Archive for November 2011
dark and stern
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just the other day, one observed this crow walking down the center median of the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge. For the purposes of nomenclature, we’ll refer to him as the Grey Crow. Even by the standards of their kind, this particular Crow seemed seedy and more than a little “off”. For those of you new to the ongoing story of the Crows- if a piece of metal, or a mattress, or anything shiny- finds its way to the sidewalk anywhere in western Queens or North Brooklyn, itinerant metal collectors like this gentleman sweep in and grab it. Soiled and blackened by their occupation, these foot soldiers of recycling then make their way to one of the several scrap metal dealers in the neighborhood, where they sell the materials at market rates and by the pound. Often, these fellows won’t wait for metals to reach the curbside midden, and they will harvest whatever metals they might happen across- as recently documented by Ms. Heather at NY-shitty.com.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While one applauds the industry of the Crows, for they are a hard working bunch who operate in an invisible and unspoken economy at the absolute bottom of the economic spectrum, they are often the proverbial “rats in the walls” of our community. One need only walk through one of the 22,000 square acres of cemetery which distinguish western Queens to see the effects of their actions. Monument and mausoleum are part of their harvest, and the valuable white bronze and copper adornments which have been pried loose from century old graves are testament to their actions. Of late, manhole and gas main covers have been part of their harvest. The Grey Crow didn’t seem to be carrying any of this illicit cargo, but these sullen and solitary men (they are almost always men) are opportunist scavengers nibbling in at the edges of civilization.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Dark in aspect and mood, existing at the edge of law and society, the Crows are growing in population- no doubt due to the worsening economic conditions which have been felt by all. This Grey Crow drew my attention due to the reckless manner in which he crossed the busy Greenpoint Avenue Bridge, walking down the center median of the traffic choked span which crosses the malign Newtown Creek between Blissville in Queens and Greenpoint in Brooklyn. Like many of his kind, when he observed a shabby man in a black trench coat pointing a camera at him, sneering commentary and verbal threats were offered to that photographic mendicant, who remains as always- your humble narrator.
groves and gardens
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Yesterday, being the 10th of November, your humble narrator found himself at the Brooklyn Navy Yard for the opening of the Building 92 museum, a newly public space at that venerable institution found on the Wallabout.
from bldg92.org
The mission of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Center at BLDG 92 is to celebrate the Navy Yard’s past, present and future, and to promote the role the Yard and its tenants play as an engine for job creation and sustainable urban industrial growth. By providing access to exhibits, public tours, educational programs, archival resources and workforce development services, BLDG 92 reinforces the Yard’s unique bonds with the community and inspires future generations to become industrial innovators and entrepreneurs.
The Brooklyn Navy Yard Center at BLDG 92 is an exhibition and visitors center that is operated as a program of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of my associates from the Working Harbor Committee had brought me along, and upon arriving, I was handed a rather elaborate press kit. Said kit included facts and glad tidings about the new museum, which is housed in a renovated 1857 era structure.
from wikipedia
On the eve of World War II, the yard contained more than five miles (8 km) of paved streets, four drydocks ranging in length from 326 to 700 feet (99 to 213 meters), two steel shipways, and six pontoons and cylindrical floats for salvage work, barracks for marines, a power plant, a large radio station, and a railroad spur, as well as the expected foundries, machine shops, and warehouses. In 1937 the battleship North Carolina was laid down. In 1938, the yard employed about ten thousand men, of whom one-third were Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers. The battleship Iowa was completed in 1942 followed by the Missouri which became the site of the Surrender of Japan 2 September 1945. On 12 January 1953, test operations began on Antietam, which emerged in December 1952 from the yard as America’s first angled-deck aircraft carrier.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The press event began with a naval color guard and pledge of allegiance, after which a group of kids were led on stage. The aim of the museum is of an educational nature, which made their presence seem appropriate.
from wikipedia
The Wallabout became the first spot on Long Island settled by Europeans when several families of French-speaking Walloons opted to purchase land there in the early 1630s, having arrived in New Netherland in the previous decade from Holland. Settlement of the area began in the mid-1630s when Joris Jansen Rapelje exchanged trade goods with the Canarsee Indians for some 335 acres (1.36 km2) of land at Wallabout Bay, but Rapelje, like other early Wallabout settlers, waited at least a decade before relocating fulltime to the area, until conflicts with the tribes had been resolved.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All the best people from the Manhattan establishment were there, including Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Christine Quinn, Speaker of the City Council.
from “A history of the city of Brooklyn : including the old town and village of Brooklyn, the town of Bushwick, and the village and city of Williamsburgh” by Gabriel Furman, 1824, courtesy archive.org
John (George) Jansen de Ratalie, one of the Walloon emigrants of 1623, who first settled at Fort Orange (Albany), and in 1G26 removed to Amsterdam, on Manhattan Inland. On the lGth of June, 1637, Bapalie purchased from its native proprietors a piece of land called ” Hennegackonk,” lying on Long Island “in the bend of Mareckkawieck,” now better known as Wallabout Bay. This purchase, comprising about three hundred and thirty-five acres, now occupied in part by the grounds of the United States Marine Hospital, and by that portion of the city between Nostrand and Grand Avenues — although it may have been, and probably was, more or less improved as a farm by Bapalie — was not occupied by him as a residence until about 1654. 3 By that time, the gradual influx of other settlers, many of whom were Walloons, had gained for the neighborhood the appellation of the “Waal-Bogt,” or “the bay of the foreigners.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Mayor Bloomberg starting things off, describing the project and it’s significance to the crowd of dignitaries and veterans. He seemed to be in a particularly jocular mood.
from wikipedia
Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American business magnate, politician, and philanthropist. Since 2002, he has been the Mayor of New York City and, with a net worth of $19.5 billion in 2011, he is also the 12th-richest person in the United States. He is the founder and eighty-eight percent owner of Bloomberg L.P., a financial news and information services media company.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Apparently, the Navy Yard is an object of some attention for City Hall and hizzoner described the various political twists and financial turns over the last decade which culminated at this ceremony.
from nyc.gov
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation President Andrew Kimball cut the ribbon today on BLDG 92, a $25 million exhibition and visitors center that documents the historic significance of the 300-acre Brooklyn Navy Yard, and announced new hiring commitments from Navy Yard tenants. Over the coming year, tenants including Steiner Studios, Shiel Medical Laboratories, B&H Photo, Duggal Visual Solutions, Cumberland Packing, Ares Printing and Mercedes Distribution have agreed to work with the Navy Yard’s expanded employment program – to be housed in BLDG 92 – to place over 300 local residents in new jobs. To date, more than 1,000 local residents have been placed in jobs over the past 10 years. The new program will make a special effort to place veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan in the new jobs.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A surprisingly large audience was present, including representatives of the various trade unions which worked on the project.
from wikipedia
A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English) is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members (rank and file members) and negotiates labour contracts (collective bargaining) with employers. This may include the negotiation of wages, work rules, complaint procedures, rules governing hiring, firing and promotion of workers, benefits, workplace safety and policies. The agreements negotiated by the union leaders are binding on the rank and file members and the employer and in some cases on other non-member workers.
Originating in Europe, trade unions became popular in many countries during the Industrial Revolution, when the lack of skill necessary to perform most jobs shifted employment bargaining power almost completely to the employers’ side, causing many workers to be mistreated and underpaid. Trade union organizations may be composed of individual workers, professionals, past workers, or the unemployed. The most common, but by no means only, purpose of these organizations is “maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez spoke next, as the Brooklyn Navy Yard is contained within her district. I had an opportunity to chat briefly with her afterwards, but we talked mainly about Newtown Creek.
from wikipedia
Nydia Margarita Velázquez (born March 28, 1953) is the U.S. Representative for New York’s 12th congressional district, serving since 1993. She is a member of the Democratic Party. The district includes residential areas of three boroughs (Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan). She is the first Puerto Rican woman to be elected to Congress, and the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus until January 3, 2011.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Speaker Quinn spoke next, and described the managers of the project with great admiration.
also from nyc.gov
“The Navy Yard is a testament to New York City’s resilience and creativity,” said NYC Council Speaker Quinn. “Through thoughtful redevelopment efforts, what was once a thriving shipbuilding facility is now a model urban industrial park that houses some of the City’s most cutting edge companies. We are proud at the Council to have partnered with the Administration, State, Borough President Markowitz, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard to make BLDG 92 a reality and are thrilled to see that it will help connect local residents to more than 300 new jobs.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This fellow was a State Senator, I believe, named Daniel Squadron.
from wikipedia
Daniel Squadron is the state senator for the 25th district of the New York State Senate. He is a Democrat. The 25th Senate District covers lower Manhattan and an area of Brooklyn down the East River from part of Greenpoint to Carroll Gardens, and eastward to part of Downtown Brooklyn.
Before his election to the state senate, Squadron attended the Fieldston School in Riverdale, New York. He later served as a top aide to U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, and helped to write Schumer’s book “Positively American: Winning Back the Middle-Class Majority One Family at a Time”. He ran in the Democratic primary against 30 year incumbent Martin Connor on September 9, 2008, defeating Connor with approximately 54% of the vote.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Next up was Deputy Mayor Bob Steel.
from nyc.gov
Robert K. Steel is Deputy Mayor for Economic Development. He is responsible for the Bloomberg Administration’s five-borough economic development strategy and job-creation efforts, as well as its efforts to expand job training, strengthen small business assistance, promote new industries, diversify the economy, and achieve the goals of the New Housing Marketplace Plan, which is designed to build or preserve enough affordable housing for 500,000 New Yorkers by 2014. He spearheads the Administration’s major redevelopment projects, including those in Lower Manhattan, Flushing, Hunters Point South, Coney Island, Stapleton, the South Bronx, and Hudson Yards. Deputy Mayor Steel oversees such agencies as the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Department of City Planning, Department of Small Business Services, NYC Economic Development Corporation and NYC & Company, and he serves as Chair of Brooklyn Bridge Park board.
Prior to his 2010 appointment as Deputy Mayor, Steel was the President and CEO of Wachovia. From 2006 to 2008, Steel was the Under Secretary for Domestic Finance at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Prior to entering government service, Steel spent nearly 30 years at Goldman Sachs, ultimately rising to become co-head of the U.S. Equities Division and Vice Chairman of the firm. He is a graduate of Duke University and the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, and has distinguished himself as Chairman of Duke’s Board of Trustees, Chairman of the Aspen Institute’s Board of Trustees, Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, a member of the FDIC Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion, Chairman of The After-School Corporation, and Co-Founder of SeaChange Capital Partners, an organization dedicated to helping nonprofits grow.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Several military veterans were in attendance, as mentioned, these fellows had served on the USS Missouri which was launched from the Navy Yard during the second World War.
from wikipedia
USS Missouri (BB-63) (“Mighty Mo” or “Big Mo”) is a United States Navy Iowa-class battleship, and was the fourth ship of the U.S. Navy to be named in honor of the U.S. state of Missouri. Missouri was the last battleship built by the United States, and was the site of the surrender of the Empire of Japan which ended World War II.
Missouri was ordered in 1940 and commissioned in June 1944. In the Pacific Theater of World War II she fought in the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa and shelled the Japanese home islands, and she fought in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. She was decommissioned in 1955 into the United States Navy reserve fleets (the “Mothball Fleet”), but reactivated and modernized in 1984 as part of the 600-ship Navy plan, and provided fire support during Operation Desert Storm in January/February 1991.
Missouri received a total of 11 battle stars for service in World War II, Korea, and the Persian Gulf, and was finally decommissioned on 31 March 1992, but remained on the Naval Vessel Register until her name was struck in January 1995. In 1998, she was donated to the USS Missouri Memorial Association and became a museum ship at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another veteran was sitting on the dais, who was interviewed in a documentary on the project which accompanied and was distributed with the press kit.
from bldg92.org
Be among the first to walk through the gates of the Brooklyn Navy Yard when BLDG 92 opens to the public on 11/11/11. We will offer free tours, family fun and prizes to celebrate our grand opening.
Free shuttle service for opening weekend: From 12-6PM, the blue Brooklyn Navy Yard shuttle bus will make continuous loops between BLDG 92 and downtown Brooklyn (intersection: Jay Street and Willoughby Street) easily accessible from the Jay St/Metrotech station (A,C,F,N,R) and a quick walk from Borough Hall Stations (2,3,4,5)
Fri, Sat, Sun 12-6
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Along with the color guard, there was a military band present.
from wikipedia
The U.S. Navy School of Music was founded at the Washington Navy Yard by order of the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation on 26 June 1935. The school was originally run by the U.S. Navy Band, with members of the Navy Band teaching classes and private lessons in addition to their regular performance duties with the band. After the commencement of World War II, these duties were deemed too onerous for the Navy Band personnel and the school was separated from the band and relocated to the Anacostia Naval Receiving Station in Washington, D.C. on 24 April 1942.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was particularly taken with the Sousaphone player for some reason.
from wikipedia
The sousaphone is a valved brass instrument with the same tube length and musical range as other tubas. The sousaphone’s shape is such that the bell is above the tubist’s head and projecting forward. The valves are situated directly in front of the musician slightly above the waist and most of the weight rests on one shoulder. The bell is normally detachable from the instrument body to facilitate transportation and storage. Excepting the instrument’s general shape and appearance, the sousaphone is technically very similar to a standard (upright) tuba.
For simplicity and durability, modern sousaphones almost definitively use three non-compensating piston valves in their construction, in direct contrast to their concert counterparts’ large variation in number, type, and orientation. It has been incorrectly noted that the tuba is a conical brass instrument and the sousaphone is a cylindrical brass instrument; actually both instruments are semi-conical—no valved brass instrument can be entirely conical, since the middle section with the valves must be cylindrical. While the degree of conicity of the bore does affect the timbre of the instrument much as in a cornet and trumpet, or a euphonium and a trombone, the bore profile of a sousaphone and most tubas is similar.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Within the structure, this is that 22,000 pound anchor that you’ve heard mentioned in other reports.
from wikipedia
The words ὀδὁντες and dentes (both meaning “teeth”) are frequently used to denote anchors in Greek and Latin poems. The invention of the teeth is ascribed by Pliny to the Tuscans; but Pausanias gives the credit to Midas, king of Phrygia. Originally there was only one fluke or tooth, whence anchors were called ἑτερόστομοι; but a second was added, according to Pliny, by Eupalamus, or, according to Strabo, by Anacharsis, the Scythian philosopher. The anchors with two teeth were called ἀμϕἱβολοι or ἀμϕἱστομοι, and from ancient monuments appear to have resembled generally those used in modern days except that the stock is absent from them all. Every ship had several anchors; the largest, corresponding to our sheet anchor, was used only in extreme danger, and was hence peculiarly termed ἱερά or sacra, whence the proverb sacram anchram solvere, as flying to the last refuge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The museum offered few vantage points of the actual working Navy Yard, this was one of them.
from nydailynews.com
“This will be a way for the public for the first time since 1801 to penetrate our walls and learn about our history and what we’re doing now,” said Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp. president Andrew Kimball. “We’ve worked really hard to break down that separation with the community.”
crowned with withers
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Apologies for the paucity of communique offered this week, as catching up with sundry and mundane details of both personal and professional incarnation has been all consuming. The Creek tours of last month, in addition to psychologically exhausting a humble narrator famous for his delicate constitution and frail health, caused a surfeit of t’s to miss their crosses and undotted i’s proliferate. For the next few days, expect a few pretty pictures but nothing too hardcore until I’ve caught up. Thanks to all who have written inquiring as to my status, everything is fine.
Remember, Remember, the 6th of November
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Five score and seventeen years ago today, the greatest swindle in the history of mankind was pulled off.
A cadre of super predators in Manhattan rigged an election which destroyed two cities in the name of a third. The decline of Brooklyn and Long Island City began when the notion of “the City of Greater New York” was concretized by the Tammany men, all nice and legal like.
from “Queens Borough, New York City, 1910-1920: the borough of homes and industry“, courtesy google books
At the election held November 6, 1894, the question of consolidating with the City of New York was voted upon by the residents of Queens County. The majority of votes in favor came from the Long Island City section whose inhabitants, because of their proximity to New York, had been in favor of the project for many years. The western part of the county therefore became part of the City of New York, and is known as Queens Borough; while the eastern part of the county was erected into a separate county, known as Nassau, taking its name from the early name for Long Island.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is one of my opinions which inspires credulity in folks from the Manhattan establishment, a group which to this day believes that the unsustainable “Shining City” is the rightful top dog of the five boroughs. Largely, this point of view ignores the fact that Manhattan has spent the last 117 years exporting its factories, garbage, and other problems to the so called outer boroughs. The decline of Newtown Creek, for instance, began when Peter Cooper was compelled to remove his glue works from midtown (vicinity of modern day Grammercy Park) to (formerly) greener pastures in Brooklyn.
In 1851, 10% of the wealth of the entire Untied States was found in Brooklyn.
Today- not so much.
from nytimes.com
John Purroy Mitchel, the Fusion candidate for Mayor, brought a new charge last night against Edward E. McCall. He asserted that Tammany’s nominee for Mayor and the other Tammany members of the Public Service Commission had turned the borough of Queens over to the Consolidated Gas Company and had given that concern a monopoly of not only the gas but the electric light and power business there under franchises which were perpetual in many cases.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An interesting genre of historical speculation is the fictional genre of “alternate history”. “What if Hitler had won ww2” or “what if Hannibal and Carthage had conquered Rome instead of the other way around”.
Imagine if the alpha partner in the consolidation of New York City had been Brooklyn or Long Island City… Would Manhattan have become the home of the Dickensian mills and factories? Would it now be begging for scraps like Brooklyn and Queens? Would its hospitals be underfunded and shuttered as oligarchal Brooklyn real estate powers wiped away ancient Manhattan neighborhoods in the name of progress? Would the site of the Empire State building host a garbage transfer facility? Would Battleax Gleason or John McCooey be remembered as the father of this great metropolitan city, with Boss Tweed and Richard Croker relegated to footnotes?
It is important to ask, when new “development projects” are announced by Tammany’s admiring children – is this good for Brooklyn, Queens, Richmond, or the Bronx- or is this good for Manhattan.
from wikipedia
The earliest example of an alternate history is Book IX, sections 17–19, of Livy’s Ab Urbe condita. Livy contemplated an alternative 4th century BC in which Alexander the Great expanded his empire westward instead of eastward; Livy asked, “What would have been the results for Rome if she had been engaged in war with Alexander?”
Joanot Martorell’s 1490 epic romance Tirant lo Blanc, written when the loss of Constantinople to the Turks was still a recent and traumatic memory to Christian Europe, tells the story of the valiant knight Tirant The White from Brittany who gets to the embattled remnant of the Byzantine Empire, becomes a Megaduke and commander of its armies, and manages to fight off the invading Ottoman armies of Mehmet II, save the city from Islamic conquest, and even chase the Turks deeper into lands they had conquered before.
into the world
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sleep has not come easily for your humble narrator of late, and dreaming offers little nepenthe. Days and nights it would seem, are consumed with images of the dread Newtown Creek and its insalubrious valley. English Kills in particular, the logical paramount of the waterway and the heart of darkness itself, draws my attention.
It is important to mention here that I am speaking from a personal point of view in this post and not espousing a majority opinion or policy of any of the “groups” with which the Newtown Pentacle has become affiliated. There are those I work for, work with, or work for me- who might not agree with statements made in this post offered to stimulate discussion on “common wisdom”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A decision which proved controversial this summer, on several Newtown Creek boat tours, was my demand that we no longer cross the Metropolitan Avenue Bridge with the general public on board. This is a deviation from prior years, but the prurient interest and wonderment of viewing the place is far outweighed by the risk posed to those who are exposed to its poisons. If you want to go back there, there are other options and other parties who will take you. Often it will be in a small vessel, often a kayak. Which is the point of this missive.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned, last week your humble narrator met with that staff of Manhattan doctors which have long maintained my delicate equilibrium. One of the topics of examination which the white coat crowd brought forward to me was the environmental exposure which my activities along the Creek brings, the long term consequences of same, and certain laboratory testing which they would like me to undergo due to my walking its banks. Paradoxically, certain interests involved in the ongoing story of the Newtown Creek held me to task for statements about water quality as related to recreational boating, fearing that my opinions might harm their particular interests and provide fuel for their critics in officialdom.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Everybody’s friends at EPA are still in the process of discovering all that there may be which is buried down there, and until the results of their analysis are revealed (which will be nearly a decade from now)– no hard and fast statement about the water quality can be considered reliable or sound. Apocrypha and incomplete discoveries, however, suggest that a witch’s brew of worst case scenarios are to be found all along the Creek- and especially in the section of English Kills which lies beyond DUMABO (Down Under the Metropolitan Avenue Bridge).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The “numbers” which most use to discuss water quality in this place are relative to the presence of microscopic entities like the enterococcus, bacterial counts of which are calculated relative to recent rain events and so called “outfalls”. Famously, the rule in most of NY harbor is to wait 72 hours after it rains before swimming or boating because of a “high count”, and the folks at DEP calculate the success of their endeavors based on an accounting of the population of this particular microbial specie (a Federal Standard, they used to use Fecal Coliform). Virii and Prions are neither tested for, nor counted.
When a beach is closed, its usually because “the count” is high, for instance. The difference to the surrounding waters which Newtown Creek presents is that sewer borne bacteria are merely the tip of the iceberg which floats in this stagnant water.
Don’t forget- orange juice and ice do not a screw driver make, it’s when you stir in the vodka that you achieve a proper and singular cocktail bearing a potency beyond that of its individual components.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An enormous waste transfer station acts as a concentrating point for the putrescent waste of New York City just back there, producing an excruciating stink. The shorelines of this particular valley are lined with state superfund sites, and large sewer outfalls feed millions of gallons of human waste into English Kills annually. That CSO “flow” also carries with it every chemical which has passed through a human filter- birth control and steroid pharmaceuticals, undigestable food additives and dyes, and all the runoff from the gutters which carries solvents, automotive drippings, and whatever washes out of the enormous acreage of cemeteries which distinguish the neighborhoods around the Newtown Creek watershed.
Not trying to “gross you out”, but facts are immutably facts.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Detractors would offer that your humble narrator is not a doctor, scientist, or much of anything at all. They would further inform you that I am a doomsayer, alarmist, and given to making unfounded statements based on a layman’s understanding of the complex chemistry which composes the so called waters of Newtown Creek. They call me a vulgar fool as well, but not to my face.
All this is true, of course, but it doesn’t mean that I’m incorrect.
The Newtown Pentacle 