- photo by Mitch Waxman

Selected for your perusal today are scenes from the hoary desolation of Brooklyn’s Bushwick Inlet.

This little bay, where the USS Monitor was launched some 150 years ago, was the river outlet for Continental Iron Works. In addition to the Monitor, countless steam boats, and the manufacture of all manner of cast iron building supplies- the caissons for the Brooklyn Bridge were assembled and launched here.

The Brooklyn street grid indicates Calyer and Clay streets as being the nearest geographic indicators, but there’s something else missing.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Bushwick Creek once flowed into and mingled with the East River at this spot after finishing its journey from upland. The city of Williamsburg listed this body of water as its border with the town of Greenpoint, which itself was defined and named for a promontory bluff overgrown with hemlock that existed between the Newtown and Bushwick Creeks.

The hemlock was what originally attracted shipwrights here, as the straight growing evergreens produced wood that had several uses onboard ships.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

The inlet is owned by Motiva Enterprises, a company with several locations in the area which employs itself as a fuel distributor. Accordingly, access to the area is severely limited due to security and safety issues. These shots were acquired during the Greenpoint Monitor Museum‘s recent parade event. The northern side of the site is in a state of disuse and relict decay, while the southern houses several enormous fuel tanks.

There is some buzz that the Museum is attempting to site themselves here, a welcome addition, IMHO.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Scatterings of artifacts, a brick marked “Manhattan Fire Brick Co.”, or a rust stained concrete foundation peek out of the mud here and there. The very surface you stand on is crumbling, and at waters edge all sorts of uncommented masonry sits in a tumbledown arrangement as the languid waters of the East River nibble away at the shoreline.

The muddy soil is a greasy particulate, more sticky sand than dirt, oddly irridescent and stained with “the colour” which distinguishes the nearby Newtown Creek.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Across the river in Manhattan, which today hosts the Stuyvesant Town housing development and a power plant, there were shipyards. Novelty Iron Works as well as hundreds of smaller shops were spread out between 14th street and Corlears Hook (just below the modern day Williamsburg Bridge). In the late 19th century, Stuyvesant Town’s site was occupied by shanty tenements and the enormous “works” of the gas system which lit Manhattan streets and homes- I’ve seen references to it as the “gas light district”.

As one got closer to 23rd street, stone masons and other artisan businesses began to appear.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

When a large business concern like Continental Iron Works or Novelty sited somewhere, it created a halo of smaller businesses springing up around it. Coopers to make barrels, carpenters to supply barrel wood, blacksmiths to make carpentry tools. Rope makers, lunch wagons, carting companies- all surrounded these large plants. Greenpoint was no different, with enormous numbers of storefront and stable based craftsmen supplying everything from pencils to livestock to the larger concerns.

Additionally, ferries and streetcar lines were required to transport workers and raw materials from place to place.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Disuse, changing economies, and the unusual indifference which the 20th century displayed toward the waterfront of New York City have left this historic patch of land a wasteland. Indigenous species or a mollusca invader from foreign shores, all have claimed a rightful place here, planting strong roots which slither into and spread apart the forgotten brick foundations of long ago and way back when.

Who can guess, all there is, that might be buried down there?

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Here in the foundry of the American Industrial Revolution, all we manufacture these days are Red Velvet Cupcakes and other items of fashionable taste.

Stronger men, born in an age of sail, forged a world of steel and iron in this place. A vibrating hum of industry lit the smoky sky with coal fired avarice, forging the great fortunes of some and the prosperity of most. Where are these titans today, with their great and satanic mills, and what happened to “Coketown“?

Also:

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.

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.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Another of the so called “Black Arts” of the 19th century, sugar refining was one of the great industries which distinguished New York City and its neighboring municipalities.

The sole survivor of this once omnipresent occupation is found in Yonkers. Raw sugar is barged to this facility for processing, which makes it a neat item to highlight for “Maritime Sunday” here at this, your Newtown Pentacle.

from wikipedia

Yonkers is the fourth most populous city in the state of New York (behind New York City, Buffalo and Rochester), and the most populous city in Westchester County, with a population of 195,976 (according to the 2010 Census). Yonkers borders the New York City borough of The Bronx and is 2 miles (3 km) north of Manhattan at the cities’ closest points.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

These shots were captured in the November, while onboard a Riverkeeper vessel which was performing a regular survey of the downstate waterways, and the good folks at that estimable organization were gracious enough to let a humble narrator ride along.

The Sugar Refinery in Yonkers is relict, a late 19th century mill which is still engaged in its trade.

from wikipedia

The raw sugar is stored in large warehouses and then transported into the sugar refinery by means of transport belts. In the traditional refining process, the raw sugar is first mixed with heavy syrup and centrifuged to wash away the outer coating of the raw sugar crystals, which is less pure than the crystal interior. Many sugar refineries today buy high pol sugar and can do without the affination process.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

American Sugar Refining operates this factory, engaging in what seems to be a quite hazardous industrial process.

It seems that sugar dust can be highly explosive, requiring equipment that is “spark proof” to safeguard against detonation.

Who knew?

from wikipedia

American Sugar Refining Company (ASR). The ASR was incorporated in the state of New Jersey on January 10, 1891, with $50 million in capital. By 1907, it owned or controlled 98% of the sugar processing capacity in the United States and was known as the Sugar Trust. The United States Supreme Court declared in United States v. E. C. Knight Company that its purchase of the stock of competitors was not a combination in restraint of trade. By 1901, the company had $90 million in capital. The company became known as Domino Sugar in 1900.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

The tug Heron was present, tending to a barge labeled “Sugar Express”. Heron is middle aged, like myself, and has gone by several different aliases during its long career- unlike myself.

A surprising observation for me was that the raw product was being unloaded from the barge in the same manner that one would unload rock or gravel.

from tugboatinformation.com

Built in 1968, by McDermott Shipyard of Morgan City, Louisiana (hull #151) as the tug Progreso .

In 1972, the tug was acquired by Dixie Carriers where she was renamed as the Dixie Progress .

In 2002, she was acquired by Allied Transportation of Norfolk, Virginia where she was renamed as the Heron.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

The industrial process of sugar refining uses powerful acids to purify and process the sweet stuff, and in 2005 the plant came under the scrutiny of regulators when it was revealed that they had released a large quantity of powerful acid into the water.

As with everything else in our world, it seems that nature must pay a price for our desires, even when it’s just a teaspoon of sugar to help the medicine go down.

from sawmillrivercoalition.org

In January 2005, American Sugar Refining Inc., a company that produces sugar for Domino Sugar and located on the Saw Mill River, pled guilty to a criminal pollution charge for spilling hydrochloric acid into the Hudson River in Yonkers in 2003.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

It lives on the corner of Van Dam and Review, and clearly remembers when the self storage place across the street was a pickle factory. Like all long time residents of Queens, it can barely recognize the place these days, but carries on and sallies forth on the daily round. It’s not old enough to remember the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge burning down, twice. Neither does it remember Gleason’s trolleys nor the vast funeral cortèges that emptied the Five Points as they proceeded to Calvary. Memory is not a strong point for its kind, for as a watchman, the sole function it must serve is to raise the alarum.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

A humble narrator can never be 100% sure about anything, as I live in a hallucinatory dreamscape of thwarted ambition where angles that appear obtuse are often in fact acute, but this would seem to be the head of a tunnel boring machine at the Sunnyside Yards. The device is of Byzantine complexity and cyclopean size, but sits suspended.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

These shots are from the middle of January, the 18th to be exact (which is also Robert Anton Wilson’s birthday), and were captured at a fortuitous moment when the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself was hanging low in the sky.

A video of the second avenue subway project’s tunnel crew bursting through the the skin of the earth is extant upon the interwebs, and I believe this to be the front of that mechanism which has been grinding out its subterranean course for the last several years.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

It is a rare thing to see equipment like this out in the open, let alone suspended above the ground by steel spars erected by the estimable engineers of Bay Crane. A mere week later, the device was entirely disassembled into constituent parts, no doubt to allow it to be easily shipped off to the location of its next task.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Today is Candlemas, a station of fire on the wheel of the year which marks the equidistant point between winter and spring solstices. Our pagan antecedents would have gathered today, and exchanged candles of beeswax to mark the occasion. The entire month of February is named for a Roman feast held on or near the 15th, called Februa, a purification ritual.

The pre Christian Irish called this time of the year “faoilleach”, the wolf month.

In modern times, it’s mainly known as “groundhog day“.

from wikipedia

The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, which falls on 2 February, celebrates an early episode in the life of Jesus. In the Eastern Orthodox Church and some Eastern Catholic Churches, it is one of the twelve Great Feasts, and is sometimes called Hypapante (lit., ‘Meeting’ in Greek). Other traditional names include Candlemas, the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, and the Meeting of the Lord. 

- photo by Mitch Waxman

At least three thousand years of tradition say that today is a good day to cleanse the body and home, and tradition states that your Christmas decorations must be torn away by tonight or death will come to your house. Additionally, one is expected to eat pancakes.

Farmers begin turning the soil today, and their wives are expected to put baked goods on the windowsill as an offering to the fertility goddess Brigid (later latinized as St. Brigid).

Our Lady of the Pentacle and your humble narrator look forward to evening pancakes. It has been too long.

from wikipedia

Imbolc (also Imbolg), or St Brigid’s Day (Scots Gaelic Là Fhèill Brìghde, Irish Lá Fhéile Bríde, the feast day of St. Brigid), is a Celtic festival marking the beginning of spring. Most commonly it is celebrated on 1 or 2 February (or 12 February, according to the Old Calendar) in the northern hemisphere and 1 August in the southern hemisphere. These dates fall approximately halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox.

The festival was observed in Gaelic Ireland during the Middle Ages. Reference to Imbolc is made in Irish mythology, in the Tochmarc Emire of the Ulster Cycle. Imbolc was one of the four cross-quarter days referred to in Irish mythology, the others being Beltane, Lughnasadh and Samhain. It has been suggested that it was originally a pagan festival associated with the goddess Brigid, who should not be confused with St Brigit of Kildare.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

In the fictional clade of H.P. Lovecraft’s mythos, Candlemas is a day oft mentioned, and is most prominently the birthday of both Wilbur Whately and his twin brother. The brother had no name, but was said to resemble their father more strongly than Wilbur.

from hplovecraft.com

It was in the township of Dunwich, in a large and partly inhabited farmhouse set against a hillside four miles from the village and a mile and a half from any other dwelling, that Wilbur Whateley was born at 5 A.M. on Sunday, the second of February, 1913. This date was recalled because it was Candlemas, which people in Dunwich curiously observe under another name; and because the noises in the hills had sounded, and all the dogs of the countryside had barked persistently, throughout the night before.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Just a quickie today, a shot taken from some point in space which straddles the borderline of Brooklyn and Queens (although this one is slightly more in Brooklyn) taken from the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge. Apologies for the brevity, but a humble narrator is busy staggering across the boroughs today, and in the midst of preparing for a series of meetings and presentations. Be back tomorrow with something more substantial.

- photos by Mitch Waxman

It was 150 years ago today, that John Ericsson taught the band to play.

Shots from the Greenpoint Monitor Museum parade, held yesterday, celebrating the launch of the USS Monitor 150 years ago today. Not entirely sure what role Llamas played in the Civil War, of course, but their presence was quite welcome.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Don’t tell Newtown Creek, as I wouldn’t want her to think that I’m cheating on her- but occasionally, I visit the Gowanus Canal.

It’s no tryst I’ll confess to- I’m a one superfund site kind of guy- but I’ve always enjoyed harmless flirting.

Witness the Loujaine, therefore, one of the Gowanus Canals permanent guests.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Once upon a time, Loujaine was the proud property of “Arabian Bulk Trade” or ABT, and served as a cement and dry cargo ship for the Saudi Arabia based company. That green and white funnel (smokestack) with the running critter in it is their logo.

The ship was built in the Nagoya, Japan of 1966, and lost its certification in 1985.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Reliable sources indicate that the ship was originally rigged as a bulk carrier, and that its original name was Bahma.

Arabian Bulk Trade was formed in 1977, acquired Bahma in the early 1980′s, and converted the ship for cement handling. They renamed it the “Abu Loujaine”.

ABT, incidentally, is part of a larger Saudi company which is called Xenel.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Xenel is an enormous conglomerate which dominates several Saudi markets, and is one of the companies operated by the House of Alireza.

A mercantile clan, the Alireza are somewhat analogous to the Rockefellers, or so I am told. The fellow who runs Xenel is an accomplished businessman and international statesman.

He went to Berkeley.

- photo by Mitch Waxman

It arrived in Brooklyn (I am told) in 1985. Ownership has changed hands a couple of times since the ABT days, but according to the maritime websites it is currently owned by a local cement company of sizable reputation.

My understanding is that the ship was “decommissioned” and serves as a so called “floating discharge terminal”, warehouse, and barge for concrete products.

Now promise me, if the Newtown Creek asks, tell her I was with you- ok?

- photo by Mitch Waxman

Sleek, styled, and svelte- witness the sentinel which stands at the corner of Astoria Boulevard and 70th street here in noble Astoria. The Grand Central Parkway was driven into the land here by Robert Moses, sundering a long ago Dutch village called Astoria into distinctly differing sections.

On one side of the road is St. Michael’s Cemetery- with row and apartment houses stretching out beyond its southern gates. To the north, a residential neighborhood is surrounded by highways, trains, and industrial concerns- but whether itinerant workman or long time resident, all may find succor at the silvery side of this guardian of the public trust.