watching eye
Big rigs of Queens in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned earlier in the week, the Newtown Creek Alliance’s Plank Road project has drawn me over to Maspeth few times in recent weeks, which is always fun for me as your humble narrator is an infrastructure geek who loves taking photos of enormous machines. Luckily, for me, Maspeth’s cup doth runneth over in this department.
This ain’t so lucky for the folks who live in Maspeth, of course, but that’s another story.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s some sort of truck mechanic nearby the Plank Road, or 54th road if you insist on using modern terminology, and one routinely sights the sort of heavily armored and freshly washed rigs like the ones in today’s post parked about. Don’t know much about this business, but these are some of the many, many trucks plying area streets that have caused groups like C.O.M.E.T. (in Queens) and OUTRAGE (in Brooklyn) to organize and demand relief.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The folks at OUTRAGE have clocked as many as 300 trucks of this size moving down nearby Metropolitan Avenue during the morning rush, and the toll they take on area streets is well known. Additionally, the MTA’s Grand Avenue facility a block away is an eventual destination for the entire bus fleet of Brooklyn. Add in the nearby LIE and BQE highways… well you get the idea.
There’s a series of studies out there which attempt to tie this truck traffic to higher rates of asthma in the corridors they travel, but the statistical information could (and has been) just as easily interpreted to damn City operated bus lines as well.
Either way, there’s a lot of traffic moving about, and all the while – the possibilities of rail and barge transport are being ignored.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Some of my friends in Queens get after me about supporting the enhanced usage of the rail system, and they make a good point that I don’t live in Ridgewood/Maspeth/Middle Village where all these trains transit through on their way to the rail depot at Fresh Pond. I do live two blocks away from the Sunnyside Yard, which is the busiest rail interchange in New York City, but I’m told that I apparently don’t know what I’m talking about – which seems to be a recurring theme in my life.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This packer truck is over in Long Island City, and was posed so provocatively while illegally parked on the median, that I couldn’t resist adding it in to this post.
There are three public Newtown Creek walking tours coming up, one in Queens and one in Brooklyn and two that walk the currently undefended border of the two boroughs.
Poison Cauldron, with Atlas Obscura, on April 26th.
Click here for more info and ticketing.
DUPBO, with Newtown Creek Alliance and MAS Janeswalk, on May 3rd.
Click here for more info and ticketing.
Modern Corridor, with Brooklyn Brainery, on May 18th.
Click here for more info and ticketing.
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The Newtown Pentacle 
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