The Newtown Pentacle

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Queries were sent out to various parties about the status of the Blissville Oil Spill on the Newtown Creek, and this statement was received from the good folks at Riverkeeper:

“Riverkeeper is concerned about the apparent lack of maintenance of both the hard and absorbent booms that are supposed to be keeping oil from seeping into the Creek,” said Phillip Musegaas, Hudson River Program Director at Riverkeeper. “We take any oil pollution in the Hudson River and NY Harbor extremely seriously, and fully expect DEC and the site owner to do the same.”

As an admission, these shots were gathered on board the Riverkeeper patrol boat, whose Captain was gracious enough to consent to my request to get close to the Blissville site.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

The situation of the Northern Bank of the Newtown Creek, in Queens, was first commented on at this- your Newtown Pentacle- in the December of 2011 posting “An oil spill… in Queens“, and further views were presented in March of 2012 in “Blissville Update“.

Kate Zidar, executive director of the Newtown Creek Alliance (a group of which I am a member and for which I serve as historian) said:

“If we have learned anything from the Greenpoint Oil Spill it should be that seepage from the bulkhead can indicate a much larger issue for the adjacent neighborhood. We can’t claim ignorance of what the seepage at this Blissville Site could indicate. We need to understand the extent of this contamination and get the right mitigations in place ASAP.”

- photo by Mitch Waxman

It should be mentioned that private conversations with State and City officials have continued, but not too much seems to be happening. The investigation into the matter is seeking out culpable parties, and deciding on a course of action to follow. In their defense, the officialdom referred to above very well might be legally constrained from public comment at this point, so I’m willing to give them a pass.

For now.

Of course, while everyone is figuring out who to sue, oil is still seeping out into the water.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

It’s no secret that the short end of the stick, from a municipal point of view, is offered routinely to Queens (and the Bronx) by the powers that are. Neither is it a revelation that if this were an ongoing event on the Hudson River that everybody from the Mayor and Governor on down would be posing next to it and rendering funding to seal things up tight.

This is however- the Newtown Creek- and in particular on the side of the Creek where the borough motto should be “Welcome to Queens, now go fuck yourself”, and I said that.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

A recent posting at the Newtown Creek Alliance website, detailing what Riverkeeper’s patrol experienced during a rain event on the Newtown Creek, showed that these booms are easily swept out of position but “Welcome to Queens”. This event has been ongoing since mid 2011 but “Welcome to Queens”. Wells sunk at nearby properties already administered by environmental officials have revealed some seven feet of oil sitting over the water table, but “Welcome to Queens”.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Lords and Ladies, how long is long enough for oil to be directly seeping into area waterways?

Look at what is happening on the surface here and ask yourself the familiar question- Who can guess, all there is, that might be buried down there?

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Laurel Hill Blvd. slouches roughly as it descends toward Review Avenue, where the Penny Bridge once stood and the Long Island Railroad once maintained a station and the Roman Catholic funeral ferries docked. Thrice damned, the Kosciuszko Bridge occupies the shallow valley between the so called Laurel Hill and an easterly elevation known as Berlin Hill. The whole zone was called Maspeth, or “bad water place”, by an aboriginal Lenape tribe called the Maespetche who are said to have coined this term for the marshy wetlands that lay between Sunswick and Newtown Creeks.

Native Americans as a people, it should be remembered, are famed for an ironic and well developed sense of humor, and these Maespetche just might have been having some sardonic fun at the expense of the naive Europeans who had just paid them a fortune for an insect infested swamp.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Lonely and desolate, one such as myself can only feel succor in this kind of place. A hinterland not too far from the geographic center of a megalopolis whose tendrils stretch out hundreds of miles in every direction called New York City, this is one of the least walked stretches of pavement in the entire metropolitan zone. It’s where the Alsops, Brutnells, and Wandells chose to locate their farming operations and just up the hill from where a few hundred British soldiers were garrisoned during the revolutionary war.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

To the west lies Calvary, First Calvary, where Dagger John consecrated the soil of Protestant Newtown for the use of the Roman Catholic church. The elevation of Laurel Hill is quite apparent, here, as the 9 story General Electric Vehicle Company factory’s roofline is at eye level, and it is found at Borden Avenue and Starr- only a few blocks away. The hill was once a bit higher, but the construction of the cemetery in the 19th century removed a few hundred million tons of topsoil from it (the subject of a lawsuit in state court, wherein the farmers of Newtown sued the RC church, as the topsoil was shipped by to Jamaica Queens for use on the catholic plantations there).

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Turning widdershin, the first aperture available for transit into the most literal interpretation of the term “DUKBO”, literally “Down Under the Kosciuszko Bridge Onramp” is 54th avenue. Not unlike the sensation experienced on the spiral footbridge examined in the two postings preceding this one- “maddeningly untransmissable” and “danger-widespread“- the inveterate pedestrian feels as if a corridor of transition has been arrived at. One world exists at the entrance and something totally different will be found on the other side.

A titanic vibration is sensed rather than heard here, no doubt due to the pulsating waves of vehicular traffic crossing overhead.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Nondescript and strictly utilitarian, there is nevertheless something quite unnerving about this overpass unrelated to any measurable stimuli. An odd sensation of loathing and imminent danger, as if some  cackling, untoward, and quite unimaginable fiend was about to swing down from the overhead steelwork and claw at passerby. Despite this discernible and distasteful atmosphere of paranoid wondering, however, there is virtually nothing to see under here. The cement slab on the left of the shot is a sort of water catchment device.

Like all parts of DUKBO, there are businesses which operate in the underpinnings of the bridge, or in the shadow over the creek which has been cast from it since the 1930′s.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Behind these oddly sinister gates are a couple of trucks and what appears to be a few “storage cubes” or small shacks, but nothing out of the ordinary or in any way noteworthy. Oddly enough, this street is routinely crossed by a city bus, which has a stop on the next corner. Speculation would be served if one was to postulate that this might have been the pathway which workers from Sunnyside or Woodside would have taken enroute to shift work at Phelps Dodge or Alloco, down by the Creek.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

The continuation of 43rd street, which was last tread on the other side of the highway in Celtic Park, begins at this point, after the cloverleaf onramps which provide the singular intersection of the Long Island Expressway and Brooklyn Queens Expressway complete themselves. This stretch of 43rd street will someday be the new DUKBO, and easement purchases for the new bridge have already seen nearby homes and business buildings shuttered and demolished.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Reason and logic seldom count for much in the neighborhoods surrounding Newtown Creek, but one assumes that there exists an ancient municipal regulation which designates or zones this area as “the Crane district”.

Every block or two, it would seem, there is a corporate yard which hosts the sort of enormous building industry derricks commonly seen at work around the city. There’s one or two in Long Island City, of course, but there are a lot of these companies located in this neighborhood once known as Berlin- but now called either Laurel Hill or West Maspeth.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Bizarre associations are often a curse for your humble narrator, and on the day I was walking through here- entering Berlin- I couldn’t help but notice that the cranes here bore the colors of the tricolor flag of the modern Deutche.

We’re going to leave DUKBO at this corner for the moment, but will continue along this route next week. Remember- the Kosciuszko Bridge project will be starting in 2013- this summer and fall will be your last chance to see this district of the Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek as it is and has been.

August 23rd, 2012 will be likely be the last birthday of the Kosciuszko Bridge.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Note: For the first section of this walk, click here for the “maddeningly untransmissable” posting of May 3.

As mentioned in prior postings, those principates and potentates who occupy the proletarian palaces of Albany have prescribed that the process of replacing the 1939 vintage Kosciuszko Bridge with a modern design will begin a full year earlier than originally planned. Paramount, concern and attentions have been devoted to recording a pictorial record of the place as it exists today with the hope that future generations will be able to realize the pulsating horror envisaged by use of the acronym “DUKBO” (Down Under the Kosciuszko Bridge Onramp).

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Swirling, ever swirling, the steel and concrete of the footbridge which carries pedestrian traffic from the street grid of Celtic Park to the colour stained creekland hosts a resident troll, but also offers egress to the eastern border of venerable Calvary- a street known as Laurel Hill Blvd. Gentle elevation is encountered here, and the motion followed is of a clockwise bent.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

A severe fence, composed of tiny chain links, encompasses the walkway and suggests that one has entered a bizarre corridor. Cellular telephone signals seem to drop off on the bridge, isolating one from the omnipresent cloud of telecommunication radiation, but the singular device carried by your humble narrator utilizes the AT&T network so this is not that unusual. Michael Faraday himself could not have imagined a surer form of electromagnetic cage, one suspects.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

A rotunda is observed at the masonry abutment which supports the steel truss, which offers a startling view of both Calvary Cemetery and the skyline of that Shining City which lies to the north and west. Careful observers will notice that a hole exists in the mesh at an optimum viewing angle, no doubt due to the labor of some photographer from the wicked past. This is not the work of your humble narrator, it should be pointed out, although this aperture has suffered my exploitation on more than one occasion.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Beyond the emerald devastations of Calvary, whose consecrated loam and forbidden secrets lie obfuscated and reveal themselves only to the most dedicated seekers, the wholesome spire of St. Raphael’s and the fearsome Sapphire Megalith of Long Island City struggle for attention with the shield wall of a spectacular entertainment called Manhattan. The elevation enjoyed by Laurel Hill, which is in actuality a foothill of and part of the sloping eastward ascent leading to the Maspeth Plateau, allows one a perspective normally denied to all but roofers and chimney sweeps.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Gaudy, modern Manhattan is merely window dressing for the wonders of New York City, a painted temple whore squamously squatting in the harbor which is designed to entertain and enthrall foreign travelers, aspirant bourgeois, and the credulous. To experience the reality of New York, with it’s terrors and tragedies and naked truths and miracles- one must come to the so called “Outer Boroughs”. Here, in places like this DUKBO, there are no flashing neon lights and truth is manifested in cement, marble, and steel.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Tomorrow, we descend into the gentle valleys of DUKBO on the Queens side of the fabled Newtown Creek, and visit a location or two which will be obliterated by the construction of the new bridge, while pondering upon that which what might rise from the ashes. What unknown and unsuspected treasures might the ground imprison here, which has been unturned since 1939? Who can guess, all there is, that might be buried down there? Timorous and possessed of a weak constitution, your humble narrator nevertheless endures such journeys for the interest of both the prosaic and prurient at this, your Newtown Pentacle.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

A curious thing happens when one exits the former Celtic Park at 43rd street in Queens, and crosses beneath a titan viaduct carrying the Long Island Expressway near its singular junction with the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. First, one realizes the enormity of having entered DUKBO (Down Under the Kosciuszko Bridge Onramp), and secondarily the realization that this is not the safest path for a pedestrian to have chosen becomes readily apparent.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

This is a “back door” to the massive truss bridge, thrice damned, which spans the Newtown Creek and has done so since 1939. Any driver with NY plates on their vehicle, ones worth their salt at least, has several of these short cuts etched into their mind. Taking Hunters Point Avenue to Skillman Avenue when exiting the Pulaski Bridge in order to avoid the traffic at Queens Plaza is another one of the Creek specific ones, but there are hundreds of similar opportunities to shave a few minutes off of a drive found all over the megalopolis.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Recent announcements by the elites of Albany have made it clear that the Kosciuszko Bridge replacement project has had its timeline amplified, and work will begin on the endeavor in 2013 rather than the following year. Accordingly, your humble narrator has been attempting to spend a whole lot of time in the neighborhood of late, with the goal of recording everything in the place during its final days.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

One of the features here that I will sorely miss is this lovely little footbridge which carries pedestrian traffic from the 43rd street sidewalk over to the head of Laurel Hill Blvd., which runs alongside Calvary Cemetery’s eastern wall. As far as I’ve been able to discern, this structure is unnamed, here is where it might be found on a google map. If anyone reading this post works for an “official” agency and has information on the structure which you can share, please email me here, and let me know if you’d like to stay anonymous.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

As you can see, the foot bridge spirals over the onramp of the Kosciuszko fed by the Long Island Expressway’s “Queens Midtown Expressway” section, and said road channels Brooklyn bound traffic onto the truss bridge. In my estimation, the foot bridge is just wide enough to accommodate an automobile, although the turns would be tricky to negotiate in anything larger than a compact. Perhaps this is what it was originally intended to do, or it might just be a feature designed to allow emergency access to police.

Unlikely, but long have I wondered why the foot bridge is so over built. Look at all that steel.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

An access hatch is visible beneath the brick and mortar abutment which is freestanding from the LIE ramps, and evidence of some regular habitation is readily apparent. Someone is indeed living under, or actually within, this little footbridge.

One can imagine few places less peaceful to exist, at the locus point of the BQE and LIE at the foot of the Kosciuszko, within a masonry cairn.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Habit and expectations demand that this person be labelled a “troll”, after the mythical creatures which European folklore describe as living beneath bridges. Odds are that this would be a cruel description for whomever it might be that calls this his or her “little hole in the wall”. Of course, this somewhat circular apartment offers one of the finest city views in all of Queens, and easy access to the B24 bus.

What tales might this individual describe, living across the way from Calvary Cemetery?

- photo by Mitch Waxman

All around the Newtown Creek, hidden amongst the bridges and rails tracks and amongst weed choked lots and abandoned industrial buildings, live an undocumented population. The odd thing is that they have jobs, or seem to, and just don’t mind a little discomfort if it means not paying rent. Once, it would have made sense to me to try and help out somehow, but age and experience have taught me to be afraid of people who brave such hardships.

Whoever this troll is, it is probably best to leave them alone, as the NY State DOT will be evicting them before long in any case.

You may think this is callow, or callous, or claim it to be madness.

This is not madness, this is DUKBO.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

One presumes that it is merely part of the human condition to remember the bad rather than the good. War and the concurrent homefront is reminisced upon fondly, whereas peaceful spans are oft forgotten. Economic downturn, sickness and loss, even the Black Death are considered romantic. Pity abounds for the reputation of a place like Blissville, once a thriving bucolic community, which is remembered today as one of the darkest sections of the fabled Newtown Creek.

from wikipedia

Blissville is a neighborhood within Long Island City, in the New York City borough of Queens. It is bordered by Calvary Cemetery to the east; the Long Island Expressway to the north; Newtown Creek to the south; and Dutch Kills, a tributary of Newtown Creek, to the west. Blissville was named after Neziah Bliss, who owned most of the land in the 1830s and 1840s.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Named for Neziah Bliss who -with Eliaphet Nott- founded the community in the early 19th century, Blissville was once what we would call “affordable housing” for the laborers of Newtown Creek. Sure, there were Europeans here since the 1600′s- in Maspeth and Hunters Point and in Brooklyn- but it wasn’t until the period right around the Civil War that things really kicked into gear around here.

from 1921′s Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac, Volume 36 – courtesy google books

NEWTOWN CREEK. Although less than four miles from its source, among the oil refineries of Blissville and Greenpoint, L. I., to ita mouth at the East River, Newtown Creek ia known as one of the “world’s busiest waterways.” The Mississippi River, from New Orleans to St. Paul, ia 1,” miles In length and flows through a great industrial and agricultural district. Recent figures show that 5,220,000 tons of cargo are carried annually on the upper and lower reaches of the longest river In the world, while the annual average of tonnage carried on the little four-mile Newtown Creek was 5,620,000.

Note: the bolded character in the quotation above resolves to something like 1,000 miles. the Mississippi has been significantly altered over the years.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

A chance encounter with a local historian of some note resulted in a critique of recent statements made by your humble narrator on this subject, (asserting that industry arrived here in force during the 1870′s) and he reminded me that there were industrial concerns operating in the area far earlier than even the arrival of Neziah Bliss. Tidal Grist mills, Lumber Yards, and the like were in these parts before the American Revolution, I will concede, and it is true that General Chemical, and M. Kalbfleish &Sons, and Peter Coopers Glue Factory were all well established along the Creek by 1840- all of which were early examples of the so called “Second Industrial Revolution” kicking into gear- it all depends on what you mean by “industry”.

from 1876′s Our dumb animals, Volumes 9-14 – courtesy google books

…an account of a visit of Mr. Bergh to certain stables attached to the distillery of Gaff, Fleischman & Co., at a place singularly named Blissville, on Long Island. Within the enclosure he found three immense stables, containing about nine hundred cows There was not a single door or window open, and the tainted atmosphere arrested the progress of all present Many cows were lying down, but the insufficient space necessitated their partly resting on one another. Dr. Raymond, Sanitary Superintendent of Brooklyn, says: “These animals never leave the stables, until, giving no more milk, and being- ‘ fattened,’ they are driven to the slaughter-house, contributing during life to the propagation of disease through their milk, robbing the inlant of its sole chance of life; and, alter death, furnishing diseased meat to nil consumers.”

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Master, apprentice, journeyman, mechanic- all of these terms had far different meaning in the past than they do today. So did the term “industrial”. Before the rail came through, and by rail I mean the Long Island Railroad- operations around the Creek were necessarily small. An employer of a hundred working men in 1800 would have been a tycoon, and the “factory” would have been no larger than a modern day primary school, and even then only the largest and most successful companies would have been so comfortably ensconced. After the rail came, something like Phelps Dodge or the Standard Oil works became possible- vast complexes of multi story structures, connected by rail tracks with bulkheaded docks, and chimneys belching smoke six to seven stories above the ground.

from 1879′s The Analyst, Volume 4 – courtesy google books

Sir,—In the month of February I made an official inspection of some cow stables, at a place called Blissville, on Long Island, which were connected with a distillery. Thinking that my investigations at that time might prove of some interest to yourself and other Public Analysts, I tako the liberty of writing you upon the subject.

At the time of my visit to the above stables there were between 700 and 800 cows in them, crowded into narrow stalls, to which they were fastened by a rope not more than three feet in length, which barely permitted them to lie down, but kept their mouths continually at a trough into which flowed the “swill” from the adjacent distillery in a steaming and fermenting condition.

Most of the animals were emaciated and feverish, and were affected with cough, diarrhoea, and polyuria. Some appeared to have recently arrived, and were in good condition. The temperature of several of the animals was noted, and ranged from 102° to 109°. The stable floors were kept all the time wet and slippery with excrementitious matters, and I did not see how it was possible for the cows to be milked and prevent the surrounding filth from splashing into the milk.

These poor creatures, crowded together within low sheds, with insufficient food, imperfect or no moans of ventilation, no exercise, no pure water to drink, and breathing an atmosphere poisoned by the exhalations from their wretched bodies, their excretions, and the steaming and fermented food, are expected, under these conditions, to secrete milk fit for human consumption.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

The vast populations of the five great cities around the Creek- Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Maspeth, Hunters Point, and New York- were made possible by the vast industrial mills which arrived in the middle and latter half of the 19th century. Those self same mills are what ended up staining the reputation of Blissville in the historic record. Any attempt to describe its homes, schools, and churches is overshadowed by the tales of pneumatic cattle, wormy pigs, bad air, and mountains of rotting offal. Pity poor Blissville, a place whose name brings a wry and ironic smile to the face of modern visitors. It was once a beautiful place to live.

from 1884′s Annual report of the State Board of Health of New York – courtesy google books

The stench nuisance next in the series along the main trunk of the Long Island railroad consists of and is located at and near the old distillery and yeast factory recently known as Gaff & Fleischmann’s, and now controlled by an ownership and superintendent mentioned in the inspector’s list. It has long been an insufferable nuisance because of the “swill-like odor of the mash,” and still more, because of the fact that the cattle stables on the right alongside the railroad track are reeking with semi-liquid filth (see page 12 of report marked C).

The next in the series is Preston’s bone-boiling, bone-burning and fertilizer establishment where the “web scrap,” horse-flesh, entrails and other putrescent matters from numerous fat rendering factories are stored in great quantities, and where bones and refuse flesh and waste “clippings” from the markets and elsewhere are boiled in kettles that are not kept suitably covered, which necessarily pollute the atmosphere to a considerable extent beyond the premises, which are located close along the south side of the Long Island railroad track. The business of calcining the bones obtained in the business just mentioned, and from other sources, is carried on at Preston’s factory, and is a source of very offensive stenches which extend along the line of the railroad for half a mile or more. This factory being a branch of the fertilizer factory owned by the same persons and situated near Keyport, N. J., much of the storage as well as mixing of materials for the latter establishment is carried on at this place in Blissville, and at times is the source of exceptional offensiveness.

Next is the place of John Kehoe, situated near Preston’s and the distillery above described. He boils fat in open kettles.

Reid’s fertilizer factory is next in order as we proceed eastward upon the north bank of Newtown creek. Superphosphate fertilizer is made by the use of sulphuric acid upon scrap and the phosphate rock of South Carolina.

Though the offensive odor does not extend a great distance, and probably is offensive to only railway passengers and along the line of the railway, the business is too offensive to be long permitted to remain close by the side of a great highway like that of the Long Island railroad.
Next in the series is the bone boiling establishment of Fred. Hoffner, who works with open kettles, giving off excessively offensive stenches.

Simon Steinfel’s rendering establishment, which is on Furman’s island in Newtown creek (and within the limits of Newtown), gives off very offensive emanations for a long distance in the course of the railway route. Great quantities of decomposing animal matters were found upon the premises in barrels and otherwise packed in readiness for rendering.