July 8, 2025 11:00 am
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A visit to Newtown Creek Alliance HQ on Kingsland Avenue found me waving the camera about in yet another overly familiar spot.
One of the last times that I actually cared, the NYC DEP had changed the name of that sewer plant up there to the ‘Newtown Creek Wastewater treatment and resource recovery plant.’ Can you imagine being the one who answers the phone here? Sheesh. It’s the largest sewer plant in NYC, drains Manhattan below 79th street, and parts of Brooklyn and a sliver of Queens. The stainless steel eggs are bio-digesters which process the poop.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
From the Green Roof at 520 Kingsland, looking north towards Queens, and that’s a new theatrical production mega structure which has risen from the former FreshDirect location along Borden Avenue. Again – no connection to the railroad or to the industrial canal it neighbors.
For a ‘mega massive’ panorama of the scene above, click here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The camera was waved about, at all the familiar places. Allocco Recycling, SimsMetal, everywhere. There was a weird sense of finality for me while doing so, can’t tell you why.
Going to miss this place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was the last Newtown Creek shot for Day 3. I had yet another assignation to accomplish, which would require a bit of a commute.
Luckily, one of my NCA pals has driven to Kingsland Avenue, and offered me a ride to the L train, at Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg.
Brrr… stairs…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the many food cravings I’ve been having in Pittsburgh has involved Kosher Deli. I mentioned this when talking to one of my cousins, and he suggested that I take the train out to his neck of the woods and we’d go out for a meal. Getting to and from the ‘old neighborhood’ has always been a pain in the butt. Terminal stops at Rockaway Parkway for the L and Brooklyn College for the 2 & 5 are pretty far away from the specific area where I grew up, and where my cousin still dwells.
Luckily, he agreed to pick me up at Rockaway Parkway, terminal stop on the L line subway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The cars were nicely air conditioned, and I resisted the urge to debark the train at Broadway Junction to get some photos there.
We arrived in Canarsie, where I observed that in the many, many years since this was ‘home,’ that the old population of Jews and Italians seem to entirely left the ‘zone’ and the population of the area seems to have become entirely Caribbean. Cool! If I wasn’t actually heading to dinner at a Jewish Deli, my cousin would have pulled up and found me eating Jerk Chicken out of a paper bag…
Back tomorrow.
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Posted by Mitch Waxman
Categories: DUGABO, newtown creek
Tags: Brooklyn, DUGABO, L line, New York City, newtown creek, photowalk, Pickman, Subway
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Yeah, today’s L train must be a far cry from the version you remember, Mitch, when it was pretty much the subway’s oldest and tattiest stock (or what wasn’t needed for the G line) barely rolling its way to Canarsie. Speaking of which, for Jane’s Walks I did a walking tour of Canarsie — when have I ever been offered one of those? (It was sponsored by the local merchants’ association.) Of course we wound up at Canarsie Pier, one of NYC’s really nice places.
By furiek on July 9, 2025 at 6:04 pm
Very interesting revisit to LIC, great photos, thank you. So glad you’re recovery is on track, greatly helped along by your determination.
By dbarms8878 on July 9, 2025 at 6:52 pm
[…] 2 DUGABO,’ and ‘DUGABO 2 Canarsie’ finished out the cavalcade of horror and fear that I had seen and experienced on the 5th of June […]
By Apotheosis Urbis | The Newtown Pentacle on July 14, 2025 at 11:01 am