Archive for the ‘Degnon Terminal’ Category
the First Big Announcement
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator will be conducting a walking tour in Long Island City as part of the Open House NY Weekend on October 15 and 16. The tour will be approximately two hours in length, starts at 11 am, and will visit several of the amazing industrial landmarks which distinguish the Queens side of the Newtown Creek Watershed. Much of the walk will follow the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek. Reservations are required, which can be had by visiting the following link:
http://www.ohny.org/site-programs/weekend/programs/walk-down-newtown-creek
Oh, did I neglect to mention that this walking tour is free, as in gratis, as in no cost to you- Lords and Ladies?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the first of two big announcements, the second is still under wraps and I’m not able to discuss it at this point. Hopefully, within the next couple of days, I’ll be able to say more. Open House NY weekend is a citywide event, and there are multiple opportunities to do cool and unique things. Please check out the rest of their offerings, but you definitely want to come on this exploration of a hidden and neglected waterway which is found less than one mile from midtown Manhattan.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Bring a camera, of course, but I would be remiss if I didn’t advise you that broken pavement and largish puddles might be encountered- so proper (closed toe) footwear is advised. Additionally, this is as close to an urban desert as you are ever likely to find, so if you are one of the folks who likes to “stay hydrated”, bring a beverage along. Sparks deli on Borden Avenue will most likely be open, but one never can tell. Looking forward to seeing you along the Dutch Kills, and as always-
Want to see something cool?
Bring a camera, and ID…
Follow me…
ironic placeholder
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Short one today, just two shots I kind of like. Having to tow a tow truck just strikes me as some sort of karmic parable in the first one.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Speaking of karmic parable, in the second are two nicely red Panavision trucks.
There was a fair amount of activity going on near Dutch Kills this weekend on 29th street and the impression I received was that the sitcom “30 Rock” was filming something in the orange building to your right.
Major posting coming tomorrow. I’d suggest making a cup of tea or coffee before wading into it. I found something incredible in Long Island City recently, which will be presented tomorrow at this- your Newtown Pentacle.
revel and chaff
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As soon as the rain died down, I descended from Newtown Pentacle HQ here in the rolling hillocks of Astoria to the so called “Zone A” to see what Irene might have wrought here in western Queens. The shot above is from Second Street near Borden Avenue, at the largish worksite which Skanska has been employing hundreds for the last few months. Cleverly, the construction giant had dug a diversion ditch to allow storm water drainage.
Smart.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“There will be plenty of cameras walking around in Tower Town, so it would be silly of me to spend much time there” were the actual words spoken to my walking companion, who we’ll call the Charismatic Croat (CC). CC was also told that we’d be taking a short walk, and would be back in a half hour. He’s used to my lies and wasn’t surprised when we had inexorably headed for another part of “Zone A”.
All through the storm, I was wishing that I had the camera out at Newtown Creek, or at least Dutch Kills.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Curiosity about the actions of the much feared storm surge upon the fragile bulkheads of Dutch Kills was killing this cat, and I dragged CC back and forth over these streets. There was some flooding, but in the usual places that flood anyway. Back on 2nd street, a few nice shots of the surge were captured by Jesse Winter and others, and an actual wave of East River had risen up and flooded 2nd. The Crab House was bailing water from their basement and more than one giant puddle still remained.
Down at Dutch Kills, 29th street and the large truck yard which houses this cement company were under a foot or more of water- but they are regularly immersed by small amounts of rain anyway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What made the day noteworthy, from a Newtown Creek point of view, was this little river of urban chocolate flowing out of one of the many CSO’s (Combined Sewer Outfall) which are found abundantly along the waterfront of the Creek and it’s tributaries. It smelled just the way it looks like it might. One often sees discharges coming from these CSO’s, but this was just a spectacular flow.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I will point out that this could be soil washed into the pipes during the tremendous amount of rain which Irene brought to Queens. It could be sand or actually be a chocolate spill at some industrial confectionary which got washed into the sewers or something. That’s what I said to CC at the time.
Doesn’t smell like chocolate, the Charismatic Croat opined.
another aperture
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An aerial shot from the former Loose Wiles biscuit factory (and modern day LaGuardia Community College) which shows the totality of the Dutch Kills turning basin and the properties which surround it. Special notice of the cement factory and the red white and blue self storage warehouse should be taken, and the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge and Long Island Expressway (just above center) which were described in earlier posts are also pointed out. Additionally, notice the two sunken barges in the lower left hand corner of the shot.
click for parts one, two, and three of this trip down Dutch Kills. This is the last of the four postings describing what I saw at Dutch Kills while on a Newtown Creek Alliance assignment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The stated mission of this exhibition was to catalog and photograph the little known bulkheads and shorelines of Newtown Creek and it’s various tributaries, and NCA had arranged for Riverkeeper to ferry us back and forth across the troubled waterway. Troubled is a politically correct way of describing the Newtown Creek watershed which native New Yorkers would translate into local patois as “all ‘effed up”, or which a military man would call “FUBAR”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Risible, the state of decay along these shorelines is startling. Dutch Kills has been largely abandoned by maritime interests, despite its once proud role as the central artery of the industrial complex called the Degnon Terminal. The corrosive affect of estuarine water upon cement and underlying steel has rotted away the manmade shorelines and bulkheads, carving away the efforts and labor of whole generations.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There is no reason to say the name of the corporation which occupies the red, white, and blue self storage warehouse which sits above these pilings. It is immaterial to adjure any organization in Queens, whether it be governmental or corporate, for no one cares. It is remarkable, though, that the corrosive action of the waters of Dutch Kills have so undermined the foundations of this structure that grottoes have formed amongst its pilings.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Remember, this was swamp land as late as the first decade of the 19th century. When Degnon’s people began their work here, at the Waste Meadows, there was barely any solid land between Hunters Point and Blissville. The LIRR, of course, had built their tracks sturdily and have no doubt that Standard Oil had engineered their grounds with proper drainage and stout foundations- but the inland path along Dutch Kills was nearly worthless.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Degnon owned a construction company which was capable of doing the impossible, and his people had a special affinity for problems involving water. They made their name during the construction of the second East River (or Williamsburg) Bridge, were involved in the taming of the Wallabout Creek, and had recently been engaged by the newly consolidated City of Greater New York to complete the rail tunnels which would link Queens to Manhattan via the novel new Subway system. Those tunnels excavated a large amount of spoils and borings, which would be used to create the very ground around Dutch Kills as “landfill”.
By the first decade of the 20th century, enough compacted landfill was here to begin pouring concrete slabs, and upon those slabs the Degnon Terminal rose.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This post will not cover the entire story of the Degnon Terminal. I would refer you to trainsarefun.com, and forgotten-ny for facets of the story, or suggest a visit to the Greater Astoria Historical Society for an attempt to get them to share their expertise on the subject. The tale of Michael Degnon is the stuff of scholarly dissertation. Degnon is buried in Calvary cemetery, and I suspect he rests uneasily because of what lesser men have done to his legacy.
There are two sunken fuel barges here, rusting away into history.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured above is the CSO Outfall BB-026 which vomits untreated storm water and sewage into Dutch Kills regularly, and it is one of the primary sources of water flowing into Dutch Kills. The boat began moving in a counter clockwise fashion at this point, swinging away from the 29th street address of the red, white, and blue self storage warehouse and toward the concrete factory.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m unfamiliar with the role and identity of the two large pipes which are found beneath the concrete facility. The enormous slab of cement the factory is situated upon was once a rail switch, where short trip rail engines would await incoming barges. Once unloaded, these short trains would make deliveries to the industrial concerns which surrounded Dutch Kills.
Apparently, no small amount of conflict has arisen between the concrete company and environmental watchdogs over the years, but your humble narrator makes it a point of staying out of this sort of thing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The concrete industry around Newtown Creek often has fingers pointed at it, but again, large industrial concerns need to be sited “somewhere” to serve the interests of Real Estate and construction. The goal of many, including myself, is to ensure that in the days following the EPA Superfund cleanup of the Creeklands is that industry still feels welcome here. White collar corporate jobs are not an option for many, which is something often forgotten by those who spend their days in air conditioned Manhattan offices imagining the future of Queens.
These dirty industries must be compelled to “clean up their act” but cannot be regulated out of business.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The boat turned away from the north eastern bulkheads of the Dutch Kills Turning Basin and we explored the bulkheads of the southern abutment. Again, the waters had carved into the underpinnings of the engineered ground. More abscesses and grottoes were observed cut into the cement and the visible wood seemed spongy and softened from the action of unknowable forms of microscopic life.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I had to “bust a move” to conquer the deep shadows of early morning light here, as the merciless and burning thermonuclear eye of god itself was shining down unoccluded by cloud or atmosphere at this point. An external flash was attached to my trusty camera, which was “bounced” off the water. Anomalously, the green water created orange and red shadows in the reflected bursting of light.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Riverkeeper Captain who acted as our boatswain, John Lipscomb, checked his watch and announced that we had to beat a hasty retreat as the tidal actions of the East River would soon cause Dutch Kills to rise. Fearing that we might be trapped in Dutch Kills for a long interval, and having completed only a tiny fraction of our mission, Captain Lipscomb set course for the larger vessel which had launched our tiny “Tin Boat” which was docked at Whale Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The physical effects of the air and environment here were enormous, but the effort and risk of the journey were worth undertaking. Long have I desired to see Dutch Kills from water level, and to see the place as few others have.
pillars and niches
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You might recall, Lords and Ladies of Newtown, that back on December 11th of 2010 the 100th anniversary of the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge was commemorated by the New York City Bridge Centennial Commission and that I was one of the two Parade Marshalls for the celebration.
There were a few postings about the bridge found here, at your Newtown Pentacle, which detailed the storied history of the structure and it’s environs. Additionally, more than once has the Degnon Terminal been mentioned in prior posts, and appropriately so.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Also mentioned in prior postings (parts one and two), the Newtown Creek Alliance had tasked a small group of it’s members (myself included) with attempting a photographic catalogue of the bulkheads of Newtown Creek and it’s smaller tributaries. Noble in it’s aspirations and massive in capability and resources, Riverkeeper sent a vessel and captain from it’s vast fleet to shepherd us through these very murky waters. These shots were captured from a small launch boat capable of crossing both low ceilings and containment booms which was little more than rowboat with an outboard motor.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Beneath the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge, the waters of the long neglected industrial canal called Dutch Kills have been silting up with the worst sort of filth for decades, knowing not the presence of dredging or channel depth engineering. Here, the sediments pile up and erupt from the water.
The only flow of water here comes from rain and sewage, this is a stagnant and forbidding place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There is only a trickle of dry weather discharge dripping from this combined sewer outfall hidden away beneath the bridge. It hadn’t rained for a couple of days, but still, there was some flow. Though minor, this sort of discharge can add up to hundreds of gallons a day, carrying- for instance- the mop water that a Chinese restaurant on Broadway in Astoria might dump into the corner sewer drain nightly (yup, actual thing, observable every single day).
The reason I mention Astoria is that most of the drains on the Queens side resolve back to the Bowery Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In this posting, which led up to the Hunters Point Avenue bridge event mentioned above, some logic is offered as to how to decode the DEP “SPDES” signs which are required to be displayed above CSO discharge points. Like all things government, a bizarre nomenclature and specific system of numbering applies to the CSO’s.
It took your humble narrator a little bit to dope it out, so it is offered to save you from having to do so.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Vehicle traffic was rattling by overhead on Hunters Point Avenue, and we observed the surprisingly good condition of the bridge anchorages. Notice the extreme high tide line of encrusted sediment lining the structural elements of the bridge. It would interesting to know what sort of organisms exist in that slime and residue, and what they could tell us about the true nature of the water here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The bubbles of mephitic gas which had been been popping all around the boat since we entered Dutch Kills began to subside at this point, perhaps it is the permanent shadows beneath the LIE and the two rail bridges which allow the methane producers in the sediment to thrive. The Hunters Point Avenue Bridge’s roadway is a grate which allows quite a lot of light to filter down to the surface.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It must be admitted that long have I desired to see what might be hiding down here, and observe the understructure of this bridge. As it might be guessed, your humble narrator is a bit of an infrastructure geek, and the lesser bridges of New York City often surprise the observer.
This used to be a double leaf bascule, you see, whose mechanism was replaced in relative modernity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot is from the December 11th Centennial event and shows the other more easterly orientated shoreline, where the bascule hinge and bridge house are located, showing the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge in an open position. The spot I shot it from was the abutment seen in the prior shot.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The head of Dutch Kills is a straightaway and engineered canal with a widened terminus, and the term for it is a “turning basin”. Overall, it’s shaped like a giant letter “T”. Heavy industrial concerns all around Dutch Kills built and maintained docks with which they could transfer materials which came to them by barge to rail (and truck, but rail was the key), and then to factory floor for processing. The manufactured product of these industries not destined for the local market would also then be shipped out via these docks.
Today, nothing much happens on the waters of Dutch Kills, and nearly all of the rail infrastructure is relict and abandoned- or purposed solely for passenger service to and from Manhattan.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The benefits, costs, and upkeep of an intermodal transportation hub like this are massive. Unfortunately, most of the modern business in the area is oriented toward an automobile and truck culture rather than to the locomotive or maritime city, and thse docks are abandoned and rotted away. The once mighty rail lines are interrupted or orphaned, and the great factories which they once supplied are either empty, used for warehousing, or carved up into a hundred smaller spaces.
Where titans once thrived, ants now scratch by.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Tomorrow, the Dutch Kills turning basin at this… Your Newtown Pentacle.
The Newtown Pentacle 