Archive for the ‘Brooklyn’ Category
inconceivable orbit
wǒ jiào Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To start – that’s a ship, not a boat, since it can launch either of the two boats it carries. A ship can launch a boat, a boat can’t launch a ship, and how big the thing is doesn’t qualify it as either. Secondly, that’s the United States Coast Guard’s WMEC-909 Campbell. Campbell is a 1986 vintage “medium endurance cutter.” The white hull paint signifies that it’s part of the USCG’s ocean going fleet, and its mission includes law enforcement, search and rescue, enforcement of laws and treaties, fisheries law enforcement, alien and migrant interdiction, drug interdiction, and Homeland Security.
It was spotted at the Brooklyn Navy Yard where, to my eye at least, work on and upgrades to its avionics, radar, and other electronics was underway. That’s all the gear on top of the wheelhouse, btw.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The SSI Marvelous was also spotted at the Navy Yard. It’s a bit less glamorous than a military ship, of course, given that it’s a “bulk carrier” freighter. It was built in 2013, and is currently flagged by the Marshall Islands.
“Flagged” indicates the supposed port of call for a ship, but as you’d imagine, where you flag your boat has a lot to do with not paying taxes or having to oblige health and safety laws for your employees. Let’s just say that if Gilligan’s Island existed in the real world, Mr. Howell’s heirs would have an empty office building stuck on it today, one whose phones forward to other offices in LA or Beijing. The international shipping community is populated by fairly grotesque and ultra corrupt characters, but y’all keep on focusing in on Jeffrey Epstein and people drinking baby blood. Distractions abound, huh? Don’t notice the man behind the curtain, nothing to see here…
There’s a concrete company at the Navy Yard, and you often see large cargo vessels like Marvelous here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A “response boat small” was observed a little further south on the East River, this one being operated by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation’s “Encon” Police. I’ve written about the “response boats” quite a few times in the past. Basically, post 911, it was decided to use the “weapons platform” concept to create a basic maritime chassis which the various Police and Emergency Responder agencies could customize to their uses. Coast Guard has a version of this craft with an M60 machine gun bolted to the bow, FDNY has versions that spray water, the NYPD have theirs rigged for towing and ramming. There’s three versions of these – response boats small, medium, and large.
Back tomorrow with something different at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
Speaking of different… what are you doing this Saturday on August 7th? I’ll be conducting a WALKING TOUR OF LONG ISLAND CITY with my pal Geoff Cobb. Details and ticketing available here. Come with?
“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.
nameless summit
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator is continuing his short break from normal posts this week, and single shots from the archives will be presented.
Pictured above is the WIlliamsburg Bridge, shot back in 2017.
“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.
equally himself
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wandering disdainfully through the universe’s garden spot, Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section, one struggles to maintain any sort of hope for the future. Jack ass Real Estate enthusiasts masquerading as altruists are the latest addition to the milieu that I have to deal with. Their entire point of view is built around a single disingenuous issue – “affordable housing” for people earning over $100,000 a year. When you point out that every bit of societal infrastructure (power, water, transit, education, healthcare) required to maintain a growing populace is currently failing and the installation of much of it dates back to an era before women were able to vote, they grow indignant. Everything is connected. NYC is complicated. The five boroughs are virtually a nation state unto themselves, and the NYPD’s headcount is larger than most country’s actual militaries. As an example, there are fewer active duty Royal Marines employed by the United Kingdom than there are NYPD officers. There’s 36,000 cops in NYC’s 5 boroughs versus 7,760 Royal Marines for all of Great Britain. I should mention that a Royal Marine is generally considered to be worth 20 regular soldiers, and that NYPD is trained for an entirely different mission so the numerical difference isn’t offered to suggest that the NYPD would win a fight with the British Royal Marines.
The entire British military establishment numbers about 200,000 active duty personnel. Their job is to protect the roughly 67 million people who live on the actual island, and the various bases and territories left over from the time of Empire. The Royal Marines are “tip of the spear” troops, meaning they are the equivalent of America’s Green Berets, Navy Seals, or Army Rangers in terms of training and lethality.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Where does “it” go when you flush your affordable toilet in your new condo? Who pays for the pipe and the sewer plant and what happens to “it” after it gets there? See those four pipes in the photo above? Largest single source of greenhouse gas in Brooklyn, bigger than all the highways and tunnels put together. What powers this sewer plant in Greenpoint and who does it serve? The answer to the former is a bit complex, but the latter is Manhattan below 96th street.
Much will be made of the “need” for affordable housing built close to the urban core along the East River. Few will discuss the need to build new and to fortify existing mass transit. If you understand NYC history, you can say with zero qualification that the Government is shit at building housing. Conversely, Government is great at building roads and train lines and sewer plants. Let’s talk about getting the Government out of the real estate business, and back into the building schools and hospitals and transit space.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Everything in NYC is interrelated. Nothing exists in a solitary silo. A new luxury apartment building, using modern construction technique, isn’t built here – it’s assembled here. Prefabricated sections are brought to the job site from a distant factory and lifted by crane into the correct spot. Those “wide load” sections have to get “here” from somewhere else. How do you do that, when the Real Estate people have eliminated port and rail infrastructure across the five boroughs in a systematic manner over the last fifty years? By heavy truck, of course. In a vastly interconnected system like NYC, a small change in one place causes ripples through others.
Those trucks, coming from distant factories, have to move through other people’s neighborhoods. They encounter obstacles like the elevated tracks of the 7 line on Queens Blvd. or the overpasses of highways. Since everyone is a fucking environmentalist these days, how about we calculate the amount of carbon these truck trips spend while idling in traffic in upper Manhattan on their way to the Triborough?
“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.
have unlocked
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Tired and overwhelmed is a humble narrator, who is out taking pictures of the greatest city in the history of mankind this week and not attending any Zoom meetings or frankly doing anything he doesn’t want to do. Thereby, this week you’ll be encountering single images here at Newtown Pentacle, in pursuance of taking a short break from the normal blather.
Pictured above is the eastern terminus of the fabulous Newtown Creek, found some 3.8 miles back from the East River in Bushwick/East WIlliamsburg.
“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.
nitrous vault
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few final Friday photos from the far away Gowanus greet you this morning. The shot above looks towards the Union Street Bridge from the Carroll Street Bridge.
Uncharacteristically, I’m sort of at a loss of words today. Obvious reasons, read the news. It’s not like this wasn’t obviously going to happen sooner or later.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s Carroll Street Bridge, which is one of only two retractile bridges in the entire City. The other is Borden Avenue Bridge, crossing the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek in Long Island City.
I cannot fathom the attempts on social media to rebrand the group of white supremacists who stormed the Capitol as “Antifa.” You broke it, you bought it. Assholes. When you lie down in the street with wild dogs, you get bit.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the way home, a quick stop was made to get the shot above, depicting three DSNY trucks on a ramp with the Gowanus Expressway in the background.
Good times, these.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, January 4th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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 