Archive for April 2014
damp rock
I’ll sleep when I’m dead.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For the last couple of weeks, an abundance of “business” has occupied my days and nights. Nothing I’ve had to do has been too extreme, but a surfeit of multiple hour long tasks has plagued me. Today, one needs to prepare to see the accountant later in the week and tie off last years tax obligations, but a point will be made to experience some “r&r” in the afternoon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The good news is that after all these tasks are accomplished, I can get back to doing actual work. You know, the whole “walk around Queens and explore its amazing and oft occluded past” thing. The even better new is that a whole series of excursions which will allow me to share this wonderful place with others are coming as well, and some of them will even be free events.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As is my habit when so overwhelmed, Newtown Pentacle will be going into single image mode for the next few days. Keeping up with content discovery and capture is a bear sometimes, especially when constricted by the never ending series of storms and lousy weather which has so far made 2014 remarkable.
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by surprise
Cool atmospherics in Sunnyside.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of those periodic blasts of duty has been upon me for the last week or so, a lot to do with little time to do it, and the rain last week didn’t help. Got in the way of one project, delayed two others, and obliterated any semblance of free time when precipitants fell not. Accordingly, rather than walking everywhere, as I just did not have the time, mass transit was utilized.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Unlike several of my friends, especially that walking encyclopedia of regional transport options – Kevin Walsh of Forgotten-NY, I generally don’t familiarize myself with transit lines that I don’t frequent. Limited space available on my internal hard drives, and the needs of the now often crowd out things I don’t need to use often. However, I was quite proud of myself while improvising a bus and train path on the fly, just the other day, which is how I ended up on the 7 train.
Normally, I’d just walk from Greenpoint to Flushing, as it’s only a few miles and carries one across a staggeringly interesting cross section of Brooklyn and Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The good news is that the first walking tour of 2014 is now accomplished, on Saturday I did the “13 Steps around Dutch Kills” tour with Atlas Obscura, which was one of the many things I had to do last week. Next tour with the Obscura Society will be “The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek” on April 26, tickets are available here.
The reason I was heading to Flushing, and lucky enough to catch these cool atmospherics and lighting in Sunnyside, was to get some shots of the Unisphere for my Brownstoner column – check them out here.
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arisen another
Tug Dory at Newtown Creek in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Heading over to Greenpoint, which seems to be my occupation sometimes, your humble narrator was utilizing the Pulaski Bridge to cross the malign Newtown Creek. Suddenly, from below, waves began crashing and a vast oblong shape appeared from the void formed by the span.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This barge likely came from Allocco, an aggregates company based on Kingsland Avenue in Greenpoint. Allocco, by the way, isn’t some fey corporate composite name, rather its a family name. I’ve met members of the eponymous clan, and they’re nice guys. They sort debris into graded materials – sand, gravel etc. for resale. Allocco is one of the few corporations along Newtown Creek who fully utilize their maritime bulkheads, so I’m a fan. What’s being moved around in that barge would require the services of around 30 trucks otherwise.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Never have I seen the Tug Dory on the Creek before. This boat is a bit of a mystery to me, and not much is available on it. Unfortunately, they weren’t displaying their IMO number in a place visible from my vantage, so I’m afraid that all I can tell you is that it’s painted white.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
She may be somewhat anonymous, a pale enigma posed alongside an oblong shape if you will, but Tug Dory still looks pretty good heading out of the Newtown Creek on her way to the East River.
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second to nothing
Dredging operations on the Newtown Creek are underway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After a couple of false starts and delayed beginnings, DonJon Towing is finally getting busy over on my beloved Creek. The dredging project is designed to provide a maritime channel for a new class of DEP Sludge Boats (see this Newtown Pentacle post from back in January of this year for details on the new boats) which will use a dock on Whale Creek, rather than the current East river facility, to accept the processed material produced by the Newtown Creek Waste Water Treatment Plant in Greenpoint.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These shots were gathered yesterday, at Whale Creek – a Brooklyn side tributary of Newtown Creek which the sewer plant wraps around.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Unfortunately, due to a busy work schedule and weather issues, I only managed to get there late in the afternoon and missed the action. This little push boat was busily managing the barges into a docking position, however.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The dredging rig was the Delaware Bay, which is a 225 foot long monster commissioned in 2008, and outfitted with a 123 foot long boom and crane.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the actual dredging bucket, which is outfitted with some sort of esoteric gasket system. I’ve never felt pity for a big steel machine before, but… Yuck… this is Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The whole operation is meant to continue on for about six weeks. The initial phase of it, here on Whale Creek, will only be operating 12 hours a day, but once they work their way out onto the main body of the Creek – probably Tuesday of next week, they will go 24/7.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This little Survey boat was buzzing about, and I’m told it carried a battery of sonar equipment which allowed visualization of the dredging work in real time. There’s a lot of stuff down there, pipelines and cables and such, for the DonJon crews to watch out for.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A DEP contractor was on hand performing air quality tests and odor control functions. This was his little weather station.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Also part of this contractors kit was a Hydrogen Sulfide monitor, which measures concentrations of the compound released from the underwater sediments during the dredge process.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s critical, once the operation moves out of Whale Creek and heads west towards the more populated sections of the Creek in Greenpoint and Hunters Point, that you call 311 if you’re being affected by smells or noise. Also, I’ve been told that the NCWWTP Nature Walk will be closed for the weekend, in the name of safety.
If you smell something, say something, and call 311.
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worried faces
Would it kill you to smile?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While riding the Subway in New York City, observation of the interesting social behaviors exhibited by the citizenry entertains. There are those who present the “pfft, ain’t no thing” and those who present the “what the hell are you looking at” and also present are the “please, for gods sake, do not notice me” lean. Others pretend to sleep, or stare blankly at the floor (that’s the one which I favor), while a small group of extroverts feel the need to shout and otherwise draw attention unto themselves. Then there’s the buskers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are Mariachi’s, young couples who perpetrate the “gypsy baby” scam, those three kids who dance and perform acrobatics. Worst of all are the religious zealots, whose clumsy attempts at evangelism are enough to drive one into the arms of Satan itself. Skillfully ignoring these buskers and con artists, or not, is what separates the true New Yorker from the tourist. The tourists are the worst, of course, breaking all of the unspoken rules of subway etiquette which “regular” riders subconsciously obey and enforce. Nobody smiles, the MTA has a rule against that.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My camera is always at the ready whenever entering these concrete bunkers with their pungent atmospheres, and one of the odd things I’ve noticed in recent years is the reaction some have upon seeing the device. Lens cap on and power switch off, they will stare at the camera in the manner one would watch the countdown clock on a bomb. I don’t understand this. Humans, they’re weird, and need to smile more often.
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