Archive for 2016
consequential consistencies
It does seem to be Creek Week, doesn’t it?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In yesterday’s post, I told you about Deadman’s Curve in Maspeth, and we explored 57th avenue – the former “Creek Street.” The shot above looks eastwards towards Deadman’s Curve from the former Penny Bridge LIRR stop at Review Avenue. The water facing property is currently owned by John Quadrozzi Jr., who is a major land holder in the Red Hook and Gowanus areas. The property seems to be mainly used for storage and maintenance of heavy construction equipment these days.
As the name of the LIRR stop would imply, this is also the former location of Penny Bridge, which connected Brooklyn’s Meeker Avenue to Queens’s Review Avenue. Additionally, the Roman Catholic Church used to run a ferry service from Manhattan to Calvary Cemetery which docked nearby.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Review Avenue, the stretch of it that runs along Calvary Cemetery, is where the first large scale petroleum refinery in the United States was founded – Abraham Gesner’s North American Kerosene Gas Light Company, which would become first the New York Kerosene Gas Light Company and then be acquired by Charles Pratt and Standard Oil and rechristened it as the Queens County Oil Company. Queens County Oil’s bulkheads are the ones that the Blissville Seep oozes petroleum into Newtown Creek from.
If you follow Review to the west, you’ll find the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge and a pair of roads which descend downhill on either side of it. They take you to, and from, Railroad Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The eastern side of railroad avenue was formerly the home of the Van Iderstine company, who had their own rail spur down here which was populated with Van Iderstine’s distinctive black tank cars. As the name of the street – Railroad Avenue – would imply, it’s all about the tracks down here and on the western side of the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge you’ll find the LIRR’s Bliss Tower and Blissville Yard.
Welcome to DUGABO – Down Under the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge Onramp.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Van Iderstine was a nightmare of a company, incidentally, or at least their occupation was. They were renderers, which means that pack animals, butcher scrap, rotten eggs, barrels of abattoir blood – even dead circus elephants – would be brought here to be broken down into components. What exited the factory was tallow.
Believe it or not, they weren’t the most ghastly operation along this stretch of the Lower Montauk tracks, just the smelliest. I can tell you stories about the yeast distilleries…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Speaking of smelly, the modern occupation of the Blissville Yard is garbage. That’s the Waste Managemnt garbage train you see above, which is shipped around and about by the New York and Atlantic freight line. NY&A services two Waste Managemnt facilities on the Creek – one here in Blissville and the other in Brooklyn’s East Williamsburg along Newtown Creek’s English Kills tributary.
Something like 30-40% of all of NYC’s putrescent (black bag) waste comes to Newtown Creek to be processed and shipped off in green boxes such as the ones above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Railroad Avenue is one of those cul-de-sac streets along the Creek where there’s only one entrance or exit and which – if you get in trouble or hurt, it’s going to be damned difficult to explain to the 911 operator where you are. At the west end of the street is Sims Metal Management’s Newtown Creek dock, on the east you’ll find Waste Management’s Green Asphalt works, the same company’s putrescent waste transfer station, and the Marlyn industrial park which hosts such luminaries as LeNoble Lumber and A&L Cesspool. Personally, I’d call Sims for help, as they’re closer than any hospital and I know a couple of guys who work there.
This is, incidentally, some of what you’ll find located between Review Avenue, the Lower Montauk tracks, Railroad Avenue, and Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Blissville Yard connects to the DB Cabin railroad bridge, which connects Blissville Yard to the Wheelspur and Hunters Point Yards in Hunters Point, and which crosses the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek. There’s also a connection to the M Cabin bridge which leads to the abandoned Montauk Cutoff tracks and Sunnyside Yards.
Freight traffic on Newtown Creek heads east into Maspeth and to the Fresh Pond Yard, eventually meeting the switch to the New York Connecting Railroad through Woodside and Astoria, which leads to the Hell Gate Bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Down towards the end of Railroad Avenue, one encountered this immolated automobile.
As mentioned multitudinous times, I cannot resist this sort of thing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This car wasn’t just burned up, it was thoroughly incinerated.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the sort of stuff you’ll see on Railroad Avenue, here in DUGABO, in the Blissville section of Queens, along the lugubrious Newtown Creek.
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trammeled less
A bit of the Newtown Creek which I’ve oddly enough never shown you – in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a bunch of streets around the Newtown Creek which are cul-de-sacs, as in there’s only only way in and one way out. One of these cul-de-sacs in Queens is just beyond “Deadman’s Curve” in industrial Maspeth, on the LIRR Lower Montauk Branch tracks, which these days are freight only. The street is either called 57th Avenue or Galasso Place, and I’m not entirely sure if it’s a private or public way. The property to the south, I’ve always been told, belongs to the Galasso Trucking people, but I can’t pronounce that for certain.
If I was trespassing, I can’t say or not.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a rail spur that leads off of the Montauk Line on the rail bed, and the roadway to the north – Rust Street – follows the ancient property line of the LIRR tracks. I always say that when you find a street that exhibits a long arcing curve, you’ve found a relict of the locomotive city.
The 20th century “automotive city’s” streets follow straight lines, the 19th century’s “locomotive city’s” are all parabolas.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is looking back to the west where you can see the old spur leaving the main Lower Montauk tracks. That’s the end of “Deadman’s Curve” you’re looking at. It’s called that because of “The Berlinville Railway Disaster,” and because laborers at Phelps Dodge used to run across the tracks here, and once upon a time, this was a VERY busy rail center that saw long freight trains moving back and forth between Long Island City and points east.
Lots and lots of people got killed during the dash across the tracks, but they were willing to take their chances rather than clock in a minute late and lose an entire hour of pay.
– fire insurance map from Belcher Hyde “Newtown, 1916”
As you can see in the 1916 map above, which is a fire insurance map, the shoreline of this area was VERY different a century ago than it is today, and the only thing which hasn’t changed one little bit is the pathway of the Lower Montauk Branch tracks. There’s nowhere near the number of rail spurs there used to be of course, but then again there’s nowhere even close to the amount of industry present that there was back then.
Modern day 57th avenue corresponds to “Creek Street (Hanover Avenue)” and these shots were gathered in the region which once hosted the now demapped Berlin Avenue back to Munich Street. That’s the 19th century street grid you’re looking at, lords and ladies, before the United States Army Corps of Engineers did their thing to the shorelines and bulkheads of Newtown Creek during the First World War.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just beyond the property between the 57th avenue and the water is Newtown Creek’s intersection with its tributary Maspeth Creek. I couldn’t resist focusing in on this banged up construction equipment, incidentally. It’s a weakness of mine, can’t resist this sort of thing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There were a few pieces of such heavy equipment laying around back here, all exhibiting broken windows. This is one of the most out of the way and remote spots in Western Queens… can’t imagine somebody coming here to just vandalize the odd machine, it’s weird.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There was quite a bit of construction debris in the area visible from the road.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the spot at which I might have stepped off the public way, or not? 57th avenue had a bit of sewer work going on at the unfinished and unpaved end, which terminated at a barbed wire fence. It seemed as if this fenceline was the western side of the plot occupied by a plumbing supply company which borders most of the length of Maspeth Creek whose street entrance is found on 49th street, but I could be wrong.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The rail spur actually had a chain link fence built over it, which was kind of interesting for a couple of reasons. Partially, it was because the rest of the fence is pretty much gone.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If I’m reading the old maps correctly, this entire area – about half of the length of 57th avenue – is the former footprint of National Enameling and Stamping company, as you’ll notice in the map above. There was all sorts of nasty happening along this stretch a century back, including a phosphates works.
For those of you not in the know, a phosphate mill was in the fertilizer and gunpowder business, and in the business of mining nitrogen out of manure and animal carcasses. It was considered a “low” profession, as the workers in this sort of industry picked up a horrible stink from particulates that became embedded into their skin, and you couldn’t bathe it out nor perfume it away.
A lot of Union supporters found their jobs at more attractive industrial occupations dry up after they announced their intentions to organize, and phosphate mills ended up being their only option. They were called “stinkers,” and weren’t allowed into saloons or church due to the reek. Nobody would want to associate with them, lest they share their fate.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Now, as to the reason why you don’t see many posts from a humble narrator exploring the cul-de-sacs around the Newtown Creek. The simple reason is that I’m on foot, rather than vehicle or bicycle. If something goes wrong back here – whether it be guard dogs or somebody offended at the idea of a photographer wandering through, I’m hosed. There are places along the Creek in which you want to tread softly, this is one of them.
Could you explain to a 911 operator where you were, if you break a bone or get chewed on by a Rottweiler, on what was formerly Creek Street?
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wholesome pursuits
Checking in on the Kosciuszko Bridge project, in Today’s Post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Several progress reports have been offered on the NYS DOT’s Kosciuszko Bridge replacement project. I seem to be the only person In New York paying any attention to the project, and there’s been a series of prior posts on the bridge presented at this – your Newtown Pentacle – chronicling the project.
To start – this 2012 post tells you everything you could want to know about Robert Moses, Fiorella LaGuardia, and the origins of the 1939 model Kosciuszko Bridge. Just before construction started, I swept through both the Brooklyn and Queens sides of Newtown Creek in the area I call “DUKBO” – Down Under the Kosciuszko Bridge Onramp. Here’s a 2014 post, and another, showing what things used to look like on the Brooklyn side, and one dating back to 2010, and 2012 discussing the Queens side – this. Construction started, and this 2014 post offers a look at things. There’s shots from the water of Newtown Creek, in this June 2015 post, and in this September 2015 post, which shows the bridge support towers rising.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the end of 2015, I got to visit the work site in Brooklyn with the DOT folks, as described in this post, and this one. I also walked the Queens side back in December. Today’s post contains images from the last weekend of February in 2016, and takes a look at the Queens side, at the border of Blissville and West Maspeth.
In the first shot, I’m exiting an arch at 43rd street which leads to Laurel Hill Blvd., which leads to the spot shown in the second. If these shots look similar to the ones which have been embedded into prior posts, btw, it is quite intentional.
Construction equipment is everywhere at this point. Part of the Kosciuszko Bridge replacement project involves the redesign of the cloverleaf exchange with the Long Island Expressway, and since the bridge plus it’s approaches involve an astounding 2.1 miles of structure – this is one of the biggest capital projects in NYC that’s happened in my lifetime, and certainly a huge moment in the history of my beloved Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The odd spiral walkway over the highway which allows pedestrian and bicycle access (and which is surprisingly well used) is going to be rebuilt as a part of the project as well.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Down on Laurel Hill Blvd., heading south towards Review Avenue and Newtown Creek. Calvary Cemetery is on the right, or west, side of the street. The red brick approach structures on the left are going to be demolished when traffic is rerouted onto the new span.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking east along 54th avenue, which has been closed to traffic.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking south along Laurel Hill Blvd., towards Brooklyn and Newtown Creek, at 54th road.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Poking the lens through a hole in the fence under the current Kosciuszko Bridge, at what used to be the NYPD’s towing impound lot for Queens, but is now the staging area and offices of the DOT. .
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over on “used to be 43rd street,” and looking in a southwestern direction, you can see the new bridge’s roadway rising alongside the 1939 model.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking west towards Manhattan and Calvary Cemetery at 55th avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There was a lot of activity underway while these shots were captured, with construction workers and union guys moving heavy equipment around and doing all sorts of stuff. Welding, moving cranes about, working with concrete – that sort of thing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Closer to the Newtown Creek, and looking over the former site of the Phelps Dodge company – a multi acre property deemed too toxic to be used as a parking lot for trucks. An early chemical factory – Nichols, later General Chemical, predated the Phelps Dodge copper refining operation which was once here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A better view of the Queens side ramp under construction.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking across the Newtown Creek to Brooklyn, where the roadway ramp is nearly finished and the concrete towers which the cable stays that will support the span over the water will be tied up to are practically complete.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back on Review Avenue/56th road, looking south towards Brooklyn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Same spot, but looking north towards Sunnyside and Astoria from Review Avenue/56th road.
As a note – this stretch of road, which begins at Borden Avenue – is Review Avenue until the K Bridge, then it becomes 56th road until meeting 56th street whereupon it becomes Rust Street, which it remains until its terminus at Flushing Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whatever you want to call it, the engineers of the NYS DOT have spanned the street with a new roadway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The DOT plan focused attention on the Brooklyn side first, given how densely packed that section of DUKBO was, and how much more work that entailed. The Queens side, which has a lot more “elbow room” was always meant to be handled several months behind it on their schedule.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking back east, from the intersection of Laurel Hill Blvd. and Review Avenue, at the border of LIC’s Blissville and West Maspeth (or Berlin) in Queens’s DUKBO at the fabulous Newtown Creek.
The term “House of Moses” keeps on going through my head whenever I think about this project, incidentally. Every living New Yorker lives in the house that Robert Moses built, after all, and a big chunk of his early work is getting replaced. Luckily, I’m there to get shots of the show.
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base pairs
The veritable cusp of opportunity, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As is often opined, winter is a hellish interval for one such as myself. Extreme vulnerability to cold both effects and affects, and the forced climactic isolation within the walls of HQ during this period is just depressing. I’ve become an “outside” person in the last decade, and a day without a long walk is hardly worth waking up for.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s all about the photos for me, ultimately. Wandering about, seeing what I can see, recording but not interacting with the environment – that’s what a humble narrator likes. It’s not too much to ask for, I think. Luckily, Spring is on its way into town, and hopefully this year the season wont be two weeks long as it was last year when it seemed to go from freezing cold to high summer overnight.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is truly desirous of an end to the grays and browns, and a return to the blues and greens is welcome. Time to get back on the horse, roll my feet along the pavement, and get back to it. There’s a big beautiful world out there to complain about, and I’ve been stuck inside for too long.
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mortal assurances
Did you feel that? Did a truck just go by?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The geology of Western Queens is fairly fascinating. A humble narrator is interested in all things, and one of them is the very ground beneath his feet. Historically speaking, the zone which modernity calls Queens Plaza and Court Square in Long Island City were wetlands. There is rock down there somewhere, but the “craton” which underlies this section of a very Long Island was deposited by the glacial retreat at an odd angle which slopes downward as you head south. A craton is essentially a giant boulder, and that underground slab of rock which is found in LIC’s neck of the woods is buried beneath layers of naturally occurring clay and sand, and a loosely packed 20-30 foot thick layer of anthropogenic landfill material sits atop it. True geologic bedrock doesn’t appear until you get to Maspeth, where the terminal moraine of Long Island begins.
Municipal landfill began to reduce the wetlands and swamps of LIC beginning in the early 19th century, which buried many of the now lost tributaries of both Newtown and Sunswick Creeks which flowed through these parts. Once, you could sail from Newtown Creek all the way to Northern Blvd. at 31st street, and by once I mean 1881. The desire to stamp out typhus and cholera in LIC, Dutch Kills, and Astoria during the “sanitary era” is part of what provided impetus for the landfill process.
The construction of the Queensboro Bridge and the Sunnyside Yards in the first decade of the 20th century finished the job of reclaiming what was – by all accounts – a pestilential swamp. Modernity has forgotten all about that, just ask the East Side Access guys who accidentally found one of those buried waterways – a catastrophic discovery which delayed their progress and added billions of dollars onto the cost of the project.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Now, I’m not much of anything, let alone an engineer or a geologist. What I am, however, is a guy with a collection of old maps and a series of books which describe what things were like in the area surrounding Jane Street Queens Plaza from the colonial period to the start of the 20th century. The engineers who worked on Sunnyside Yards described some pretty esoteric conditions at the corner of Skillman and Thompson – for instance – including mud that would form 18 feet high waves spontaneously as the tidal action from surrounding waters transmitted through it. The Ravenswood houses are built on a tidal pond/marsh/swamp formed by Sunswick Creek, and the area around the present day LaGuardia Community college was known as the “waste meadows” until Michael Degnon got ahold of them in the 1910’s and filled the wetland swamps in with rock tailings harvested from the subway tunnels which his company was working on.
I’m also a guy who understands that even the stoutest limb will crack if it’s made to bear weight beyond its tolerance. Now, it’s pretty unlikely that a craton, which is a boloid of rock the size of an asteroid that is miles across and thousands of feet thick, would crack. It could sink, however, into the glacial till which it rests upon. This fills me with real concern, given the whole climate change/sea level thing that the Republicans claim isn’t happening. How much crap can you pile in one place before something “gives”?
The firmament is literally shaking in LIC these days, what with all the high rise construction going on, and the truck loads of structural steel and concrete rolling through.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My buddies in construction tell me that once you find solid footing – driving steel and concrete down until it meets that rock craton – you can pretty much build as big as you want. The piles sit on the rock, then you create a concrete slab which provides for a stable surface that spreads weight load out over a large area, and you build. Engineers calculated wind sheer, vibration, soil solidity and a thousand other factors years before the first shovelful of earth was turned. An elaborate bureaucracy of planners and building specialists have scoured the plans, looked for any possible error or issue, and made corrections when warranted. Believe when I tell you, these people won’t allow any single structure to crack the earth open anywhere in NYC.
Saying that, they are all largely looking at projects on an individual basis, and not a holistic whole. What will happen when everything scrapes the sky? Will the ground continue to shake, or will LIC just sink?
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The Newtown Pentacle 