Archive for the ‘Brooklyn’ Category
shadowy groves
More on how I spent part of the summer of 2013.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As discussed in yesterday’s post, Newtown Creek Alliance’s Artist in Residence- Jan Mun- proposed an art installation centered around the concept of mycoremediation (hydrocarbon eating mushrooms) and the mythology surrounding “fairy rings.” The project intrigued Newtown Creek Alliance, whose directors reached out to the ExxonMobil folks who oversee the remediation of the Greenpoint Oil Spill. ExxonMobil graciously invited Jan and NCA onto their property at 400 Kingsland Avenue in Greenpoint (and supplied budgetary support for grounds shaping as well as mushrooms) and I was asked to document the project. This week’s posts all emanate from the venture, and feature shots from “behind the wall.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
ExxonMobil representative Kevin C. Thompson was with us every step of the way, here he is helping Jan Mun sketch out the outlines of the fairy rings which formed concentric circles around inactive well heads. One thing which I can definitively say about the experience is that it was hotter than blazes just about every Tuesday this summer, which was our designated work day, and it would be an understatement to say that the site requirements for long sleeves and gloves was a cumbersome but ultimately necessary burden.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Even though we were working on something “soft,” an art project ultimately, the 400 Kingsland property is an active industrial site full of machines and busy engineers. The safety training we were asked to attend at the start of things informed us to the hazards of the site as well as the mores and conventions of such places. This is pretty standard stuff for industrial areas, as it is extremely easy to get extremely hurt in such places.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s Jason Sinopoli, Jan’s collaborator and partner on the project, walking out of one of the sketched out fairy rings. ExxonMobil uses a landscaping contractor to maintain the grounds here, and Mr. Thompson arranged for them to come in with a bobcat and crew to install and shape the soil to Jan and Jason’s wishes. The contractor came and went, and they left behind spiral mounds for the two J’s to work with.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The plan Jan laid out for all was to use two forms of mushrooms in the rings, one which would interact directly with the soil and another which would spawn within bags of “inoculated” hay. By inoculated, she means boiled and sprayed with alcohol to kill off any other fungal organism which might already be on the hay. This process was accomplished at the Smiling Hogshead Ranch over on Skillman Avenue in Queens, which is run by Gil Lopez – another of our Newtown Creek Alliance chums.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The hay, along with heaps of mushroom spores, was loaded into burlap sacks and placed atop the earthworks. The bags would require regular watering, and to be covered by tarps to protect it from the effects of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself. Fingers crossed, we would leave the ExxonMobil property one Tuesday, then come back the next to see what weird sort of life might be sprouting there.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
elysian realms
Here’s what I did this summer.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To begin, one must discuss the context of the 400 Kingsland Avenue site. Formerly the home of the Standard Oil Company of New York’s Locust Hill refinery, this is one of the primary operational sites wherein ExxonMobil and its subcontractor Roux work on remediating the Greenpoint Oil Spill. The primary occupation of the 400 Kingsland site (there are several locations around Greenpoint) involves the removal and control of “VOC’s” (volatile organic compounds) which would otherwise be outgassing from the soil. There is a small structure with a battery of activated carbon filters attached to it visible in the right hand side of the shot above. The site is in DUGABO, which is my abbreviation for “Down Under the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge Onramp“. It is across the street from the Miller Building, and was where one of the greatest conflagrations in Newtown Creek history occurred.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The refining of oil ceased on Newtown Creek by 1966, and today its all about distribution. The petroleum industry, in the form of Kerosene manufacture, was very much in place here just a few years after the civil war. Independent producers ruled the roost until the 1880’s and 90’s when John D. Rockefeller and his Standard Oil company arrived. By 1900, Standard had gobbled up all the competition. The Standard Oil Company of New York (SOCONY) was based here, and after the Federal Government broke up the national “Standard Oil Trust,” SOCONY continued on at this and other properties in Greenpoint. Through mergers and acquisitions, SOCONY eventually became known as Mobil oil. Mobil eventually merged with the former Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, which had come to be known as Exxon by the time of the merger. The composite corporation inherited the sins of its parents, and that’s how ExxonMobil ended up on the hook for the oil pollution which underlies Greenpoint and parts of Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured above is Jan Mun, an artist who proposed a project to both the Newtown Creek Alliance and to ExxonMobil wherein she would be investigating and demonstrating the usage and viability of mycoremediation (hydrocarbon eating mushrooms) in the Newtown Creek watershed. Jan consistently reminded everyone that this is an art project, an installation, and not a scientific experiment- which bears repeating. She proposed the project to NCA’s Kate Zidar, who then approached ExxonMobil for permission, and the company agreed to allow us on site and participate in it financially. All participants would need to attend a perfunctory safety class which instructed and informed all in the mores and methods of their safety culture. After ExxonMobil agreed, enthusiastically I would add, Kate asked a humble narrator if he would be interested in documenting the project for NCA.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Every Tuesday during the summer of 2013, nearly, a group of us would head over to the ExxonMobil property and get suited up in safety gear- glasses, gloves, steel toe boots, hard hats, and vests. The mushroom spores came from a supplier in California, Paul Stamets, and Jan had an aesthetically pleasing plan to install the mushrooms in the form of “fairy rings” around the former well heads which once fed oil into those oil tanks which would be very familiar to longtime residents of Greenpoint.
In subsequent postings this week, the production of the fairy rings and the fruit they bore will be discussed.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
bulging eyes
In today’s post, preternatural darkness.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Today’s post is as close to live blogging as I get, as these shots were all captured less than 16 hours ago. Your humble narrator attended a meeting of the estimable Newtown Creek Alliance yesterday, one which was set to occur at the sewer plant in Greenpoint. After the conclave, nobody offered me a ride back to Astoria so I ended up walking home again in the dark. The roll on garbage truck pictured above was spotted on Greenpoint Avenue and was fortuitously lit by the head lamps of passing vehicles.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Escorting Newtown Pentacle’s far eastern correspondent Armstrong to the train station at Greenpoint and Manhattan Avenues, I decided to pick a tremulous course toward the Pulaski Bridge. The section of Greenpoint nearby the Pulaski seems to have been in the grip of a wave of violent crime this summer, something which area wags attribute to the recent opening of a large homeless shelter which the City placed in the neighborhood. A vast physical coward and feckless quisling, paranoid wonderings were omnipresent as I mounted the bridge and headed for Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lurking in fear, I shambled and scuttled past the shinier residents of Greenpoint as they headed home, and came across this always amazing view mid span. That’s the infamous Newtown Creek down below, its poison waters gurgling and splashing tepidly towards Bushwick from the East River. The Shining City of Manhattan offers why I call it that in this shot.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday- September 21, 2013
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills Walking Tour with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Saturday- September 28, 2013
Newtown Creek Boat Tour with the Working Harbor Committee- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
some assumption
If you smell something, say something.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over the years, your humble narrator has presented glowing reports on the progress and practices of the NYC DEP at their titan Newtown Creek Waste Water Treatment plant found in Brooklyn’s DUGABO (Down Under the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge Onramp). Allusions have been made to one of the local community groups, the Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee, which has been waging a non stop dialogue with the agency for better than a decade.
This dialogue has played a critical role in shaping the construction process and procedures followed by DEP, and has created a venue wherein local concerns can be addressed and communicated directly to the otherwise opaque bureaucracy which typifies the governmental agencies of the City of Greater New York.
from nyc.gov
“The Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee is pleased with DEP’s progress at transforming the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant and adjacent waterfront into a Greenpoint destination,” said Irene Klementowicz, co-chair of the committee. “The plant continues to be an exciting model of the benefits of community-city collaboration, one that includes a shared vision of an aesthetic integration of the plant into the neighborhood. In a trend that started with the Nature Walk, the Visitor Center is the latest example of these efforts and one that will benefit residents citywide as it provides lessons about the importance of municipal infrastructure and environment. DEP’s commitment to continue to reduce odors and expand waterfront access and green space around the plant are further examples of our partnership efforts. The committee looks forward to continuing to work with DEP.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The DEP has taken a stance wherein they wish to minimize the impact that the gargantuan sewer plant has on surrounding neighborhoods, and NCMC has served as ombudsman and advocate for the affected. Accordingly, odor control systems such as those pictured above are an integral part of the plant. Problem is, these systems don’t always function correctly.
If you’ve found yourself walking or biking over the GPA Bridge when you suddenly experienced a withering blast of stink in the neighborhood of Greenpoint Avenue at Kingsland, you already know this.
from water-technology.net
With a rated capacity of 1.2 million cubic metres a day, this is New York City’s largest wastewater pump station and serves an area of 4,162 acres of land, fed by 180 miles of sewers. The upgrade programme involved increasing the station’s capacity to 1.5 million cubic metres a day and increasing the static lift necessary to match the higher hydraulic profile of the upgraded Newtown Creek plant.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The problem NCMC is concerned with (I’ve been attending their meetings as an observer for a few years now. Observer, as I live in Queens) is that the smells aren’t being reported to the 311 system by the affected residents of the surrounding neighborhoods. In the data driven climate of the Bloomberg era, an alien spacecraft landing in Central Park wouldn’t be responded to without some 311 activity, so according to the DEP- they’ve got the smells problem licked because of the lack of complaints.
Brooklynites failing to complain?
A humble narrator asks other Greenpoint bloggers to help spread the word to affected locals who might be wondering what that funky scent on the breeze is, and “if you smell something, say something” and call 311. It is the god given right of every New Yorker to complain to the Government until you’re blue in the face, which is far better than turning blue because of the smell of sewage.
from wikipedia
In New York City, 3-1-1 is used by city officials as one of several sources of measurement and information about the performance of city services. Important dates in the history of New York’s 3-1-1 service include December 20, 2005, when it received its record high of 240,000 calls, due to the first day of the 2005 New York City transit strike, and June 20, 2007, when it received its 50 millionth call.
studied record
In today’s post- infinite Brooklyn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The sheer size of Brooklyn, geographically speaking, is staggering. When one takes into account all of the former various environments contained within the borough, whether former wetlands or forested hills, the mind reels. You can still tell what used to be what in the ancient city, Canarsie is always a bit more humid than Park Slope and Greenpoint a bit more prone to flooding than Bushwick.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Its da land a me boit, Brooklyns. Ise growns ups around dere, out in Canossy near da flatlands, buts Ise nevers gets back dere toos awfun. Nuttin much left from da old days, all my friends and families, dey done moved on and odder dan a pizza joint or two de old neighborhood ain’t mine no more, if it evah was. Dats Brooklyn for ya.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These days, one rather enjoys the view of the place from outside, on the water. The littoral edge of Brooklyn has always been locked up in the hands of private business and government concerns, and is as such, an interesting historical canvas. Artifacts of New York’s industrial beginnings, relict creeks and streams, the true purpose and history of Canarsie Pier… Brooklyn is infinite…
Still, its no Queens.
Things to do!
Working Harbor Committee presents: Great North River Tugboat Races and Competition, September 1st, 2013
9:30-11:30 a.m. at West 42nd Street and the Hudson River. Spectator Boat tickets now on sale.
The Newtown Pentacle 