Archive for July 13th, 2018
chemical odours
Don’t miss the links for 2 free Saturday boat tours at the bottom of today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The great thing about that new lens filter I’m using, an ND filter which allows me to “stop” down light and do long exposure shots in afternoon sun, is that it renders the garbage floating around in my beloved Newtown Creek virtually invisible. The particular experiments in today’s post were gathered in LIC, earlier this week. All that white and orange stuff in the water was trash moving around in the tidal waves, and since it’s a thirty second exposure, it makes the waterborn litter seem like a landscape feature.
Turns out, all you have to do is blur your eyes and you don’t have to think about pollution.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Even this open storm sewer looks intriguing and natural using this technique. The trash and garbage that’s already lodged onto the rip rap shoreline and is static, that you can still discern, but the floating black and clear bags of trash? Not so much.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The possibilities boggle the mind!
Links to a very busy weekend’s worth of Newtown Creek tours found below, come with?
Upcoming Tours and Events
Saturday, July 14th – City of Water Day Newtown Creek Boat Tours – with Waterfront Alliance, NY Waterways, and Newtown Creek Alliance.
As part of the Waterfront Alliance’s “City of Water Day” event, I’ll be conducting two free 90 minute boat tours heading to Newtown Creek, leaving from Pier 11 in Manhattan. We won’t be visiting the entire Newtown Creek, as a note, due to time constraints and navigational issues, but we will get a good mile and a half of it in.
Tickets and more details
Ten a.m. departure here.
Twelve p.m. departure here.
Saturday, July 14th – 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.
Sunday, July 15th – Penny2Plank – with Newtown Creek Alliance.
There are eleven bridges crossing the modern day Newtown Creek and its tributaries, nine of which are moveable bridges of one kind or another. Other bridges, forgotten and demolished, used to cross the Creek. The approaches to these bridges are still present on the street grids of Brooklyn and Queens as “street ends.” Newtown Creek Alliance and a small army of volunteers have been working to transform these “street ends” from weed choked dumping grounds into inviting public spaces. This walk with NCA historian Mitch Waxman will take you there and back again, discussing the history and current status of these street ends and the territory in between.
The tour will start in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint, and end in Queens’ Maspeth nearby the Grand Street Bridge.
Tickets and more details here.
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