Posts Tagged ‘Pickman’
opiate peace
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, the NYC Ferry has started a new service, one that starts on… Staten Island… and then proceeds up the Hudson River to midtown. Now… why on earth would you introduce a paid service that’s meant to compete with the free one?
Answer is that the free one goes to lower Manhattan, leaving you nearby the Battery and Wall Street, whereas the new paid service takes you to the high west 30’s along the west side of the City.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The new boat route really allows the ferry captains to open up the throttle, I would mention, and the boat is bouncing along on the waves. It leaves from St. George, makes a stop nearby Battery Park City at Vesey Street, then heads all the way up to west 39th street.
Talking to people from Staten Island riding the thing revealed that they didn’t mind paying for it, given that using the Staten Island Ferry to get to Manhattan would see them paying a subway fare. This way, they get to be on the water the whole way.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The burning thermonuclear eye of god itself was dipping down behind New Jersey as I was riding the ferry, and there’s a Coast Guard rule that demands that anyone with a camera has to take a picture of the Statue of Liberty under such circumstance, so…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I had a meeting which I was meant to call in to just as the moon began to manifest. Something Newtown Creek related, which is probably quite a surprise, huh?
I am very, very tired of going to meetings.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve always found the Hudson River pretty boring, truth be told. You’ve got three or four nice shots along the way, but two of them have been absolutely ruined by catastrophic architectural decisions.
I don’t actually mind those two cantilevered buildings, as a note.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As soon as I hit land, I called into my meeting, which I attended via my headphones while still shooting.
Back next week with more wonders, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“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.
ugly trifles
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Nothing matters. Nobody cares.
One has been keeping an eye on the collapsing bulkheads of Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kill tributary along 29th street in LIC for a while now. We’ve activated the politicians and officialdom. Right now, they’re arguing over which agency is at fault, and the land continues to crumble into the water and undermine the roadway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been wondering, what if I was to buy a few cans of green paint and fake a bike lane here? That would get some action out of the powers that be, I imagine. Bike lane, after all…
Is there some way to spin a collapsing street as racist, or phobic about sexual orientations?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There was something alive in that hole, incidentally. It was hissing and growling at me while I was shooting these. No, really.
Probably a mama raccoon or something, or at least I hope that’s what it was.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s all so god damned depressing. This City has a budget larger than the GDP of most nation states, and NY State’s annual budget is competitive with those of countries with significant military footprints. With all that cash flying around, they can’t even swing putting out a few bollards and some caution tape of the road side of this.
Nothing. Matters. Nobody. Cares.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Bah. One continued one with his long walk along a short creek. I headed over to Hunters Point Avenue and its eponymous bridge.
I was operating the camera entirely handheld, incidentally, as I didn’t want to slow myself down while “futzing” about with gear.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At least my beloved little tree of paradise still stands, and continues to stretch towards the sky from under a factory wall.
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.
crystal lakelet
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Scuttling along the Schuylkill River trail in Philadelphia, my extensive shot list included the two bridges pictured above. The smaller one, which passes under the larger specimen, is called the West River Drive Bridge, and the larger one above is the Spring Garden Bridge.
I found this section, which adjoins the Philadelphia Museum of Art, quite visually intriguing. It might have been the hunger and thirst, however. I had left HQ in Astoria before dark, boarded an Amtrak and travelled to Philadelphia where I encountered a quite warm morning, and started getting busy by about 8 a.m. The last drops of my Gatorade bottle were swallowed by 10.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Regardless, a fellow suffers for his art. This heavily oxidized span over the Schuylkill River is – as mentioned above – the West River Drive Bridge and it’s one year older than I am, having been built in 1966. West River Drive has subsequently been renamed as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive but the bridge is still identified by its original name.
The West River Drive Bridge is 701.1 feet long, and 36.1 feet wide, constructed of steel girder and concrete, and it’s supported by two piers. It carries local traffic.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Above it is the Spring Garden Street Bridge, which carries highway bound traffic over first railroad tracks, then the Schuylkill River, and then Schuylkill Expressway. This is the 4th bridge to stand at this spot, with the first one being an all wooden 1812 giant called “The Colossus” which burned away in 1838.
I found the interplay between the two structures – as mentioned above – very interesting visually.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the things which caught my eye was the presence of big chunks of lumber and driftwood that had managed to jam themselves into the arrangement. This was still a part of the Philadelphia section of Schuylkill River Trail, incidentally. The River itself flows all the way down from Pottsville in the north, eventually joining into the Delaware River to the south. The trail, apparently, will one day stretch from the Delaware River in Philadelphia to Pottsville.
I was continually reminded of the central role that Philadelphia played in the formation of this country, from a civil engineering point of view, on this walk. Of course, when the Erie Canal opened in 1817, the East Coast crown of mercantile and financial dominance was seized by NYC and the slow decline in “importance” of both Boston and Philadelphia began. This is something that didn’t really become apparent until the decades after the Civil War, of course. If you were taking bets in 1800 on which one of the three would end up becoming the dominar “best in class” on the East Coast, NYC would have been a long shot.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
They really must get some crazy floods moving through here during storms and springtime thaws to deposit huge logs like those onto the bridges. Wow.
My ambitious shot list began to look more and more impossible by this particular moment, and all I could think about was finding a place to sit down for an hour and eat a meal while drinking gallons of water.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Saying that, the shot list had one more Schuylkill River destination on it – the Fairmount Water Works – that I needed to handle. They’ve got a 19th century dam/fish ladder here, and there was no damn way I’d miss that, lords and ladies.
More next week, from Philadelphia, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“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.
longer known
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One enjoyed a momentary sit down for a couple of minutes after the CSX train passed me by, along the Schuylkill River Trail in Philadelphia. I guess that I’m an Internet troll, as this photo was captured from under a bridge…
The point of view is looking (presumptively) south at the path we’ve explored over the last few posts, with the JFK Blvd. bridge, the Market Street Bridge, and a bit of the Walnut Street Bridge peeking through.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The stout masonry bridge which I was taking five under is a railroad bridge, which I understand to be called the SEPTA Schuylkill River Bridge. It carries four sets of tracks into 30th street Station. SEPTA is Philly’s MTA – the South Eastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. The bridge, I’m told, is 385 feet long and 125 feet wide.
Apparently, this span is part of something called the “Center City Commuter Connection.” The history of this bridge is somewhat obscured by several urban renewal projects, but I’ve found a source or two that dates the structure to July of 1903.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Heading north (presumptively) and the sky began to noticeably darken while the wind was picking up speed. Whereas there had been occasional gusts all morning, the wind had now grown steady and in some moments – quite blustery. The forecast had indicated rain for later in the day, but things began to look dire a bit earlier than the prediction indicated.
This section of the Schuylkill River is a bit wider than the one which I had been walking along all morning. It had to be “lunchtime” by now, and a humble narrator had long ago consumed any liquids purchased at 7:30 a.m. when I had arrived in Philadelphia.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Vine Street Expressway Bridge, pictured above. Built in 1959, and rehabilitated in 1989, Vine Street carries Interstate 676/US 30. It’s fairly huge, with a total length of 887.2 feet and a width of 83 feet. There are three steel spans which are supported by 2 piers.
Highway traffic is fed onto the Schuylkill Expressway (I-76), and onto local streets at JFK Boulevard at 30th street. It carries about 60,000 vehicle trips annually.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As far as that ambitious shot list I had scribbled down, I was about an hour behind my extremely optimistic schedule at this point. I was also extremely thirsty and getting quite peckish for a bit of luncheon. Luckily, I always have a pack of gum with me. The gum helped the “spit start flowing” and the peppermint flavoring of the stuff ameliorated the desire for sustenance.
Saying that, I had accomplished most of the Schuylkill section of my list, but I wasn’t done yet. I happened upon another opportune spot to have a quick sit down as I continued heading north.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While sitting down, I soon realized that this seemed to be one of those urban areas where sensitive young men meet to discuss art and jazz with each other, in a somewhat private setting, not unlike the rambles section of Central Park. Being an insensitive old man, I got back to walking along the waterfront. To each his own I always opine. Mazel tov.
North, ever north (I think) scuttled a humble narrator through the city of Brotherly Love, and I now understood why they call it that.
“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.
with onyx
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Philadelphia’s Market Street Bridge, in its modern or fifth incarnation, is pictured above. Leading directly to 30th Street Station, Market Street bridge was erected in 1932. It sports ornate masonry along its roadway, including four “Pennsy” eagle statues salvaged from New York City’s original Penn Station. This November of 2021 post describing a previous visit to Philly – “Menacing Dreams” – shows what the scene looks like from above, rather than below, here on the Schuylkill River Trail.
The history associated with this crossing is fairly ancient for the United States, and includes a ferry which crossed the River as early as 1673.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned, the pathway I was using here in Philadelphia – the Schuylkill River Trail – was very, very well used by the locals. As always seems to be the case with me these days, when people see the camera on the tripod they want to come over and talk cameras with me. Tell me what camera they have, or want, or ask about where they might sell some old equipment which they inherited from a dead relative. Find out what I think about the Sony vs. Canon ecosystems…
I try to be polite, but… c’mon… I’m obviously, and literally, focused in on what I’m doing… sheesh.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To my understanding, there’s a subway tunnel under the water here leading into 30th Street Station’s innards. If I’m reading things correctly, it’s in between the John F. Kennedy Boulevard Bridge (left) and Market Street Bridge (right). Called the Market Frankfort Line Tunnel, it carries local subway and streetcar traffic of Philly’s SEPTA and PATCO transit operations into the intermodal sections of the rail facility. Grain of salt on the location, btw, as mentioned – I’m a tourist here, not an expert.
Of course, when the shutter was open for the shot above… that’s when I heard the jingle jangle of an approaching railroad train behind me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I had to quickly “rekajigger” the camera from “dreamy landscape” to fast motion capture modality, but managed to do so before the freight train got to me. It was a CSX freight unit.
Funnily enough, since the camera was firmly affixed to the tripod and that fence in the shot above was at least five feet high, I just hoisted the thing above my head with the swing out screen pointing down. Clumsy, but effective. Click, click, click.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Conrail came into existence in 1976 at the behest of the Federal Government, which combined the bankrupt (private capital, publicly traded) but strategically and macro economically important holdings and routes of the Penn Central and Erie Lackawanna outfits (amongst others) under a single management team. Conrail became profitable by the middle 1980’s, and in the northeastern USA, two privately held companies – CSX and Norfolk Southern – ended up absorbing the Conrail property and stock (42% and 58%, respectively). Conrail is still around, and owns a significant amount of rail tracks which they perform “maintenance of way” work on.
CSX operates 21,000 miles of track all by itself. Its business ranges from Canada’s Ontario and Quebec, and all over the eastern coast of the United States – including servicing the Atlantic and Gulf coastal ports, as well as the Great Lakes, Mississippi River, and the St. Lawrence Seaway. CSX is what is referred to as a “Class 1 railway.” They do freight, not passenger. A Fortune 500 company, CSX’s total assets are worth (as of 2018) $12.25 Billion in Shareholder’s equity, and CSX has a portfolio of assets which is worth $36.729 Billion.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
CSX engine no. 104 was pulling this train along these tracks by the Schuylkill River. Built by General Electric Transportation Systems sometime between 1993 and 2004, the model GE AC4400CW’s manufactured during that interval generate 4,400 horsepower of motive force. A diesel electric locomotive, some 2,834 of them were produced for CSX and other freight operators including Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific, Canadian Pacific, Ferromex, and Cerrojón, and others.
Choo Choo! More tomorrow, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“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 