Archive for February 2014
mounting eagerness
Man, I’ve barely mentioned my beloved Creek lately.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Yesterday, business took me to Red Hook’s Erie Basin, a trip which turned out to be abortive as that which I went to photograph would not be available until next week. Having a free afternoon, unexpectedly, one decided to walk home to Astoria. Shots from the journey are being processed, but your humble narrator found himself all along the river, and everywhere from Brooklyn Bridge park to The Navy Yard. My back started to ache in Williamsburg, and discretion being the better part of valor, I cut the walk off at Metropolitan and Roebling. Not bad for my first serious perambulation of 2014, but I am badly out of shape after a hibernation forced by incessant ice and snow.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Vast soliloquy governed my thoughts on the walk, and a realization that I havent been spending much time on the Newtown Creek- personally and at this blog – in the last few months left me thunderstruck. Accordingly, pictured above is the DB Cabin rail bridge, spanning Dutch Kills, which carries LIRR Montauk branch traffic. DB Cabin hasn’t been opened since 2002, as its motors are non functional. Accordingly, Dutch Kills is an industrial canal which cannot accept anything larger than a rowboat, and that’s only at low tide. There are those who would like to throw this inheritance away, and turn it into some sort of bullheaded swampland, but that’s something that sounds good at cocktail parties. They forget about Mosquitos, and jobs for those beyond their clique, and that M1 zones are for industry – not water sports or bird watching.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This bridge frustrates me as I’ve never gotten a decent shot of a train crossing it. There’s another rail bridge at English Kills which has stymied my desires in similar fashion over the years, but its just a matter of time until I get both. That’s the thing about me and my beloved Creek – I ain’t going nowhere. There are some who wish I would just fall in and disappear into the black mayonnaise, probably due to my brash nature and overwhelmingly unwholesome aspect, but they can go jump in the East River and swim to Manhattan to beg the Mayor for a job for all I care.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Newtown Creek is the subject of much speculation, discussion, and debate. All over the world – architects, planners, and engineers sniff at the air and smell a giant bucket of Federal money about to spent here. They anxiously twist their hands trying to conceive of some angle by which their pet projects can be shoehorned into the Superfund process. They forget that this is the home of industry, which must be encouraged to not just stay here, but to reinvest in Brooklyn and Queens – albeit in a manner which is less destructive to the processes of human and animal life along the waterway. You can have both.
Also, all bets are off, and your Newtown Pentacle is back in session.
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approaching triumph
Infrastructure pornography, gratuitous and forbidding, in today’s post.
Also, I’ll be at Brooklyn Brainery on February 27th presenting “the Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Gaze upon the terrible scale of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, connecting Brooklyn with… Staten Island… Bridges are on my mind today, especially the ones that connect Long Island with other extant land masses scattered about the archipelago.
Today will be just a lot of photos, and your humble narrator will be taking advantage of the short interval of warmth offered today. Out and about, looking at things- that’s me.
from wikipedia
The bridge is owned by the City of New York and operated by MTA Bridges and Tunnels, an affiliate agency of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Interstate 278 passes over the bridge, connecting the Staten Island Expressway with the Gowanus Expressway and the Belt Parkway. The Verrazano, along with the other three major Staten Island bridges, created a new way for commuters and travelers to reach Brooklyn, Long Island, and Manhattan by car from New Jersey.
The bridge was the last great public works project in New York City overseen by Robert Moses, the New York State Parks Commissioner and head of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, who had long desired the bridge as a means of completing the expressway system which was itself largely the result of his efforts. The bridge was also the last project designed by Chief Engineer Othmar Ammann…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
East River Bridge #1, or East River Suspension Bridge #1, or Brooklyn Bridge from Brooklyn.
from nyc.gov
The Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883. At the time, it was the longest suspension bridge. It has been designated a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service, and a New York City Landmark by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
East River Bridge #3, or Manhattan Bridge, from the water.
from nyc.gov
The youngest of the three DOT East River suspension bridges, construction began on October 1, 1901. The bridge opened to traffic on December 31, 1909 and completed in 1910. The Bridge’s total length is 5,780 feet from abutment to abutment at the lower level; and 6,090 feet on the upper roadways from portal to portal. Its main span length is 1,470 feet long and each of its four cables is 3,224 feet long. The Bridge was designed by Leon Moisseiff (1872-1943)…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
East River Bridge #2, Williamsburg Bridge, from Manhattan.
from nyc.gov
When it opened in 1903, the Williamsburg Bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the world, with a span of 1600 feet and a total length of 7308 feet and the first with all-steel towers. The 310-foot steel towers support four cables, each measuring 18_ inches in diameter and weighing 4,344 tons. In all, nearly 17,500 miles of wire are used in the cables that suspend the bridge 135 feet above the East River. The massive stiffening trusses were designed not only to withstand high winds, but also to support rail traffic on the deck.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
East River Bridge #4, Queensboro Bridge, from Long Island City.
from nyc.gov
The bridge was constructed between 1901 and 1909 and was opened to the traffic on June 18, 1909. A collaboration between the bridge engineer Gustav Lindenthal (1850-1935) and architect Henry Hornbostel, the main bridge is 3,725 feet long, the longest of the East River Bridges. The overall length of the bridge including the Manhattan and Queens approaches is 7,449 feet.
The site is an ideal location for a bridge as Roosevelt Island provides a convenient footing for the piers. Seventy-five thousand tons of steel went into the original bridge and its approaches. Its original cost was about $18 million, including $4.6 million for land. At the time of completion, it was not only the longest cantilever bridge in the United States, but also was designed for heavier loads than any other bridges.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Welfare Island, aka Roosevelt Island Bridge, from Roosevelt Island looking towards Queens.
from nyc.gov
The Roosevelt Island Bridge is a tower drive, vertical lift, movable bridge across the East Channel of the East River between the borough of Queens and Roosevelt Island, New York City. The span length is 418 feet. It was known as the Welfare Island Bridge when it was first opened to traffic in 1955.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Triborough Bridge, aka Robert F Kennedy Bridge, from Astoria, Queens.
from wikipedia
Construction began on Black Friday in 1929, but soon the Triborough project’s outlook began to look bleak. Othmar Ammann, who had collapsed the original design’s two-deck roadway into one, requiring lighter towers, and thus, lighter piers, saving $10 million on the towers alone, was enlisted again to help guide the project. Using New Deal money, it was resurrected in the early 1930s by Robert Moses, who created the Triborough Bridge Authority to fund, build and operate it. The completed structure was opened to traffic on July 11, 1936.
The total cost of the bridge was more than $60 million, one of the largest public works projects of the Great Depression, more expensive even than the Hoover Dam. The structure used concrete from factories from Maine to Mississippi. To make the formwork for pouring the concrete, a whole forest on the Pacific Coast was cut down.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hell Gate Bridge, also from Astoria, Queens.
from wikipedia
The Hell Gate Bridge (originally the New York Connecting Railroad Bridge or The East River Arch Bridge) is a 1,017-foot (310 m)[3] steel through arch railroad bridge in New York City. The bridge crosses the Hell Gate, a strait of the East River, between Astoria, Queens and Wards Island in Manhattan.
The bridge is the largest of three bridges that form the Hell Gate complex. An inverted bowstring truss bridge with four 300-foot (91.4 m) spans crosses the Little Hell Gate (now filled in); and a 350-foot (106.7 m) fixed truss bridge crosses the Bronx Kill (now narrowed by fill). Together with approaches, the bridges are more than 17,000 feet (3.2 mi; 5.2 km) long.
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complicated padlock
Williamsburgh Savings Bank, part 2.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In yesterday’s post – “gleaming sands” – the story of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank building at 175 Broadway in Brooklyn was described in some detail. As promised, in today’s post, a few more shots from inside the recently restored structure.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the middle of the room is an ornate safe, which attracted no small amount of attention from the crowd that Atlas Obscura had brought in. This looked like the sort of safe which a cowboy might attempt to open with dynamite in a western movie.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We were told that the safe is of European make and design, manufactured specifically in France. Of course, that’s 1875 France, which was a very different France than the one which we’re stuck with today.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the inside of the door were two medallions, which were “maker’s marks.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Emperor Napoleon the Third is commemorated on one of them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Alongside the safe was a mechanism which acted as a sort of intercom to other sections of the building. This is not an electronic system, it should be noted, you simply spoke or whistled into the appropriate tube.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The domes kept on gathering my attention. The ornamentation and detail up there were incredible. Your humble narrator is still analyzing the iconography contained therein.
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gleaming sands
How the other half lives, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My pals at Atlas Obscura rang me up and asked if I’d be interested in shooting at one of their events in Brooklyn, and since this offered an opportunity to leave the house (a rare treat during this winter of frozen discontent), I packed up Our Lady of the Pentacle and my camera bag and we set off for Williamsburg. Now, I don’t spend a lot of time around these parts, can’t afford it, but its also nice to see how the other half lives.
from wikipedia
Williamsburg is a neighborhood of 113,000 inhabitants in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, bordering Greenpoint to the north, Bedford–Stuyvesant to the south, Bushwick and Ridgewood, Queens to the east and the East River to the west. The neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community Board 1. The neighborhood is served by the New York Police Department (NYPD)’s 90th Precinct. In the City Council, the western and southern part of the neighborhood is represented by the 33rd District; and the eastern part of the neighborhood is represented by the 34th District.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the Williamsburgh Savings Bank building at 175 Broadway, a building erected just 10 years after the Civil War. A famous structure, its the domed building you can’t help but notice when exiting the Williamsburg Bridge, at least when you’re on the Brooklyn side.
from wikipedia
The Williamsburgh Savings Bank was an important institution in Brooklyn, New York, from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries. A series of bank mergers brought it into the HSBC group late in the 20th century. (It is not to be confused with the nearby Dime Savings Bank of Williamsburgh, now known simply as the DIME, a rival local institution that has remained independent.) It is best remembered for two imposing headquarters buildings still standing, the domed original at 175 Broadway in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, designed by George B. Post, and the later Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As transmitted by our hosts, the tale of the WSB includes decades of neglect, wear, and tear. The current owners acquired it just a few years ago (and of course it was controversial, it’s in North Brooklyn, not Queens) and set upon a radical architectural restoration of the bank. Pictured is the meticulous work found on the first of the interior domes.
from nyc-architecture.com
To build a new edifice for the WBS the board of trustees hired George B. Post (1837-1913), a man who had just finished the important Equitable Life Assurance Building (1868-1870), was at present finishing the Western Union Building (1873-1875), and who would later go on to design the icon of money, the market, and capitalism in 1903. Architecturally speaking and with vast hindsight, it was upon the hiring of Post that the WBS secured itself as a structural institution and landmark in Brooklyn. For it is through the tie to its architect that this structurally impressive building gains even more notoriety; George B. Post would later go on to design City College (1886-1906), the Brooklyn Historical Society (1881), the New York Stock Exchange (1903), and other notable buildings throughout the country.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There were three buildings here, the 1875 original and an early 20th century addition (1906, I think) – both domed – and a 1940’s era office building of pedestrian design. The domed buildings were landmarked, but the office building was not and it was torn down. There are plans to erect a modern hotel on the property, a mammoth 40 story affair. The former bank will act as an event space for the hotel.
for a Landmarks Preservation Committee document generated by municipal authorities back in 1996, click here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the second dome, which I seem to recall as being of 1906 vintage, but might be misstating the date. The oculus in the center was actually boarded up during the Second World War and remained so until the restoration process began. In case you’re curious, yes, I laid down on the floor in the center of the room and shot straight up.
from ny.curbed.com
When Brooklyn hostel owner Juan Figueroa purchased the Williamsburgh Savings Bank for $4.5 million in 2010, the rumor was that he planned to convert the historic bank building into a hotel. That would have been difficult, though, since the structure is an exterior, interior, and national landmark. The actual plan, it turned out, was to meticulously restore it and turn it into an event space and banquet hall, and place a 40-story hotel right next door.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The other half lives in Williamsburg, I’m told. The Brooklyn patois pronunciation for this neighborhood is “Willemsboig” and my parents – who used to bank with the company once located here – called it “Da Willemsboig Savins Banks.” They stayed with the company all the way till it became HSBC. That’s brand loyalty, folks. Back tomorrow with a few more shots from within the lush interior, including some details on the vault.
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inscribed thereon
A visit with the god of America.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Brazen and gilt, this representation of the American Augustus is appropriately found at the N.Y. Grand Lodge of the Free and Accepted Masons on 23rd street in Mahattan. It adorns a library room, and honors a significant member of that centuried secret society.
The founder of our nation, as General Washington is known, enjoyed a lifestyle that could only be maintained by a subjugate army of slaves. I’d like to believe that he would be resistant to having his birthday celebrated with a crass and consumerist bacchanal, as he’d be embarrassed by it – but as I’m a non-slaver, it’s difficult for me to imagine the mindset of the “founding fathers” and walk a mile in their proverbial moccasins.
from wikipedia
Titled Washington’s Birthday, the federal holiday was originally implemented by the United States Congress in 1880 for government offices in the District of Columbia (20 Stat. 277) and expanded in 1885 to include all federal offices (23 Stat. 516). As the first federal holiday to honor an American citizen, the holiday was celebrated on Washington’s actual birthday, February 22. On 1 January 1971, the federal holiday was shifted to the third Monday in February by the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. This date places it between February 15 and 21, which makes the name “Washington’s Birthday” a misnomer, since it never lands on Washington’s actual birthday, February 22. A draft of the Uniform Holidays Bill of 1968 would have renamed the holiday to Presidents’ Day to honor the birthdays of both Washington and Lincoln, but this proposal failed in committee and the bill as voted on and signed into law on 28 June 1968, kept the name Washington’s Birthday.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The General died badly, but everybody does that, and one such as myself doesn’t shed tears for a dead slave master even if they did accomplish a lot at their day jobs. Unfortunately, for a fellow so immersed in the “Enlightenment” and who was very much a rationalist and a logician – he thought the answer to illness was exsanguination (which was how his slaves were “cured” of ailments as well). His doctors bled him to death, but the holiday today is about his birth, not his death. This compound holiday (Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays are celebrated coterminously) was offered to the nation, as of 1968, as it was determined that there were too many Monday holidays in February and it was getting in the way of business. I’ve often thought we should celebrate a Monday holiday which specifically mentions the subjugation and forced generational labor of millions, but there you go.
from wikipedia
On Thursday, December 12, 1799, Washington spent several hours inspecting his plantation on horseback, in snow, hail, and freezing rain—later that evening eating his supper without changing from his wet clothes.
That Friday he awoke with a severe sore throat and became increasingly hoarse as the day progressed, yet still rode out in the heavy snow, marking trees on the estate that he wanted cut. Sometime around 3 a.m. that Saturday, he suddenly awoke with severe difficulty breathing and almost completely unable to speak or swallow. A firm believer in bloodletting, a standard medical practice of that era which he had used to treat various ailments of enslaved Africans on his plantation, he ordered estate overseer Albin Rawlins to remove half a pint of his blood.
A total of three physicians were sent for, including Washington’s personal physician Dr. James Craik along with Dr. Gustavus Brown and Dr. Elisha Dick. Craik and Brown thought that Washington had what they diagnosed as “quinsey” or “quincy”, while Dick, the younger man, thought the condition was more serious or a “violent inflammation of the throat”. By the time the three physicians had finished their treatments and bloodletting of the President, there had been a massive volume of blood loss—half or more of his total blood content being removed over the course of just a few hours.
Recognizing that the bloodletting and other treatments were failing, Dr. Dick proposed performing an emergency tracheotomy, a procedure that few American physicians were familiar with at the time, as a last-ditch effort to save Washington’s life; but the other two doctors rejected this proposal.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of my little fantasies is the one where I magically pluck General Washington from the back of his horse and draw him into our future to witness that which has been wrought in his name. He gets introduced to the imperial majesty of present day America in this fugue of mine, and witnesses not just the modern military might but the relative luxury (compared to his era) and civil treatment that even the basest members of our society can and do expect. I suspect that the General would be shocked at the size and reach of a standing military which operates out of 900 military bases in 150 countries. I don’t think he’d be surprised that the slaves had been freed and offered citizenship, nor the lousy treatment they’d received. More shocking to him would be the relative importance and status of France and almighty England, which were the Americas of their time.
Of course, that was before an American God came along who did the work of the Great Architect of the Universe.
from wikipedia
Washington was initiated into Freemasonry in 1752. He had a high regard for the Masonic Order and often praised it, but he seldom attended lodge meetings. He was attracted by the movement’s dedication to the Enlightenment principles of rationality, reason and fraternalism; the American lodges did not share the anti-clerical perspective that made the European lodges so controversial. In 1777, a convention of Virginia lodges recommended Washington to be the Grand Master of the newly established Grand Lodge of Virginia; however, Washington declined, due to his necessity to lead the Continental Army at a critical stage, and because he had never been installed as Master or Warden of a lodge, he did not consider it Masonically legal to serve as Grand Master. In 1788, Washington, with his personal consent, was named Master in the Virginia charter of Alexandria Lodge No. 22.
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The Newtown Pentacle 