Archive for July 2025
The happy place
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After visiting the Maspeth Avenue Plank Road, my next destination was in Queens, and another one was in Brooklyn a couple of miles away nearby the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge. I had decided to walk one of my familiar routes there, past Maspeth Creek and to the Kosciuszcko Bridge.
It was about 85 humid degrees at ten in the morning, and I was wandering through the section of Maspeth where the term ‘urban heat island effect’ was first described. What ‘urban heat island’ means is that this is an area nearly devoid of greenery and composed almost entirely of concrete, asphalt, and masonry. The latter materials both store and then release ambient heat, causing temperatures in this ‘zone’ to be ten to fifteen degrees hotter than in surrounding areas which are planted with trees and other vegetation – even at night.
It’s why ‘green roofs’ are important in new industrial construction hereabouts.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Department of Sanitation New York (DSNY), maintains a garage nearby the Maspeth Plank Road which causes the pedestrian quite a few problems, navigating obstacles wise. Did I mention that I’m now able to fully smell everything, after losing my environmental adaptations while living far away in Pittsburgh? Did I mention the heat and humidity?
Yikes.
After rounding the corner, and finding a small patch of shade, it was time to readjust the bags and straps hanging off of my torso. Luckily, I was able to leave the secondary bag back at my buddy’s house in Middle Village for this part of the experience, but having that big knapsack on my sweaty back during this kind of heat just sucked.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Maspeth Creek was in the worst condition I’ve seen it in for about ten years. When it’s all emerald colored like it is the shot above, it means that somebody has been dumping nitrogen rich ‘something’ in one of the sewers which ultimately outfall here. Ten years ago, it was a ‘Pollo Viva’ abattoir and slaughterhouse doing it, illegally dumping blood and bird shit into the sewers around a mile from here on the Brooklyn side. Could also be a laundromat, or any number of shoestring operations trying to increase their margins by ‘getting away with something.’
If there’s any value whatsoever to all those years I spent on Newtown Creek it was this sort of observation. Showing up and noticing things, and then passing on documentation of these ‘things’ to relevant authorities for proper investigation and enforcement. There’s a long list of such issues along Newtown Creek, which I’ve discovered thusly.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I have to admit, this leg of the walk was arduous. Direct sun, no cover, heat releasing and radiating out from the sidewalk and masonry warehouse walls… just awful.
Your humble narrator was sweating bullets.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Some street furniture was encountered, cementing Queens’ reputation in my mind for its native art form – illegal dumping.
Yeah, I did think about having a quick sit down on those chairs, but decided that I’d wait until I was in a shadier spot.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, when you’re in DUKBO, Down Under the Kosciuszcko Bridge Onramp, you can always shelter from sun and rain under the bridge.
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.
DUGSBO & the plank road gooses
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.
“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.
Old friends
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One was finishing out the second day of shooting on a recent trip back home to NYC, but I had to make a late afternoon stop at the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge – spanning the Dutch Kills tributary of the fabulous Newtown Creek – to see my little tree of heaven.
Long time readers may recall that charting the growth of this tree became something of an obsession for me during the Covid lockdowns.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s officially a Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima), and it has been sprouting out from under that factory for a few years now. They make lady’s face paint and other cosmetic goo in there, I’m told.
My efforts were nearly over, having got started at about seven in the morning. I still had some socializing to experience later on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One last shot, and I summoned a rideshare to carry my carcass from Dutch Kills in LIC over to Woodside. I did think about just taking the train, but that was at least a twenty minute walk from this spot and frankly – I was fairly exhausted at this particular moment.
The car came, and the air conditioning within was quite a relief after an entire day of being out in the heat and carrying all of my possessions around. I was still shlepping a bag of clothing around with me, after all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Next stop was, as mentioned, in Woodside. The plan was to meet up with some of my knuckleheads at Donovan’s Pub for burgers and beers. I was early, and didn’t want to ‘get started’ by myself, so I headed over to the noisome little triangle park found at the corner of Roosevelt and 58th to wait out a half hour interval.
I affixed the wide angle 16mm lens to the camera, and tried to ignore the guy who was washing a slash wound to his hand in a water fountain. Dude had a lot of gravy inside him, and left a bunch of it painted onto that fountain.
This is why Queens can’t have anything nice.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Old number seven was rampaging through every ten minutes or so, high above on the green steel. Everything was madness, and noise, and chaos, and punctuated by automobile horns. As mentioned several times, my environmental adaptations to NYC seem to have worn off. It’s been a while since I’ve heard anything quite like this and it was overwhelming.
I don’t want you to think I’ve gone soft in Pennsylvania, instead my brain no longer spends quite as much time pruning and selecting sensory data as it used to back in NYC. In Astoria, for instance, I learned that I could sleep through an automatic weapons long barrel gunfight that was happening directly below my bedroom window.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After dinner, the group split up, and I left with Hank the Elevator guy. I’d be staying at Casa Del Hank in Middle Village for the remainder of my trip. We got back to his place, hung out for a bit, and I was soon passed out in his spare room. Day three of this trip was going to be a real lulu.
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 