Archive for the ‘Brooklyn’ Category
stupendous spectacle
If you smell something, say something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In January, the new DEP Sludge Boat Hunts Point was described in this Newtown pentacle posting.
The boat’s arrival was the first part of a complicated story, and the next chapter will involve some heavy equipment arriving on the Newtown Creek in around two weeks time. According to official sources, an oft rescheduled interval of municipal dredging will begin the week of March 17th, with the intention of opening a navigational channel for the new sludge boats from the East River, all the way back to Whale Creek at the sewer plant.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Concerns about odor and disposition of the materials removed from Newtown Creek have been largely dismissed by the mid level DEP personnel running the operation, although community groups like the Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee (this is one of the ones I’m “with”) have asked pointed questions and demanded that odor control procedures be put in place. The municipal contractor will be DonJon towing, and they will be equipped with some sort of foam based system to cover the Black Mayonnaise sediment when it’s deposited in a barge – should it begin to afflict the residential properties on either side of the Creek with a smell or odor issue.
DEP will be releasing a document next week, for “community outreach,” as it were. The word from on high is that 311 is primed to deal with odor complaints – so if you live in LIC or Greenpoint – If you smell something, say something and call 311 to complain.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Disturbingly, our commonly held employees at DEP do not wish to detail what will happen to the materials removed from the waterway. There was some discussion about the different end destinations for it – they considered several industrial facilities practiced in the handling and disposal of toxic sludge – but there has been stony silence in response to queries about the details of the plan.
How will the material be handled, upon Newtown Creek and beyond? Will it receive primary treatment in Greenpoint or in Queens or somewhere else? If it’s going to be along the Creek that the DonJon barges are emptied and cleaned, where will that happen? How will the material be transported out of the area – by truck, barge, or rail?
Our employees in municipal government have let us know that it’s really none of our business.
This is an important issue, as when EPA begins its dredging operation for the Superfund cleanup, they will likely look at the process which DEP created for this far smaller dredging effort. More to come on this one, Lords and Ladies.
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stress and hardships
For a while there, I used to chew a lot of gum. These days, not so much.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you may have guessed by this point, your humble narrator was all over Brooklyn in the last week. Pictured above is the view from (literally) DUMBO – Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Onramp. You may want to tell me that this drippy warren of pigeon shit stained and ankle turning cobbles is the very model of a modern major city if you like, but you can have it. It’s always dark down here and that’s precisely how you get a vampire infestation started. How’s that for a rumor – Did you know that there’s a Vampire problem in DUMBO? That would suck.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Vampires are silly, of course, and kind of passé. All the cool kids are into Lich’s these days, or so I’m told by the Moroccan kid downstairs. I did spot a tugboat floating by, but didn’t head down toward the ConEd substation at the waterfront to follow it. My path was not one of exploration, as mentioned earlier in the week, rather I was just walking from Red Hook to Astoria and keeping the river in sight the whole way. Next time, I’ll pick around the side streets and see what wishes to noticed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One thing that I couldn’t help but notice was this CitiBike rack across the street from the Navy Yard, frozen in a three foot block of plow shaped ice. For some reason, this crystallized the period of turnover from Bloomberg to the current Mayor for me. Nothing cutting offered there, it just seems to be kind of emblematic. Good luck with the cold and snow today. Your humble narrator unhappily offers that a return to Red Hook, despite the blistering cold, is on his schedule for today – but I most assuredly will not be walking home.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
mentality and resource
A humble narrator will be live in meatspace at Brooklyn Brainery tonight.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured is the view from the Smith 9th street station in South Brooklyn, looking down upon the fabulous Gowanus. Business has been calling me down this way all through the end of 2013 and beginning of 2014. For the moment, at least, it appears that I’m going to be a regular visitor, so a bit of curiosity about the locale has been blooming in that withered carbuncle which beats within my chest. In no way do I plan on developing the intimacy with this superfund site that one enjoys with Newtown Creek, but there are things to see down here, I tell you. A point of listening to H.P. Lovecraft’s “Horror at Red Hook” is made, and a preference will be stated for the Audiorealms produced (and Wayne June narrated) reading of the unabridged text.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I think that this is the Hamilton Avenue Bridge in an open position which we’re seeing here, but I might be wrong. Most of my experience with this part of Brooklyn involved driving over it, via the Gowanus Expressway, on my way from the Flatlands Canarsie area to either the Battery Tunnel or one of the East River bridges. I’m not looking for one of you, lords and ladies, to fill me in. It is a curse knowing too much, and the joy of discovering something new – at least to me – has become something of a rarity these days. I’m saving the entire Bronx for future usage, for instance. I did wait around for awhile to see what sort of maritime traffic had called for the opening, but nothing appeared.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of my back burner projects, the kind that never really gets started and is seldom finished, has been to track down “Lovecraft in Brooklyn.” The fellow lived here for an interval, which by all reports he did not enjoy.
The building which “Cool Air” was set in still stands on 14th street in Manhattan, and was observed in the appropriately named post “Cool Air.”
The Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church, which Mr. Lovecraft reportedly vandalized, was visited in the post “frightful pull.” I’ve even located the Suydam family tomb in Greenwood Cemetery, burial place of an antagonist from “The Horror at Red Hook itself.”
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Creek “Magic Lantern” Show
The Newtown Creek Magic lantern show returns, tomorrow night at Brooklyn Brainery.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On February 27th, your humble narrator will be narrating humbly at the Brooklyn Brainery – here’s the details. This is the 2014 version of the thing, btw, updated with newly learned information and recently captured images. In the past, this photo presentation and info dump has been offered to political clubs, historical societies, and to the general public at a variety of venues.
Come with?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Brooklyn Brainery is a swell operation, located in the nice part of Brooklyn nearby Grand Army Plaza and several Subway lines. I’ve worked with them a few times in the last year, doing walking tours, and they’re very cool folks. Also, the space they’re located in is very nice – physical comfort wise and such.
From their website –
We host classes about all sorts of things: from physics to Australian desserts, from HTML to shorthand and just about every nook and cranny in between.
All of our course topics are dreamed up and suggested by you, and our teachers are a group of awesome people from around Brooklyn and the whole city. Anyone can teach–you just need a passion for the topic and a desire to share it with others. We do all the planning, taking care of sign ups, marketing, and materials, so you can focus on the important stuff (teaching, duh).”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The presentation will be about 2 hours long, with the actual slideshow and talk occupying roughly one and a half hours. What follows will be a Q&A session, wherein questions will be offered that a humble narrator will endeavor to intelligently answer. Brooklyn Brainery is asking $12 for the class.
There are still a few tickets left, so click on through and join the conversation about Newtown Creek on February 27th at 8 p.m.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
tone and tenor
Gear envy in today’s post, and the joy of photographing photographers as they photograph.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Funny thing about the part of Brooklyn wherein one finds the modern day Brooklyn Bridge Park is that, within my lifetime mind you, it has become a relatively safe place. I’ve been told tales of photography people hiring toughs and ruffians to guard their equipment around these parts to scare away trouble “back in the day,” lest the baser elements of the NY streets be allowed to pilfer expensive equipment.
People walk around like they’re safe or something these days.
Last week, your humble narrator wandered through, on a terror filled walk from venerable Red Hook to an end destination in reliable Astoria.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Observed were two photographers, but one was presumptively an assistant.
One of my smaller joys is photographing photographers as they photograph, as it satisfies some urge in me to document everything I see. Also, those of us who brandish cameras about constantly are ridiculous and are seldom ridiculed because we are out of frame when a photo is captured. I find these shots fascinating, and there are all these dramatic postures which are spontaneously displayed when photographers photograph, so whenever I can photograph photographers as they photograph, I do. I like to shoot shoots, as it were.
These guys though (I don’t mean the kid with the iPhone), profit greatly from the fact that no one is going to come and take away their stuff in modern day Brooklyn. They had something like 70 grand worth of equipment out there for all to admire. This was me, I’d have Hank the Elevator Guy and a couple of the stoutly built Croatians that populate my neighborhood in Astoria along to keep things nice and even.
Look at that lens, just look at it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My educated guess as to the identity of the lens this fellow is using, with my conjecture based purely on its physical appearance, is that it’s either a more than $10,000 Canon EF 500mm f/4L (an actual model number or variant is difficult to distinguish) or the top of the line $13,000 plus Canon EF 800mm f/5.6L. The cameras being bandied about were Canon EOS-1D X‘s, which will set you back around $7k a unit. The small black lens on the guy in the foreground’s camera costs about $2,300, and in just a few minutes, I saw about $20,000 worth of glass swapped in and out of that suitcase – the sort of lenses I dream about using let alone owning. Those tripod legs alone are about $1,500 to $3,000 each, and those tripod heads ain’t cheap either – so tack on another few thousand bucks.
Wow. All this gear for a mid-day, winter sun, outing. Me, I’m going to be there early and late, not the afternoon. The sun is at a bad angle to the City from December to Mid March, it’s the worst time of year.
These guys must have been on their way back from the Olympics in Sochi or something and had some time alone with the gear before their kit had to be returned to AP or the Times.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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