The Newtown Pentacle

Altissima quaeque flumina minimo sono labi

seared unbearably

with 2 comments

Wednesday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

A few more views from Newtown Creek Alliance HQ in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section for today’s post. That’s the sewer plant in Greenpoint above, with 3 of its 8 stainless steel digester eggs in frame. It’s a technological marvel, I tell you.

For this trio of shots, I was actually on the roof of HQ at 520 Kingsland Avenue, where NCA has partnered up with several other entities around the creation and maintenance of a 26,000 square feet green roof.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Heavily cropped, the shot above depicts night time operations for yet another tug – which I think is the Helen Laramy. Tug companies paint their vessels with certain “colorways” which indicate who owns what and are graphic enough to be seen at a distance. This is a lot less important today than it was in the past, as the United States Coast Guard maintains a system wherein onboard radio transponders don’t just identify vessels in NY Harbor, but also indicate where – exactly – they are, and what their heading and speed are.

Seriously, you’ve seen science fiction movies where the starships have fewer electronic doo dads than the bridge of a modern tugboat.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

From what I was able to discern, this particular tug was operating along the bulkheads of Allocco Recycling in Brooklyn. Yesterday’s post displayed another tug working the opposite shore. Allocco is in the metals business like SimsMetal in Long Island City, but their main line seems to involve aggregates. Aggregate recycling involving passing excavated soils through a series of sieves to grade it by particle size – sand, gravel, rock etc. The material is then poured into barges and taken away for further processing or redistribution back into the ground somewhere.

I’ve been asked this a few times, so… Allocco doesn’t stand for anything as a corporate amalgamation name, instead it’s the last name of the family who owns this business. I know the showrunner there, Mike. Nice guy.


“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle


Buy a book!

In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.

Written by Mitch Waxman

September 8, 2021 at 11:00 am

2 Responses

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  1. Great post and pics. I looked it up, she’s the Helen Laraway. Interesting to learn that tug is almost at old as I.
    http://www.tugboatinformation.com/company.cfm?id=700

    dbarms8878

    September 17, 2021 at 1:18 pm

  2. Great post and pics. I looked it up, she’s the Helen Laraway. Interesting to learn she’s almost as old as I.
    http://www.tugboatinformation.com/tug.cfm?id=4796

    dbarms8878

    September 17, 2021 at 1:20 pm


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