Archive for 2010
St. Raphael’s
Click here for the Flickr Slideshow, which I’ve just become aware, hasn’t been displaying in the usual fashion here at NP.com.
– photos by Mitch Waxman
I just happened to be passing St. Raphael’s on Greenpoint Avenue on Saturday the 14th of August, and found this splash of color illuminating the fossilized heart of this- your Newtown Pentacle.
Why I hate Ms. Heather
– photo by Mitch Waxman
God damn that genius monkey in Greenpoint, she got here before me. The brilliant, prolific, and blazing Ms. Heather of NY Shitty beat me to this location, AND, she worked the same “angle” on it that I was going to use, months before I even found the place.
If you aren’t familiar with nyshitty’s world of North Brooklyn, the incisive sartorial “eye”, that unique sense of humor- you must live in Manhattan or something.
I found this place in on Vandam Street in Blissville, while on my way to the haunting elevations of First Calvary one fine afternoon, and started shooting.
My, what a wonderful posting this will make, muttered your humble narrator to himself. He forgot about the way that Ms. Heather kicks ass, every day.
from newyorkshitty.com
If you disagree with anything I have posted, wish to correct something I might have overlooked and/or fudged; or simply want to chime in I’m all for it. In fact, I encourage this. I want this site to be a public forum where north Brooklynites and New York Shittites (if not in locality, at heart) can talk shop. Respectfully.
Terse and even downright angry is acceptable. What I will not tolerate is abuse. Be it directed at me or other commenters. In other words, if what you have in mind has an “ism” to describe it don’t bother. I won’t approve it.
The more surly and self-righteous among you might decry this as a denial of your “free speech”. It isn’t. This web site is powered by free speech. My free speech. If you have something you want to say so badly that is circumscribed by my (albeit vague) terms of use, start your own blog. It’s your right too. Go for it.
Otherwise, I look forward to hearing from you!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Brooklyn Vault Light Co., with an address?
Easy post, and it will make the lords and ladies believe my personal mythology of “omniscient and timeless wisdom” when I reveal a forgotten industrial corridor to them. Oh, how wise will I seem.
Then… I get back to Newtown Pentacle HQ here in fuligin haired Astoria and begin my researches, and discover that the thrice damned Ms. Heather presented this location- and its associated history- in a concise and attractive post well before I had even found the site.
How does she do it? Relentless, she is like an ocean- tidal, ever present, timeless.
from villagevoice.com
The accounts of Greenpoint life that make up most of New York Shitty aren’t all as negative as the name implies. “It was initially premised on the dog-shit problem in my community,” Miss Heather tells us. “I reached my breaking point one day when I was coming home from the Franklin Corner Store laden with bags of groceries. I was literally dodging dog bombs every two or three feet.”
Her first public service when she started New York Shitty in 2006 was a series of “Crap Maps” of the Brooklyn neighborhood where she’s lived for 10 years. Then, she says, “something happened I could never have anticipated: People started paying attention.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All I can tell you, gentle readers, is that to learn the tale of this iron lid and the meaning of its enigmatic typography- you must visit her and know her wisdom- click here.
I would also mention that I’m kind of a gigantic fan of Chez Shitty, in case you haven’t put that together yet. If you’re not- you should be.
Project Firebox 10
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Woe to the FDNY Firebox which finds itself on the surly triangular corners that swirl about Northern Blvd. This elegantly destroyed specimen languishes perilously close to Steinway Street’s transmogrification into 39th street near the Standard Motor Products Building, specifically 36th avenue and 41st street.
As a point of interest, this is the eastern extant of 36th avenue, with its western terminus obviated by the Roosevelt Island Bridge at the East River.
lively antics
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Shackled by impotent pride and stalled ambitions, your humble narrator can often be observed scuttling along area sidewalks, a strange old man identified by malign aspect and the odd omnipresence of a camera. A great dread is experienced when someone on the street perceives my phantasmic presence, and I am forced into an encounter with someone who is unashamedly alive. Just such an encounter was had near Hells Gate on the East River, near Astoria Park, at the end of June 2010.
from nycgovparks.org
Although widely known for its beautiful pool, the oldest and largest in the city, Astoria Park offers more than aquatic pleasures. Outdoor tennis courts, a track, a bandstand, multiple trails, basketball courts, and playgrounds lure visitors from the five boroughs and beyond. And the views! Sitting on the edge of the East River and resting between the Triborough Bridge and Hell Gate Bridge, the park offers shoreline sights and sounds that make the benches along its perimeter popular spots year-round.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This gentleman informed me that he was an ethnic musician, and made his living playing hellenic folk music at area “tavernas” and at weddings. The instrument he carried was crafted by his ancestors, and he carried it with him to America when he arrived here in the early 1960’s. He did tell me his name, but I did not write it down. It might have been Peter. Perhaps George.
also from nycgovparks.org
Due to its proximity to Hell Gate, a turbulent area in the East River, this playground has been named for the monster Charybdis. According to Greek mythology, Charybdis was the daughter of Poseidon, the god of the sea. As a young nymph, she flooded lands to add to her father’s kingdom until Zeus, the supreme ruler of the gods, turned her into a monster.
Charybdis and her partner Scylla are personifications of the violent waters in the Straits of Messina, which separate Sicily from the Italian peninsula. Charybdis was said to dwell under a fig tree on the Sicilian shore and, three times each day, drink from the strait and spit the water back into the strait several hours later, creating perilous whirlpools and terrifying sailors. In The Odyssey, by Homer, the hero survived Charybdis’s wrath by clinging to a tree for hours until she spit out the water and his raft floated to the surface.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Practiced, his hands flew along the fret boards, and he demonstrated musical forms that are typical of the island cultures of the Hellenic Republic which is known as Greece to the english speaking world. His serenade was lilting, thrilling, and reminded me of the Greek musical genre called Rembetiko.
from wikipedia
The melodies of most rebetiko songs are thus often considered to follow one or more dromos or dromoi (gr. δρόμος, plural δρόμοι). The names of the dromoi are derived in all but a few cases from the names of various Turkish modes, known in Turkish as makam.
However, the majority of rebetiko songs have been accompanied by instruments capable of playing chords according to the Western harmonic system, and have thereby been harmonized in a manner which corresponds neither with conventional European harmony, nor with Ottoman art music, which is a monophonic form normally not harmonized. Furthermore, rebetika has come to be played on instruments tuned in equal temperament, in direct conflict with the more complex pitch divisions of the makam system.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
He described the instrument he wielded as being well over a century old, and suggested that it had certain supernatural powers against which the female gender possesses no defense. He also claimed he could calm stormy seas with it, but one thing life in Astoria has taught me is that when a Greek guy is telling a good story well – just go with it.
from wikipedia
This is the classical type of bouzouki that was the mainstay of most Rebetiko music. It has fixed frets and it has 6 strings in three pairs. In the lower-pitched (bass) course, the pair consists of a thick wound string and a thin string tuned an octave apart. The conventional modern tuning of the trichordo bouzouki is Dd-aa-dd. This tuning was called the “European tuning” by Markos Vamvakaris, who described several other tunings, or douzenia, in his autobiography. The illustrated bouzouki was made by Karolos Tsakirian of Athens, and is a replica of a trichordo bouzouki made by his grandfather for Markos Vamvakaris. The absence of the heavy mother of pearl ornamentation often seen on modern bouzoukia is typical of bouzoukia of the period. It has tuners for eight strings, but has only six strings, the neck being too narrow for eight. The luthiers of the time often used sets of four tuners on trichordo instruments, as these were more easily available, since they were used on mandolins.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Charming guy, he was intent on hanging out at the park and mentioned something about the fishes wanting to hear some Rembetiko as I was taking my leave of him.
from wikipedia
Greek emigration to the United States started in earnest towards the end of the 19th century. From then onwards, and in the years following the Asia Minor Disaster, until immigration became restricted in the mid-1920s, a great number of Greeks emigrated to the United States, bringing their musical traditions with them. American companies began recording Greek music performed by these immigrants as early as 1896. The first Greek-American recording enterprises made their appearance in 1919. From the latter years of the second decade of the century there exist a number of recordings that can be considered as rebetiko, a few years before such songs began to appear on recordings in Greece.
The music industry in the United States came to play a particular role from the mid-1930s onwards in recording rebetiko lyrics which would not have passed the censors in Greece. This phenomenon came to repeat itself during the period of the Greek military junta of 1967–1974. A notable example of American recording studios permitting some ‘bolder’ lyrics can be found in the LP “Otan Kapnizei O Loulas”, ie “When They Smoke The Hookah”, released in 1973. Releasing this album in Greece, with to its overt references to various aspects of drug use, would have been impossible at that time. It is worth noting, however, that the censorship laws invoked in Greece by Metaxas were never officially revoked until 1981, seven years after the fall of the junta. A further characteristic of American Greek recordings of the time was the continued recordings of songs in the Anatolian musical styles of rebetiko, which continued to be recorded in the United States well into the 1950s. Even songs originally recorded with typical bouzouki-baglamas-guitar accompaniment could appear in Anatolian garments.
After WWII, beginning in the early 1950s, many Greek rebetiko musicians and singers traveled from Greece to tour the United States, and some stayed for longer periods. Prominent among them were Ioannis Papaioannou, Manolis Hiotis, Vassilis Tsitsanis, Iordanis Tsomidis, Roza Eskenazi, Stratos Pagioumdzis, Stavros Tzouanakos and Ioannis Tatasopoulos, of whom the latter three died in the United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Clearly he was amused by the kayakers from the LIC Boat House as they passed by, and he launched into a wild melody on his centenarian instrument.
a fun story about Hells Gate from 1899 can be accessed here at nytimes.com– here’s the headline:
A HELL GATE SEA SERPENT.; Valiant Bowery Boatmen Bring Its Headless Body Ashore
wonderful epics of a nameless city
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is not the world you know, this unmentioned and currently undefended border between Brooklyn and Queens, where the requiescant waters of the Newtown Creek gurgle and splash. Beyond the Pulaski Bridge- where an observable and otherworldly colour stains animal, and structure, and vegetable- the heavy industries which conspire to sustain the shining city of Manhattan spread out under the Newtown sun.
from nycedc.com
The Newtown Creek according to the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) had a listing of 26 piers with a total of 8,483 feet of berthing space. However, only 16 piers with a total of 4,986 feet of berthing space are in use by 12 firms. Furthermore, six firms are using their 1,952 feet of pier berthing space and waterfront facilities occasionally only. The waterfront activity is primarily for ship and barge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Along its path, the bulkheaded shorelines of the Newtown Creek reveal the rotted timber and risible decay associated with exposure to the poisons and refuse of the vast human hive, and its associated infestations. The waters have been observed, personally, to host a surprising variety of life forms- including a dizzying array of non vertebrates. Within the cemented and artificial shores, internal voids and long abandoned pipelines shelter teeming populations of rodent forms, and unguessable possibilities present themselves when discussing what else may be hiding down there, in flooded cellar and forgotten basement.
from wikipedia
The creek begins near the intersection of 47th Street and Grand Avenue on the Brooklyn-Queens border 40°43′06″N 73°55′27″W at the intersection of the East Branch and English Kills. It empties into the East River at 40°44′14″N 73°57′40″W (2nd Street and 54th Avenue in Long Island City) opposite Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan at 26th Street. Its waterfront, and that of its tributaries Dutch Kills, Whale Creek, Maspeth Creek and English Kills, are heavily industrialized.
The creek has no natural waterflows. Its outgoing flow of 14,000 million gallons/year consists of combined sewer overflow, urban runoff, raw domestic sewage, and industrial wastewater. Being estuarine, the creek is largely stagnant. Since there is no current in the creek, sludge has congealed into a 15-foot thick layer of “black mayonnaise” on the creek bed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just after passing the yawning mouth of the malign Dutch Kills, one encounters a scrap metal operation, which operates a car shredding operation. The great mill utilizes the “Newtown Creek Dock” and is owned and operated by the Hugo Neu Schnitzer East Co.
In a nutshell, the way that things work is:
Hugo Neu Schnitzer East Co. (HNSEC from this point) receives the metal glass and plastic collected by the DSNY and private contractors at its Hunts Point bulkheads in the Bronx, New Jersey, and Brooklyn…
- HNSEC then barges certain materials to Newtown Creek, where bulk metal is separated from the less valuable plastic and virtually worthless glass.
- A preliminary sorting of plastic and glass is performed, while the bulk metal is loaded onto barges.
- The metals are shipped by barge to other facilities, and offered for sale on the worldwide commodities markets.
According to those principalities who authored and designed this system, it reduces the per ton cost of processing the waste stream as well as reducing the reliance on automotive conveyance for it and nourishes the maritime industry.
from a nytimes.com article of 2004
One of the toughest challenges with recycling has always been finding markets for the recycled goods, whose resale can then help defray the costs of the program. In announcing a 20-year recycling contract yesterday, the Bloomberg administration said it had solved that problem by encouraging a company to find those markets.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As is the way of things, Hugo Neu merged with Sim Group in 2005, and formed one of the largest recycling conglomerates in the world. According to our friends at Habitatmap, whose stout adherence to the scientific method and stalwart advocacy of the unvarnished truth has both terrified and impressed your humble narrator, the composite company- SimsMetal- is the largest single source of air pollution to be found along the modern Newtown Creek.
from simsmm.com
Sims Metal Management was originally established in 1917 by Albert Sims, a Sydney-based recycled metals dealer. The business was incorporated as Albert G. Sims Limited in 1928 and was renamed Simsmetal Limited in 1968.
In 1970, it merged with Consolidated Metal Products Limited and the merged ASX-listed company was named Sims Consolidated Limited. In 1979, Sims Consolidated Limited was acquired by Peko-Wallsend Limited and subsequently delisted. Sims Consolidated Limited was then acquired by North Limited (previously known as North Broken Hill Holdings Limited, and then North Broken Hill Peko Limited) in 1988. In 1989, North Limited sold the business to Elders Resources NZFP Limited, a diversified resources company.
In 1990, Carter Holt Harvey Limited made a successful takeover bid for Elders Resources NZFP Limited and divested that company’s non-forestry businesses, which included Sims. Sims changed its name to Simsmetal Limited in 1990 and relisted on the ASX in 1991. Simsmetal Limited changed its name to Sims Group Limited in 2003.
Sims Metal Management’s corporate strategy includes leading industry consolidation through acquisitions. Over a number of years, with experience gained from numerous international acquisitions, Sims Metal Management has established strict acquisition criteria. The acquisition criteria require that any acquisition target holds the number one or number two market position, delivers access to domestic and international customers, offers a sound platform for future growth and, above all else, will likely enhance shareholder value. The acquisition criteria have underpinned Sims Metal Management’s strong track record of international expansion.
In October 2005, Sims Group Limited merged with the recycling businesses of Hugo Neu Corporation, a privately owned U.S. corporation. The merger created a new ASX listed company named Sims Group Limited, which is traded under the ASX code “SGM.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I am told by knowledgeable sources that much of this scrap metal will eventually find its way to the mercantile courts of far away Asia, with the bulk of it headed to the smokestacks of China. This is less recycling and waste disposal than it is mining, if one actually takes a step back and looks at it.
from wikipedia
The scrap industry contributed $65 billion in 2006 and is one of the few contributing positively to the U.S. balance of trade, exporting $15.7 billion in scrap commodities in 2006. This imbalance of trade has resulted in rising scrap prices during 2007 and 2008 within the United States.[2] Scrap recycling also helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and conserves energy and natural resources. For example, scrap recycling diverts 145,000,000 short tons (129,464,286 long tons; 131,541,787 t) of materials away from landfills. Recycled scrap is a raw material feedstock for 2 out of 3 pounds of steel made in the U.S., for 60% of the metals and alloys produced in the U.S., for more than 50% of the U.S. paper industry’s needs, and for 33% of U.S. aluminum. Recycled scrap helps keep air and water cleaner by removing potentially hazardous materials and keeping them out of landfills.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Frequently observed on the East River, these barges of shredded steel and metal maintain a regular schedule back and forth from the Newtown Creek. This particular barge is the 886 gross ton Cape Lucy, a 146 foot long freight vessel operated by the Inland Barge Corporation, and constructed by Bethlehem Steel in 1953.
Always fascinated by minutia, your humble narrator wonders if this barge is a “leave behind” from the construction of the Pulaski Bridge by the self same Bethlehem Steel in 1953.
from nyc.gov
In 1881, the New York City Department of Street Cleaning was created in response to the public uproar over litter-lined streets and disorganized garbage collection. Originally called the Department of Street Cleaning, the agency took over waste responsibilities from the New York City Police Department. In 1933, the name was changed to the Department of Sanitation.
Throughout the 1880’s, 75% of NYC’s waste was dumped into the Atlantic Ocean. In 1895, Commissioner George Waring instituted a waste management plan that eliminated ocean dumping and mandated recycling. Household waste was separated into three categories: food waste, which was steamed and compressed to eventually produce grease (for soap products) and fertilizer; rubbish, from which paper and other marketable materials were salvaged; and ash, which along with the nonsalable rubbish was landfilled. The Police Department, under the direction of its Commissioner, Theodore Roosevelt, enforced the recycling law.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Heavy equipment and esoteric machinery is always on display at this location, and it attracts no small amount of attention from area photographic enthusiasts. Proximity to the Newtown Creek Waste Water Treatment Plant Nature Walk, with its wide open sight lines and panoramic scope, no doubt aids in the fame of this place. These shots, however, were captured from onboard a boat which was plying the volatile surface of the Newtown Creek.
from wikipedia
Critics dispute the net economic and environmental benefits of recycling over its costs, and suggest that proponents of recycling often make matters worse and suffer from confirmation bias. Specifically, critics argue that the costs and energy used in collection and transportation detract from (and outweigh) the costs and energy saved in the production process; also that the jobs produced by the recycling industry can be a poor trade for the jobs lost in logging, mining, and other industries associated with virgin production; and that materials such as paper pulp can only be recycled a few times before material degradation prevents further recycling. Proponents of recycling dispute each of these claims, and the validity of arguments from both sides has led to enduring controversy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Weirdly organic, the Sennebogen hydraulic loaders which effortlessly move the scrap from land to barge seem to be a favored item for the scrap industry to purchase (and Sims Metal in particular), valued for its mechanical advantages and engineering accumen. Sennebogen, like the fabled Steinway clan which has left such an indelible stamp on the surrounding communities, is a German corporation operated by a single family and founded by an enigmatic sire.
from sennebogen-na.com
RICHMOND, CA – The existing pedestal crane at the 18-acre Sims Metal Management scrap metal yard in Richmond, California had become a bit of a production liability for Jesse Garcia, Sims NW Equipment Manager. Repairs to the pedestal crane were difficult and Garcia often found himself having to lease replacement equipment to keep up production on the yard’s shear when the crane went down. When it came time to replace the crane, Garcia chose a SENNEBOGEN 840 R special, a purpose-built material handler that gives him the mobility and problem-free reliability and uptime he was seeking.
“Metal on metal”
“A scrap yard is a tough environment – it’s constant metal on metal. You need dependable equipment that is built for this application. SENNEBOGEN machines are purpose-built for handling scrap metal, they’re not just retrofitted excavators,” says Garcia. “Our tracked SENNEBOGEN 840 R special is perfect for this application. We can move it in and out for quick, easy maintenance, and should the shear go down, we can utilize it elsewhere in the yard.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Forgotten by modernity, even your humble narrator had to consult with one of the “Rabbi’s” to double confirm that this dock was originally the location of the “Manure Dock”, where Manhattan’s human waste products, animal carcasses, and organic waste would be barged to.
Journalists of the era referred to it as the “Offal dock“.
Some of the redolant cargo would be shipped untreated to points East by the LIRR to be utilized as fertilizer on the bountiful farms which once typified the eastern counties, and some percentage of it was processed by local commercial rendering operations owned by the likes of Conrad Wessel and Peter Cooper who saw the rotting filth as a raw material for various food products- aspic, isenglass, and gelatin amongst others. The remnants of that process, which involved the usage of high pressure steam and other state of the art victorian technologies, were further processed into glues, waxes, and potent acids.
from wikipedia
Where a cargo is coarser in size than minerals, commonly for scrap metal, then an orange-peel grab may be used instead of a shell. These have six or eight segments of “peel” independently hinged around a central core. They are better able to grab at an uneven load, rather than just scooping at small pieces. If the load is made of long thin pieces, a grab may also be able to carry far more than a single “grabful” at one time.
Although orange-peel grabs may be hung from cables on a jib, they’re also commonly mounted directly onto a jib. This is more suitable for grabbing at awkward loads that might otherwise tend to tip a hanging grab over. They may also use hydraulics to control the segments rather than weight and hoist cables.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The concept of recycling is nothing new, here in the megalopolis of New York, and then as now- it was the Newtown Creek and its surrounding communities that absorbed and absolved Manhattan’s sins. The stink, as reported in the late 19th century, that arose from this section of the Creek was legendary even to those hardened by close quartered tenement conditions and the press of an unventilated and crowded city which counted its draft animals in the hundreds of thousands.
Imagine a hot August day in Manhattan, 100 years ago, and that same day… on a slick of oily water some 4 miles long that defined the undefended border between the cities of Long Island City, Newtown, Greenpoint, Bushwick, and Williamsburg.
Pictured above is the DonJon towing Tug Peter Andrew, part of the DonJon Marine fleet that handles the metal and other recyclables trade from Newtown Creek to and from the Newtown Creek to the other links in the waste stream scattered about the New York Harbor archipelago. Photo is from last year, and was shot on the East River.
from donjon.com
Donjon Marine Co., Inc. offers the marine community full-service solutions to meet your every need in the field of marine salvage, dredging, material recycling and related services. Founded in 1964 by Mr. J. Arnold Witte, Donjon’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Donjon Marine’s principal business activities were marine salvage, marine transportation, and related services. Today Donjon Marine is a true provider of multifaceted marine services. Donjon’s controlled expansion into related businesses such as dredging, ferrous and non-ferrous recycling and heavy lift services are a natural progression, paralleling our record of solid technical and cost-effective performance.
The Newtown Pentacle 