The Newtown Pentacle

- photo by Mitch Waxman

While moving through DUPBO (Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp) the other day, a passing train forced me to halt my ceaseless marching momentarily. Suffering from a malfunction, my headphones were not working, and the ultimate horror of being alone with my thoughts occurred. A brief interlude with your humble narrator has been described as exhausting, and that’s when the interviewee is feeling generous or is governed by polite behavioral norms. Long exposures to my uniquely abhorrent personality have been known to induce madness, encourage alcoholism, and destroy all hope for peace. An expectation of normalcy is usually abandoned by those unable to escape my presence shortly after first contact.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

My family describes me as best taken in small doses, and does their best to disavow, deny, and distance themselves. Imagine what it must be like, between my ears, as one cannot escape from oneself. With the headphones roaring their cacophony, it is often possible for me to drown my endless narrative of self referential critique and worry, but without them the omnipresence of paranoid wonderings is impossible to evade. What you read in this blog is what I’m like all the time.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Poverty stricken of late, my plan to get every last millimeter of sole from my last pair of hiking boots backfired, causing an injury of some kind to my left foot. Not severe, discomfort is barely noticeable until several miles into a walk, but after a while it becomes uncomfortable. While standing in DUPBO, one wondered if it might be something truly horrible and I began to ponder if it might be foot cancer. This led me to begin thinking about whether or not there was any such thing as “foot cancer” (there is), which led me to begin wondering about all the other aches and pains which I experience and attempted to ascribe a hypochondriacal “worst case” scenario to each.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Constant thought is given to being struck by a truck, or car, or train of course. I also worry about things falling off of buildings- did you know that bricks sometimes just come loose and fall? Falling air conditioners, electrified utility lines, even sinkholes could randomly cross my path. There are feral dogs, packs of rats, hordes of flesh eating centipedes, and aggressive seagulls… One could fall in the creek head first and get stuck in the mud, be drawn into a wood chipper, or end up stuffing a fifty gallon drum after taking a photo of something I shouldn’t have. It is not fun thinking these thoughts, and impossible for me to turn them off. Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of things happen in New York City, things which are admittedly “statistically unlikely” but happened nevertheless- decapitation, bloodcicles, and pineapple with ham on pizza. Oddly enough, I seldom worry about being struck by lightning- go figure.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

This is, of course, why I keep my headphones buried firmly in my ears and the volume turned way up, on these long walks around Queens and the Newtown Creek. It’s also why, as soon as budget allowed, a new pair of shoes were purchased, because you cannot run away from imagined dangers when your left foot hurts. The repair to the headphones has been accomplished as well, and as this shadow of what looks like a man strides forth, he no longer is forced to listen to a fear crazed maniac within his head. Still worried about foot cancer though… So many things can happen to you…

- photo by Mitch Waxman

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, a humble narrator has been spending some time and effort in pursuit of filling in a lack of nocturnal photographs in my library of Newtown Creek shots. While in the midst of this on the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge, just last week, I heard the bells and whistles signaling the approach of a NY & Atlantic freight train.

The thing kind of snuck up on me, as my headphones were actively pumping out a carefully selected playlist of mid-career Motörhead. Lemmy Kilmeister, you must understand, is far louder than any mere locomotive.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

These are the sort of “night shots” which I’m trying not to get. High ISO, selectively focused, and overly grainy- all of which was actually unavoidable. Simply put, if you’re “hand holding” the camera and it’s dark, one must open the lens up- losing deep focus- and increase the “ISO sensitivity” of the camera, which introduces grain. Ideally, you’ve got the thing on a tripod, which I didn’t.

My other camera was set up with specialized night gear, but there was no way to get it set it up in time when surprised by the sudden appearance of the train.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Out came my dslr, and with the help of a fortuitously placed hole in the fence of the GPA Bridge, the camera could be steadied and these shots were gained. This is probably not a terribly exciting tale to relate, but every photographer will understand my frustrations. Digital cameras are a technology still in infancy, and the form factor and capabilities of the things are still influenced by the shape and metaphor of older devices which used chemical emulsions (film) for recording.

One is reminded of 1960′s and 70′s televisions built into cabinetry it shared with “hi-fi” stereos, or clock radios. When will we forget the metaphor of a film camera and allow these devices to flower into their own?

- photo by Mitch Waxman

On Morgan Avenue in the ancient section of industrial Brooklyn, not far from the legendary heart of darkness which is the English Kills tributary of the Newtown Creek, there may be observed a rail crossing. Part of the so called LIRR Bushwick Branch, recent opportunities have allowed me to fill in a missing piece of the great puzzle.

from wikipedia

The Bushwick Branch, also called the Bushwick Lead Track, is a freight railroad branch that runs from Bushwick, Brooklyn, to Fresh Pond Junction in Queens, New York, where it connects with the Montauk Branch of the Long Island Rail Road. It is owned by the LIRR but operated under lease by the New York and Atlantic Railway, which took over LIRR freight operations in May 1997.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

By no means should it be inferred that any special knowledge of the history of street grade rail in Brooklyn is possessed by your humble narrator, as this is still a subject under study around Newtown Pentacle HQ. If you were to look left (or south west) while on Morgan Avenue and traveling northward, this is what you’d see, way back here in the Cripplebush.

from wikipedia

East Williamsburg is a name for the area in the northwestern portion of the borough of Brooklyn in New York City, United States, which lies between Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and Bushwick. Much of this area has been and still is referred to as either Bushwick, Williamsburg, or Greenpoint with the term East Williamsburg falling out of use until the 1990s. East Williamsburg consists roughly of what was the 3rd District of the Village of Williamsburg and what is now called the East Williamsburg In-Place Industrial Park (EWIPIP), bounded by the neighborhoods of Northside and Southside Williamsburg to the west, Greenpoint to the north, Bushwick to the south and southeast, and both Maspeth and Ridgewood in Queens to the east.

Although the City of New York recognizes East Williamsburg as a neighborhood, there are no official boundaries to East Williamsburg since the City only officially delineates Community Districts and Boroughs, not neighborhoods.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Looking right, or north east, you’ll see what appears to be a locomotive right of way that terminates at a distant green wall. The Bushwick line has been explored by many others who are braver of heart than I, including Diego Cupolo and Forgotten-NY’s own Kevin Walsh. There’s a missing piece in their accounts (which to be fair, has been off limits to inspection by passerby for some time), however, which recent serendipity allows me to bring to you.

This is, after all, part of Newtown Creek.

from The Eastern District of Brooklyn By Eugene L. Armbruster, via google books

BEYOND THE NEWTOWN CREEK

In the olden times the lands on both sides of Newtown Creek were most intimately connected. County lines were unknown, the creeks were dividing lines between the several plantations, for the reason that lands near a creek were taken up in preference to others, and the creeks were used in place of roads to transport the produce of the farms to the river, and thus it was made possible to reach the fort on Manhattan Island.

The territory along the Newtown Creek, as far as “Old Calvary Cemetery” and along the East River to a point about where the river is now crossed by the Queensboro bridge and following the line of the bridge past the plaza, was known as Dutch Kills. On the other side of Old Calvary was a settlement of men from New England and, therefore, named English Kills. The Dutch Kills and the English Kills, as well as the rest of the out-plantations along the East River, were settlements politically independent of each other and subject only to the Director-General and Council at Manhattan Island, but became some time later parts of the town of Newtown.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

An obsession of mine, let’s just name it a calling, is to photograph every possible corner of the Newtown Creek watershed.

Challenging, most of the shoreline is under lock and key, and many parts of it are under strict supervision by security personnel and police authorities. The spot these shots were gathered from is even hazy ground, and although I never stepped on the tracks and stayed to the extreme sides of the pathway, I was probably violating a “no trespassing” rule which I wear on my sleeve.

The presence of graffiti and a largish homeless camp I know to exist back here made me feel that any rule against taking a look around is lightly enforced by the gendarme and the proverbial dice would be thrown.

Speaking of dice, a locally famous accident occurred on the Bushwick line back in 2004.

from ntsb.gov

LIRR 160 traveled about 1.2 miles on the Bushwick Branch, passing over seven passive highway/railroad grade crossings. The event recorder indicated that the locomotive traveled the total distance of about 11,692 feet (2.2 miles) in 16 minutes 9 seconds and reached a maximum speed of about 31 mph.

During the runaway, LIRR 160 struck an automobile at one grade crossing and pushed it several hundred feet. The two occupants of this vehicle sustained serious injuries and required hospitalization. At another grade crossing, the locomotive struck two more automobiles, resulting in serious injuries to their drivers, who also required hospitalization. Two trucks were parked along the tracks near another grade crossing. The locomotive struck the trucks and pushed them about 800 feet westward beyond the crossing before it stopped. One of the trucks was carrying welding supplies, including acetylene and oxygen cylinders; the cylinders were damaged during the accident and caused a fire. The trucks were unoccupied; however, employees of the trucks’ owner had to jump away from the track to avoid injury.

As LIRR 160 collided with the automobiles and trucks, the struck vehicles were propelled in different directions and struck other vehicles. As a result, the accident damaged five other vehicles and a backhoe.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Speaking of graffiti, these puzzling bits of signage were observed on a well painted wall. Like the “God’s Gift to Pain” graffiti at the end of English Kills, however, they filled me with some nameless dread.

from wikipedia

The first recorded use of the A in a circle by anarchists was by the Federal Council of Spain of the International Workers Association. This was set up by Giuseppe Fanelli in 1868. It predates its adoption by anarchists as it was used as a symbol by others. According to George Woodcock, this symbol was not used by classical anarchists. In a series of photos of the Spanish Civil War taken by Gerda Taro a small A in a circle is visibly chalked on the helmet of a militiaman. There is no notation of the affiliation of the militiaman, but one can presume he is an Anarchist. The first documented use was by a small French group, Jeunesse Libertaire (“Libertarian Youth”) in 1964. Circolo Sacco e Vanzetti, youth group from Milan, adopted it and in 1968 it became popular throughout Italy. From there it spread rapidly around the world.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

The icon in the tree part of this illustration is meant to be an “anarchy” symbol, but to me it looked like some multi lobed eye, if you know what I mean. Weird things go on around here, and this is no safe place, even while the radiant attentions of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself are shining down upon the poison shores of English Kills.

from wikipedia

The “three-lobed burning eye” is one of many manifestations of Nyarlathotep, a messenger of the Outer Gods, from fiction penned by H. P. Lovecraft. This particular manifestation is a huge bat-winged creature, with a burning tri-lobed eye. In Lovecraft’s story “Haunter of the Dark,” the character Robert Blake discovers a Shining Trapezohedron in a church steeple in Providence, RI, a place of worship for the Church of Starry Wisdom cult. Narrowly escaping an unseen horror released by the Trapezohedron, Blake realizes the horror can only travel in the dark. When a storm and power blackout envelop the city, he scribbles down his findings, concluding the story with his terrified record of what he can only glimpse of the approaching beast. “I see it– coming here– hell-wind– titan-blur– black wings– Yog-Sothoth save me– the three-lobed burning eye…”

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Speaking of English Kills, this is the rail bridge which the tracks of the Bushwick Branch utilize to cross over it. In the background of the shot is one of the largest CSO outfalls in New York City and behind that is an access a ride parking depot and Johnson Avenue.

This is what it looks like from the water, incidentally, and long have I desired to see the New York and Atlantic crossing it from this perspective.

from habitatmap.org

• Combined Sewer Outfall – Newtown Creek 015
• Address Johnson Ave., Brooklyn, NY
• Neighborhood Newtown Creek
• Owner/Occupant NYC DEP
• Location Details Combined Sewer Overflow Outfall NC-015:
• discharges 344.4M gallons per year into English Kills
• Tier 2 outfall
• Ranked 20 out of over 400 in terms of volume
• located at Johnson Ave

- photo by Mitch Waxman

The bridge, which I’ve always heard referred to as “The Montrose Avenue Rail Bridge” is found some 3.8 miles from the East River, and regains land on the eastern shore of English Kills. Notice the green gate visible in the shot above.

from bushwickbiennial.com

James Riker’s 1706 “Bushwicklands” were separated from the original het dorp site by the estuary wetlands that would evolve from a creek into fetid industrial transportation canals (from the Dutch kil, trans. “body of water”). As the old farms were surveyed and sold as city-block lots, area borderlands became an underbelly serving the 19th century constructions of the “English Kills Canals,” the “Town of Bushwick” to the south, and the westerly “Village of Williamsburgh.” Becoming an offal zone for breweries, slaughterhouses, & chemical manufacturing, glass, rope & bag factories, and coal, oil, & stone distribution: the flatland meadows and canal basins provided business opportunities for waves of 19th century Central European immigrants that was near, but away from, metropolitan domestic life down Bushwick Ave.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Here is that same gate, from the perspective of the trackway. The property behind that gate is the Waste Management Varick Avenue site, which is pretty much off limits. The fabled garbage train begins its journey to the continent here, as the Varick Avenue facility handles much of the putrescent waste produced in Brooklyn.

from wikipedia

Waste Management, Inc. (NYSE: WM) is a waste management, comprehensive waste, and environmental services company in North America. The company is headquartered in Suite 4000 at the First City Tower in Downtown Houston, Texas, in the United States.

The company’s network includes 367 collection operations, 355 transfer stations, 273 active landfill disposal sites, 16 waste-to-energy plants, 134 recycling plants, 111 beneficial-use landfill gas projects and 6 independent power production plants. Waste Management offers environmental services to nearly 20 million residential, industrial, municipal and commercial customers in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. With 21,000 collection and transfer vehicles, the company has the largest trucking fleet in the waste industry. Together with its competitor Republic Services, Inc, the two handle more than half of all garbage collection in the United States.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Speaking of Waste Management, the serendipity mentioned above involved your humble narrator joining with a group of students on a tour of the facility, and this is what the rail bridge looks like from the other side of the gate.

Welcome to the unknown country.

from dot.ny.gov

Waste Management has a substantial waste transfer operation located on English Kills upstream from the Metropolitan Avenue Bridge, incorporating all of the east side of the English Kills from Ten Eyck Street to the LIRR bridge near the head of the creek, an area of 24.7 acres. Currently, Waste Management uses the site to transfer commercial and residential refuse to trucks and rail for transport to landfills in New Jersey, as well as to store and maintain their trucks.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Another posting coming in the near future will discuss the interior workings of this place, but for now, here’s where the Bushwick branch tracks continue on their course. This is where the folks at Waste Management containerize and load up the “garbage train”.

from nytimes.com

For decades, as trash has made its way from transfer stations in Brooklyn to out-of-state landfills, it has been shuttled through the borough’s streets on ground-rattling, smoke-belching tractor trailers.

The result: irritated neighbors and polluted air.

On Wednesday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg unveiled a plan to replace those trucks with trains. The city will now transport tons of garbage out of Brooklyn via railroad, which will take thousands of trucks off the street.

Speaking at a trash transfer station in North Brooklyn — with a trash-filled train behind him — Mr. Bloomberg said that the change would eliminate about 13,000 truck trips a year, helping the city meet ambitious goals for cutting carbon emissions.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

The tracks continue northeast across the property, and towards Varick Avenue. They cross Varick at Grade, and continue on their winding course toward the Fresh Pond depot, crossing Flushing Avenue in Maspeth and meeting connections toward Long Island City not far from Rust Street. This Rust Street connection offers access to the tracks which follow Newtown Creek through West Maspeth, Berlin, Blissville, and terminate ultimately at Hunters Point. Once, they carried cargo all the way to the East River, where Gantry Docks loaded them onto float barges for delivery in Manhattan and beyond.

from prnewswire.com

While many people balk at taking out the trash, it’s a job that the New York & Atlantic Railway does gladly — hauling 1.7 million pounds of residential and municipal waste each day, destined to Dixie in sealed containers riding aboard extra-long flat cars.

Monday through Saturday, a NY&A train crew goes over to the Varick Avenue transfer station in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where they couple up with 10-to-12 89-ft. flat cars loaded with up to 48 22-ft. long containers. Each has been stuffed with 18 tons of refuse, collected from homes and businesses in North Brooklyn.

The Varick Avenue facility was redesigned recently to accommodate rail shipments. It is owned and operated by Waste Management Inc. — one of the nation’s leading transporters and processors of municipal waste. NY&A began test movements in late January and handled its first regular shipment on February 16, 2009.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

This is the view from inside the gates on the Varick side of the Waste Management property…

- photo by Mitch Waxman

And this is the reversed POV, shot through a gap in the fence on the sidewalk.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

The line continues on the other side of Varick, in the distance, you can see the Scott Avenue Footbridge.

This “trainsarefun.com” page offers detailed schematics and historic shots of the Bushwick line, which are certainly worth a moment of your time.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

A structure which may be discerned in the distance, within the shot above, at Sunnyside Yards is the 35th street or Honeywell Bridge. The location of the camera which captured it was astride the 39th street or Harold Avenue bridge at Steinway Street, where ongoing construction has rendered a hidden breach in the fencing which normally frustrates its purpose by obfuscating the view.

For a discussion of another of the bridges which cross these titan rail yards, click here for the posting “incaculable profusion”, examining the Thomson Avenue Viaduct to the west.

from forgotten-ny.com

When the Yards were built, Long Island City, to the north of the Yards, was effectively cut off from Sunnyside and Maspeth, to the south. Viaducts were built at Queens Boulevard (which was itself under construction in 1910), Honeywell Street, Harold Avenue, and Thomson Avenue. Laurel Hill Avenue (43rd Street) Gosman Avenue (48th Street) and Woodside Avenue were carried under the railroad.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

A paucity of such apertures in the fence lines around the yards exists, which is appropriate in this age of heightened vigilance, and the discovery of something large enough to accept the lens of a dslr is tantamount to observing a unicorn to one such as myself. Of course in the midst of all this faux security and theater, I can show you a dozen different places where you could work mischief if you chose to. Such is always the case with large installations like this one, however, and illegal trespass is not the Newtown Pentacle way.

The real estate happy characters in Manhattan are desirous to rob me of this vista, as evidenced in the document linked to below, describing the feasibility and benefits of decking over these yards and expanding the population of western Queens by tens of thousands. It seems to be a plan of some vintage, however, crafted before the financial crisis and concurrent economic crisis experienced by the region and country at large since 2008 (when do we get to start calling this a depression?).

from nyc.gov

Sunnyside Yards, one and three-quarters of a mile long and 1,600 feet across at its widest point, is the largest site in this inventory. The total deckable airspace of its 14 parcels – over 167 acres – is more than double the size of the next largest airspace site, the 74-acre NYCT Coney Island Maintenance Shop and Yards (K5000). This one corridor contains around one-sixth of the entire deckable airspace in this inventory.

The potential for large scale land uses above these yards is extraordinary. With the possible exception of Staten Island’s west shore, no other large tracts of “vacant” land remain in the City. Moreover, Sunnyside Yards is defined by a surrounding context of relatively dense development and plentiful transit access.

At the behest of former Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding Daniel Doctoroff, DCP’s Housing, Economic and Infrastructure Planning (HEIP) unit conducted a preliminary analysis concerning the viability of decking over and developing Sunnyside Yards. The HEIP unit determined that the most desirable sites within the yards were two roughly rectangular areas running from the southwest to the northeast; the northern third of both sites is located northeast of Queens Boulevard.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

These trusses which fly over the Sunnyside Yards are actually rather new. The Honeywell and Harold Bridges (39th and 35th streets), for instance, were totally rebuilt recently. The Honeywell Bridge reopened in 2003 after having laid fallow and closed to pedestrian and vehicle traffic for better than 20 years. The night shot above, by the way, is betrayed by its format and shape as being from my trusty old Canon G10, which is still in service at this- your Newtown Pentacle.

from nytimes.com

In 1979, inspectors from the city’s Department of Transportation judged the 1,600-foot four-lane bridge, which was built in 1909, to be on the verge of falling down. The inspection occurred near the end of an era in which the city, nearly broke and as exhausted as a disco dancer at dawn, partly balanced its budget by deferring maintenance on bridges. Tom Cocola, a department spokesman, said once costs had been cut by removing the bridge from the city’s regular inspection schedule, ”we probably just forgot about it.”

Your humble narrator will be narrating humbly on Friday, February 24th at 7:30 P.M. for the “Ridgewood Democratic Club, 60-70 Putnam Avenue, Ridgewood, NY 11385” as the “Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show” is presented to their esteemed group. The club hosts a public meeting, with guests and neighbors welcome, and say that refreshments will be served.

The “Magic Lantern Show” is actually a slideshow, packed with informative text and graphics, wherein we approach and explore the entire Newtown Creek. Every tributary, bridge, and significant spot are examined and illustrated with photography. This virtual tour will be augmented by personal observation and recollection by yours truly, with a question and answer period following.

For those of you who might have seen it last year, the presentation has been streamlined, augmented with new views, and updated with some of the emerging stories about Newtown Creek which have been exclusively reported on at this- your Newtown Pentacle.

For more information, please contact me here.