This was captured with the Phase One IQ3-100 back, XF camera, and Schneider 80mm/2.8 "Blue Ring" lens. I had planned to use a technical camera and Rodenstock 70mm, providing movements, but a cable was missing from the kit I had with me in the city that night. Fortunately, the 80mm was just wide enough to not require movements, though the Schneider lens renders highlights (as starbursts) a bit idiosyncratically for my taste.
Officially the "Ed Koch Queensborough Bridge" but more generally simply the "59th Street Bridge", the view from Sutton Place at 58th Street on the Manhattan side is probably as flattering and uncluttered a perspective as you'll find for this piece of NYC infrastructure.
Immortalized in song by Simon and Garfunkel, in literature by Fitzgerald, and in cinema by Woody Allen, something about this bridge exemplifies the glamor and bustle of 20th century New York in a way that still holds up.
@mattblaze I do take the 7 train or the LIRR. As for the Triboro—it’s also been renamed, for RFK (and NOT RFK, Jr.) As Tom Lehrer fans know, RFK was Massachusetts’ third senator …
@SteveBellovin I suppose the Jackie Robinson Parkway would be a fitting way to get there by car, except it doesn't actually reach the stadium! (They should have renamed the GCP instead of the Interboro).
@mattblaze Yeah, but the GCP doesn’t go to Brooklyn. And who’d want to have their name attached to the BQE? It’s second only to the Cross Bronx as a disaster of a highway.
@rsalz@mattblaze Yes, there's the Long Island Expressway, the world's longest parking lot, and I've spent more time than I care to think of stuck on the Southern State. But I stand by my statement…
Just on the Queens side of the bridge was the Silvercup Bakery plant, a large supplier of supermarket bread for the region. If you crossed at the right time, the yeasty scent would fill your car.
In the mid 70's the bakery closed. The massive complex morphed into Silvercup Studios, a major film and video production facility. But personally, when I smell bread, I have a Proustian moment that takes me right to the bridge.
@LinuxAndYarn@mattblaze That, plus the old Whitman’s chocolate plant a few miles south on the Boulevard. My mom worked for many years right across the street at the Penn-Jersey Auto Stores offices.
@waltman@mattblaze we were just at the Longhorn steakhouse at Whitman Square with my mom!
And the Bell of Pennsylvania offices across the street were the first place I fell in love with Bell System architecture. I still want to turn one of those 4-6 story switching centers they put up into co-op apartments.
@mattblaze I have a geocache in Emeryville and I named it "Feeling Groovy" because it's on a pedestrian bridge that lines up with 59th Street. I'm not sure anyone has ever gotten the joke.
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