Archive for the ‘Dutch Kills’ Category
no triumph
Freaking Tuesdays…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s part of the Degnon Terminal industrial park in LIC seen in the shot above, a complex which is a smidge over a century old. It originally had companies like Ever Ready Battery, American Chicle Gum, Loose Wiles Bakery, and warehouse operations for Manhattan department stores like Bloomingdales and Sterns (my mom called the latter Stoynes). The Real Estate Industrial Complex has done a fantastic job of repopulating the area with smaller corporate entities in recent years, rebranding several of these behemoth structures as “The Factory LIC” or “The Falchi Building” and attracting startups and smaller companies to the cavernous spaces within. LaGuardia Community College occupies one or two of the historic buildings, and a third rate modern one as well. As you move west towards Skillman Avenue along 47th avenue (known 100 years ago as Nelson Avenue, and as Nott Avenue before that, and as the salt meadows or “boueries” of the Payntar Family prior to that), the artisinal and fancy pants face of modernity drops away and you encounter the remains of the real LIC.
Crummy, crumbling, crusty. Hey, unlike in North Brooklyn, at least the Real Estate people didn’t just burn everything down and endanger the lives of the Fire Department people to get to the future.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I checked in on that widening bulkhead collapse on 29th street, at the turning basin of Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kills tributary. Nothing has been done, whatsoever, to ameliorate it or the inevitable collapse of 29th street into the poison mud. It’s all kind of depressing, and presuming the thing doesn’t collapse over Thanksgiving weekend, I’m going to have to start annoying the Deputy Commissioners at the city DOT here in Queens about it as soon as the holiday is over. #Carnage gets you a bike lane? How about #MitchinvitesNY1toLIC really soon after the Amazon announcement to talk about literally crumbling road infrastructure and multiple bulkhead collapses along Newtown Creek’s LIC coastline?
Godalmighty, I hate everyone so much because of this kind of stuff. Why am I the only one…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has a strange feeling that 2019 is the year when the bottom will break on this particular bucket of trouble called Long Island City. There’s so many individual problems and issues here – enviromental, municipal infrastructure, transit, the Sunnyside Yards Deck, ludicrous levels of traffic, hospital beds, police capability, FDNY resources… A strong wind blows through these parts and the whole house of cards will come falling down, I tell’s ya.
The Chinese Zodiac informs that 2019 is the year of the pig, but I’m feeling entirely like a different kind of critter will typify the action hereabouts in the coming year.
“Little pig, little pig, let me come in.”
“No, no, by the hair on my chiny chin chin.”
“Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in.”
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lapsed joy
Night time, right time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few more shots from a nocturnal walk earlier this week are on offer today. That’s the Pulaski Bridge in the shot above, as seen from a street end in LIC adjoining a colony of squatter boats which enjoy a total lack of will on the part of law enforcement as far as their occupation of both municipal and private property.
What I’d like to share with you today, however, is that Newtown Creek Alliance is holding a benefit party on Saturday night at 520 Kingsland Avenue to raise funds for our operations in 2019. It’s going to be a pretty cool party, I think.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
NCA was formed in 2002, as an ad hoc community group, by an amazing woman named Katie Schmid. Katie stepped back shortly after I started to get involved with NCA back in 2008, and another amazing lady named Kate Zidar took over. Kate carried NCA from being community group to “official status” as a non profit 501/3c corporation. Kate Zidar moved on to other projects, and the big chair was then filled by Willis Elkins, who serves as NCA’s executive director today.
A humble narrator is the group’s Historian, and as you all know, I’m on the “reveal” side of the mission conducting tours and lectures. All of us in NCA serve in one capacity or another on a multitude of citizen committees which revolve around the Creek – notably the Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee (re: the sewer plant in Greenpoint), The Newtown Creek Superfund Community Advisory Group (re: EPA’s Superfund designation). We also attend gatherings and meetings with other organizations whose territory touches the Creek; North Brooklyn Boat Club, HarborLab, Maspeth Industrial Business Association, Evergreen, St. Nick’s Alliance, Hunters Point Parks Conservancy, Hunters Point Civic Association, Blissville Civic Association, NAG, GWAAP, OUTRAGE… all are buddies of ours and part of the “Alliance” in one way or another.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In recent years, NCA has worked with Riverkeeper to create an extraordinary visiting document for the future of the Creek, and our volunteers have cleaned up and created multiple points of public access to the water at street ends like the Maspeth Avenue and Meeker Avenue street ends. We’re just getting started.
On Saturday, November 3rd, were asking the community to join us in Greenpoint for a benefit party to support the continuing work. Link below.
Upcoming events
Saturday, November 3rd – Tidal Toast, a fundraiser party to support Newtown Creek Alliance in our mission to “Reveal, Restore, Revitalize” the Newtown Creek. Since 2002 the Newtown Creek Alliance (NCA) has been the voice of Newtown Creek; working with industry, agencies, and residents alike to promote awareness, remediation, access, resilient businesses and ecological restoration. This celebration will champion the Vision for the future of the waterway and those that have contributed their time, energy and effort to it.
More information and tickets here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
attic realm
Aftermath, LIC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You may have heard that there was a rather large fire in Long Island City over the weekend, which saw an auto body shop consumed in what ended up being a five alarm blaze. Multiple FDNY units were sent to LIC from other boroughs, and despite their efforts the fire raged for hours and hours. The roof of the structure collapsed, and I’d be willing to bet that it’s going to be declared a total loss somewhere down the line by insurers.
On Sunday I walked over to get some shots of the scene, and given that this area is kind of “my stomping grounds,” knew where to go for an efficacious angle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The FDNY had two units on hand in case anything flashed back to life, and NYPD was also on hand controlling the intersection and keeping “lookie-loos” like me from getting into trouble. FDNY had Rockaway’s Tower Ladder 155 unit, as well as Engine unit 289 from Corona, on point. The coppers were from the 108 pct.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I say it all the time, “Newtown Creek has a history of large industrial site fires.” When I say that, I’m thinking of actual history – the 1882 and 1919 Standard Oil refinery fires in Greenpoint or the Pratt Varnish works fire just down the block here in LIC. Just in the last decade there’s been two major fires, both in Greenpoint, which took nearly a week to put out. Also in Greenpoint, there was the Greenpoint Terminal Market fire about 15 years ago which saw the largest FDNY deployment since 911.
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rotting ossuaries
A dollar short and a day late…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I seem to be about twelve hours behind on my scheduling today, due to a very busy week. Thusly, a single image of a DonJon Tug moving barges about on Newtown Creek greets you in this very late post. Back tomorrow with something decidedly meatier for you to sink your teeth into, lords and ladies.
Upcoming Tours and Events
Monday, October 1st, 6:30 p.m. – Infrastructure Creek – with Atlas Obscura.
Join Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman as he leads an exploration of the city’s largest sewer plant, tunnels, draw and truss bridges, rail yards, and a highway that carries 32 million vehicle-trips a year over flowing water.
Tix and more details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
cyclopean ruinations
Bulkhead collapse at Dutch Kills!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
First off, these are shots from my iPhone (which I had to use instead of the usual DSLR for a variety of reasons). Secondly, my intention yesterday was to just wander around LIC for a while while it was still foggy, set up the tripod here and there and get busy with the camera. Walking down 29th street (between 47th avenue and 49th/Hunters Point Avenue), you’re able to spy the turning basin of the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek, and this is part of my regular route around the area.
When I got to 29th street, however, I found this scene.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sometime between last Saturday and yesterday (Wednesday the 12th) a not insignificant stretch of the bulk head collapsed into the water. Those trees used to be at street level, and from the look of it, when the debris fell in the water it displaced a long abandoned fuel barge from the spot it’s been in for a decade or two. The barge is now riding up against an adjacent building on one side, and a second sunken fuel barge on another. It’s been pushed several yards from its former resting place, in the direction of the center of the channel.
As a note, this is the second bulk head collapse on the Queens side of the Newtown Creek watershed in recent years, with the other occurring not too far away at the Vernon Avenue Street end. Disturbing portent, no?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As is my habit, when encountering some profound alteration to the Newtown Creek watershed, I rang up my colleague Willis Elkins from Newtown Creek Alliance. He happened to be nearby, and we both puzzled over who to speak to about this situation. Two pronged, we decided, and got busy with the photos. Willis reached out to a few contacts whom he knew had regency over the spot (29th street is not a NYC street at all, it’s in fact a “railroad access road” owned by the LIRR) and I contacted Jimmy Van Bramer’s office, hoping they might be able to figure out what to do about this.
Saying that, I’m a bit concerned about hydrological undermining on 29th street now, which a lot of very heavy trucks use regularly. Disturbing subsidences indeed.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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