The Newtown Pentacle

Wednesday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Welcome to the start of ‘Day three’ on a recent trip ‘back to the old neighborhood’ and my first stop after leaving Hank the Elevator Guy’s crib in Middle Village was DUGSBO – Down Under the Grand Street Bridge Onramp. You have to call a place something, and ‘White’s Dock’ as a place name is historical trivia recognized by maybe two or three living humans, one of whom is likely the webmaster at Forgotten-NY.

Long ago, I decided to just start calling unnamed places ‘something’ and enjoyed the conceit of using the model for ‘DUMBO’ for these otherwise uncommented upon spots. That’s the Grand Street Bridge pictured above.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I scuttled out onto the Grand Street Bridge, and straddled the currently undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens. The NYC Department of Environmental Protection dumps so much untreated sewage into this section of the creek that a judge ordered them to do something about the low oxygen levels therein. Rather than stem or divert the flow of ‘honey’ to their outfalls, the DEP built an aeration system instead. It’s a bit like an enormous aquarium bubble wand, one that also transports bottom sediments to the surface where they can aerosolize. The judge told them oxygenation needs to be solved…

Yeah, it’s all Exxon’s fault, just ask the DEP – they’ll tell you all about Exxon and how everything wrong with Newtown Creek is because of Exxon and the millions of gallons of raw sewage they release here annually isn’t a problem.

Here’s today’s: Bah!

– photo by Mitch Waxman

If failure had an icon, it would involve this aeration system.

One of the problems with the generation coming up is that if a group of governmental employees appeared who called themselves ‘The Good Guys, Girls, and everyone else who’s good too crew,’ it would come as a surprise to most of the youngins when they found out that this outfit were eugenicists or something. Just because it’s government doesn’t mean it’s good, and just because it’s corporate it’s not guaranteed bad. My advice is to be suspicious of everybody and everything until they prove themselves trustworthy. How’s that for ‘thought leading’?

Please, please, please… judge things by what they are rather than what you hope they’ll be. Evidence! Patterns! Do they do what they say they do?

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Next stop was the Maspeth Avenue Plank Road, long described as ‘my happy place.’ I sat down for a bit, as it was ludicrously tropical out weather wise. That’s when I started noticing movement all around me.

It was them, one of the menaces which have long bedeviled me around Newtown Creek – in fact for decades now.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One of these malfeasants captured my attention when swimming right past me, waggling its tail provocatively while doing so. It maintained eye contact, and so did I. It’s a Dinosaur, sort of.

This was all a deception.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Another one of their cohort was circling around and trying to get behind me, so I stood up and shouted ‘NAAAG,’ as I speak a kind of goose.

These Canada Gooses are far and away one of the nastiest sort of Dino-Birds you can meet. I once got into a fist fight with one at Calvary Cemetery, and all these years later I’m still dealing with the blowback. (The Audubon Society people didn’t like my related tale of fighting a goose, as a note, but that ‘icehole’ started it. I finished it. Brooklyn!)

NAAAG!

I packed up my camera bag, bid these objectionable swamp chickens ‘adieu,’ and continued along my way. Very cheeky behavior for critters who don’t seem to have any cheeks, if you ask me…

Back tomorrow.

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