Archive for June 2010
tyranny of the now
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whenever I notice that employees of Con Ed have opened the street and descended into their hidden vaults- especially on a hot summer day- I can’t help but remember the Astoria blackout of 2006. A week long event of flickering lights and municipal indifference, it exposed the ancient skeletal superstructure upon which the modern city’s flesh hangs, and shattered the mythologies of the “now”.
Something about having witnessed blue light and yellow smoke pouring out from manhole covers changes the way you think about the City, and to quote an old 1980’s aphorism- “people just walk around like they’re safe or something”.
from wikipedia
The cause of the outages – which was undetermined for five days – appeared to be the company’s decision to continue supplying power to the 400,000 people serviced by twenty-two feeder cables after ten of them had failed, overloading the remaining twelve. After these were repaired, a manhole-to-manhole inspection and repair of smaller cables which had also burned took place. Consolidated Edison was due to make an initial status report, regarding the outage, on August 2, 2006. Data submitted by Con Edison in August, 2006 indicated that the failed feeder cables had been in service an average of 16 years, with the oldest failed cable 59 years old.
For the official CONED report on the event- which is a highly technical document, click here
ratstravaganza or “I am not that demon swineherd”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The voice was familiar, polished by Marlboro and inflected by origin and experience in Astoria, when it asked “Do you want to take pictures of rats… I mean a whole lot of rats?”. One of my buddies, employed by a mid size garbage haulage company based in Maspeth, described the scene to me in lurid detail- when his trucks returned to the garage from a weekly garbage run (they normally specialize in certain recyclable materials, but also handle organics) rats would pour out of them and claim free reign over the enormous structure for a few hours. A home grown colony of rats, as well, were known to come spilling out of the walls when the lights went down.
from wikipedia, and note- this isn’t the company “waste management”, just the subject
Waste management is the collection, transport, processing, recycling or disposal, and monitoring of waste materials. The term usually relates to materials produced by human activity, and is generally undertaken to reduce their effect on health, the environment or aesthetics. Waste management is also carried out to recover resources from it. Waste management can involve solid, liquid, gaseous or radioactive substances, with different methods and fields of expertise for each.
Waste management practices differ for developed and developing nations, for urban and rural areas, and for residential and industrial producers. Management for non-hazardous residential and institutional waste in metropolitan areas is usually the responsibility of local government authorities, while management for non-hazardous commercial and industrial waste is usually the responsibility of the generator.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Dark and effluent, the garage is a multiple acre building with 40-50 foot ceilings and cinder block walls. Industrial equipment is installed directly into concrete flooring, and in places there are pits and deep channels that allow the automated equipment room to operate. An amiable Brooklynite agreed to accompany me around the place, and steer me from hazardous drops familiar to him after a life time of occupation at the facility. I had to rely on flash photography and high ISO settings, as the quick moving rodents shied away from any attempt at lighting.
from wikipedia
Rats are known to burrow extensively, both in the wild and in captivity, if given access to a suitable substrate. Rats generally begin a new burrow adjacent to an object or structure, as this provides a sturdy “roof” for the section of the burrow nearest to the ground’s surface. Burrows usually develop to eventually include multiple levels of tunnels, as well as a secondary entrance. Older male rats will generally not burrow, while young males and females will burrow vigorously.
Burrows provide rats with shelter and food storage as well as safe, thermoregulated nest sites. Rats use their burrows to escape from perceived threats in the surrounding environment—for example, rats will retreat to their burrows following a sudden, loud noise or while fleeing an intruder. Burrowing can therefore be described as a “pre-encounter defensive behavior”, as opposed to a “post-encounter defensive behavior”, such as flight, freezing, or avoidance of a threatening stimulus.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Scurriers abound in this cairn of municipal waste management, which is built in the industrial heartland of the Newtown Creek. Concentric layers of factory and mill are pancaked beneath the structures that have survived into modernity. Beneath the ground, collapsed crawl spaces and forgotten pipelines rifle through the poison soil. Memory of these voids beneath Maspeth is long dead, and the architectural plans that detail their course have long since turned to dust… or have been recycled.
from wikipedia
Industrial archaeology, like other branches of archaeology, is the study of material culture from the past, but with a focus on industry. Strictly speaking, industrial archaeology includes sites from the earliest times (such as prehistoric copper mining in the British Peak District) to the most recent (such as coal mining sites in the UK closed in the 1980s). However, since large-scale industrialisation began only in the eighteenth century it is often understood to relate to that and later periods. Industrial archaeologists aim to record and understand the remains of industrialisation, including the technology, transport and buildings associated with manufacture or raw material production. Their work encompasses traditional archaeology, engineering, architecture, economics and the social history of manufacturing/extractive industry as well as the transport and utilities sector.
The term ‘industrial archaeology’ was coined in the 1950s in Birmingham, England by Michael Rix (academic) although its meaning and interpretation has changed. Its development as a separate subject was further stimulated by the campaign to save the Euston Arch. Palmer and Neaverson (Industrial Archaeology Principles and Practice, 1998) defined it as: “the systematic study of structures and artefacts as a means of enlarging our understanding of the industrial past.”
Initially practiced largely by amateurs, it was at first looked down upon by professional archaeologists. However, it has now been welcomed into mainstream archaeology. Since the timeframe of study is usually relatively recent, industrial archaeology is often (but not always) able to achieve a more reliable and absolute recording of past behaviour than is possible for the more remote past.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Urban explorers have brought reports of this underworld to the surface, but they will only discuss the subject after a series of stiff drinks. Following the natural course of water, voids in the subsurface are found and accessed through sewer and electrical utility vaults. Compass readings and radio telephony are impossible beneath the streets, and hushed allusions to a pair from East Williamsburg who are rumored to have never returned from the sepulchral depths verge on urban legend. As one proceeds closer to the Newtown Creek, vast middens of rats are mentioned, living amidst and in some cases feeding on an oozing black jelly whose vile smell vaguely suggests vaseline mixed with ham.
from wikipedia
Petroleum jelly, petrolatum or soft paraffin[1], CAS number 8009-03-8, is a semi-solid mixture of hydrocarbons (with carbon numbers mainly higher than 25), originally promoted as a topical ointment for its healing properties. Its folkloric medicinal value as a “cure-all” has since been limited by better scientific understanding of appropriate and inappropriate uses (see Uses below). However, it is recognized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as an approved over-the-counter (OTC) skin protectant and remains widely used in cosmetic skin care.
The raw material for petroleum jelly was discovered in 1859 in Titusville, Pennsylvania, United States, on some of the country’s first oil rigs. Workers disliked the paraffin-like material forming on rigs because it caused them to malfunction, but they used it on cuts and burns because it hastened healing.
Robert Chesebrough, a young chemist whose previous work of distilling fuel from the oil of sperm whales had been rendered obsolete by petroleum, went to Titusville to see what new materials had commercial potential. Chesebrough took the unrefined black “rod wax”, as the drillers called it, back to his laboratory to refine it and explore potential uses. Chesebrough discovered that by distilling the lighter, thinner oil products from the rod wax, he could create a light-colored gel. Chesebrough patented the process of making petroleum jelly by U.S. Patent No. 127,568 in 1872. The process involved vacuum distillation of the crude material followed by filtration of the still residue through bone char.
Chesebrough traveled around New York demonstrating the product to encourage sales by burning his skin with acid or an open flame, then spreading the ointment on his injuries and showing his past injuries healed, he claimed, by his miracle product.
He opened his first factory in 1870 in Brooklyn, United States. The brand name “Vaseline” has been anecdotally claimed to be from the German word for water, wasser (pronounced vahser), and the Greek word for oil, elaion, but this is unconfirmed.
The part of Brooklyn Chesebrough located his factory in, incidentally, was Red Hook and it was at Columbia and Delevan Streets.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My guide in the garage informed me that these rats were nearly impossible to control via the use of baited traps and poisons. It was his supposition that the whole place was poisoned, afflicted with some sort of chemical overdose, and pointed out the stunted trees that dot the area. I mentioned “the colour” and he said that was as good a name for it as any. He went on to say that the only thing which has alleviated the rat population in the garage at all is a raccoon which has taken up residence in the place.
That’s a raccoon, -which just showed up- in Maspeth, a few blocks from Newtown Creek.
from wikipedia
The area known today as Maspeth was chartered by Dutch and English settlers in the mid-17th century. The Dutch had purchased land in the area known today as Queens in 1635, and within a few years began chartering towns. In 1642 they settled Maspat, under a charter granted to Rev. Francis Doughty. Maspat became the first European settlement in Queens. The settlement was leveled the following year in an attack by Native Indians, and the surviving settlers returned to Manhattan. It wasn’t until nine years later, in 1652, that settlers ventured back to the area, settling an area slightly inland from the previous Maspat location. This new area was called Middleburg, and eventually developed into what is now the town of Elmhurst, bordering Maspeth. Following the immigration waves of the 19th century, Maspeth was home to a shanty town of Boyash (Ludar) Gypsies between 1925 and 1939, though this was eventually bulldozed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As we headed back for the office section of the facility, where my buddy awaited, my guide pointed out the cinder block wall and the apertures chewed through it by the rats. The rats are in the walls… there are rats in the walls, the rats… in… the… walls…
Just then, my buddy walked out and asked if I enjoyed my “ratstravaganza”.
from HP Lovecraft’s “Rats in the walls” at wikisource
When Dr Trask, the anthropologist, stopped to classify the skulls, he found a degraded mixture which utterly baffled him. They were mostly lower than the Piltdown man in the scale of evolution, but in every case definitely human. Many were of higher grade, and a very few were the skulls of supremely and sensitively developed types. All the bones were gnawed, mostly by rats, but somewhat by others of the half-human drove. Mixed with them were many tiny bones of rats — fallen members of the lethal army which closed the ancient epic.
I wonder that any man among us lived and kept his sanity through that hideous day of discovery. Not Hoffman nor Huysmans could conceive a scene more wildly incredible, more frenetically repellent, or more Gothically grotesque than the twilit grotto through which we seven staggered; each stumbling on revelation after revelation, and trying to keep for the nonce from thinking of the events which must have taken place there three hundred, or a thousand, or two thousand or ten thousand years ago. It was the antechamber of hell, and poor Thornton fainted again when Trask told him that some of the skeleton things must have descended as quadrupeds through the last twenty or more generations.
Horror piled on horror as we began to interpret the architectural remains. The quadruped things — with their occasional recruits from the biped class — had been kept in stone pens, out of which they must have broken in their last delirium of hunger or rat-fear. There had been great herds of them, evidently fattened on the coarse vegetables whose remains could be found as a sort of poisonous ensilage at the bottom of the huge stone bins older than Rome. I knew now why my ancestors had had such excessive gardens — would to heaven I could forget! The purpose of the herds I did not have to ask.
Greenpoint Parade
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Memorial Day weekend was a busy couple of days. In addition to certain bacchanal gatherings here in Astoria, where the flesh of lower animals would be roasted over open flame whilst inebriating beverages were consumed by revelers, your humble narrator was meant to meet up with the redoubtable Kevin Walsh of Forgotten-NY fame in Brooklyn. Both Mr. Walsh and myself are associates of the Newtown Historical Society, and we have recently produced certain booklets detailing sites and scenes discussed during two tours of the Newtown area- specifically Elmhurst and Woodside.
Keen on the notion of providing such printed collateral to his own venture, I volunteered to meet him in Bushwick and get some photos for an upcoming June 27th tour of the area. I was a bit early, and decided to walk from Astoria to Bushwick, wandering through and about storied Greenpoint for a awhile.
I found a parade, with soldiers, sailors, and several historic vehicles.
from ironandsteelnyctofortbenning.org/
Engine 343 is a 1951 Mack Fire Truck and is engraved with the names of the 343 Firefighters who gave their lives at the World Trade Center on September 11 2001.
and from firefamilytransport.org
THE FDNY FIRE FAMILY TRANSPORT FOUNDATION s a registered 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation dedicated to the well-being of the fire department family; for recognition of the unique sacrifices that firefighters and their families selflessly make for the sake of all; and to honor those sacrifices. The central focus of the Foundation is assisting the families of firefighters in their times of greatest need, in transporting firefighters, family members and department personnel to and from medical institutions both for care and family support. We also are dedicated to the comfort and support of the families of firefighters in their times of bereavement. Our immediate aim is to minimize the negative impact of injuries and fatalities that members of the fire family endure, by providing vehicles and transportation assistance, in conjunction with the Fire Department of the City of New York. On a broader scale, we are dedicated to the good of the community in building awareness of the often-overlooked needs of the fire department family.
The Foundation is all-volunteer, entirely non-profit, and depends on donations of equipment, funds and service to carry out its mission. The Foundation has, through donations, acquired a fleet of vehicles that are commissioned to the Fire Department and are available around the clock to provide transportation services throughout the City of New York and environs. The Foundation also assists fire families in funeral details, tributes and memorials, to preserve the honor of their sacrifices. The Foundation also joins to support other organizations and endeavors in the broader community, in honor of all who serve in the same spirit.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The usual military honorifics were in effect, color guard and ROTC, a bagpipe brigade, and several on duty soldiers. There was also a few politicians wandering around, which I of course didn’t realize until I closely examined the images later that night. All in all, it was a pretty festive affair, although the troops looked like they were suffering from standing in formation forced to endure the extreme heat and direct sunlight experienced by New Yorkers that weekend.
There isn’t a whole lot of linkage I can direct you towards to explain the green and black “colorway” of the vintage NYPD patrol car (a Plymouth Fury 2) pictured above. Suffice to say that in 1972, it was decided to drop the traditional green, white, and black scheme and adopt the “white on blue” colors that precede the modern “blue on white” so familiar to us. The whole transition is actually best described by scale model enthusiasts, click here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Everywhere you looked, incidentally, were examples of Brooklyn “characters”. It’s one of the great things about Greenpoint, to me, that its still old Brooklyn- a neighborhood full of wise asses and jokers. On the faces of many a lifetime resident, one can see a map of the world, drawn in over the course of decades.
from wikipedia
Greenpoint was originally inhabited by Keskachauge (Keshaechqueren) Indians, a sub-tribe of the Lenape. Contemporary accounts describe it as remarkably verdant and beautiful, with Jack pine and oak forest, meadows, fresh water creeks and briny marshes. Water fowl and fish were abundant. The name originally referred to a small bluff of land jutting into the East River at what is now the westernmost end of Freeman Street, but eventually came to describe the whole peninsula.
In 1638 the Dutch West India Company negotiated the right to settle Brooklyn from the Lenape. The first recorded European settler of what is now Greenpoint was Dirck Volckertsen (Dutchified from Holgerssøn), a Norwegian immigrant who in 1645 built a one-and-a-half story farmhouse there with the help of two Dutch carpenters. In was in the contemporary Dutch style just west of what is now the intersection of Calyer St. and Franklin Street. There he planted orchards and raised crops, sheep and cattle. He was called Dirck de Noorman by the Dutch colonists of the region, Noorman being the Dutch word for “Norseman” or “Northman.” The creek which ran by his farmhouse became known as Norman Kill (Creek); it ran into a large salt marsh and was later filled in. Volckertsen received title to the land after prevailing in court the year before over a Jan De Pree, who had a rival claim. He initially commuted to his farm by boat and may not have moved into the house full time until after 1655, when the small nearby settlement of Boswyck was established, on the charter of which Volckertsen was listed along with twenty-two other families. Volckertsen’s wife, Christine Vigne, was a Walloon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The enigmatic couple in the shot above are strangers to me, and I apologize for violating this moment between them, but they just seemed to sum up the general mood of the crowd. I’m led to believe that Trashed MC is a motorcycle club which was founded by DSNY sanitation workers.
from flagshipnews.com
Sailors, Marines and Coast Guardsmen supporting Fleet Week New York 2010 gathered in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn to participate in a Memorial Day Veterans Parade hosted by the American Legion St. Stanislaus Post 1771, May 30.
More than 50 Sailors, Marines and Coast Guardsmen marched in the parade.
“It’s an overwhelming feeling of patriotism as a Navy veteran,” said Jim Feith, co-founder of the Greenpoint Memorial Day Veterans Parade. “For us older veterans, who are now 40 – 50 years removed from our time of service, it has never left us.”
The parade was held in honor of the men and women who have made countless sacrifices in defense of our nation.
“It is a great honor,” said Pat Sparano, a World War II Army veteran and the parade’s Grand Marshal. “I thank everybody that arranged this for me, it’s an honor to have been chosen as today’s Grand Marshal.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was on Driggs and Leonard, by the way, and the whole do was taking place on Leonard.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Leaving the parade behind and continuing toward Bushwick, I happened across this vintage bus stalled out in the middle of the street around a mile away. The driver of the bus, sitting on an empty bucket nearby, informed me that he had broken down on the way to some parade in Greenpoint, and did I know where the corner of Driggs and Leonard was. He also said that this bus was but one of many relict models that the MTA has hidden away.
this next link takes you to the arcane world of the “foamers” at subchat. A group of railfans, transit workers, and enthusiasts. EVERYTHING- every historical fact, model number, and arcane regulation about nyc transit can be found in their collective hive mind…
this bus is a 1961 GMC 5301 model Fishbowl bus. #1059
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Bushwick, and its curious mix of atavist housing and modern possibility awaited, and I had to go meet up with Kevin Walsh in front of some statue. I learned quite a bit, and visited a few places I hadn’t seen since the hot summers of the 1970’s.
You can too, incidentally, on June 27th.
Check out this page at forgotten-ny.com for info on tour pricing and availability– don’t wait too long, FNY keeps their walking tours down to an intimate number, and space fills up fast with rabid forgotten-fans. There is a photographic wonderland in Brooklyn, let Mr. Walsh guide you through a few of your first steps in this forgotten place.
Crazy Seaport Experience
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, last night- June 15th- the Working Harbor Committee held one of its periodic tours of New York Harbor and both myself and a group of friends attended. Unbeknownst to us, however, a free concert was being offered by a local radio station. Whoever produced this show, incidentally- as in the individual- was criminally negligent regarding crowd control -IMHO. By 6 pm, the entirety of pier 17 was overwhelmed with thousands of kids, and the crowd backed out from the river a good two blocks up Fulton street.
from nydailynews.com
The raucous crowd massed on the Seaport’s cobble-stoned streets spun out of control during a lull that followed a performance by opening act DJ Ninjasonik.
“It was a riot,” said Melanie Gerald, 22, of Brooklyn, who was caught in the middle of the mayhem.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A small miracle, the steel staircases didn’t collapse under the weight of all these folks. They had come to see an act starring someone named Drake, and when word went around that the NYPD cancelled the show due to the uncontrollable numbers of people, they started throwing all sorts of things at each other and the stage. To be fair, however, NYPD had a meager footprint mustered around this massive legion- and normal crowd control techniques like sectioning the crowd into “pens” and limiting entry points to controlled gateways were entirely absent.
It really, really smelled of weed. If it smells like weed in the 21st century financial district, especially around a tourist attraction like the South Street Seaport, NYPD is clearly not in control.
from brooklynvegan.com
Chris La Putt was on hand to see Ninjasonik play less than one song at South Street Seaport this fine Tuesday evening (6/15). As previously mentioned, not counting Hanson’s soundcheck, that was all the music the giant crowd got to hear. Headliners Hanson and Drake never got to perform as the cops quickly shut down the free show to be safe.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Our vessel departed, followed its course, and upon our return- it became obvious that NYPD was very much in control again. Helicopters circled overhead, less than a thousand feet up, and several Harbor units were also observed patrolling and illuminating the coastline beneath the FDR drive. Our boat, which normally docks at Pier 17, made a rough adjustment and moored to Pier 11 allowing us to debark.
from nytimes.com
The police said that chaos erupted shortly after 6:30 p.m. when word got out that Drake would not be arriving until 8 p.m. People began throwing things off the balcony down to audience members below, and the police ended up arresting at least two people for disorderly conduct and obstructing governmental administration. The concert’s promoter eventually shut the concert down for safety reasons, the police said.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Vehicles flashing their bubble lights were observed in long lines, creating a mobile wall and acting to separate the crowd into manageable segments. Hundreds if not thousands of kids were roaming around, angry at having missed the opportunity to experience the concert. Real menace hung in the air, although both kids and cops seemed to maintain a measure of civility on one hand and professionalism on the other. Above, the choppers.
How things have changed, in the City of Greater New York, since your humble narrator was a boy in the 1970’s.
check out this video from black348 at youtube.com
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Even as late as the mid 1990’s this kind of situation would follow a script familiar to all, angry Cops bashing heads and kids breaking windows. There were a few scuffles, and a few bad actors were observed on both sides, of course. However, my friends and I- the youngest of whom was 30 and the oldest 60- remained unmolested and untrammeled. The kids were just being kids, the cops were just being cops.
also from youtube, check out this video by UrbaNiista
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Maybe this sort of situation is part of the reason that the cops do those scary training exercises of theirs, when 50 or more Police radio cars will move through the Shining City in a great serpentine formation. All I can say is that I was there, disconnected from the event- an Outsider, as always- and that the problem originated when the crowd was allowed to “do what it wilt”, which became the whole of the law for a time.
And kids, here’s a bit of wisdom from the 1980’s- never call a New York City Police Officer anything other than Sir. The fact that you’re still breathing indicates that they are showing restraint, you don’t want to test their patience, and most cops respond to polite behavior. Act all nutty, and they can hit you with boats, helicopters, missiles- anything they want to. You can’t win an argument with a cop on the street, go quiet and let the lawyer handle it.
finally- check out the local abc affiliate’s report on the scene.
Gods Gift to Pain
Please click through to Flickr and the larger incarnations of the above shot- it’s composed of 7 photos stitched together. Thats 7 fifteen megapixel shots and its HUGE – photo by Mitch Waxman
That extinction of hope called the Newtown Creek enjoys a series of canalized industrial waterways which act as tributaries to its main course. In the past we have visited Dutch Kills, Whale Creek, Maspeth Creek… today, it’s time for a visit to the vicious end of it all.
note: This post violates a number of the rules followed by this, your Newtown Pentacle, regarding rail tracks and probable trespass of private property… yet my hypocrisy knows no bounds. Realize, however, that I was with learned company- individuals overly familiar with this area, its mores, and the rail schedules. Do not come here, especially by yourself- for reasons later explained in this very post!
Welcome to the poison heartlands of New York City, where foul ichors flow freely, and English Kills bubbles in the afternoon sun.
from wikipedia
Newtown Creek is a 3.5 mi (6 km) estuary that forms part of the border between the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, in New York City, New York, United States. It derives its name from New Town (Nieuwe Stad), which was the name for the Dutch and British settlement in what is now Elmhurst, Queens. Channelization made it one of the most heavily used bodies of water in the Port of New York and New Jersey and thus one of the most polluted industrial sites in America, containing years of discarded toxins, an estimated 30 million gallons of spilled oil, and raw sewage from New York City’s sewer system. Newtown Creek was proposed as a potential Superfund site in September 2009.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is as bad as it gets, one of the few places along the Creek where exposure to the water is life threatening in the short term.
Sure, if you fall off the Grand Avenue Bridge, you’re going to experience broad spectrum antibiotics administered intravenously over the course of a week or two in the hospital- but this stuff is pure dragon blood.
Nauseous miasmas were luckily carried away by stiff breezes, but several times- your humble narrator felt one of his spells coming on.
Up until the latter part of the 20th Century, industries along the creek had free reign over the disposal of unwanted byproducts. With little-to-no government regulation or knowledge of impacts on human health and the environment, it made business sense to pollute the creek. The legacy of this history today is a 17 million gallon underground oil spill caused by Standard Oil’s progeny companies—7 million gallons more than the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, copper contamination of the Phelps Dodge superfund site, bubbling from the creek bed in the English Kill reach due to increases of hydrogen sulfide and a lack of dissolved oxygen, and creekbeds coated with of old tires, car frames, seats and loose paper. Nearly the entire creek had the sheen and smell of petroleum, with the bed and banks slicked black.
There is no natural freshwater flow into the creek as the historic tributaries were covered over. Flow exclusively consists of contaminated stormwater runoff, carrying trash from numerous bridges, unsewered and wholly paved streets and industrial sites, waste transfer stations, and combined sewer overflows (CSOs) from the city’s sewer system. Moreover, severely toxic groundwater seeps through the bed and banks of the creek. Every year Newtown Creek receives 14,000 million gallons of combined sewage overflow, a mixture of rainwater runoff, raw domestic sewage, and industrial wastewater that overwhelms treatment plants every time it rains. There are also discharges from numerous permitted and unpermitted pollution sources. The creek is mostly stagnant, meaning all the pollutants that have entered the creek over the past two centuries have never left. The creek is also home to a federal Superfund site, several State Superfund sites and numerous brownfields that have not yet secured the attention of regulators.
All is not lost, however. Recently, life is returning to the creek. You can find blue crabs at the mouth, fish swim in its waters, and waterfowl are prevalent. Wetland plants are taking over the abandoned bulkheads and sediment piles and school children are growing oysters, which serve as natural water filters. The Newtown Creek Alliance is actively fighting to help life return to the creek by decreasing pollution and increasing the wetlands along the creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The sickly vegetation, everything, was pulsing with “the colour”. Neither black nor white nor gray, but somehow “shiny”, this alien colour – like something out of space- permeates and identifies the creeklands. Nothing moved, but seemed instead to sway against the wind instead of with it.
In 1655, Director Stuyvesant being absent on an expedition against the Swedes on the Delaware, a horde of armed Indians landed at New Amsterdam, and began to break into houses for plunder. Driven back by the soldiers and armed citizens, they fell upon the unprotected Dutch farmers in the vicinity, many of whom were slain and others taken into captivity. The troubles experienced from the savages were now so alarming as to require the residents of Mespat Kills to concentrate for mutual safety. They, therefore, formed a village on “Smith’s Island,” at the English Kills. The Hon. Nicasius De Sille, who had a patent for the island, had the direction of the new settlement, and called it Aernhem after his native place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Dead things were observed in the filth, amongst other unidentifiable shapes and eyeless tubiforms that slithered and flopped and listened from the littoral mud. A vague sense of being watched affected my guides and I, and the loneliness of our location created a sense of certain misgivings which was both real and profound. Nevertheless, I continued my incessant photography, trying to make the best of limited access.
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
This place, the very end of English Kills in East Williamsburgh, is non navigable and well beyond the containment boom that is observable from the Metropolitan Avenue Bridge. It hosts a rather large CSO (combined sewer outlet), and is crossed by a rail bridge which connects the massive Waste Management operation to infinite Brooklyn on one side and Queens on the other. The wooden structures which are so pleasingly posed, in their relict decay, are the remains of a former rail bridge which served the same purpose as the modern bridge.
The desk chair above is anybody’s guess.
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 shores were littered with death and disposal, and I spotted this sad little duck perched out on one of the rail structures. It didn’t seem to be moving very much, and its posture suggested sickness.
The City of New York has plans for this area. Check out page 29 of this PDF
DEP proposes to construct a 9 million gallon CSO storage facility to improve water quality by reducing the CSO discharged into the English Kills during rain storms when the CSO exceeds the capacity of the combined sewers. When this occurs, the CSO would be bypassed to the storage facility. At the end of the rain event the CSO would flow by gravity or be pumped back to the sewer system to be conveyed to the Newtown Creek Water Pollution Control Plant (WPCP) for treatment. This system was recommended by the Newtown Creek Water Quality Facility Planning Project (WQFP), a study that was part of the Citywide Combined Sewer Overflow abatement program.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Here’s a close up of the duck, which is what I was shooting when my companions and I heard a series of voices and shuffling from the overgrown border of one of the warehouses that abuts the English Kills. Haste was made for a more advantageous position, as we were downhill and the water was at our backs. Strange gutterals were heard emanating from somewhere back in the forbidden brush, a sound almost reminiscent of a dog or bear attempting to speak as a man might- an imitation of speech rather than true use of language.
from epa.gov
Various sediment and surface water samples have been taken along the creek. Pesticides, metals, PCBs, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are potentially harmful contaminants that can easily evaporate into the air, have been detected at the creek.
In the early 1990s, New York State declared that Newtown Creek was not meeting water quality standards under the Clean Water Act. Since then, a number of government sponsored cleanups of the creek have taken place. The New York City Department of Environmental Protection has sampled sediment and surface water at a number of locations along the creek since 1980. In 2009, EPA will further sample the sediment throughout the length of Newtown Creek and its tributaries. The samples will be analyzed for a wide range of industrial contaminants. EPA will use the data collected to define the nature of the environmental problems associated with Newtown Creek as a whole.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
2 men, whose macabre appearance and bizarre style of dress took me aback, emerged from down this trail. Something odd was happening back there, and it was decided that discretion was the best part of valor, and we prepared to exit. Allowing the two men to gain some distance from us (I did not photograph them, out of cowardice) I swung my camera back toward the water and the Waste Management fenceline just as music began to play somewhere back in this wood of suspicion and horror.
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
I shot this photo figuring it to be the end of this post, but that’s when I noticed it…
from wikipedia
The eastern half of East Williamsburg, roughly bounded by the Newtown Creek East and by the BQE and Flushing Avenue on the North and South, is mostly zoned for industry with some residential housing mixed among the warehouses and factories. The section is currently referred to by the city as the East Williamsburg Industrial Park (EWIP), or formally the East Williamsburg In-Place Industrial Park (EWIPIP)[8]. The western boundary runs approximately along Kinsgland Ave, then Morgan Avenue and then just East of Bushwick Avenue.
The EWIP is one of eight In-Place Industrial Parks in New York City and is managed by the East Williamsburg Valley Industrial Development Corporation (EWVIDCO), a company founded in 1982 with the goal of revitalizing East Williamsburg by attracting new businesses, providing business assistance to existing firms and grow overall job opportunities in the neighborhood
Historically, this neighboorhood was not part of the Village of Williamsburgh. In the late 1800s the region east of Smith Street (now Humboldt Street), west of the Newtown Creek, south of Meeker Avenue (now the BQE service road)), and north of Metropolitan Avenue was the 18th ward of the City of Brooklyn[10]. The north part of the EWIP is served by the Greenpoint Post Office and is considered by some to be part of Greenpoint. The portion of the EWIP to the South of Metropolitan Avenue was historically part of Bushwick and is still referred by many as being in Bushwick.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I really have no idea what this is about, and I have read every crackpot theory that has ever been concocted. It very well could just be “ironic” hipster graffiti. I really don’t know, but it’s here at the end of English Kills, where at least two VERY odd characters are camped out. The things I noticed about these two fellows, you see, was this…
Two skinny white guys, late 40’s- early 50’s. Gray hair, both of them. They walked kind of stiff, and they had the colour on them. They lived back there, was my impression. A lot of “down on their luck” people live in these kinds of places- that’s not odd. What was odd- every item of clothing they were wearing still had price tags on them, and their shoes weren’t placed on their feet correctly- one of them had the left foot in the right shoe and so on. It was as if they weren’t used to wearing the clothing of men- or at least the men of this era.
from wikipedia
While it is generally accepted that some homeless people in large cities do indeed make use of accessible, abandoned underground structures for shelter, urban legends persist that make stronger assertions. These include claims that ‘mole people’ have formed small, ordered societies similar to tribes, numbering up to hundreds living underground year-round. It has also been suggested that they have developed their own cultural traits and even have electricity by illegal hook-up. The subject has attracted some attention from sociologists but is a highly controversial subject due to a lack of evidence.
Jennifer Toth’s 1993 book The Mole People: Life In The Tunnels Beneath New York City, [1] written while she was an intern at the Los Angeles Times, is allegedly a true account of travels in the tunnels and interviews with tunnel dwellers. The book helped canonize the image of the mole people as an ordered society living literally under people’s feet, reminiscent of the Morlocks of science fiction writer H.G. Wells.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As the sign at English Kills says, the one with the little pitchfork in the lower left hand corner:
“In Gods Blessed Darkness Rambo Harnesses Light as Gods Gift to Pain”.
Bigskybrooklyn got some shots of the place during the defoliated winter, which shows a shack back there- check them out.
from nyc.gov
New York City has an estimated 3,306 unsheltered individuals according to HOPE 2008-a ratio of 1 unsheltered homeless individual to 2,485* of the general city population. San Francisco has a 1 in 269 ratio; followed by Seattle with 1 in 295; Miami-Dade County with 1 in 1,741; and Chicago with 1 in 1,798.
There were an estimated 1,263 unsheltered individuals in Manhattan; 279 in the Bronx; 336 in Brooklyn; 135 in Queens; and 152 in Staten Island for a total of 2,165 on the surface (meaning streets and parks). There were 1,141 unsheltered individuals in the subways. Additionally, the Single Adult Shelter Census showed a decline by 19 percent from 8,687 in 2005 to 6,998 in 2008.
The Newtown Pentacle 