night, and had a friend with me, so I didn’t take too many pics. Accordingly, today’s archive post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Is it legal to ride a cop horse while texting? I’ve wondered this since recording the shot above. Do as I say not as I do always seems to be the way with the gendarmes. Double parking, parking on sidewalks, blowing lights… set an example, I always say.
All I can say is that I wish I had a horsey to ride around on right now, as it would make me feel like a grown up fella. I’d gallop, trot, even gambol. That’s what I need… a horse. I’d name it Xavier, or X for short.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s Coney Island pictured above. In the before time, a point would have made of performing a visitation to my ancestral estates on this side of Brooklyn but since those ubiquitous lunar based vandals at Antifa stole the ocean to teach us all a lesson – what’s the point?
Back tomorrow, stay cool, yo.
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, July 6th. 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.
scarcely envisaged
Monday photos from the before time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has been a dirty rotten stay at home for the last few days, which I can blame on a number of factors, but I’ve mainly been lazy. It’s been hot, damnit! Accordingly, a few shots – from 2020 – are on offer today. These are from the before times, when the calendar’s opinion still applied to what day it might be. I’m of the opinion that today’s date very well might be March 128th. Just last night, as the neighborhood gathered around a roaring hearth of fireworks, we told tales of the old days to all the children.
That was before Antifa stole the ocean, of course. Those ubiquitous rascals do make for intriguing right wind bogey men, don’t they? Wasn’t it the Mexicans before them, or the Arabs, or… some woman who wore a turtle neck sweater? Or was it some guy with glasses… I’m sorry it’s all become quite a blur.
I used to have the story straight, in the before times.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When I told the neighborhood kids about how we used to ride around in metal boxes on tracks, they didn’t believe me. The limited grunting and chirping language, which is the only speech now allowed after the leftist hordes came through the neighborhood and re-educated us all, made it hard to describe the dual contracts era but I did my best. Then Karen showed up, and well… Karen.
In all seriousness, I really am having trouble keeping track of the “outrage of the day” and the post-truth environment we’re living in.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One makes fun of the rightists all the time, so some turnaround fair play for my leftie pals is offered on the subject of the ubiquitous and colossal amount of fireworks in recent weeks. Now you want the cops? Can’t have a police state clamping down on laws you want enforced while ignoring the ones you don’t like. Change the laws. You could theoretically force the cops to wear hot pink short sets if you write the law correctly. Cops are automatons when it comes to the law, and have virtually zero ability to interpret justice creatively on the street due to the sort of judicial legislation passed during the drug war, or terror war, or whatever else the politicians have declared war on. Be careful with what you ask Cops to do. For the last forty years you’ve been looking to them to solve every problem we’ve actually got or even the ones we’ve imagined, and those of us warning against worshipping at the pulpit that the Reverend in Blue preaches at have been told to shut up because “child molestors,” “terrorists,” or whatever other bogeyman you fear takes precedence over liberty.
The whole “redefinition of what political terms mean” thing is summed up, for me, by the fact that the fellow who built that bridge pictured above was a Progressive Republican. Can you imagine anybody describing themselves that way today, the way they would in the before times?
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, July 6th. 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 