Posts Tagged ‘Pickman’
Up, down, all around
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My plan for a ‘long walk’ on this particular day was to force myself into a state of continuous motion for around four hours, so after riding the T from the suburb of Dormont and into the City of Pittsburgh, a humble narrator started kicking his feet around.
My original route was altered by construction on the T which saw it not stopping where I had intended to go, but who cares about that? I soon found myself at a municipal staircase leading up the ‘Boulevard of the Allies,’ which in turn would lead me to a crossing of the Monongahela River over the Liberty Bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was only the second time I’ve walked this path, one which I declare as being pretty cool. A recent addition to my kit has been a fishing hat that I bought at Costco for $12. The burning thermonuclear eye of god itself is a baleful entity here in the Pittsburgh area, and on relatively clear summer days it’s a malignant force. I needed something with a bit more cover than a baseball cap, and found my personal desires answered at a warehouse store found, in a shopping mall, that sits on land that used to be occupied by what once was the nation’s largest steel mill. I never felt more American.
It’s funny. My entire life has been defined by the NYC ‘thing’ where you’ve got a knapsack with you when you leave the house in the morning, which contains every thing in it you’re going to need until returning home at night. I’m still adjusting to having a car to stuff gear into, and that it’s ok to bring an extra heavy tripod with me because why not? The NYC experience saw me working feverishly to shave a half pound, or even a few ounces, of weight out of my camera bag, and carefully considering putting one lens or another into my camera bag based on how much the thing weighs rather than what it does.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m actually pretty happy with the shot above, captured from the Liberty Bridge. Fairly frustrated was a humble narrator, however, as everywhere that one scuttled to in search of a neat freight rail photo opportunity was utterly empty of such traffic. As is always the case, when I’d walk away from the POV spot, you’d hear a train horn blowing and feel the rumble of it passing. Uggh. Frustrating.
One scuttled about for a while, pushing forward, and eventually – after the four hours of forced marching were over – headed back to the T and home to Dormont about 6 miles south of this spot and on the other side of a mountain. 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.
An examination is inherently a recrimination
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another Doctor’s appointment found me parking the Mobile Oppression Platform on the roof of the hospital’s lot, where some pretty keen views of Pittsburgh were on offer. The Yinzers, which is what the Pittsburgh people call themselves, seem duty bound to park in the first available spot they see, and nearby an entrance or exit. Me? I go where it’s less crowded, and where you might be able to see something.
Thereby I always seem to park on the roof deck of these multi story parking facilities. Additionally, the odds of having my car damaged by somebody who isn’t paying attention, while they’re negotiating the narrow confines of the garage, is lessened in these less populated areas. I don’t mind walking a few hundred feet or taking a flight of stairs, in fact I prefer it.
The shot above is looking more or less south.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking more or less eastwards, over the historic housing stock at the edge of an area called ‘The Mexican War Streets,’ part of the larger ‘North Side,’ and towards the Heinz Lofts/Factory buildings. I’m told this section can get a little dicey at times, but I don’t have any personal experience to damn or bless that bit of transmitted knowledge. There’s a few places which I’m intrigued by that the locals have told me are fairly dangerous. I, on the other hand, grew up in 1980’s NYC, so… my perceptions of ‘dicey’ use a different rubric for ‘stranger danger’ than the one most have.
I was visiting a diagnostic lab at the hospital this time around, and getting ultrasounded. My new Doctor is pretty thorough, and the various concerns he has for me have manifested as a series of somewhat esoteric probings and banal violations of personal dignity, but I’m committed to the ‘program’ he’s got me on so there you go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After having wiped the lubricant goo from the ultrasound off and then getting dressed again, I negotiated the maze of hallways within the hospital and then found myself back at the car.
What to do, what to do? Get a shot of the Heinz campus, obviously.
This zone of Pittsburgh is quite interesting, by the way.
“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.
cryptical marginalia
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
During my waning hours in Astoria in the last week of November, time to pursue any activity, other than facilitating the move to Pittsburgh, just ran out. There was so much to do.
I’d find myself waving the camera about occasionally, but a deadline was approaching, one which once reached would find me driving Our Lady of the Pentacle and a car load of “essentials” out to Western Pennsylvania on November 30th, so we could take possession of our new space on December 1st.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
By the 24th and 25th of November, we had packed up all of our dinner plates as well as the pots and pans. That meant that if we wanted to eat, we had to either do so while eating out of take away containers while sitting on foldable camping chairs amongst the boxes, or head out for a restaurant meal. “Comfort” was a thing of the past at this point.
Me? I was just hoping that NYC didn’t find a way to kill me before this plan finished playing out. NYC is a malefic motherfucker, has an active intelligence, and she offers a cruel sense of humor. Thereby, every step taken and street crossing attempted involved a great deal of care.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Convenience, and the easy availability of alcoholic beverages and cheeseburgers, made my favorite little Astoria bar – Doyle’s Corner, found at the Times Square of Astoria at 42nd and Broadway – the obvious choice for dinner and drinks.
It was chilly, and rainy, that last week – but despite all that we did the outdoor dining thing with NYC’s sense of ironic consequence in mind. In the weeks since we’ve relocated to Pittsburgh, news has filtered back to us of friends (many of whom still mask, and are super careful) who have regardless been swept up in the latest wave of COVID infection. Apparently, we got out just in time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Right about this time is when the Innovation Queens project began rattling forward towards its inevitable approval. This last true neighborhood in Queens is about to be decimated by the Real Estate people. I’m not going to be returning to NYC for a long, long time. That’s my plan, at least. I think that when and if I return in a couple of years, Astoria will look like Williamsburg or Long Island City.
Where I’m living now in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, which is where this post is being written, is a place where it’s dark and quiet at night. That’s a half hour away from the titular center of one of the great American cities.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
No longer do I have thousands of vehicles a day passing under my windows while drivers angrily steady honk their horns. I haven’t witnessed drunks having a knife fight under my bedroom window, yet, either. There have been no observances of fart cars.
Early explorations of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area have shown me that there’s lots of “wrong” nearby, I should mention. Dire poverty, hopelessness, addiction – all that is here. So’s post industrial environmental degradation. Thing is – the volume is turned down considerably.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So ended the Queens part of my life. I’ve got a Brooklyn part, and a Manhattan part too. Goodbye. The cover is closed on this installment of the story, and I’m now living in Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.
You’re going to be seeing a few “best of 2022” posts over the next few days, and Pittsburgh oriented posts will be beginning in the new year.
“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.
worthy gentleman
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wednesday the 23rd of November, but there was going to be no Turkey served at HQ in Astoria the following day. Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself had arrived at “prime time” in terms of our big plan to escape New York. After packing up boxes all day, and fine tuning the next stages of the effort, a humble narrator decided to head out onto the porch with the camera and capture the milieu one last time after pronouncing himself “done for the day.”
The shot above is a bit of an experiment. I set the camera up to do a time lapse, cracking out a two second exposure every five seconds. Normal procedure for this sort of thing is to marry all the individual photos up as frames in a video file. Instead, I decided to combine 81 individual shots into one photo stacked image. Clicking on it will take you to Flickr, where a higher resolution file awaits that you can zoom in on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’d always been hesitant to say exactly which corner in Astoria I lived on, always referring to it as “Broadway in the 40’s.” Now that I’m safely ensconced on the side of a mountain of coal in Pennsylvania… it was 44th street and Broadway, right over Gino’s Pizza. For a dozen years, this was the view from HQ – the second floor perch where I took my calls and wrote a lot of what you’ve read here at Newtown Pentacle.
Here’s a panorama. The large brick building, which I’m positive will be sold, demolished, and replaced by a mirror glass rhombus shaped condominium within the next few years, is the Chian Federation. The building was originally built by the Long Island City Turn Verein, a German fraternal club that is where a lot of its intriguing iconography comes from. These days, there’s a church which operates out of the place on Sundays, but when I first moved into this particular apartment, the Chians would set up a boxing ring inside the big room and amateur tournaments would be held there, exhibiting local pugilists.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve known four distinct owners of that Bodega pictured above, which has been a frequent photographic subject for me on cold and rainy nights over the years. The 44th street apartment’s porch had a wooden pergola structure on it, which provided me with cover during rain events to set up a tripod and zoom in from a dry place. That porch, I tell’s ya, was a lifeline during COVID. Outdoor space, that’s what we had.
This shot is also a photo stacked usage of a time lapse sequence.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My next door neighbor was an older woman with a terrible spinal condition that forces her to live life bent over at the waist, so she’s always looking straight down at her feet. This neighbor occupies three floors of a building on Broadway all by herself, along with an unguessable number of cats. We never had much interaction with her, except for hearing her cry and wail every morning from the other side of the bathroom wall. One of the other walls we shared with her was always “wet” and bulged inwards. “Why” is a question which I’ll never have – nor do I want – an answer to.
This shot looks westwards at the backyards behind the shops on Broadway in Astoria, past the Mexican whore house which pretends to be a bar and towards an Albanian Mafia bar. The lit up orange structure is the smokehouse of the Muncan delicatessen, and both my dearly departed doggie Zuzu and I would station ourselves in the path of the prevailing breeze whenever Muncan opened the flue on that thing. The bacon wind was blowing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Social animal that I am, a point was always made of at least meeting the neighbors. One of the mistakes you can make in NYC is “cocooning” and locking yourself away in the apartment after work. You have to talk to people, and let them talk to you, if you want a community. You really, really want to know at least some of your neighbors.
I’ll miss the crew along Broadway. Sean the Carpenter, John the Junkie, Charlie from the Limo place, Jose Bagels, Crazy Johnnie and his brother AntKnee, the Burrachos, Leo the Pizza guy, the lot of them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One last stacked image of the Bodega. It’s actually from a bit earlier in the evening, obviously. So, the question is: Will I miss all this?
The answer is, actually, “no.” I’ve had my fill, it’s someone else’s turn to experience this place and these things.
“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.
things whispered
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So… this post is the one which I have been dreading, since it means that it’s all really done now. The last Newtown Creek Alliance meeting I would be attending at 520 Kingsland Avenue, situated amongst the concrete devastations of Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section, is when I shot these photos. This is an area one such as myself refers to as “DUGABO.”
There’s the Sewer Plant in Greenpoint, pictured above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was the evening of Tuesday the 22nd of November, the same day as the last NYC Ferry ride and photo session on the East River which has been discussed in prior posts this week. My Pal Val had dropped me off in Astoria after the boat, whereupon I then jumped into my own automobile, and zipped off to Greenpoint.
I’m really enjoying this whole mobility thing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
NCA had a board meeting, and we talked about several items and points of NCA business and policy, and at the end I submitted my resignation.
And that’s how the whole Newtown Creek thing ends. For now.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After the meeting ended, I dropped one friend off at the G train, and then took two others back with me to Queens and dropped them off. Upon returning to Astoria, I found a parking spot directly across the street from my house – which alternate side parking rules wouldn’t affect for two whole days – and the third day was Thanksgiving! I thereby exclaimed “ZaZa!”
Everything was coming up Mitchhouse.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back at HQ, we packed and packed. We edited down our possessions and then discarded more. We were within a few days of our escape plan finally playing out.
But there was still so much to do…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We made it, in the end, but this was a mountain that was moved.
Things wouldn’t be approaching “settled down” for a couple of weeks, though, and a humble narrator in particular still had a lot of “have-to’s” and “necessary’s” to handle. I’d be back and forth to Pittsburgh twice, for a start…
More next week.
“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 