Archive for May 2018
hereditary predilection
Queens is mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
No more. The Mayor’s plan to warehouse New York City’s most vulnerable citizens in a neighborhood of warehouses, two blocks from the Newtown Creek Federal Superfund Site and one block from the Long Island Expressway – thereby creating a two to one ratio of actual residents to homeless shelter residents in the Blissville section of Long Island City – seems to have become the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. No more. The needs of the elites of Manhattan do not outweigh the needs of Queens. No more.
On Tuesday last, Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer grilled DHS Commisioner Stephen Banks about this plan at City Hall, and community members gathered on the steps of City Hall in protest over the Mayor’s plan. Assemblymember Cathy Nolan sent her representative David Agioloro to show her support for the cause. No more.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Monday last, at Gracie Mansion, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney joined with the Blissville Civic Association to protest the Mayor’s plan at the gates of the Manhattan mansion he lives in. Western Queens’s elected officials stand in solidarity with Blissville, as does Brent O’Leary of the Hunters Point Civic Association, Senator Michael Gianaris, and your humble narrator. No more.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Next week, as a note, the NYS DEC will be presenting their findings regarding the Blissville Seep – where oil has been migrating into the waters of Newtown Creek from the Queens side bulkheads less than a mile from the Mayor’s three homeless shelter. Their informal presentation on the former Queens County Oil Works of Charles Pratt will take place on Thursday, May 24th at the NYS DEC offices on 21st street in LIC.
No more.
Upcoming Tours and Events
June 9th – Exploring Long Island City – with NY Adventure Club.
Long Island City is a tale of two cities; one filled with glittering water-front skyscrapers and manicured parks, and the other, a highly active ground transportation & distribution zone vital to the New York economy — which will prevail?
Tickets and more details here.
May 17th – Port Newark Boat Tour – with Working Harbor Committee.
For an exciting adventure, go behind the scenes of the bustling Port of NY & NJ on our Hidden Harbor Tour® of Port Newark! Get an insider’s view of the 3rd largest port in the nation, where container ships dock and unload their goods from around the world. See how the working harbor really works and learn about what all those ships and tugs do. See giant container terminals, oil docks, dry dock repair, and more! Tickets and more details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
venous dissections
Beginning, middle, end.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I always like to remind people that there’s a bridge on both sides of Flatbush Avenue. You’ve got Leo Moiseff’s showstopper on the north side spanning the East River – the Manhattan Bridge – but everybody always forgets about the one on the south side – the Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge. Given that the latter was a particular “feature” in the old neighborhood, as it allowed us Brooklyn hooligans access to Queensican Riis Park and the Rockaways, since it spends its time spanning Jamaica Bay.
I tell everybody I’m from Canarsie, because that’s a place most people have heard of in southeast Brooklyn. Technically speaking that’s true, I went to high school on the western fringe of Canarsie, but where my parents put down roots was actually an “angle” between neighborhoods called Futurama. Yes, Futurama.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Flatbush is the Brooklyn neighborhood everybody has heard – or hoid – of. Pictured above is the graveyard of the Dutch Reformed Church, which HP Lovecraft vandalized, at Church and Flatbush Avenues. In the background is Erasmus High School. To the south and east of this spot in Flatbush is Flatlands. If you made a left or eastbound turn on Flatlands Avenue, you’d have Crown Heights to the north (or left) until you got to Ralph Avenue. At Ralph, looking to the south (or right) you’d find the neighborhoods of Futurama, Georgetown, Old Mill Basin, Bergen Beach, and Mill Basin. Once you cross Ralph Avenue and continue eastwards on Flatlands Avenue, you’re in Canarsie until you get to Pennsylvania Avenue near Starret City and then you’re in East New York.
Futurama was a housing development built in the late 1950’s on landfill surrounding Paerdegat Basin and Jamaica Bay, as are the neighborhoods of Georgetown and (new) Mill Basin. The particular spot which my parents chose to settle was equally distant from the terminal stop of the L line at Rockaway Parkway and the terminal stops of the 5 and 2 Lines at Brooklyn College. It was a good two to two and a half mile walk in either direction for the subway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The southern end of Brooklyn, and of Flatbush Avenue, is at the Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge. It’s a vertical lift span installed over the water at the behest of Robert Moses back in July of 1937. When it opened, it was the largest specimen of this sort of bridge on the planet. Just over the bridge on the Queens side is Breezey Point and Riis Park.
As mentioned, there’s two bridges on Flatbush Avenue.
Upcoming Tours and Events
June 9th – Exploring Long Island City – with NY Adventure Club.
Long Island City is a tale of two cities; one filled with glittering water-front skyscrapers and manicured parks, and the other, a highly active ground transportation & distribution zone vital to the New York economy — which will prevail?
Tickets and more details here.
May 17th – Port Newark Boat Tour – with Working Harbor Committee.
For an exciting adventure, go behind the scenes of the bustling Port of NY & NJ on our Hidden Harbor Tour® of Port Newark! Get an insider’s view of the 3rd largest port in the nation, where container ships dock and unload their goods from around the world. See how the working harbor really works and learn about what all those ships and tugs do. See giant container terminals, oil docks, dry dock repair, and more! Tickets and more details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
hyper glycemic
Get off my lawn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oh, industrial Maspeth… the only place these days where a humble narrator can find any peace. Unfortunately, the Real Estate Industrial Complex has noticed the place in recent months, and there’s been series of flurried exchanges of industrial properties taking place thereabouts which have involved eye watering amounts of cash. This is never a good sign for an industrial neighborhood, and it means that City Hall’s officiates must be receiving visits from their paymasters in the banking and bond industries of Manhattan. I’ve always believed industrial Maspeth to be “proofed” against artisanal anything, except for a beat down, but a humble narrator is getting a bit worried about my happy place. When the REIC shit flies begin to gather, it never ends well for any neighborhood.
All the poisons in the mud will hatch out eventually, I presume.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Coca Cola plant on Borden has been bought by Home Depot, I’m told. Additionally, Fed-Ex and UPS continue to acquire properties in the area. A warehouse on the corner of Grand and Rust just changed hands for forty two million buckaroos. Magnification of truck and auto traffic is therefore on the menu for this already busy area and the neighborhoods surrounding it. Nobody is talking about protected bike lanes in industrial Maspeth, yet, as the particular group of busy bodies who push that agenda seem to be currently focused on Sunnyside.
I would offer that there are places in industrial Maspeth where you won’t find sidewalks, and others where the sidewalks are de facto parking lots for semi trucks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A conversation yesterday with a friend who works in officialdom occurred, which was focused on the first of two Blissville homeless shelter protests (yesterday was at Gracie Mansion, today’s will be at City Hall at noon. I’ll be there, and wearing a suit!) and eventually drifted over to definitions of political terminologies. The term “progressive” came up, which is a particular bugbear for a humble narrator. A lot of modern politicos use that one to describe themselves and their stance. I remind them that “progress” was the watchword used by Robert Moses when he was justifying the sacrifices of local communities who needed to get out of the way of his highways. New Yorkers who lived in the age of “progress” saw whole neighborhoods disappear in the name of urban renewal, or slum clearance, and Moses had no ethical problem with digging up graveyards to make way for his roads in its name. Today’s “progressives” call themselves that because the word “liberal” has been so thoroughly and successfully demonized by the other side of the national political argument that it’s become political suicide to describe yourself as such. Their take is that the tax burden should be increased on the well off to aid the less lucky. That isn’t progress, that’s socialism, and under that philosophic approach to things the revenues collected by the state in the name of helping the poor usually end up getting spent on the expansion of the government bureaucracy which administers the process. This was the ultimate failing of the New Deal, which allowed people like Robert Moses to run amok in places like industrial Maspeth. It also gave rise to Barry Goldwater, Reagan, and the modern day conservative movement. Institutional memory is entirely absent in the modern world, I tell you.
I favor the Eleanor Roosevelt definition of progressivism – “We all do better when we’re all doing better.” I interpret that to mean that by setting the stage for all tiers of the economic spectrum to succeed, the “raft” is lifted for all.
Upcoming Tours and Events
June 9th – Exploring Long Island City – with NY Adventure Club.
Long Island City is a tale of two cities; one filled with glittering water-front skyscrapers and manicured parks, and the other, a highly active ground transportation & distribution zone vital to the New York economy — which will prevail?
Tickets and more details here.
May 17th – Port Newark Boat Tour – with Working Harbor Committee.
For an exciting adventure, go behind the scenes of the bustling Port of NY & NJ on our Hidden Harbor Tour® of Port Newark! Get an insider’s view of the 3rd largest port in the nation, where container ships dock and unload their goods from around the world. See how the working harbor really works and learn about what all those ships and tugs do. See giant container terminals, oil docks, dry dock repair, and more! Tickets and more details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
saturated fat
Manhattan, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last week, a humble narrator found himself in Lower Manhattan, moving on foot betwixt the rivers. Having debarked a boat nearby Houston Street on the Hudson which I’d been on since the morning, my next obligation involved Long Island City and one decided upon involved walking crosstown to connect up with the NYC Ferry’s East River route via Pier 11 at the foot of Wall Street. Along the way, my camera was clicking away at whatever happened to catch my eye. The scene above, a well preserved example of the former mercantile empire which NYC was once at the center of, exhibited the tepid level of what passes for street life and activity in the sections of NYC which are the Crown Jewels of gentrification. Urban planners hate the chaos and tumult of actual street life, and would offer this section – defined by the Holland Tunnel – up as a success story.
It’s Laight Street, if you’re morbidly curious.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over on Worth Street, a rather large “works” project is underway involving the rebuilding of the road itself. Luckily, this has scratched away the occluding asphalt which disguises the “works” of the City, exposing the veins and arteries of the metropolis for inspection by one such as myself. The area surrounding this trench is the heart of the Legal Industrial Complex in Lower Manhattan. Shadowing of the public way was provided in this particular spot by a fortress like Federal building. It should be pointed out that they don’t seem overly concerned with creating protected bike lanes in this part of the City.
I was following a path that inevitably led to the East River, and as mentioned, moving diagonally across Lower Manhattan.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Manhattan Municipal Building at 1 Centre Street was renamed in 2015 for former Mayor David M. Dinkins by our current Mayor, who was his protege. Given how startlingly awful the administration of the former executive was, it’s stunning that anything at all is named after him in NYC. There’s a been an attempt at rehabilitating his image in recent years, stealthily led by the current Mayor and his acolytes. Plastering names of former politicians on public buildings is red meat for those currently in office, it should be mentioned. I refuse to call Triborough or Queensboro anything other than their proper names until the Brooklyn Bridge is renamed for Michael Bloomberg or David Patterson. Accordingly, it’s the Manhattan Municipal Building, not the David M. Dinkins municipal building.
Luckily, my steady scuttling got me to the ferry on time, and I arrived in LIC at the appointed hour. Unfortunately, one developed a blister on the second little piggy (or index toe) of my left foot during the walk.
Upcoming Tours and Events
June 9th – Exploring Long Island City – with NY Adventure Club.
Long Island City is a tale of two cities; one filled with glittering water-front skyscrapers and manicured parks, and the other, a highly active ground transportation & distribution zone vital to the New York economy — which will prevail?
Tickets and more details here.
May 17th – Port Newark Boat Tour – with Working Harbor Committee.
For an exciting adventure, go behind the scenes of the bustling Port of NY & NJ on our Hidden Harbor Tour® of Port Newark! Get an insider’s view of the 3rd largest port in the nation, where container ships dock and unload their goods from around the world. See how the working harbor really works and learn about what all those ships and tugs do. See giant container terminals, oil docks, dry dock repair, and more! Tickets and more details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
thunderous remoteness
File this one under “You don’t see that every day.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Guy V. Molinari, part of the Staten Island Ferry fleet, in a shot from 2012. The boat is the first of its class and design, and the photo above is a fairly typical rendering of what you’d normally get to see of the boat, sans the atmospherics and dusky lighting, which was pure serendipity for a humble narrator.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The other day, while onboard a slow boat cruising along the Kill Van Kull, I was looking at the Caddell Dry Dock facility and what do I see floating there but the Guy V. Molinari up on jacks. For you longtime readers, I’ve mentioned Caddell before, but if you need a refresher course – click here for a 2012 post about the company and their floating dry dock business. Just for giggles, here’s another one from 2014 when the USS Slater was there.
from wikipedia
The MV Guy V. Molinari, MV Senator John J. Marchi, and MV Spirit of America, known as the “Molinari class”, carry a maximum of 4,427 passengers and up to 30 vehicles. Each boat is 310 feet (94 m) long by 70 feet (21 m) wide and has a draft of 13 feet 10 inches (4.22 m), tonnage of 2,794 gross tons, service speed of 16 knots (30 km/h), and engines of 9,000 horsepower (6.7 MW).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For those of you who didn’t bother to click through, a floating dry dock is a maritime structure capable of submersing part of its superstructure, allowing vessels to inch into it. The floating dry dock then rises back up, picking up the vessel with it. This allows free floating structures to be lifted out of the water so that workers can perform maintenance tasks on the hull and other normally inaccessible areas.
Cool, huh?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has seen a lot of things over the years on NY Harbor: the nose of a submarine being barged under the Williamsburg Bridge, an experimental military attack boat at Hells Gate, a space shuttle dangling from a crane, the list goes on and on. I’ve never seen a Staten Island Ferry up on blocks before.
As a note, scenery like the stuff you’re looking at today will be on display the evening of May 17th when I’m on the microphone for Working Harbor Committee’s Newark Bay tour, ticketing link at bottom of post. Come with?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As always, Kill Van Kull was putting on the maritime industrial tour even as the boat I was on headed back out towards its eventual port of call on the Hudson River side of Manhattan Island. The whole Bayonne Bridge reconstruction project seems to be winding up, and there were crews demolishing the old concrete piers which supported the original roadway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking forward to spending a bit more time on the water, a humble narrator is.
I never got to take that vacation I was moaning about all winter, probably the best I can do for the summer is to try and not be on solid land as much as I possibly can be.
Upcoming Tours and Events
May 12th RESCHEDULED for June 9th – Exploring Long Island City – with NY Adventure Club.
Long Island City is a tale of two cities; one filled with glittering water-front skyscrapers and manicured parks, and the other, a highly active ground transportation & distribution zone vital to the New York economy — which will prevail?
Tickets and more details here.
May 17th – Port Newark Boat Tour – with Working Harbor Committee.
For an exciting adventure, go behind the scenes of the bustling Port of NY & NJ on our Hidden Harbor Tour® of Port Newark! Get an insider’s view of the 3rd largest port in the nation, where container ships dock and unload their goods from around the world. See how the working harbor really works and learn about what all those ships and tugs do. See giant container terminals, oil docks, dry dock repair, and more! Tickets and more details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 