Archive for June 2025
Estate Reality, Dutch Kills
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To catch you up, a humble narrator was visiting home recently, discovered that his long held environmental adaptations to NYC had faded away and could thereby fully smell and hear literally everything, and it was a particularly hot and humid day when these shots were gathered.
One was scuttling about in Long Island City, and standing on Borden Avenue’s eponymous bridge, which is found along the 1870’s vintage roadway. That’s the Queens Midtown Expressway section of the larger Long Island Expressway pictured above, as seen from Borden Avenue.
Formerly, the highway truss was the largest structure you’d find along the Dutch Kills tributary of the Newtown Creek, spanned by both the LIE and the very same Borden Avenue Bridge (amongst others) that I was standing upon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Across the water, an enormous construction project has been undertaken, a ‘last mile warehouse’ operation dubbed as the ‘Review Avenue Complex’ by its developer, which promises thirty six loading bays for semi trucks, and one hundred and eighteen parking spots for other semis waiting to deliver their cargo. While you’ve all been fighting about bike lanes, this is what the powers that be snuck past you. It’s almost as if the bike lanes are a distraction…
This is a massive cargo depot, basically, built next to a freight rail line and an industrial canal, and which is entirely truck based. Big trucks will drive through your neighborhood to get here and deliver their cargo, and then little trucks will then drive through your neighborhood to deliver the ‘stuff.’ If the project is successful, heavy truck traffic will thereby increase in the residential neighborhoods surrounding Newtown Creek..
Congratulations, Queens. You’ve done it again. Think bike lanes, instead. It’s because of the bike lanes… the traffic… those pesky bike lanes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the more annoying parts of the EPA Superfund team’s ’modus operandi’ at Newtown Creek is that they claim that land usage decisions are completely out of their jurisdiction, even if what gets built is going to affect their remediation efforts down the line.
Fascinating how you can base the very definition of a polluting industry here, at a Federal Superfund site, and receive zero regulatory attention. Why not open that factory which burns truck tires that I always joke about, or just open up an asphalt recycling plant downwind from a dense residential population? What could go wrong?
This is the part of today’s post where I say it: ‘Bah!’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot is out of sequence, and was gathered on the day after the particular walk that took me to Dutch Kills. while walking over the Kosciuszcko Bridge (we’ll talk about that leg later on). The shocking scale of the Review Avenue Complex (the one on the right) is softened only slightly by a similarly gigantic project (left) that has also risen from Borden Avenue and is on the former site of the FreshDirect outfit. That project is for theatrical production, I’m told.
Neither structure existed before I left NYC at the end of 2022.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A concrete pumping truck which adjures passerby to get ‘All aboard the Gravy Train’ on its side kind of sums up what I think about all of this. Good to see that the shit flies of the real estate industry still swarm and flock, here in the world’s borough.
The good news is that hundreds of construction workers are collecting a check, but seriously – where is the City and the EDC here? Green roof? Connections to bulk cargo shipping opportunities of rail or barge? Any sort of environmental anything? How’s about a place to sit down, at least? A bus shelter? Anything?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not my problem anymore, thought a humble narrator.
I turned a corner, and walked past the former campus of Irving Subway Grate, which has been converted over into a waterfront facing concrete factory, after sitting fallow for decades. The water on the other side of the factory is Dutch Kills, if you’re curious. Literally the worst thing to site near a waterway is a concrete factory, especially if they’re not using their docks to move feed stocks in. Weather inevitably scrapes the piles of feed stocks and carries them into the water, where they coat the bottom of the waterway.
Ok, one more time: Bah!
Back tomorrow.
“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.
DULIE 2025
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Down Under the Long Island Expressway, aka the Borden Avenue Street End in Queens’ Long Island City.
This spot was the scene of an traffic accident during the Covid lockdowns which involved three fellows, who drove through this section at an outrageous speed – according to the NYPD – and their car ended up submerged in the waters of Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kills tributary. The experience was fatal for the trio, and the powers that be decided to close off this dead end section of Borden Avenue to traffic. A group of skaters then turned the street into an ad hoc skate park, and a couple of guys I know started to work on reconditioning the street end itself. I should mention that there’s people living in shipping containers which are found on the other side of that fencing under the LIE, as that’s an important fact to know, somehow.
After having walked from Hunters Point to Blissville with a couple of the new people at Newtown Creek Alliance, this was my next stop.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
They’ve been busy.
This used to be a location that you’d need to hold thorny branches back to access, and it was a favorite location for illegal dumping. It’s kind of welcoming, nowadays, and I took the opportunity to enjoy the shade offered by the LIE and chill out for a few minutes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The tripod was deployed, as was a neutral density filter. I hadn’t gotten ‘artsy fartsy’ yet on this trip, and felt the desire to do a few long exposures of Dutch Kills. Man, I’ve spent a lot of time along this waterway. I always thought that the Brooklyn side of the Creek had lots of people keeping an eye out, whereas Queens only had me. Good to see that new people are taking ownership here. It’s about time, actually.
I hung around a little while. My next meetup wasn’t for a couple of hours, so I had some time to kill and just one more ‘have to’ for this day.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An emotional journey is what I was on, it should be mentioned.
Memories, recollections, bitter remembrances. I thought about all of my dead friends, and a few of the living ones. I called Our Lady of the Pentacle, who is back in Pittsburgh with Moe the Dog, and caught her up with my where’s and when’s. All the while – click, whirr, click, whirr.
The smell, though. The noise. As mentioned previously, my environmental adaptations have fallen away. I was experiencing NYC, from a sensory point of view, in the manner that an outsider does. Shocking coruscations of sound and smell abounded.
I don’t think I miss New York City all that much.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My next stop was on the other side of the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge, pictured above. Long time readers will be able to guess what I wanted to see over in that direction. My tree of heaven.
We’ll get there soon enough.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Jesus Christ, you turn a corner and BAM, there it is again. The wall of blue glass erected in the last 20 years. When I met up with the fellows from NCA, one of the first things I mentioned was the stolen sky. LIC used to be ‘big sky’ territory with nary a building over four stories tall. The vault of heaven has been privatized, however, and only the lonely can remember the old days in LIC.
Back next week with more from the fabulous Newtown Creek.
“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.
DUGABO awaits
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This post begins in DUPBO, or ‘Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp,’ and ends in DUGABO – ‘Down Under the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge.’ I’ve caught a lot of crap from the mouth breather crowd over in Maspeth for these terms over the years, but there you are. ‘Eff’ them. You have to refer to ‘zones’ along the Newtown Creek somehow, with some sort of geographical reference for an otherwise fairly unfamiliar area.
As mentioned in prior posts, I was walking with a couple of the ‘new guys’ at Newtown Creek Alliance, chatting and telling stories. Sometimes histories instead of tales, but I was trying to pass on my legendarily combative view of the Creek situation to them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the view of the fairly ancient Long Island Railroad yard at Hunters Point, which dates back to 1870. As mentioned in a prior posts, the MTA seems to have found the funding to build a flood wall around the facility. It’s as ugly and ‘anti street’ as they could possibly manage.
This is the part of today’s post where I say ‘Bah!’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Greenpoint Avenue Bridge, at Railroad Avenue and Van Dam Street in Blissville, that’s what the picture above delivers. We walked down to Railroad Avenue, and since leaving NYC I’ve discovered that almost every major city in the United States has a ‘Railroad Avenue.’ Universally, they all suck as far as being dirty and the place where polluting industries like waste transfer stations ot asphalt and concrete factories set up. I mean, this is logical, given that ‘Railroad Avenue’ has rail tracks.
At Newtown Creek, in the Blissville section of Long Island City, only Waste Management regularly uses the rail – everything else here is truck based.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ll be talking about that giant monster of a last mile warehouse facility that’s going up along Dutch Kills in a subsequent post, but I’ve included this shot just to bring home the scale of the structure. Huge!
Is it connected to the industrial canal it sits alongside? Is it connected to the freight tracks which it neighbors? What exactly does the NYC Economic Development Corporation do, other than letting developers run amok with no requirements or ‘buy ins’ so as to not be the worst possible neighbors?
I’m told there’s going to be six active loading bays within the building, with exterior truck parking that can accomodate 118 semis. Y’all do know that semis don’t turn off their engines while waiting for a chance to deliver cargo, right? That at any given moment there will be at least a hundred heavy trucks just sitting there and idling alongside the Long Island Expressway? That there is no way for those trucks to get here without traveling through Sunnyside, Woodside, Astoria, Maspeth, Ridgewood, or Greenpoint? That one maritime barge would carry the equivalent cargo of 38 of those trucks? It isn’t bike lanes that are causing the traffic to increase by about 5% per year.
Ok, twice today – ‘Bah!”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The two fellows from NCA had to head back to HQ, at 520 Kingsland Avenue in Greenpoint, and get back to work saving the world. Me? I had something that I wanted to see, so I headed back into Queens and in the direction of the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek.
Evening would find me in Woodside meeting up with that crew of knuckleheads whom I call friends, but the afternoon still held a few destinations which I wanted to get shots of.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I wasn’t wearing the NCA hat which was a standard part of my ‘uniform’ all those years. Instead I had on the flash orange ball cap which I’ve taken to wearing in Pennsylvania, as I often find myself walking in woodlands and don’t want to get shot at by hunters. At least, any more than is necessary.
Back tomorrow.
“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.
DUPBO 2025
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Well hello there, my ribbon of municipal neglect, my undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens, my beloved creek. That’s some of the many ways I refer to Newtown Creek, by the way.
Sometimes, a wizard has to return to his place of power.
I met up with a couple of the ‘new guys’ at Newtown Creek Alliance, who were hired after I headed out of New York to Pittsburgh. Hart and Gus, they were named. Nice guys, very young. We were going to take a walk for a couple of hours along the Creek, but first up I wanted to get a look at the new Hunters Point Boat House.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was an unnecessarily contentious project, I’d mention, with a lot of Queens, and waterfront, politics involved. Newtown Creek Alliance teamed up with the Hunters Point Park Conservancy for a bid, which ended up succeeding, to run this space. Another group, whom I was quite friendly with, had been attempting to gain control of this spot for a long while and NCA’s decision to gain the space put me in a tight spot.
At the time, I was on the board of NCA, but was also quite intimate with the strategies of the other group. Conflict of interest? Yessir.
I followed the practice of the community boards regarding such conflicts, which is ‘disclose, discuss, don’t vote.’ Thereby I had a conversation with each and everyone involved in the process, explained my conflict of interest, and let them know that when this topic came up I’d leave the room. This was uncomfortable for all involved, but that’s officially the ‘right thing’ to do from a ‘Robert’s Rules of Order’ POV.
I’m sure that some members of that other group, whose goals and programming are both worthy and admirable, are likely reading this. It would be appreciated if mention of this situation didn’t result in a resumption of anonymized trolling, across the internet and wherever I might post a photo or a comment.
Again.
If ‘you’ are reading this, yeah, I know that it was you. I can tell, as anonymizer sites can’t disguise that deadly skill you have behind the keyboard when writing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As part of a fairly recent buildout, at what used to the Budweiser distributorship and Daily News Printing Plant property in Hunters Point, which was later used as a hub by the ‘God’s Love We Deliver’ outfit, is now a luxury condo building, with a waterfront area called ‘Brewer’s Park.’ It’s the standard concrete with planters design you see all across the modern waterfronts of NYC.
Used to have to crash through bushes and climb fences in this area…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Pulaski Bridge is backed up by one of the new and truly massive structures rising along Borden Avenue.
Remember – years ago – when I told you that the NYC Dept. of City Planning had begun using the term ‘Borden Avenue Corridor’? Whenever City Planning starts using the term ‘corridor,’ you should begin to worry about what’s coming next. When I moved away, they were just starting to float the term ‘Northern Blvd. Corridor,’ regarding the stretch between Woodside and Queens Plaza.
My understanding is that the large structure pictured above is some sort of theatrical production facility, with large sound stages contained within. For reference, this building sits in the former footprint of Fresh Direct.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I couldn’t help but visit the LIRR Wheelspur Yard since I was in the neighborhood, here in DUPBO (Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp).
The homeless colony under the bridge has now taken the form of parked ‘RV’s’ which are permanently sitting there. A little wrinkle of NYC’s parking laws is that if your vehicle has commercial plates (RV’s are classified as trucks or buses, so commercial plates) you can park indefinitely in an ‘M1’ manufacturing zone. Zero enforcement. There are thereby colonies of RV’s all around the Creeklands, which is something that really got started during the COVID lockdowns.
Unless you’ve pissed off Bob Holden or Julie Won or Lincoln Restler, odds are you’ll never see a cop writing a parking ticket around the creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A last stop in DUPBO involved a portrait shot of an old friend, the LIRR engine that’s always running in case of an emergency at the nearby Sunnyside Yards or along the LIRR Main Line. If a train breaks down, this unit will go take over and move the affected train set to a side tracks so as not to block Sunnyside Yards Harold Interlocking – the busiest train junction in the United States.
Back tomorrow with more.
“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.
Like every other bit of wind blown trash…
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After transmuting from upstate to midtown Manhattan via the MTA’s Metro North operation, your humble narrator then negotiated his way to the 42nd street 7 Line station.
Now, you may be wondering: Hey Mitch, what with that broken ankle PTSD that pops up when you’re descending steps, that you are constantly mentioning and complaining about, how was it negotiating the subway system with all of those flights of stairs?
The answer is ‘wasn’t all that simple.’ I was the slow moving old guy on the stairs, the one whose hand was floating a half inch over the bannister and carefully working his way down at his own speed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The PTSD mishegoss is retreating, due to all of the exposure I’ve been inflicting on myself back in Pittsburgh with its ‘City Steps.’ Saying all that, it’s still there, and it sucks. There’s a background ‘gotta be careful here’ thought pattern as I approach the top of a flight of stairs, but it’s almost always the initial ‘top’ of the steps where my brain starts firing bolts of panic. Badly broke my ankle on a set of steps at home, of all places, and ever since this has been a bit of a ‘thing’ for me whenever I’m confronted with stairs. Bah!
At any rate, the 7 carried me where I was going in air conditioned comfort. It was going to be a super hot and humid day, weather wise. In fact, the rest of my time in NYC was going to be defined by ‘swamp ass’ humidity and high temperatures.
My grandmother always used to tell me that we were put of this earth to suffer.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hunters Point, in Queens’ Long Island City. I sort of expected some thunder or something when I stepped onto the sidewalk, but it was actually sort of anti climactic. This is one of the places I was thinking about while sitting in that wheelchair at the end of last year.
I had arranged with my pals at Newtown Creek Alliance to meet up with a couple of the ‘new guys,’ and take a walk with them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Long Island Railroad’s Hunters Point yard has been getting upgraded with a flood wall while I was gone. With the alterations to this spot they’ve operated out of since 1868, this wall would count as version 10 of the station, in my eyes. Once upon a time, there was a giant steel and glass train station here which fed into a ferry terminal, a structure reminiscent of the sort of station sheds you see in Europe. There was a railroad turntable… they had all the toys. Nowadays, MTA is trying to figure out the finances for decking this rail yard over so that yet another condo tower can be built on top of it.
Regarding the title of today’s post, it’s a part of my ‘bluster’ from the Newtown Creek years. When interviewed by press people and asked about how I found myself studying the creek, I’d offer: Desolate, disabused, discarded… soon, like every other piece of wind blown trash in NYC, I ended up at the Newtown Creek. I’d often get a raised eyebrow from any politicians in the room when saying this phrase.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Inhuman. That’s what I always say to myself when I see these sorts of structures. Anti-democratic, as well. I don’t mean the political party.
The very nature of this sort of residential setup divides people into ‘haves’ and ‘have not’s.’ Twenty to thirty years in the future will prove me out on the consequences of this development philosophy. Same thing applies to Manhattan’s Abomination Hudson Yards. Bah!
It was already quite warm and humid out. Luckily, before leaving Cold Spring upstate, I ate a very solid breakfast and inhaled about a gallon of coffee and water. The ankle was a bit ornery from the efforts of the prior day, but holding up to the mission. No pain, at all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Finally. It had been nine months almost to the day since I tumbled down a set of steps in my house in Pittsburgh, busted my ankle and also dislocated my left foot.
Hospitalization, surgery, two months in a wheelchair, endless months of physical therapy and omnipresent pain, months and months of walking up and down hills in Pittsburgh to get my strength back… and there it was: Newtown Creek sitting right in front of me.
Tingles, I tell you, I felt tingles. The ankle story was actually ending. I had finally made it through this crucible.
Truth be told, a clap of thunder would really have been appreciated as I approached her, but that’s just me wishing for theatrics.
Back tomorrow.
“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.
The Newtown Pentacle 