Posts Tagged ‘Subway’
excitement and fatigue
In today’s post, what not to do on the Subway, a public service announcement.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To start, I’d like to remind you that time well spent and the daily round for old Mitch normally includes trips to sewer plants, waste transfer stations, and hanging around a certain superfund site which defines the currently undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens. I can describe the different smells of residual sewage material versus that of putrescent garbage in some detail, and will often stop short and sniff at the air, proclaiming “there’s something dead nearby.” Saying that, the most disgusting thing I encounter on a daily basis is actually an electrified Petri dish we call the Subway.
from nytimes.com
The team identified no known human pathogens and found that about 5 percent of the microbial species (a fifth of those identifiable) probably came from human skin — our heels, heads and forearms, mostly.
“Every time you step down, you pressurize the air that’s in your shoe,” Dr. Pace said. “You stomp down, you squirt out a little warm air, carrying foot microbiology.” This so-called convective plume radiates from some 1.6 billion riders annually and disperses throughout the subway system.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m sure that the system is cleaned as much as possible, and that the MTA folks do everything to the letter of the law. Theirs is a hopeless task, however, as the system is the focal point through which all of us must squeeze. We apes are a particularly disgusting lot, who often carry and consume foodstuffs down there, and riding along with us are the multitudinous pathogenic organisms which infect us. Urine, blood, and sputum adorn the platforms, and god itself only knows what might be festering in the rat blown darkness of the tunnels.
from nbcnews.com
Gerba found e-coli (a bacterium often responsible for food poisoning); MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a staph infection that’s resistant to most first-line antibiotics); and fecal matter on handrails. Fecal matter is on 50 percent of all handrails (people, it’s time to seriously wash your hands after using the bathroom). It’s not uncommon for handrails to have flu, staph bacteria, and respiratory and cold viruses, as well. Previous research in England found that people are more likely to get a cold from handrails than any other public surfaces.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sandals are, perhaps, the most illogical choice for footwear (IMHO) in the City of New York but I won’t go so far as to petition City Hall to ban them. My prejudice against this specie of shoe no doubt emanates from growing up in the glass strewn milieu of 1970’s Brooklyn, when smashing beer bottles against brick walls was all the rage. This fellow whom I noticed on the train recently, however, had apparently decided that even the open toed pseudo shoes were a bit too restraining for him. Folks, its bad enough we have to breathe the same air down there, exchanging our personal biomes via aerosol vectors, but… keep your damned shoes on when you’re riding the train. Bleh.
from myfoxny.com
Here are the numbers: in 2011, 46 track-cleaning positions were eliminated saving the MTA $3.9 million; 11 escalator cleaning positions were cut, saving $1 million; and 116 car cleaner positions got the ax, saving the agency $8.6 million.
probable escape
Golly gosh gee!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Greenpointers rejoice on August 19th, for the date brings an important anniversary to the ancient community. For most of its history, the old Dutch village relied on vehicular connections to nearby Williamsburg- or on ferries and other water borne craft- when happenstance demanded they leave its borders. Not so after August 19th, 1933.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Today is the anniversary, the 80th in fact, of the day that the G train was opened- specifically the stretch of the line which connected to Queens and headed up Manhattan Avenue toward Williamsburg and beyond (the beyond was staggered out over the course of the following year). Back then it was called the “GG IND Crosstown Line” and it remains an anachronism as the only subway line that doesn’t service Manhattan (along with a couple of shuttles and the Staten Island Railroad, but they don’t really count).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Given the chaotic and contentious situation wrought by damages from Hurricane Sandy and the concurrent schedule of repairs which have shut the line down on the weekends, it might be hard for Greenpointers to greet the line with happy salutation. Nevertheless, an appreciation of the old girl must nevertheless be offered at this- your Newtown Pentacle.
company graveyard
Home, home on the range, where the deer and the photographers play.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Great excitement abounds in a humble narrator due to the recent purchase of a new lens. The equipment in question is the Sigma 18-35 F 1.8 DS, which is magical for both its sharpness and ability to drink in light. The shot above was captured at 3 in the morning, for instance, while it was raining. Normally, this is an easy shot to pull off when the camera is on a tripod and I can leave the shutter open for a second and a half or so, but this one was shot handheld.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been the happy owner of one particularly good lens, manufactured by Canon, which the vast majority of shots that have run here in the last couple of years have been captured with. Problem is that it is a “daytime” lens as its widest aperture is f4. For those unfamiliar with the nitty gritty of photography, the f stop represents the size of the hole which the lens can make for light traveling to the sensor. Wider the aperture is the more light you get, but that comes with an increase of “depth of field” which renders the plane of focus very narrow. I can focus on your eyes at a wide aperture, but the tip of your nose may be blurry, for instance. Not so with this new sigma.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Accordingly, I’ve been making it a point of shooting everything I come across in the name of testing the new unit out, which has also coincided with an August resolution to try and spend a lot more time in Astoria than has been the case in recent months. Friends, group affiliations, and work take me to Brooklyn on a regular basis. Unfortunately, this means that I spend a lot of my time there, and do a lot of my shooting there. My focal point has been, and will continue to be in Queens, which needs far more attention paid to it than North Brooklyn which can take care of itself just fine. I intend to live up to that statement in the coming months, and spend a lot more of my time here.
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– Saturday, August 17, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
any limit
Do you smell that?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Waiting for a train, and I mean a specific train of a certain line rather than just whatever might be headed toward Manhattan, entails acceptance of the fact that one must endure several pneumatic blasts of powderized rat droppings carried in the slipstream of more frequently serviced lines.
Mold, bacterial specie, and fumes generated by decaying electrical switches (as well as other more esoteric bits of equipment) are also incorporated in this refreshing torrent of miasma. Welcomed, as the static mass of air down under Broadway in Astoria (and in the subway system citywide) is a concatenation of horrors, an unmoving and highly humid jelly of stink and reprobate contamination which is at least set into a sort of motion by the action of piston leaving concrete cylinder which one might describe as a breeze.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The gentleman in the shot above noticed, as did I, certain queer movements down upon the tracks as some squamous army marched about in the fetid trickles of sewage running and pooling about in the intervals betwixt the train propelled clouds of pneumatically driven stink.
A plague of rats has tormented the neighborhood found between the Steinway and 46th street stops along Broadway for several months now, conditions accelerated and excaberated by the phenomena which is derogatorily referred to as “Bloomblight” by area wags. Named for the current Mayor, the term refers to a building lot which has been cleared of structures but has been left as an open pit while awaiting building development, in complete disregard for the safety and domestic tranquility of existing residents. Two such plots have lain open on Broadway, between the two stops, for quite awhile.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Puff after puff of vomitous stink and poisonous air follow these trains and bathe riders in contaminant particulates- and between these arrivals and departures- one is treated to a different sort of commute- that which is enacted by the nightbreed rodents.
One wonders if this vermin habitation and community, whose true size is seldom glimpsed or only ever hinted at, marches to and from Manhattan on a daily schedule as we do? Do they have some potentate there, as we do, to whom allegiance is expected? Are there rats who stay local, proclaiming the glories of their outer borough and quite subterranean lair, as we do? Do they brag about the quality and diversity of restaurant garbage in Queens?
Is there a rat 311 which they can call to complain of traps and poisons?
After all, lords and ladies, as above so below- and who can guess, all there is, that might be buried down there?
Want to see something cool? Upcoming Walking Tours
Modern Corridor– Saturday, July 13, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, August 10, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– Saturday, August 17, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
each attempt
An abbreviated post today on underground difficulties.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As has been oft mentioned in the past, a humble narrator is no fan of being on the Subway. A necessary evil for transiting to and tithing for the Shining City of Manhattan, I usually spend my time on the train doing my level best to avoid anyone else’s gaze and playing around with settings on my camera. It is surprisingly difficult to get an ok shot down there. The light is very odd, the environment is somewhat hostile- always a study in extremes, and the place is absolutely infested with humans.
The Newtown Pentacle 