Posts Tagged ‘photowalk’
DUPBO 2025
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Well hello there, my ribbon of municipal neglect, my undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens, my beloved creek. That’s some of the many ways I refer to Newtown Creek, by the way.
Sometimes, a wizard has to return to his place of power.
I met up with a couple of the ‘new guys’ at Newtown Creek Alliance, who were hired after I headed out of New York to Pittsburgh. Hart and Gus, they were named. Nice guys, very young. We were going to take a walk for a couple of hours along the Creek, but first up I wanted to get a look at the new Hunters Point Boat House.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was an unnecessarily contentious project, I’d mention, with a lot of Queens, and waterfront, politics involved. Newtown Creek Alliance teamed up with the Hunters Point Park Conservancy for a bid, which ended up succeeding, to run this space. Another group, whom I was quite friendly with, had been attempting to gain control of this spot for a long while and NCA’s decision to gain the space put me in a tight spot.
At the time, I was on the board of NCA, but was also quite intimate with the strategies of the other group. Conflict of interest? Yessir.
I followed the practice of the community boards regarding such conflicts, which is ‘disclose, discuss, don’t vote.’ Thereby I had a conversation with each and everyone involved in the process, explained my conflict of interest, and let them know that when this topic came up I’d leave the room. This was uncomfortable for all involved, but that’s officially the ‘right thing’ to do from a ‘Robert’s Rules of Order’ POV.
I’m sure that some members of that other group, whose goals and programming are both worthy and admirable, are likely reading this. It would be appreciated if mention of this situation didn’t result in a resumption of anonymized trolling, across the internet and wherever I might post a photo or a comment.
Again.
If ‘you’ are reading this, yeah, I know that it was you. I can tell, as anonymizer sites can’t disguise that deadly skill you have behind the keyboard when writing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As part of a fairly recent buildout, at what used to the Budweiser distributorship and Daily News Printing Plant property in Hunters Point, which was later used as a hub by the ‘God’s Love We Deliver’ outfit, is now a luxury condo building, with a waterfront area called ‘Brewer’s Park.’ It’s the standard concrete with planters design you see all across the modern waterfronts of NYC.
Used to have to crash through bushes and climb fences in this area…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Pulaski Bridge is backed up by one of the new and truly massive structures rising along Borden Avenue.
Remember – years ago – when I told you that the NYC Dept. of City Planning had begun using the term ‘Borden Avenue Corridor’? Whenever City Planning starts using the term ‘corridor,’ you should begin to worry about what’s coming next. When I moved away, they were just starting to float the term ‘Northern Blvd. Corridor,’ regarding the stretch between Woodside and Queens Plaza.
My understanding is that the large structure pictured above is some sort of theatrical production facility, with large sound stages contained within. For reference, this building sits in the former footprint of Fresh Direct.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I couldn’t help but visit the LIRR Wheelspur Yard since I was in the neighborhood, here in DUPBO (Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp).
The homeless colony under the bridge has now taken the form of parked ‘RV’s’ which are permanently sitting there. A little wrinkle of NYC’s parking laws is that if your vehicle has commercial plates (RV’s are classified as trucks or buses, so commercial plates) you can park indefinitely in an ‘M1’ manufacturing zone. Zero enforcement. There are thereby colonies of RV’s all around the Creeklands, which is something that really got started during the COVID lockdowns.
Unless you’ve pissed off Bob Holden or Julie Won or Lincoln Restler, odds are you’ll never see a cop writing a parking ticket around the creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A last stop in DUPBO involved a portrait shot of an old friend, the LIRR engine that’s always running in case of an emergency at the nearby Sunnyside Yards or along the LIRR Main Line. If a train breaks down, this unit will go take over and move the affected train set to a side tracks so as not to block Sunnyside Yards Harold Interlocking – the busiest train junction in the United States.
Back tomorrow with more.
“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.
Like every other bit of wind blown trash…
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After transmuting from upstate to midtown Manhattan via the MTA’s Metro North operation, your humble narrator then negotiated his way to the 42nd street 7 Line station.
Now, you may be wondering: Hey Mitch, what with that broken ankle PTSD that pops up when you’re descending steps, that you are constantly mentioning and complaining about, how was it negotiating the subway system with all of those flights of stairs?
The answer is ‘wasn’t all that simple.’ I was the slow moving old guy on the stairs, the one whose hand was floating a half inch over the bannister and carefully working his way down at his own speed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The PTSD mishegoss is retreating, due to all of the exposure I’ve been inflicting on myself back in Pittsburgh with its ‘City Steps.’ Saying all that, it’s still there, and it sucks. There’s a background ‘gotta be careful here’ thought pattern as I approach the top of a flight of stairs, but it’s almost always the initial ‘top’ of the steps where my brain starts firing bolts of panic. Badly broke my ankle on a set of steps at home, of all places, and ever since this has been a bit of a ‘thing’ for me whenever I’m confronted with stairs. Bah!
At any rate, the 7 carried me where I was going in air conditioned comfort. It was going to be a super hot and humid day, weather wise. In fact, the rest of my time in NYC was going to be defined by ‘swamp ass’ humidity and high temperatures.
My grandmother always used to tell me that we were put of this earth to suffer.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hunters Point, in Queens’ Long Island City. I sort of expected some thunder or something when I stepped onto the sidewalk, but it was actually sort of anti climactic. This is one of the places I was thinking about while sitting in that wheelchair at the end of last year.
I had arranged with my pals at Newtown Creek Alliance to meet up with a couple of the ‘new guys,’ and take a walk with them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Long Island Railroad’s Hunters Point yard has been getting upgraded with a flood wall while I was gone. With the alterations to this spot they’ve operated out of since 1868, this wall would count as version 10 of the station, in my eyes. Once upon a time, there was a giant steel and glass train station here which fed into a ferry terminal, a structure reminiscent of the sort of station sheds you see in Europe. There was a railroad turntable… they had all the toys. Nowadays, MTA is trying to figure out the finances for decking this rail yard over so that yet another condo tower can be built on top of it.
Regarding the title of today’s post, it’s a part of my ‘bluster’ from the Newtown Creek years. When interviewed by press people and asked about how I found myself studying the creek, I’d offer: Desolate, disabused, discarded… soon, like every other piece of wind blown trash in NYC, I ended up at the Newtown Creek. I’d often get a raised eyebrow from any politicians in the room when saying this phrase.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Inhuman. That’s what I always say to myself when I see these sorts of structures. Anti-democratic, as well. I don’t mean the political party.
The very nature of this sort of residential setup divides people into ‘haves’ and ‘have not’s.’ Twenty to thirty years in the future will prove me out on the consequences of this development philosophy. Same thing applies to Manhattan’s Abomination Hudson Yards. Bah!
It was already quite warm and humid out. Luckily, before leaving Cold Spring upstate, I ate a very solid breakfast and inhaled about a gallon of coffee and water. The ankle was a bit ornery from the efforts of the prior day, but holding up to the mission. No pain, at all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally. It had been nine months almost to the day since I tumbled down a set of steps in my house in Pittsburgh, busted my ankle and also dislocated my left foot.
Hospitalization, surgery, two months in a wheelchair, endless months of physical therapy and omnipresent pain, months and months of walking up and down hills in Pittsburgh to get my strength back… and there it was: Newtown Creek sitting right in front of me.
Tingles, I tell you, I felt tingles. The ankle story was actually ending. I had finally made it through this crucible.
Truth be told, a clap of thunder would really have been appreciated as I approached her, but that’s just me wishing for theatrics.
Back 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.
Omphalos
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The first day of my recent visit ‘back to the old neighborhood,’ as detailed in posts last week, ended with a Metro North trip up to NYS’s community of Cold Spring, right across the Hudson River from Storm King Mountain and West Point. I stayed the night with one of my oldest friends, and after quaffing a heavy breakfast in the town, your humble narrator was once again on the move.
The evening before, I grew so tired that I was becoming incoherent, it was a bit like being drunk. When I was shown the bedding upon which I’d be sleeping, an immediate loss of consciousness occurred. I’d been on the go for something like twenty straight hours at that point.
Pictured above is a Metro North unit moving away from the city.
What? I’ve always passed the time when commuting by shooting trains.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a few minutes, the Manhattan bound train arrived, right on schedule. It would take a little over an hour to get into town. In accordance with my advance plans, the underclothing worn the day before was thrown in the garbage (I packed a series of ‘end of life’ garments to wear which would have shortly ended up being used as cleaning rags back home). Home base would be established this evening, for the next couple of days at least, in Queens’ Middle Village. There I’d be able to dismantle my pack a bit and leave some stuff behind, but at this moment I still needed to carry everything everywhere. Bah!
I settled into a seat on the water side of the train. A camera gizmo was affixed to one of the lenses, a silicone ‘baffle’ shroud which promised to block window reflections. It actually worked as described, but was a fairly clumsy thing to handle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
MTA has a repair and maintenance facility along the tracks up here, which our train hurtled through. I was using my usual camera formula for this sort of circumstance – setting the thing to aperture and ISO sensitivities which are normally used in low light situations, while setting the shutter speed to an insanely quick exposure speed in the realm of 1/6400th or 1/8000th of a second in order to ‘freeze’ the image.
In between shooting, I roamed around inside my camera bag, ensuring that everything has survived the trip and yesterday’s efforts. Double checking things is almost an ADD issue for me, but it insures that I don’t lose track of or damage important – or expensive – things.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After passing by the Tappan Zee Bridge on the Hudson, the whole ‘shoot out the windows’ setup was disassembled, and a wide angle 16mm lens was affixed for the arrival at Grand Central Terminal.
The next stop after getting to Manhattan would be the 7 train, and then I was heading out to Hunters Point in LIC, to meet up with a couple of the new employees at Newtown Creek Alliance who were hired after I debarked NYC for Pittsburgh. They had a couple of new things to show me, and they also had never experienced the ‘Mitch Waxman at Newtown Creek thing.’
My beloved creek…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I always experience a rush when entering the main chamber at Grand Central. Back in art school, during the 1980’s, I had a drawing class proctored by a guy named John Ruggiero which met here. Back then, Grand Central was a de facto homeless shelter, and the mission for the class was more or less visual journalism. Approach somebody, find out a little bit, ask if you can draw them. About half of the time, they’d say yes in exchange for a bagel and coffee. Almost 40 years later, and where am I and what am I doing most of the time – but with a camera instead of a drawing pad? Hmm.
Man, I just kept on getting reminded of my past on this trip. Everywhere I went… stories.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I decided to get to the 7 via the long way, by walking outside the building and circling towards the station via 42nd street. When people in Pittsburgh ask me what NYC is like, I usually say ‘it smells like college.’
What I mean is that the ubiquitous skunk of Marijuana is absolutely omnipresent in midtown Manhattan since legalization. Wow. Used to be that you had to walk a few blocks east to avoid the cops while partaking.
I’m all for the local and national end of prohibition, incidentally. Prohibition didn’t work out for alcohol, won’t ever work for drugs and we have the entire 20th century to look for proof of that. If there’s demand for anything, sellers will emerge to profit from it. A market arises, and you can’t beat a market. Best bet thereby is legalization, and high tax, just like alcohol and tobacco. I have spoken.
Back tomorrow with more.
“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.
Next stop, Willoughby
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally, I had made it to Grand Central Terminal in midtown Manhattan.
Planes, automobiles, ferries, subways, and now trains. It had been a busy day for me since waking up at one in the morning back in Pittsburgh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One entered Grand Central, which is always a rush, and proceeded to the tickets counter to purchase a fare card for a Cold Spring bound Metro North train. The wide angle 16mm lens was still affixed to the camera.
Luckily, I didn’t have long to wait as far as boarding the train, and clicked out a few photos while crossing the great lobby.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My energy was really starting to lag. The lifestyle I’m living in Pittsburgh these days is built around ‘early to rise and early to bed’ logic. Most nights I’m snoring by 11 p.m., and am awake again by 6 a.m. My night owl ways, as lived back in NYC, don’t fit in with the rhythm of life in Pittsburgh.
Luckily, the train was beginning boarding, so I just needed to find a seat and then relax for a little over an hour until reaching my destination.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I made it, and settled into a seat. I was trying out a $15 camera gizmo on the way up north, a large silicone lens baffle which promised to cancel out window reflections when used properly.
The thing worked, sort of, but it wasn’t any sort of major improvement over my home made baffles made from the kind of foam you stuff in around a window based air conditioner. It was only $15, though.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The ride north was uneventful, except for when that wagyu burger from the Staten Island Ferry Terminal produced a massively sulfurous fart, which emerged unbidden into the train car. Sorry, everyone.
I texted my buddy, letting him know I was heading towards him.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The LIC/North Brooklyn real estate frenzy is happening in the South Bronx too. I know… as a child you said to your parents ‘mommy, I want to live in the South Bronx, please.’ Sigh…
Back next week from a visit to the greatest city in the history of mankind.
“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.
Surf and turf
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My Pal Val and I met up, after I flew in from Pittsburgh. She picked me up at LaGuardia airport, and we rode on the NYC Ferry from Astoria to Manhattan’s Pier 11. We then marched over to the Staten Island Ferry and were soon on… Staten Island… now you’re caught up.
I was absolutely famished, with the last caloric installation having occurred some 400 miles west of NYC, in Pittsburgh at about two in the morning. There’s only so far that a homemade egg sandwich is going to carry you, so we decided to grab some eats while in St. George.
That’s the predicate of how I ended up ordering a $20 Wagyu Beef burger at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. It was a good burger, but no burger is worth $20 except to a weary traveler in need of a hot shot of fat and protein to fill his empty fuel tank.
Good news about this spot were the views, which were spectacular.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was nice seeing the familiar ‘color way’ heraldries of NYC’s tug fleets again. Val and I finished our luncheon, and headed back into the terminal to catch a big orange boat back to Manhattan. Along the way, we spotted multiple tugs waiting their turn at dock.
My day was at roughly at the median point, and after landing in Manhattan, Val and I would be splitting up. She needed to catch a ferry back to Astoria to fetch her car, and I would be plunging right up the middle of Manhattan Island on the subway towards Midtown.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A couple of last shots of the maritime world were gathered, and I adjusted the intricate web of straps arranged about the torso. I was carrying a week’s worth of clothes in addition to my camera bag, and the camera itself was in my hand. My usual formula for this sort of ‘heavy carry’ looks like an old timey soldier’s setup – the camera and the clothes bag straps arranged in an X shape across my chest, with the knapsack/camera bag shoulder straps locking the two other straps into place while I was moving about.
We arrived back on Manhattan Island, and Val and I bid each other adieu.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I didn’t necessarily miss the subway all these months, and my only thoughts about the subject while sitting in that wheelchair were ‘glad I don’t have to deal with the subway right now.’
One decided to get off the Subway at Herald Square, and walk from 34th to 42nd in order to get to Grand Central Terminal. At least it used to be a terminal, before the LIRR opened up down below.
Does that reclassify the place as a station/terminal now? The terms are specific. For most of its existence, the last stop on Metro North (a public passenger service, nationalized from private rail companies by the noted Liberal and Socialist President Richard Nixon) was here, hence terminal.
Saying that, 7 train subway service has been passing through here for quite a long stretch, but that didn’t make it a ‘station.’ It’s all very confusing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Leaving ‘the system,’ I stepped back into the sunlight after riding the R to the 34th street hellmont, which is just a slight bit better experience than the one at 42nd street. I had swapped lenses while on the subway, and reentered the street level milieu with a 16mm wide angle prime on the camera. I wanted to ‘take it all in.’
The plan from this point involved getting to Grand Central and catching a Metro North train up to my buddy’s house in Cold Spring, upstate. That’s where I’d be spending the night, and given that I’d been awake for something like fourteen hours at this point, I was growing pretty fatigued.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My toes were pointed in the correct direction, and thereby I followed them. Grand Central was a 15-20 minute walk away (I’m moving a LOT slower than I used to, although the ankle was not at all getting in my way, my legs are still somewhat atrophied from the long recovery period) and I was intent on getting upstate and out of the City as quickly as possible.
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.
The Newtown Pentacle 