Posts Tagged ‘Sunnyside Yards’
retinue of
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Saturday the 18th of June, my trick left foot was singing a song. Baleful and rich with lament, this arthritic melody informed my night’s journey and thereby I decided that it would be a fantastic evening to “ride the train.” Accordingly, my toes were painfully oriented in the direction of Queens Boulevard from Astoria.
That’s the Standard Motor Products building, whose frontage is on Northern Boulevard at Steinway Street. There’s an urban farm up on the roof, which is just plain old cool.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Steinway Street becomes 39th Street when it crosses Northern Boulevard and passes over the Sunnyside Yards, but to members of the cult of historical specificity here in Western Queens – this section of 39th street will always be known as the “Harold Avenue Truss Bridge.”
Nerd.
The sunset was setting up nicely, and it seemed like I had actually timed things right for once.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At Queens Boulevard, a Manhattan bound 7 line subway was coursing along its tracks. My plan was simple, and it involved hopping on and off of the 7 line between Queensboro Plaza and somewhere east of there. At some convenient point, I’d transfer down onto one of the underground lines which move through the 46th street stop nearby HQ in Astoria.
It was a warm night, and somewhat humid in Long Island City. My name is Waxman, I live here and I carry a camera. Dum de dum, dum.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At Queensboro Plaza, there are two iconic shots always available for the passing photography enthusiast to gather. One revolves on variations of the shot above, depicting a Manhattan bound 7 line train entering the lower level of the station.
I should mention, a recent update of the software on my camera introduced a “vehicle tracking” feature for autofocus into my tool kit, and I’m currently working out the nuances of the new feature.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The other “iconic” subway shot at Queensboro Plaza is found at the extreme end of the platform, where the Flushing bound trains make their turn into the station on the high elevated steel of Queens Plaza, with the old Silvercup Bakeries signage in the background.
Figured I’d do a portrait format one for a change. I’ve been trying to remind myself to do this more often these days – turn the camera 90 degrees.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I began hopping on and off at various stations and popping out train photos for about an hour. On the 7, at least, ridership seems to be back to pre Covid levels.
Tomorrow- something different at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
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“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.
fiendish subjects
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
May 19th saw me taking a short walk around the Sunnyside Yards and cracking out a bunch of shots of passing trains.
That’s a New Jersey Transit train set on the so called “turnaround” track nearby 43rd street which allows the operator to reorient the thing towards Manhattan as opposed to heading into Queens via the East River tunnels. On another siding of the turnaround track is an Amtrak Acela train set, which was just sort of sitting there.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At Honeywell Street, I noticed the train cars on the lower left hand side of the shot above. They’re done up with “New York Central” heraldry. At first I thought I might be accidentally traveling in time, but no. Turns out these are “heritage” passenger car units which are operated by some private outfit.
One of the Facebook groups I’m subscribed to is for train enthusiasts, and the “foamers” filled me in as to what these cars are, who operates them, and so on. Turns out you can ride on these heritage cars if you’ve got money to burn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Also on Honeywell Street bridge (which is found at Queens’ 35th street), one of the many hidden fence holes allowed a view into the Acela maintenance facility at Sunnyside Yards. This is a particularly hard thing to get a shot of, incidentally, and the shot above is heavily cropped in.
I headed back to HQ in Astoria, as the 20th was meant to be a fairly busy day that started early.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
May 20th I was back at Newtown Creek Alliance HQ in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section for a sit down meeting with a friend who was volunteering business advice to our little non profit that could. It may be a non profit corporation, but it’s still a corporation. When advice and wisdom are on offer from somebody who runs and has run far larger entities is on the table, you would be foolish not to absorb as much of it as you can.
Of course, I had to excuse myself a couple of times to wave the camera around as a strong front of thunderstorms approached.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Creeklands were suffused with a heavy fog, being pushed by the pressure waves of that line of storms. This kind of urban atmosphere is absolute candy for a photographer.
Saying that, after the meeting ended, I needed to “get out of dodge” and start heading home quickly lest I get drenched when the storms arrived and all of that fog suddenly condensed and dropped to the ground. A scuttle of the rapid type ensued.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My plan was to cut through the Newtown Creek Nature Walk at the sewer plant in Greenpoint, then to surmount and cross the creek at the Pulaski Bridge. Luckily, I was carrying an umbrella. Managed to get this one of the Empire State Building framed up all nice before the sky opened and it started pissing down in torrents.
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.
were frowns
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
April 22nd’s walk first visited Dutch Kills, and I had decided before leaving HQ that I’d be taking a train back “to the zone” so one headed over to the Hunters Point Avenue stop on the IRT Flushing or 7 line subway. This station is found alongside the Sunnyside Yards’ southern border in Ling Island City, and there’s a couple of very convenient fence holes there I never fail to take advantage of.
Pictured is a Manhattan bound 7 line train entering the station from its last stop at 23/Ely Court Square.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While I was hanging around and shooting, an Amtrak train set emerged from the tunnel I was standing over, heading eastwards.
After fishing around in my camera bag for a Covid mask, I headed over to the stairs leading down to the fare control area of the 7 line station, paid my due, and continued down to the platforms.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The headway frequency on the 7 has been vastly improved since the completion of the CBTC signaling system installation, and the train really is a lot more frequent than it used to be as they can now run the individual train sets a lot closer together than they used to.
As you can see, this one was an express, and I needed a local but that’s not too big a deal.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One stop brought me to Court Square Station, and after about a five minute wait, the local 7 line arrived.
In my opinion, the 7 is the most photogenic of all of NYC’s subways.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The local carried me to 40th Lowery, high over Queens Boulevard. If I had been feeling truly lazy, I would have ridden the thing out to Jackson Heights and transferred to a local IND R or M line back to Astoria’s Broadway and the station that’s two blocks from my house, but…
Hey, it’s all downhill from here…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A quick scuttle down 39th street, and an encounter with yet another Amtrak train set. This one had just executed a turn around on the horseshoe tracks found along 43rd street and was heading into the Amtrak service yard nearby the Honeywell Street Bridge/36th street.
Wonders, I tell you, wonders.
“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.
titanic chisel
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back home in Queens, after my day trip to Philadelphia, and I’m sorry to report two things. First, a combination of obligation and precipitation conspired against me taking a single picture for a week after the 7th. The second is that the obligations took the form of an endless series of Zoom meetings which just happened to occur on the few days when it wasn’t raining in the second week of March.
The only good news about this series of Newtown Creek related, or non profit advocacy group focused, or Community Board meetings I participated in is that while the “blah blah blah” and virtue signaling was happening, I was developing all the shots from Philadelphia that you’ve seen over the last couple of weeks on a different screen.
Multi tasking!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the 14th of March, a Monday, a very long walk was undertaken. My pathway involved first crossing the Sunnyside Yards, and then scuttling along the Skillman Avenue corridor which follows the southern side of the vast Federally owned railroad coach yard.
Famously, a humble narrator has a catalogue of every hole in the fences which is large enough to allow a lens sized point of view. After a spate of outings during the winter months, ones which saw me going out in the early hours of the morning in pursuit of the rising of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself, this was the first of several spring outings timed for the recession of the fiery orb to its receptacle somewhere behind New Jersey.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“Hole reliable” is actually two holes. They appear to be surveyor’s points, and they are cleanly cut apertures punched out of the steel plate fences. There’s four kinds of fencing around the yards, with three of them being absolutely disastrous in terms of photos – save for these rare surveyor points.
The funny thing about the so called “security” situation here are the rail cops sleeping in their cars alongside wide open gates, contrasted with an abundance of “block the view” or “unclimbable” fences.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot was gathered while lingering, unchallenged, at one of those open gates. There was a cop sleeping in his car directly behind me, with a tablet playing a TV program in his passenger seat.
I literally could have done anything I wanted here – walked right down to the tracks and waved at passing trains. Anything. It’s all theater – security kabuki.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the 7 line subway heading eastwards out of Queens Plaza towards Sunnyside pictured above. The tracks it travels on are suspended high above the ground level tracks used by Long Island Railroad and Amtrak. In between, there’s a truss bridge which carries vehicle traffic into and out of Queens Plaza, where the travel lane approaches to the Queensboro Bridge are found.
I moved on, the cop never woke up. Maybe he was dead.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, just as I arrived at my first actual destination, the sky lit up with oranges and yellows. I miss the old days in Long Island City, before big real estate crossed the river from Manhattan and stole the sky.
More tomorrow, from Long Island City, 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.
crawl proudly
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Queens and I have a bit of a friends with benefits situation going on. As such relationships usually play put, she’ll ghost me for weeks at a time and then signal that it’s time for us to get busy again. The way I know things are about to get “interestin” are when she shows me a black cat with yellow eyes just after I leave HQ.
If you see a black cat with yellow eyes, it’s going to be a good day in the Borough of Queens, at least if you’re carrying a camera.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My destination for this evening’s scuttle was the same old. Dutch Kills. I’ve been making it a point of checking in on that collapsing bulkhead at least once a week, since none of our local elected officials nor the agencies they control will keep this one on the front burner until 29th street in LIC collapses under a passing motor vehicle and kills someone.
Pictured above are three Amtrak locomotive engines at Sunnyside Yards. The particular fence hole you get this shot from is hard to find, and one of the more difficult apertures in their fencing to shoot from.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My footsteps carried the bloated carcass I inhabit through the mean streets of the Degnon Terminal, where these trucks caught my eye for some reason. If something comes in threes, take a picture. Three of something is visually interesting, four isn’t.
You can find your way to Dutch Kills easily enough if you follow the slant of the land. The old hydrologic basin of the waterway underlies the entire area between the intersection of Skillman and Thomson or Queens Blvd. and Van Dam. Keep walking downhill and you’ll find yourself at Dutch Kills.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a permanent water feature on 29th street these days, a forever puddle of hundreds of gallons of street water which never disappoints.
I’ve started calling it Lake Degnon. I should mention that this entire area was a wetland in 1900, before it was developed as an industrial park by a very important figure in the history of Queens – nowadays largely forgotten – named Michael Degnon – hence, Degnon Terminal.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Well… the shoreline collapse continues to dissect the hard edge of Queens into the stale depths of Dutch Kills – that I can confirm. Additionally, the City of New York hasn’t bothered to send out some poor soul to deploy traffic cones or bollards along the roadway to restrict parking directly over the collapsing bulkhead.
Nothing matters, lord and ladies, and nobody cares.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My friend with benefits – the Borough of Queens – and I continue to suffer and wait for the powers and potentates to do something.
Today (at the time of this writing) these powers announced that they’re installing a protected bike lane in a development corridor leading to the Court Square Station (4 blocks from here). The local City Council member is beside herself over the bike lane on the Queensboro Bridge getting intermittently closed to accommodate construction work on the bridge. The Long Island City Partnership organization recently brought together all of the real estate powers that be for a conference about six blocks from here. They served high end sushi for lunch.
Nothing matters… nobody cares.
“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 