Archive for September 2013
tightly packed
Just a short one today, got to catch a cab.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An uncanny valley of off duty cabs, called Skillman Avenue in Queens.
some assumption
If you smell something, say something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over the years, your humble narrator has presented glowing reports on the progress and practices of the NYC DEP at their titan Newtown Creek Waste Water Treatment plant found in Brooklyn’s DUGABO (Down Under the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge Onramp). Allusions have been made to one of the local community groups, the Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee, which has been waging a non stop dialogue with the agency for better than a decade.
This dialogue has played a critical role in shaping the construction process and procedures followed by DEP, and has created a venue wherein local concerns can be addressed and communicated directly to the otherwise opaque bureaucracy which typifies the governmental agencies of the City of Greater New York.
from nyc.gov
“The Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee is pleased with DEP’s progress at transforming the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant and adjacent waterfront into a Greenpoint destination,” said Irene Klementowicz, co-chair of the committee. “The plant continues to be an exciting model of the benefits of community-city collaboration, one that includes a shared vision of an aesthetic integration of the plant into the neighborhood. In a trend that started with the Nature Walk, the Visitor Center is the latest example of these efforts and one that will benefit residents citywide as it provides lessons about the importance of municipal infrastructure and environment. DEP’s commitment to continue to reduce odors and expand waterfront access and green space around the plant are further examples of our partnership efforts. The committee looks forward to continuing to work with DEP.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The DEP has taken a stance wherein they wish to minimize the impact that the gargantuan sewer plant has on surrounding neighborhoods, and NCMC has served as ombudsman and advocate for the affected. Accordingly, odor control systems such as those pictured above are an integral part of the plant. Problem is, these systems don’t always function correctly.
If you’ve found yourself walking or biking over the GPA Bridge when you suddenly experienced a withering blast of stink in the neighborhood of Greenpoint Avenue at Kingsland, you already know this.
from water-technology.net
With a rated capacity of 1.2 million cubic metres a day, this is New York City’s largest wastewater pump station and serves an area of 4,162 acres of land, fed by 180 miles of sewers. The upgrade programme involved increasing the station’s capacity to 1.5 million cubic metres a day and increasing the static lift necessary to match the higher hydraulic profile of the upgraded Newtown Creek plant.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The problem NCMC is concerned with (I’ve been attending their meetings as an observer for a few years now. Observer, as I live in Queens) is that the smells aren’t being reported to the 311 system by the affected residents of the surrounding neighborhoods. In the data driven climate of the Bloomberg era, an alien spacecraft landing in Central Park wouldn’t be responded to without some 311 activity, so according to the DEP- they’ve got the smells problem licked because of the lack of complaints.
Brooklynites failing to complain?
A humble narrator asks other Greenpoint bloggers to help spread the word to affected locals who might be wondering what that funky scent on the breeze is, and “if you smell something, say something” and call 311. It is the god given right of every New Yorker to complain to the Government until you’re blue in the face, which is far better than turning blue because of the smell of sewage.
from wikipedia
In New York City, 3-1-1 is used by city officials as one of several sources of measurement and information about the performance of city services. Important dates in the history of New York’s 3-1-1 service include December 20, 2005, when it received its record high of 240,000 calls, due to the first day of the 2005 New York City transit strike, and June 20, 2007, when it received its 50 millionth call.
excitement and fatigue
In today’s post, what not to do on the Subway, a public service announcement.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To start, I’d like to remind you that time well spent and the daily round for old Mitch normally includes trips to sewer plants, waste transfer stations, and hanging around a certain superfund site which defines the currently undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens. I can describe the different smells of residual sewage material versus that of putrescent garbage in some detail, and will often stop short and sniff at the air, proclaiming “there’s something dead nearby.” Saying that, the most disgusting thing I encounter on a daily basis is actually an electrified Petri dish we call the Subway.
from nytimes.com
The team identified no known human pathogens and found that about 5 percent of the microbial species (a fifth of those identifiable) probably came from human skin — our heels, heads and forearms, mostly.
“Every time you step down, you pressurize the air that’s in your shoe,” Dr. Pace said. “You stomp down, you squirt out a little warm air, carrying foot microbiology.” This so-called convective plume radiates from some 1.6 billion riders annually and disperses throughout the subway system.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m sure that the system is cleaned as much as possible, and that the MTA folks do everything to the letter of the law. Theirs is a hopeless task, however, as the system is the focal point through which all of us must squeeze. We apes are a particularly disgusting lot, who often carry and consume foodstuffs down there, and riding along with us are the multitudinous pathogenic organisms which infect us. Urine, blood, and sputum adorn the platforms, and god itself only knows what might be festering in the rat blown darkness of the tunnels.
from nbcnews.com
Gerba found e-coli (a bacterium often responsible for food poisoning); MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a staph infection that’s resistant to most first-line antibiotics); and fecal matter on handrails. Fecal matter is on 50 percent of all handrails (people, it’s time to seriously wash your hands after using the bathroom). It’s not uncommon for handrails to have flu, staph bacteria, and respiratory and cold viruses, as well. Previous research in England found that people are more likely to get a cold from handrails than any other public surfaces.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sandals are, perhaps, the most illogical choice for footwear (IMHO) in the City of New York but I won’t go so far as to petition City Hall to ban them. My prejudice against this specie of shoe no doubt emanates from growing up in the glass strewn milieu of 1970’s Brooklyn, when smashing beer bottles against brick walls was all the rage. This fellow whom I noticed on the train recently, however, had apparently decided that even the open toed pseudo shoes were a bit too restraining for him. Folks, its bad enough we have to breathe the same air down there, exchanging our personal biomes via aerosol vectors, but… keep your damned shoes on when you’re riding the train. Bleh.
from myfoxny.com
Here are the numbers: in 2011, 46 track-cleaning positions were eliminated saving the MTA $3.9 million; 11 escalator cleaning positions were cut, saving $1 million; and 116 car cleaner positions got the ax, saving the agency $8.6 million.
Happy Labor Day
It took a whole lot of labor to build this thing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Don’t get sunburned, eat too much, or too drunk today. I got all those things out of the way yesterday, during and after the Tugboat Race on the Hudson.
thither shouldst
Maritime Sunday drifts into port again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recently spotted while onboard a Working Harbor Committee trip, the tug Ireland entering the Kill Van Kull on a misty evening.
Ireland has been mentioned before, in this Maritime Sunday post from January of 2013.
That’s all the truth.
from wikipedia
A central proposition of existentialism is that existence precedes essence, which means that the most important consideration for the individual is the fact that he or she is an individual—an independently acting and responsible conscious being (“existence”)—rather than what labels, roles, stereotypes, definitions, or other preconceived categories the individual fits (“essence”). The actual life of the individual is what constitutes what could be called his or her “true essence” instead of there being an arbitrarily attributed essence used by others to define him or her. Thus, human beings, through their own consciousness, create their own values and determine a meaning to their life. Although it was Sartre who explicitly coined the phrase, similar notions can be found in the thought of existentialist philosophers such as Heidegger, and Kierkegaard.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ireland was towing a work barge which was carrying a materials handler as it entered the Kill. Notice the bars sticking up out of the barge, they would be driven down into the soft bottom of the waterway before any work started, and act as stabilizing stilts- or so I’ve been told.
People lie to me all the time, and I pretend that I don’t realize it.
from wikipedia
Deception includes several types of communications or omissions that serve to distort or omit the complete truth. Deception itself is intentionally managing verbal and/or nonverbal messages so that the message receiver will believe in a way that the message sender knows is false. Intent is critical with regard to deception. Intent differentiates between deception and an honest mistake. The Interpersonal Deception Theory explores the interrelation between communicative context and sender and receiver cognitions and behaviors in deceptive exchanges.
The five primary forms of deception are:
- Lies: making up information or giving information that is the opposite or very different from the truth.
- Equivocations: making an indirect, ambiguous, or contradictory statement.
- Concealments: omitting information that is important or relevant to the given context, or engaging in behavior that helps hide relevant information.
- Exaggerations: overstatement or stretching the truth to a degree.
- Understatements: minimization or downplaying aspects of the truth.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ireland was heading toward the New Jersey side of the Kill, where the petrochemical industry looms large. This shoreline infrastructure is an essential component of the mechanism which is New York City. We are, all of us, components of this machine in some way or another.
This, lords and ladies, is no lie. I think.
from wikipedia
Egocentric predicament, a term coined by Ralph Barton Perry in an article (Journal of Philosophy 1910), is the problem of not being able to view reality outside of our own perceptions. All worldly knowledge takes the form of mental representations that our mind examines in different ways. Direct contact with reality cannot be made outside of our own minds; therefore, we cannot be sure reality even exists. This means that we are each limited to our own perceptual world and views.
The Newtown Pentacle 