Posts Tagged ‘Pickman’
argued absence
Today’s post straddles the currently undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens at Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Standing astride Brooklyn and Queens, your humble narrator is endlessly fascinated by the machinery adorning a concrete plant. Passing through and upon the Grand Street Bridge, a pause for reflection of the East Branch of the Newtown Creek was enjoyed. I like to wander up to spots on the Creek these days and try to remember everything I know about it, as a sort of test. While there, I look for anomalous or malign indications of everything that there might be, which is buried down there.
I also try to figure out how many security cameras might be recording me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Paranoid tendencies are just one of the many flaws which I have been accused of displaying, but as I am the terrible sort of person whom you would avoid if you could, they remain one of my better traits. Funny thing is that there are those who hope for my destruction, but they display an alarming lack of competency. “Judge a man by the company he keeps” isn’t my rubric, I judge you by your enemies.
My enemies are generally clowns, so what does that say about me?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What is a man? What has he got? If not himself, then he has not? Thats what I think some song I once heard says.
In the case of this poor specimen, all I’ve got are a couple of spots on a superfund site in the middle of New York City where I can reliably expect to find and or produce Cormorants. Sometimes. Do you suppose that they’re the same Cormorants? Have they been following me around? I’m probably just being paranoid.
Its not like the government secretly records all my phone calls or anything.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? June 2013 Walking Tours-
The Poison Cauldron– Saturday, June 15, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, June 22, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
The Insalubrious Valley– Saturday, June 29, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
necrophagous feelers
Today’s post walks around in the dark.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you may remember, South Street Seaport and the surrounding area in Manhattan experienced a bit of trouble last year during the storm. What’s surprising is that so little of the area has recovered by now. I’m led to believe that electrical systems in particular still haven’t been restored, and based on the number of shuttered store fronts, inclination to accept this theorem is found.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few of the bars and restaurants are open, but the streets are dark and an area, which is observed normally as having a moderate pedestrian population moving about in the evenings, was a ghost town when transversed recently. Hopefully it was just the weather.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It is odd that basic services are taking so long to reassert, in this place so close to the center of political and corporatist power.
Heading up to the train and pondering this dilemma, one noted that the truly important things have been seen to with due alacrity by the powers that be, for ultimately- one must have an interesting project to mention at cocktail parties and fundraisers.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? June 2013 Walking Tours-
The Poison Cauldron– Saturday, June 15, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, June 22, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
The Insalubrious Valley– Saturday, June 29, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
tightly packed
Today’s post is a bit of vouyerism from under the FDR Drive.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pathologically early, your humble narrator is often observed loitering about in locations wherein a future appointment will take place. Menacing aspect and suspicious body language betray one such as myself as an odd but otherwise harmless outsider, rendering and relegating me down to background status. You stop noticing me, in my cloak of social invisibility.
Accordingly, I enjoy sneaking up on and photographing photographers these days.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When you’re in the spot that these guys are, you stop noticing everything but what you’re shooting. Gear, pose, background, settings, trying to squeeze every drop of light from the scene that you can, composition- all that. On top of that you’ve got the problems of corralling the group into the shot. No fun whatsoever, except if you’re just a few yards back and like shooting shoots.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The photographer was lucky, a good looking bunch of kids willing to play along and follow instructions is a godsend. Where he wasn’t lucky was that it was raining and misty, which reduces what you do with the flash a bit. It wasn’t this scene that really drew my attention though, not at first. I had noticed this bridal party, of course, when I arrived down at South Street Seaport for a boat tour, but what had originally drawn my eye wasn’t them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was this other bride, who seemed to be standing alone as her friends went to the limo. I was actually hoping that some sort of bride fight might break out, but no such luck.
Now that would have been some photo, two brides duking it out under the FDR drive.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? June 2013 Walking Tours-
The Poison Cauldron– Saturday, June 15, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, June 22, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
The Insalubrious Valley– Saturday, June 29, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
feverish digging
Today’s Maritime Sunday post, from Port Newark.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The 2013 Working Harbor Schedule is underway, and while attending one of Captain Doswell’s intriguing “Beyond Sandy” Hidden Harbor tours, the Elizabeth McAllister emerged from the rain and mist. The evening was distinguished by the difficult atmospheric conditions, which obliterated the lighting effects of the setting of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself in the western sky.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The weather was actually ridiculous, with heavy fog and rain lashing through it, accompanying unseasonably low temperatures. Hardship for land lubbers, that is, because NY Harbor keeps working no matter what nature throws at it. Sailors are used to this sort of thing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Elizabeth McAllister was launched the same yeur that I was, in 1967, but unlike me- she has changed her name a few times. The always brilliant tugboatinformation.com site has a great work up on her that details her birth, a 1988 calamity, and chronicles the tugs career.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The tug was headed over to the RORO cargo ship Freedom Ace to assist the larger vessel’s transit through the narrow Kill Van Kull. The Maritime Sunday shout out this week is sent to the cast and crew of Elizabeth McAllister, and mention should be made that if you too would like to see scenes like this one- get onboard with the Working Harbor Committee.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? June 2013 Walking Tours-
The Poison Cauldron– Saturday, June 15, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, June 22, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
The Insalubrious Valley– Saturday, June 29, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
Project Firebox 74
An ongoing catalog of New York’s endangered Fireboxes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Under the El on 31st street at 28th road in raven tressed Astoria, stands a firebox which has never long known quiet. It could tell stories, but they’d largely be in Greek.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? June 2013 Walking Tours-
The Poison Cauldron– Saturday, June 15, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, June 22, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
The Insalubrious Valley– Saturday, June 29, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
