Archive for October 2015
noisome air
Rain, rain, rain. Bored, boredity, bored, bored.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One thing is certain, which is that the next few days will exhibit some truly ugly weather here in the Newtown Pentacle. In today’s post, library shots of wet weather are presented. Above, somewhere within the Shining City of Manhattan, from whence cometh the greater part of that flow of sewer juice that doth enter my beloved Creek during rain events.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Everybody I meet gets a lecture at one point or another about the sewer system, and the Combined Sewer problem that bedevils our community. Suffice to say that it takes as little as a quarter inch of rain, citywide, for a billion gallons of storm water to propagate into our waterways. Days like this one, and the next few, will carry hundreds of billions of gallons of raw sewage into the water.
Pictured above, a manhole or access cover, originally laid in place by the “Bureau of Sewers Borough of Queens” which I believe to have been absorbed into the larger Municpal entity that would someday become the DEP around the time of the LaGuardia administration. I’m a bit hazy on this one, historical like, and promise that I’ll find out more and report the facts when they’re in hand.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
From what I’ve been told, the MTA hasn’t been having too good a time for the last 24 hours or so, with more than a few outages on major lines. One wonders, and more than wonders, why the MTA only seems to plan and engineer the system around the conditions of ideal weather?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I mean… it’s going to rain. It’s also going to snow, eventually.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m the first person, literally, to throw shade at the commissioners and deputy commissars of the DEP during their periodic visits to Newtown Creek. DEP bosses lie like rugs, do so with a smirk, and every time there’s a political shake up in City Hall – the new guy isn’t bound by the promises made by the last set of “powers that be.” Saying that, I’m thankful for the rank and file who will be doing what they can during the coming deluges. Pictured above is the sewer plant in Greenpoint, getting rained upon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Here in Astoria, folks are taking the gathering storm quite seriously. There’s chanting and everything, and store shelves are fairly bereft of the puzzling combination of batteries, milk, bread, and toilet paper that everyone seems to require when a storm is on the way.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My neighbor Mario spent yesterday evening cleaning our sewer catch basin and the gutter of leaves and the garbage which everyone just seems to drop. Saying that, there’s a whole lot of sweeping to do.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One last rainy day shot, which was captured close to a decade ago at Greenwood Cemetery. Good luck, lords and ladies, with the stormy weekend. If you’re reading this on Monday, it’s likely my internet is out, and I’ll post as soon as Time Warner comes back online.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
October 10th, 2015
Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour
with Atlas Obscura, click here for details and tickets
swinging and plunging
It’s all so depressing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not too long ago, a humble narrator left HQ and soon found himself at Hells Gate. One always finds it amazing how alone you can feel when surrounded by literally thousands of people, but there you go. Melancholy and regret notwithstanding, it was decided to sit down and watch the surrounding city for a spell from a stationary vantage point.
“Winter is coming” is what was on my mind.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Off in the distance – a tugboat was towing a barge down the East River from the direction of Flushing Bay, and since there was literally nowhere else for me to go, I sat and waited for it to transit.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The tug was the McAllister Girls. The fuel barge it was towing was clearly empty, given how high it was riding in the swirling maelstroms of the Hells Gate section of the estuarine East River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The background was provided by the DEP’s Wards Island plant, where centrifugal machinery separates a pestilence of filth out of a watery solution which the sewer people refer to as “honey” but the rest of just call “sludge.” In NY Harbor, it is difficult to avoid fecal matter, as the harbor is full of it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The currents in this section of the river, spanned by both Triborough and Hell Gate bridges, are notorious and powerful. Once, Hells Gate was a breaker of ships and consumer of lives, before the Army Corps of Engineers exploded the underwater geology which promulgated the formation of whirlpools and ripping tides.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Even today, it takes a bit of skill – and a powerful set of engines – for Mariners to conquer the cross currents and tidal action of Hells Gate. It’s nowhere close to the historical force of water, spoken about with awe and respect by sailors in the historical record, but this stretch of the river is still fairly treacherous.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
McAllister Girls, of course, managed Hells Gate with little trouble. The tug and barge continued along, entering the east channel of the river and continuing along to the south. Likely, she was headed for Kill Van Kull or Arthur Kill to drop off the empty barge and begin the process of moving another full one to some farm of coastal fuel tanks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was all pretty depressing though. Winter is coming.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
October 10th, 2015
Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour
with Atlas Obscura, click here for details and tickets
The Newtown Pentacle 