Archive for the ‘Dutch Kills’ Category
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.
Estate Reality, Dutch Kills
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To catch you up, a humble narrator was visiting home recently, discovered that his long held environmental adaptations to NYC had faded away and could thereby fully smell and hear literally everything, and it was a particularly hot and humid day when these shots were gathered.
One was scuttling about in Long Island City, and standing on Borden Avenue’s eponymous bridge, which is found along the 1870’s vintage roadway. That’s the Queens Midtown Expressway section of the larger Long Island Expressway pictured above, as seen from Borden Avenue.
Formerly, the highway truss was the largest structure you’d find along the Dutch Kills tributary of the Newtown Creek, spanned by both the LIE and the very same Borden Avenue Bridge (amongst others) that I was standing upon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Across the water, an enormous construction project has been undertaken, a ‘last mile warehouse’ operation dubbed as the ‘Review Avenue Complex’ by its developer, which promises thirty six loading bays for semi trucks, and one hundred and eighteen parking spots for other semis waiting to deliver their cargo. While you’ve all been fighting about bike lanes, this is what the powers that be snuck past you. It’s almost as if the bike lanes are a distraction…
This is a massive cargo depot, basically, built next to a freight rail line and an industrial canal, and which is entirely truck based. Big trucks will drive through your neighborhood to get here and deliver their cargo, and then little trucks will then drive through your neighborhood to deliver the ‘stuff.’ If the project is successful, heavy truck traffic will thereby increase in the residential neighborhoods surrounding Newtown Creek..
Congratulations, Queens. You’ve done it again. Think bike lanes, instead. It’s because of the bike lanes… the traffic… those pesky bike lanes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the more annoying parts of the EPA Superfund team’s ’modus operandi’ at Newtown Creek is that they claim that land usage decisions are completely out of their jurisdiction, even if what gets built is going to affect their remediation efforts down the line.
Fascinating how you can base the very definition of a polluting industry here, at a Federal Superfund site, and receive zero regulatory attention. Why not open that factory which burns truck tires that I always joke about, or just open up an asphalt recycling plant downwind from a dense residential population? What could go wrong?
This is the part of today’s post where I say it: ‘Bah!’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot is out of sequence, and was gathered on the day after the particular walk that took me to Dutch Kills. while walking over the Kosciuszcko Bridge (we’ll talk about that leg later on). The shocking scale of the Review Avenue Complex (the one on the right) is softened only slightly by a similarly gigantic project (left) that has also risen from Borden Avenue and is on the former site of the FreshDirect outfit. That project is for theatrical production, I’m told.
Neither structure existed before I left NYC at the end of 2022.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A concrete pumping truck which adjures passerby to get ‘All aboard the Gravy Train’ on its side kind of sums up what I think about all of this. Good to see that the shit flies of the real estate industry still swarm and flock, here in the world’s borough.
The good news is that hundreds of construction workers are collecting a check, but seriously – where is the City and the EDC here? Green roof? Connections to bulk cargo shipping opportunities of rail or barge? Any sort of environmental anything? How’s about a place to sit down, at least? A bus shelter? Anything?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not my problem anymore, thought a humble narrator.
I turned a corner, and walked past the former campus of Irving Subway Grate, which has been converted over into a waterfront facing concrete factory, after sitting fallow for decades. The water on the other side of the factory is Dutch Kills, if you’re curious. Literally the worst thing to site near a waterway is a concrete factory, especially if they’re not using their docks to move feed stocks in. Weather inevitably scrapes the piles of feed stocks and carries them into the water, where they coat the bottom of the waterway.
Ok, one more time: Bah!
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.
DULIE 2025
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Down Under the Long Island Expressway, aka the Borden Avenue Street End in Queens’ Long Island City.
This spot was the scene of an traffic accident during the Covid lockdowns which involved three fellows, who drove through this section at an outrageous speed – according to the NYPD – and their car ended up submerged in the waters of Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kills tributary. The experience was fatal for the trio, and the powers that be decided to close off this dead end section of Borden Avenue to traffic. A group of skaters then turned the street into an ad hoc skate park, and a couple of guys I know started to work on reconditioning the street end itself. I should mention that there’s people living in shipping containers which are found on the other side of that fencing under the LIE, as that’s an important fact to know, somehow.
After having walked from Hunters Point to Blissville with a couple of the new people at Newtown Creek Alliance, this was my next stop.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
They’ve been busy.
This used to be a location that you’d need to hold thorny branches back to access, and it was a favorite location for illegal dumping. It’s kind of welcoming, nowadays, and I took the opportunity to enjoy the shade offered by the LIE and chill out for a few minutes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The tripod was deployed, as was a neutral density filter. I hadn’t gotten ‘artsy fartsy’ yet on this trip, and felt the desire to do a few long exposures of Dutch Kills. Man, I’ve spent a lot of time along this waterway. I always thought that the Brooklyn side of the Creek had lots of people keeping an eye out, whereas Queens only had me. Good to see that new people are taking ownership here. It’s about time, actually.
I hung around a little while. My next meetup wasn’t for a couple of hours, so I had some time to kill and just one more ‘have to’ for this day.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An emotional journey is what I was on, it should be mentioned.
Memories, recollections, bitter remembrances. I thought about all of my dead friends, and a few of the living ones. I called Our Lady of the Pentacle, who is back in Pittsburgh with Moe the Dog, and caught her up with my where’s and when’s. All the while – click, whirr, click, whirr.
The smell, though. The noise. As mentioned previously, my environmental adaptations have fallen away. I was experiencing NYC, from a sensory point of view, in the manner that an outsider does. Shocking coruscations of sound and smell abounded.
I don’t think I miss New York City all that much.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My next stop was on the other side of the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge, pictured above. Long time readers will be able to guess what I wanted to see over in that direction. My tree of heaven.
We’ll get there soon enough.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Jesus Christ, you turn a corner and BAM, there it is again. The wall of blue glass erected in the last 20 years. When I met up with the fellows from NCA, one of the first things I mentioned was the stolen sky. LIC used to be ‘big sky’ territory with nary a building over four stories tall. The vault of heaven has been privatized, however, and only the lonely can remember the old days in LIC.
Back next week with more from the fabulous Newtown Creek.
“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.
Archives #042
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek, as seen from the former Uneeda Biscuit factory in Long Island City, which is currently called LaGuardia Community College’s building C. I shot this one right before the first ever press conference that I was supposed to speak at on behalf of Newtown Creek Alliance, and this was also the first time I met Rep. Carolyn Maloney. She taught me how to smile for the cameras, and offered the trick of mushing your tongue up against the back of your teeth while grinning to cover up any gaps in the dentition.
In 2010, ‘Hunters Point Avenue Bridge Centennial, Dec. 11’ was published, hawking a free event which – as it turns out – was the first Newtown Creek event that had my name on it. This event is where all the tours and boat trips and Creekathons started. It’s also the last time that my pal Bernie Ente attended one of these goofy events before he got sick and passed away.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the things which I consider as being pure serendipity is that during the years I was focused on Newtown Creek, a mad king in Albany decided he wanted to replace the Kosciuszcko Bridge. I’d swing through the work zone about every two weeks and do a photo survey of the project. Eventually, I was invited to join the stakeholders group, which gave me onsite access. In the end I managed to record the scene before, during, and after the construction project played out.
In 2014, ‘worse because’ brought readers to DUKBO – Down Under the Kosciuszcko Bridge Onramp – on the ragged border of Maspeth and LIC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Want to know why everything costs more these days? Corporate consolidation, that’s why. The concrete sector of the building industry in NYC, for instance, has been purchased away from ‘family’ companies by a national conglomerate – bit by bit. Monopolies charge whatever they want for their product, as there’s no competition.
These archive posts are reaching into Newtown Pentacle’s backups, and are pulling posts that went public on this date, in their respective years, going back to 2009. This practice will continue until I’m back on both feet full time, and new photos and stories can be gathered. For anyone who hasn’t heard the news, I broke my left ankle at the end of September.
2015’s ‘flat platform’ explores what the modern version of NYC would be like if we were still using pack animals to move things around instead of using trucks and other vehicles.
“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.
Archives #031
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Things are improving around HQ, exponentially at this point, as my broken ankle’s physical therapy routine is tangibly addressing the pain and swelling of early recovery. They’ve even had me walking in ordinary shoes at the ‘PT’ sessions. I’m recovering some of my confidence in the stride as well, in terms of trusting my affected limb.
These archive posts are reaching into Newtown Pentacle’s backups, and are randomly pulling posts that went public on this date, in their respective years, going back to 2009. This practice will continue until I’m back on both feet full time, and new photos and stories can be gathered. For anyone who hasn’t heard the news, I broke my left ankle at the end of September.
2010’s ‘narcotic flowers’ was published on this date, which discussed public health measures that were introduced in NYC, during the late 19th century, to combat epidemics and pandemics arriving daily at the port with the floods of immigrants from peasant lands in Europe.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My pal Will from NCA recently sent a photo of my beloved Dutch Kills tree to me, and the thing has turned into a real whopper over the last couple of years. Next time that I’m back home, I plan on getting a few shots of this survivor. Spring, likely.
During the pandemic, your humble narrator was walking around in the dead of night at Newtown Creek for want of any other purpose. 2020 gave me a chance to get ‘technical’ with the photos, and really slow things down, as seen in the post ‘livid marks’ which visits the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m thinking that I might actually be able to get back to my normal pursuits by mid-December at this point, but I’m taking things slowly and following the program as laid out by the professionals. Their first name is ‘Doctor,’ after all, and I’m just a schmuck with a camera.
November 18, in 2022, was smack in the middle of an intensely busy period as Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself were deep in preparation for our move to Pittsburgh and your humble narrator was attempting to ‘see everything one last time.’ Luckily, by this point, I had taken possession of the car, and was able to zip about Queens freely.
“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 