Archive for the ‘Brooklyn’ Category
ecstasy of nightmare
Wandering the waterfront, that’s me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s a shot of Long Island City in the shot above, as seen from North Henry Street in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint. The tug Sea Lion is towing barges of recyclable materials from the City of New York’s Newtown Creek dock. This is my kind of waterfront, incidentally, full of maritime industrial activity with dramatic urban back drops.
The skyline behind the Long Island Expressway’s “Queens Midtown Expressway” truss bridge over Dutch Kills is brand new, the modern corridor of a brave new world.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Down on the East River coastline of Long Island City, derelict docks are found. This spot is comparatively far north and west of the mega developments happening along Jackson Avenue and at Hunters Point. This is at the end of modern day 44th drive, which I’m interpreting a century old map as having once been called Nott Avenue. Presuming I’m reading the map correctly, this is the former border between the Queensboro Freight Terminal to the north (whom these docks likely belonged to) and a Standard Oil petroleum facility to the south back in 1919.
There’s a restaurant or two found hereabouts these days, and a couple of large footprint municipal operations.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not a waterfront shot, technically, but the LIRR operations at Hunters a Point always had the water in mind – and hey – I kind of like the shot.
Upcoming Events and Tours
Saturday, June 25, 10:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek,
with Brooklyn Brainery. Click here for more details.
Sunday, June 26, 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour,
with Atlas Obscura. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
thaumatropically grotesque
Back in the saddle, and Brooklyn’s invisible flame, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent endeavor and some Newtown Creek Alliance business found me up on a roof in Greenpoint the other day, where a spectacular vantage point on the largest and newest of NYC’s fourteen sewage treatment plants was encountered. The POV is south by south west, for the curious, and the street upon which those tractor trailers are parked is Kingsland Avenue in a section of Greenpoint which I’ve long referred to as “DUGABO” or Down Under the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge Onramp.
Hey, you’ve got to stay ahead of the real estate guys, I always say.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment plant uses its “digester eggs” to sterilize and thicken sewer water via biological process into a liquid with the consistency of honey that is commonly referred to as “sludge.” Bacterial specie are maintained within the eggs that consume nutrients within the liquid, and their particular biology results in the production of industrial levels of methane gas. Given that the bacterial population is pretty much identical to that found in the human gut, this sort of gas production is something which most of us are pretty familiar with.
Thing is, whereas we humans can fart or belch out this waste product – given the comparatively tiny amount of the stuff which the human gut produces – the sewer plant has to instead find some way of expressing the waste material which doesn’t involve explosive exhalations of mephitic gases.
Notice those four pipe shaped structures, and the distortion in the light just above them? Invisible flame.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An upcoming project which the plant’s managers are embarking upon with the National Grid company will attempt to harvest the methane as part of a “waste to energy” experiment, but for now the waste gas is simply burned off. An interesting bit of engineering is at work in the shot above. It seems that when the plant first opened, the temperature and frequency of the combustion process was producing a bright orange and blue flame reminiscent of the sort of thing you’d see on a propane grill or domestic stove. Passerby in Greenpoint and motorists on the Long Island Expressway (found on the Queens side of Newtown Creek) would regularly call 911 and report that there was a fire at the sewer plant.
DEP’s engineers “tuned” the venturi jets of the four exhaust stacks to burn invisibly instead, which I’ve been told was accomplished by regulating both the amount of oxygen within the mechanism and the amount of pressure within the gas line leading out from the eggs. The system is far from perfect, however. Area businesses report that the four stacks occasionally produce a “sonic boom” sort of noise, and create a disturbing vibration which transmits through the atmosphere and into neighboring buildings.
Upcoming Events and Tours
Saturday, June 25, 10:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek,
with Brooklyn Brainery. Click here for more details.
Sunday, June 26, 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour,
with Atlas Obscura. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Leviton
A “reblog” from August of 2012.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I seem to walk past this structure at least once a week, have done so for several years now, and until recently was completely ignorant about one of the largest employers of 20th century Greenpoint. The Leviton family built this commercial empire by the sweat of their brows- stories of part time employees encountering old Isidor working on the factory floor are rampant in Greenpoint, verging on Pop culture amongst “garden spotters” of a certain age.
from wikipedia
Leviton Manufacturing Company, Inc. is a manufacturer of electrical wiring devices, data center connectivity apparatus and lighting energy management systems. The company was founded in 1906 by Evser and his son Isidor Leviton. They began by manufacturing brass mantle tips for the natural gas lighting infrastructure in Manhattan. They sold their mantle tips on a pushcart on the Bowery on the Lower East side of Manhattan. Isidor Leviton designed a screw in lampholder for Thomas Edison’s Electric Lamp in 1910 and within ten years the lampholders were being used in every apartment in New York. In 1936 Leviton built a two square block 4 story factory and warehouse in Greenpoint, Brooklyn which still stands today. Leviton products include over 25,000 devices and systems, used in homes and businesses.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another bit of reputation that the family gathered unto itself was a certain liberalism regarding class, religion, and creed in their hiring practices- eschewing the segregation and selective hiring practiced by other corporations- particularly those in the electronics sector. The father of a close friend once told me that, in the years following the second world war, he was denied an opportunity to use his ivy league engineering degree because of a last name that sounded “too Italian”. Not an issue at Leviton, I am told.
from heresgreenpoint.com
By 1910 Leviton was designing and manufacturing pull-chain lamp holders for Thomas Edison’s newly developed light bulb, and in 1922 the company was moved to Greenpoint to better facilitate its rapid ascention. The massive factory took up two city blocks between Newel and Jewel Streets and produced over 600 electrical items, from fuses to socket covers to outlets and switches. Leviton would remain in Greenpoint until 1975, when the company again relocated, this time to Little Neck, NY.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Newspaper reports describe the company as resistant to unionization, and even Eleanor Roosevelt found herself standing in solidarity with a picket line on Greenpoint Avenue in the 1940’s. In August of 1940, a large group of laborers “went out”, despite Leviton paying “benefits”- a rare and coveted perk of employment in that era. “Benefits” are what health insurance and a retirement plan were once known as, and were not an automatic or legislated requirement before the 1970’s- for those of you reading this under the age of 30, understand that these “insurance benefits” were something won by the labor movement of the early 20th century.
This was the scene of a long and contentious labor strike in 1940,
as detailed in this preview of the George Ruffini book– “Harry Van Arsdale, Jr: Labor’s Champion”, courtesy google books.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Today, the structure is called the “Greenpoint Industrial Center” and seems to host a series of industrial, artisanal, and warehousing operations who make use of its cavernous interior spaces. The Leviton company left Greenpoint in the 1970’s, migrating to literal greener pastures in eastern Queens and ultimately Melville, Long Island.
from nationmaster.com
The Leviton Manufacturing Company was founded in New York by Isidor Leviton, at the dawn of the electrical era in 1906. Originally engaged in the fabrication of mantle tips for gas lighting, the Company soon afterwards in 1910, converted to production of a single electrical product — a pull-chain lampholder (designed for Edison’s new light bulbs).
- 1922: Leviton relocated to Greenpoint, Brooklyn after acquiring the TECCO plant, and now offered 568 products.
- 1929: Acquires Meteor Electric Company, a leading manufacturer of wiring devices.
- 1932: Leviton devices are used in the Empire State Building.
- 1937: Acquires American Insulated Wire and becomes the industry leader in wire, cable and cord products.
- 1939: Leviton devices featured at World’s Fair.
- 1950: Purchases the Deal Electric Company.
- 1953: Acquires Hale Brothers Companies, now known as Leviton Canada.
- 1960: Leviton is among the first manufactures to institute an employee pension plan.
- 1961: Leviton devices are installed in the White House.
- 1965: Harold Leviton becomes President and CEO.
- 1972: Introduces the first GFCI, the first touch dimmer, and a selection of home automation powerline carrier components.
- 1973: Introduces Decora® designer-style devices.
- 1975: Moves corporate headquarters to current location in Little Neck, NY.
Upcoming Events and Tours
Saturday, June 25, 10:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek,
with Brooklyn Brainery. Click here for more details.
Sunday, June 26, 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. –
Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour,
with Atlas Obscura. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
along with
I like a good door, me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One could bore you endlessly with the metaphorical and philosophical significance of doors. They keep you in, or keep you out, in their simplest function. A lot of the doors in today’s post are simply gone, such as the one pictured above which used to found in Queens Plaza along Jackson Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hunterspoint Steel literally left their building in Queens well more than a decade ago, but their portal and signage nevertheless remained. Found just east of the Dutch Kills Tributary of Newtown Creek and Hunters Point Avenue Bridge, the old factory building has become home to a plumbing supply company in recent years – but their sign typography is nowhere near as cool as Hunterspoint Steel’s was. They also replaced the old yellow door with some modern piece of “store bought.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over in Brooklyn, at the Greenpoint Terminal Market, this second story number once connected with another building. That building burned away in the largest fire since 911, which – luckily enough – made lots of room available for the development of luxury condos on its lot.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In lower Manhattan’s Alphabet City, there’s a church which celebrates the Hispanic Mozarabic Rite of the Western Orthodox Catholic tradition. No, really. I did a whole post on this church back in August of 2012.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over on… Staten Island… there’s a bar on Richmond Terrace where you’ll find the front door always open, and within there’s a phone booth. If it looks familiar, that’s because it’s where Madonna called Danny Aiello from in the “Papa don’t preach” music video back in the 1980’s.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In Queens, over in Ridgewood, there’s a pretty ancient set of doors you can walk through at the Onderdonk House. If you’re tall, you might want to duck down a bit while walking through, as our colonial ancestors didn’t necessarily possess the same stature which we assign to them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In Queens’s Woodside, along Broadway, there’s a church which is fairly well vouchsafed against Vampires. Of course, Woodside doesn’t have too much of an infestation – nosferatu wise. For a good chance of encountering Vampires, you’d want to go to Red Hook (under the Gowanus Expressway is a good bet). As a note, Vampires avoid this particular corner anyway, as there’s a Sikh temple on the opposite corner.
You don’t screw around with the Sikhs.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There aren’t that many burial grounds in Lower Manhattan, but you can bet that when you do find one it will be vouchsafed by stout iron doors. Whether it’s to keep the Wall Street types from robbing the graves, or to keep the dead from exacting vengeance upon the living – who cares, it’s Manhattan.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hidden doors are my favorites, of course. In Brooklyn’s Greenwood Cemetery, there’s hundreds of hidden doors designed to both protect and control the tomb legions.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My favorite doors are actually the elaborate bronze portal covers you’ll find adorning the Mausolea at one of the four Calvary Cemeteries here in Western Queens. Just look at that example above. Woof.
Upcoming Events and Tours
Thursday, May 26th at 6 p.m. –
Brooklyn Waterfront: Past & Present Boat Tour,
with Working Harbor Committee. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
doom that
Kosciuszko Bridge visit, a few random things I noticed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A couple of days back, a fairly enormous posting detailed the latest visit to the Kosciuszko Bridge replacement project in Greenpoint. The shots in today’s post were candidates for that post, but I had to draw a certain line in the name of being concise in terms of the overall narrative. It was a progress report, after all. Today, some of the cool stuff I saw which didn’t fit into the structure thereof.
I love taking shots of people welding or working with metal and torches. There’s two ways to approach this shot, btw. One is to use a high ISO and insanely fast shutter speed to freeze the individual sparks. The other is to lower the ISO sensitivity and use a slower shutter. The shot above uses the former approach, which freezes all the little sparks. The latter approach allows the sparks to stretch out and look like fiery spaghetti.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shot above is from up on the still under construction roadway and overlooks the National Grid site in Greenpoint. I don’t know ANYONE who has ever personally visited this site, and it remains one of the “black boxes” on the Newtown Creek. By “black box” I mean that it’s like fight club when you ask the National Grid Guys about it, and you don’t talk about fight club. This is looking easterly, towards Maspeth.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Turning on my heels, as it were, and looking south along Meeker Avenue/Brooklyn Queens Expressway towards Manhattan. For some reason, the chattering lunatic voice which constantly wails between my ears and behind my eyes has started referring to Manhattan as “Manchuquo” in recent weeks. I don’t know why. It won’t be the first time that I remind you that I’m an idiot.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Kosciuszko Bridge, Brooklyn side, is absolutely surrounded by waste transfer stations. Something close to 40% of NYC’s trash (by ton) comes to within about a mile of the bulkheads of Newtown Creek and its tributaries for processing. Last time I checked, the City generates about 12 million tons of trash a day, and since I’m mathematically challenged – I’ll allow you to do the calculations.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Gear, gear, gear. These construction guys have the coolest toys to play with you’ve ever seen. The vehicle above had some sort of crane/winch thing on it which appeared to be able to telescope out of the hydraulic boom that was set into the rear of its chassis, scorpion style. This particular device seemed to be just a few generations away from the the exoskeleton rig that Ripley used in the movie “Aliens.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot came from a temporary staircase set against the new overpass’s abutment/retaining wall. This has to be around 50-60 feet up from the deck. One of my many, many phobias – albeit a minor affliction in my portfolio – involves heights. In my mind, it’s a good defense mechanism, as falling 50-60 feet will kill you dead. Saying that, just looking at this picture causes neurological symptoms to manifest in the muscles controlling my hands.
Upcoming Events and Tours
Sunday, May 8th at 11 a.m. – North Henry Street Project,
with Municipal Arts Society Janeswalk and Newtown Creek Alliance,
in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 