Archive for July 2013
plodded toward
Just a short one today.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Apologies for the late and rather terse update today, but your humble narrator was a mass of bruises and blisters upon awakening this morning. It’s no viral outbreak, I assure you, rather its the sum total of having spent nearly every hour of daylight yesterday out shooting. Lots of cool stuff is coming, but for today, a shot of my beloved Creek with the Shining City beyond. This is at the junction of Newtown Creek and its Dutch Kills tributary, btw.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
Glittering Realms– Saturday, August 3rd, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, August 10, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– Saturday, August 17, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
dromedary men
A ladder to heaven in Hunters Point.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in the past, the East River ferry is a boon to one such as myself, as it allows for the preclusion of entering the subway system. As much as I enjoy entering a sweltering concrete bunker and being painted with pneumatically driven clouds of dried sewage and powderized rodent dung, a humble narrator will literally find any other possible way of getting around than the using the underground.
Seriously, who can guess- all there is- that might be buried down there?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Arriving in ancient Hunters Point one recent day, I was greeted with the tableau depicted in today’s shots. It would seem that yet another bit of construction equipment is being prepared for duty, this time in front of the LIC Crab House on Borden Avenue at the corner of 2nd street. The new school, which is the gray wall you’ll notice in some of these shots, is nearly complete. The Hunters Point South project, on the other hand, is just getting started, as evinced by the looming construct being assembled.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Personally, I’ve always preferred deeply buried bunkers for their stolidity and dank charm, but it seems to be a deeply ingrained desire of city dwellers to achieve some sort of altitude over the hive. Taken to extremes, this results in twenty and thirty story residential buildings which house hundreds. One is reminded of the dystopia depicted in the “Judge Dredd” comics wherein whole neighborhoods are housed beneath one roof in a building 2-300 stories tall, one of millions of such structures found in “Mega City One.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The crane constructing the crane was enormous, incidentally, towering over the former Miller Hotel (nowadays the LIC Crab House) where Battle Axe Gleason would sit in a barber chair and greet those who debarked from the LIRR ferry. Gleason was the last mayor of Long Island City, a reputed scoundrel, and his private offices were just around the corner.
Just for the sake of pedantry, the self propelled yellow crane is of the “telescopic” variety and the unit being assembled is a tower crane.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
Glittering Realms– Saturday, August 3rd, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, August 10, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– Saturday, August 17, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
southern slope
Scenes from a short trip up a long Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you may have heard, a body of water called the Newtown Creek provides a visual indicator of the currently undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens for several miles leading back from the East River. An industrial waterway with a troubled past and increasingly bright future, there are several bridges which span its polluted depths, and one of them is the JJ Byrne or Greenpoint Avenue Bridge. It connects the Blissville section of Long Island City in Queens with the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn.
A draw bridge, it is currently receiving a bit of spit and polish.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Great enjoyment is experienced in presenting and narrating the story of Newtown Creek to the curious, most recently while onboard a NY Water Taxi whose use was donated for the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance’s “City of Water Day” festival, but it really gets in the way of taking photos, which is my one regret.
We see a LOT of cool stuff from the water.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, Lisa Garrison of the Hudson River Fund agreed to come on board as a speaker, and handing her the microphone allowed me to skulk away and grab my camera for an interval. When she started describing several of the cool projects she’s been curating around Newtown Creek (including some of NCA’s tour programming last year, in the name of disclosure), your humble narrator veritably flung himself forward in contemplation of shooting these bridge painting guys at work.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Bridge maintenance is another one of those hidden occupations most people don’t know exists, and you seldom get to see what’s going on except from the water. My pals at the North Brooklyn Boat Club see this sort of thing all the time, as they intrepidly ply the troubled waterway in kayak and canoe.
Me, I like boats with motors that stand up and away from the water, but that’s me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
According to documentation found here and there on the vast interwebs, this project is meant to conclude in September. The bridge is administered by the NYC DOT, was built in 1987, and is 1.3 miles from Newtown Creek’s junction with the East River. This also explains why the bridge has smelled like spray paint lately.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
Glittering Realms– Saturday, August 3rd, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, August 10, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– Saturday, August 17, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
promised haven
Maritime Sunday drifts in today.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Witness the United States Army Corps of Engineers DCV Hayward as it hurtles into the so called Buttermilk Channel section of the East River.
The legend of Buttermilk Channel is stated thusly- in the ancient days of the Dutch decadence, the Brooklyn to Governors Island section of the tidal strait was so shallow at low tide that farmers would drive their cattle across the muddy puddle and set them to grazing on the island. The cattle would be vouchsafed against canids or the attention of thieves by the high tide, allowing the farmers to move on to other more profitable pursuits. Returning to fetch their dairy cows at the next low tide, the farmers would find that their herds had fed on Governors Island plentiful salt grass, and the cows would produce vast amounts of wholesome milk the next morning. This is how this section of the East River came to be called Buttermilk Channel. Or so the legend states.
Balderdash, claims Captain Doswell of the Working Harbor Committee, although your humble narrator argues for the historical record and colorful story. We agree to disagree.
Subsequent dredging, much of it accomplished by the stewards of the Hayward- the USACE- allows a maritime channel of sufficient depth to disallow the transit of cattle to Governors Island from Brooklyn in modern times.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The maintenance of this channel, specifically keeping it free of floating debris which could impede or injure vessels plying it, is the responsibility of skimmer boats like the Hayward. Built in 1974, Haywards’ crane can handle 120 tons, and she is specifically a “drift collection vessel.” Hayward is one of three such vessels the USACE operates in New York Harbor (with the 1948 vintage Driftmaster and the 1980’s Gelberman) which remove just north of 100 tons of debris from the water annually. This debris includes downed trees, trash of all sorts, really anything that might find its way into the water. Sometimes this can involve downed aircraft.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
Glittering Realms– Saturday, August 3rd, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, August 10, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– Saturday, August 17, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
Project Firebox 81
An ongoing catalog of New York’s endangered Fireboxes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This bad boy is on Grand Avenue in Maspeth, and seems to be one of the few fully functioning Fireboxes in the area. It’s stationed in front of what used to be a cardboard box factory, which is a tremulous duty.
Shine on sweet Firebox, shine on.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
Glittering Realms– Saturday, August 3rd, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
Kill Van Kull– Saturday, August 10, 2013
Staten Island walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Working Harbor Committee, tickets now on sale.
13 Steps around Dutch Kills– Saturday, August 17, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Newtown Creek Alliance, tickets now on sale.
The Newtown Pentacle 