Archive for the ‘Dutch Kills’ Category
uncommented masonry
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It all started when I was checking to see if I could find out anything more about the Blissville Banshee.
As the sum total of that which might be gathering dust on library shelves has not yet been digitized, categorized, and assigned metatags- there is an awful lot of stuff which is not available to the prying eyes of primarily nocturnal creatures like myself. Google books is an ongoing project, for instance, and every month or so some new (old) document appears online which is Newtown Creek oriented that I might slaver over.
from wikipedia
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search and Google Print) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical character recognition, and stored in its digital database. The service was formerly known as Google Print when it was introduced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2004. Google’s Library Project, also now known as Google Book Search, was announced in December 2004.
Results from Google Book Search show up in both general web search at google.com and through the dedicated Google Books site (books.google.com). Up to three results from the Google Books index may be displayed, if relevant, above other search results in the Google Web search service (google.com).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hence my periodic searches conducted for topics of which I’ve heard only hints of in the past- Case’s Crew for instance, or the aforementioned Blissville Banshee. It was one of these fishing expeditions into the ever expanding archival universe of the vast inter webs that led me to a certain structure, which sits at 30-28 Starr Avenue, just a couple of blocks from that malignant exemplar of the price of unregulated capitalism known as the Newtown Creek. It’s ordinary enough looking, branded with corporate logos and quite visible from many parts of Long Island City and Brooklyn.
from the Friends’ intelligencer, Volume 35, courtesy google books
The early history of Friends in Newtown and Maspeth Kills is marred by the irregularities of the Ranters, who claimed to be Friends, and intruded on their meetings.
Such was Thomas Case, who (1674) was forbidden by the Court to entertain the wife of William “Smith. His wife, Mary Case, was fined £5 for interrupting Rev. William Leveridge, while preaching, by saying to him: “Come down, thou whited wall that feedest thyself and starvest the people.” Samuel Scudder sent a long, scandalous letter to Mr. Leveridge.
The Court put Case and Scudder under bonds not “to seduce and disturb the people.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Let’s start at the beginning, though.
Borden Avenue is one of the older pathways in New York and particularly so for Queens, as the modern street was designated as Borden Avenue in 1868. It allowed egress from the docks at Hunters Point to the incalculably far Newtown and passed by the thriving village of Maspeth along the way. Originally a plank road set roughly into the swampy lowlands which adjoined the Newtown Creek, what would become Borden Avenue eventually progressed to the point of regular horse drawn (and then electric) street car service by the late 19th century and beginning of the 20th. It became a natural place for heavy industries to gather, and in the 1870’s and 80’s, rail road switches and “rights of way” followed their customers here.
The Long Island Railroad terminal at Hunters Point is and was on Borden Avenue, and rail tracks run parallel to Borden Avenue’s path, along what would have once been known as Creek Street. Critically, these were both freight and passenger tracks.
As of 1908, a retractile vehicle bridge crossed Dutch Kills, which we call the Borden Avenue Bridge (and which replaced the earlier wooden plank road drawbridge).
Today Borden is severed and overran by the sprawling girders of the Queens Midtown Expressway section of the much larger “Long Island Expressway”, and most of the tracks which crossed it at grade are cut or buried in the road asphalt.
from wikipedia
The Long Island Expressway was constructed in stages over the course of three decades. The first piece, the Queens–Midtown Tunnel linking Manhattan and Queens, was opened to traffic on November 15, 1940. A highway connecting the tunnel to Laurel Hill Boulevard was built around the same time and named the “Midtown Highway”. The tunnel, the Midtown Highway, and the segment of Laurel Hill Boulevard between the highway and Queens Boulevard all became part of a realigned NY 24 in the mid-1940s. In the early 1950s, work began on an eastward extension of the Midtown Highway. The road was completed to 61st Street by 1954, at which point it became known as the “Queens–Midtown Expressway”. By 1956, the road was renamed the “Long Island Expressway” and extended east to the junction of Queens (NY 24 and NY 25) and Horace Harding (NY 25D) Boulevards. NY 24 initially remained routed on Laurel Hill Boulevard (by this point upgraded into the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway) and Queens Boulevard, however.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Borden Avenue once formed the border of a community called Blissville (named for it’s founder and designer, Neziah Bliss of Greenpoint) which was meant to be an ideal residence for industrial laborers. It was, for a while.
Calvary Cemetery was sited in Blissville in 1848, which literally ate half the neighborhood, and the industrial concerns which employed the local labor had taken up valuable waterfront properties at the Newtown Creek. These industrial entities were notoriously onerous neighbors whose factories rendered Blissville a stinking slum and literally the wrong side of the tracks.
Dutch Kills and the land surrounding it to the south west were considered to be a pestilential swamp best known for malaria, and upstream from Blissville were the bone boilers and fat rendering factories so conspicuous in the historical record for a wholesale degradation of the environment. Suffice it to say that the population of Blissville declined precipitously from 1850 to 1900, from a residential point of view (although people still live here, even today).
from wikipedia
Blissville is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. It is part of Long Island City. It is bordered by Calvary Cemetery to the east; the Long Island Expressway to the north; Newtown Creek to the south; and Dutch Kills, a tributary of Newtown Creek, to the west. Blissville was named after Neziah Bliss, who owned most of the land in the 1830s and 1840s. Bliss built the first version of what was known for many years as the Blissville Bridge, a drawbridge over Newtown Creek, connecting Greenpoint, Brooklyn and Blissville. It was replaced in the 20th century by the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge, also called the J. J. Byrne Memorial Bridge, located slightly upstream.
Blissville existed as a small village until 1870 when it was incorporated with the villages of Astoria, Ravenswood, Hunters Point, Dutch Kills, Middletown, Sunnyside and Bowery Bay into Long Island City.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, a Cambrian explosion of “scientific manufacturers” (which is an actual and atavist business terminology from the time) arose within the industrial quarters of the United States and especially around the Newtown Creek. Great corporations were born along the creek, in the fields of chemical manufacturing and metal refining, petroleum refining and distribution, electrical generation and supply, and especially the field of automotive vehicle manufacturing.
There were now machines that could fly, or mechanically navigate the seas, but it was the automobile which struck hardest in the public’s mind and ending up driving the national economy.
from wikipedia
By the early 1880 generators were beginning to power arc lamps in Britain and France, but they generated high temperatures and sparks that prevented widespread adoption. In 1880, Thomas Alva Edison developed and patented a long-lasting incandescent lamp based upon the previous work of many inventors. Like Bell, Edison immediately set about commercializing his invention through a shrewd business plan involving companies that would manufacture the whole technological system upon which the “light bulb” would depend – generators (Edison Machine Company), cables (Edison Electric Tube Company), generating plants and electric service (Edison Electric Light Company), sockets, and bulbs. As in other industries of the era, these companies achieved greater efficiencies by merging to form a conglomerated General Electric company. Lighting was immensely popular: between 1882 and 1920 the number of generating plants in the US increased from one in downtown Manhattan to nearly 4,000. While the earliest generating plants were constructed in the immediate vicinity of consumers, plants generating electricity for long-distance transmissions were in place by 1900. To help finance this great expansion, the utility industry exploited a financial innovation known as the “holding company”; a favorite holding company investment among many was the Electric Bond and Share Company (later much-changed, and known as Ebasco), created by the General Electric company in 1905. The abuse of holding companies, like trusts before it, led to the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, but by 1920, electricity had surpassed petroleum-based lighting sources that had dominated the previous century.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In an age before refrigeration, being a “locavore” wasn’t an ethical or fashionable choice, it was a necessity.
The speed of a horse and wagon could never be considered dependable though, especially when carrying a heavy load of perishables from say… Bosjwick to Blissville. Whether it was meat, milk, or especially beer- it had a quick shelf life whether it suffered under the gaze of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself or endured the freezing temperatures of a New York winter.
Additionally, a horse needed rest and food and water, which all needed to be prearranged. Horses also had a tendency to die from overwork. The automotive craze began when the brewers of beer realized what some contrivance called a “truck” could do.
from wikipedia
The word truck might have come from a back-formation of truckle with the meaning small wheel, pulley, from Middle English trokell, in turn from Latin trochlea. Another explanation is that it comes from Latin trochus with the meaning of iron hoop. In turn, both go back to Greek trokhos meaning wheel from trekhein that meant “to run”. The first known usage of “truck” was in 1611 when it referred to the small, strong wheels on ships’ cannon carriages. In its extended usage it came to refer to carts for carrying heavy loads, a meaning known since 1771. With the meaning of motor-powered load carrier, it has been in usage since 1930, shortened from motor truck who dates back to 1916.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The reason that so many parts of the Newtown Pentacle host a former brewery, not unlike the Ulmer site in Bushwick, is that Beer didn’t used to come in bottles or pressurized kegs but was instead shipped in barrels. These barrels were delivered daily, which meant that the brewer had to be centrally located to service the various saloons, beer gardens, and bars which formed it’s clientele. This called for an eternal struggle against random happenstance, and the relatively shallow load that a horse cart was capable of carrying created high labor and livestock costs and limited growth. Suffice to say that the beer brewers needed a more reliable form of transportation that could handle the heavy products they produced.
The automotive “truck” could work all day and night with one driver, and carry many times the tonnage possible with a carriage.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Blissville had long ago rebelled against the baronial farmers of Newtown and joined with its ancient sisters in forming Long Island City, which would become an early center for automotive manufacture. The political elites of Manhattan, who had just engineered the consolidation of the City of Greater New York, were anxious to develop western Queens and land was cheap for the well connected. Vast building lots were sold, and an incredible landscape of titan masonry was flung at the sky, with the intention of capturing and controlling vast amounts of treasure and discovering untold possibilities.
from wikipedia
The City of Greater New York was a term commonly used originally to refer to the expanded city created on January 1, 1898 by the incorporation into the city of Richmond County, Kings County, Queens County, and the eastern part of what is now called The Bronx (east of the Bronx River). The west Bronx, west of the Bronx River, had been annexed to the City and County of New York in 1874, and was known as the Annexed District. The City of Brooklyn had also expanded by annexation.
The phrase City of Greater New York was never a legal or official designation as both the original charter of 1898 and the newer one of 1938 use the name of City of New York.
The consolidation movement was the work of several progressive politicians, most prominently Andrew Haswell Green so some opponents derided the effort as “Andy Green’s hobby.” The center of the plan was the consolidation of the twin cities of New York and Brooklyn, whose fire departments had already been consolidated. The addition of Long Island City and various rural areas anticipated the spread of urban sprawl to those areas. With the Republicans historically more powerful in Brooklyn and the Democrats elsewhere, partisan politics played a role, each major political party hoping to dominate the consolidated city.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
By 1915, there approximately 40,000 automotive trucks plying the streets of New York City.
What’s surprising is that 25% of them were electric.
Lords and ladies of Newtown, I present to you the last mortal remains of the General Electric Vehicle Company, 30-28 Starr Avenue, Long Island City– manufacturer of a substantial number of those electrical trucks.
Here’s the way the place looked just before the time of the first World War, courtesy google books
Another historic view can be seen in this nytimes.com archive article
– photo by Mitch Waxman
General Electric Vehicle Company was originally the Electric Vehicle Company, until it was acquired by one of those “scientific manufacturers”- a small but growing firm which called itself “General Electric“. GE was a direct creation of a fellow named Edison, whose little power generating concern in NYC hadn’t quite “consolidated” itself yet.
General Electric Vehicle, like all automotive companies, was in competition with an upstart from the midwest named Ford. Things hadn’t been decided yet, from a consumer point of view, between electric motors or gasoline ones, but there was another company out there which had strong feelings on the subject called Standard Oil.
I’ve read allusions to some deal between Ford and Edison to stay out of each others way, but for awhile Edison was manufacturing (and driving) electric cars.
Here’s A GEVC truck from 1906, courtesy google books
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the early 20th century, this was the second largest factory space in Long Island City (after the Loose Wiles bakery) sitting on 3 entire blocks of the 19th century street grid and comprising some 8 square acres. 2,000 people worked there. The largest of the structures, which has been conspicuously displayed throughout this post, survives and serves modernity as a gargantuan self storage facility. Other structures of the complex survive, and remnants of the rail spar that served it can be observed on Review Avenue just beyond Borden. Part of its footprint is occupied by the Silvercup Studios East location.
GEVC became the premier manufacturer of Electric Vehicles here, as well as being the only concern in the Untied States licensed to build Daimler’s “Mercedes” gasoline cars and trucks.
from The American review of reviews, Volume 51 By Albert Shaw, courtesy google books
The big principle is that electricity is now the world’s best source of power, and enables business men to “team by electricity.” The Company long ago learned that the work to be performed decides the building of the vehicle. But very interesting is the fact that while all the six G. V. models but one were standardized seven years ago, each truck is built to fit the industry, the locality, and the use it will meet. Starting with a standardized chassis, a body suitable for a given business is built and placed on the chassis, but not before experts have adjusted battery, motor and speed to fit local road conditions. That is, the “power plant” of a 2-ton truck as revealed in battery, motor, etc., is specifically adapted to hilly
Seattle or level Washington, D. C, as the case may be. In the splendid Long Island City plant of the General Vehicle Company the exact facts of the customer’s condition and his locality now determine what that truck must be to succeed. And it does succeed. The haphazard peddling of job-lot trucks must disappear, just as the stock-jobbing era has passed in automobile truck manufacture.
Consequently you can buy an electric truck to-day with the same certainty of what it will do under your particular circumstances as you can buy any other staple commodity. A concern like the General Vehicle Company will actually refuse to sell you a truck which is not what your work requires. It will not promise you all kinds of free service, new tires, free bodies, and free rebuilding. It does not have to do this, as the now bankrupt concerns did have to, in order to try to offset the serious deficiencies in the service a truck was supposed to give. A General Vehicle truck does what it is built to do—and is sold on a business basis, with no secret about what will happen to the man who buys it after he has used it awhile. A table of standard costs to fit various types, conditions and requirements, works out as accurately as a multiplication table.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
General had an interesting scheme to power the trucks, which involved the shipping of batteries to and from a power plant in Connecticut, which would charge industrial base rates for charging them. A series of labor actions and the emerging predominance of the gasoline powered internal combustion engine served to weaken and eventually bankrupt General, and the company was ultimately done in by the first World War because of that Daimler contract.
Nobody wanted German cars or trucks anymore, you see.
In 1918, the War Department of the United States engineered the sale of the plant to the Wright Martin Aircraft company, in order to facilitate the manufacture of airplane engines at the factory. When Wright Martin took over, the payroll skyrocketed to include an astounding 8,000 employees.
from wikipedia
In order to overcome the limited operating range of electric vehicles, and the lack of recharging infrastructure, a exchangeable battery service was first proposed as early as 1896. The concept was first put into practice by Hartford Electric Light Company through the GeVeCo battery service and initially available for electric trucks. The vehicle owner purchased the vehicle from General Vehicle Company (GVC, a subsidiary of the General Electric Company) without a battery and the electricity was purchase from Hartford Electric through an exchangeable battery. The owner paid a variable per-mile charge and a monthly service fee to cover maintenance and storage of the truck. Both vehicles and batteries were modified to facilitate a fast battery exchange. The service was provided between 1910 to 1924 and during that period covered more than 6 million miles. Beginning in 1917 a similar successful service was operated in Chicago for owners of Milburn Light Electric cars who also could buy the vehicle without the batteries.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wright Martin Aircraft– Wright as in Wright Brothers, and Martin as in Martin Marietta, departed the place at some indeterminate point in the early 20th century. References have been found which identify the interim tenants of the structure as having been engaged in the manufacture of exotic lithographic and photographic equipment, includes both industrial landscaping and floral supply businesses, and a host of smaller operations involved in warehousing, interstate shipping, and local trucking companies also called this building home base. Ultimately, it became a self storage warehouse.
This is building 3 of the General Electrical Vehicle Complex, there were at least 7.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Contemporaneous accounts of the place describe it as occupying a spot between Review, Starr, and Borden avenues, bounded by the no longer mapped Fox and Beaver streets. Certain sources and allies were taken aback by my queries about the two streets, thinking that your humble narrator was being ribald, but such profane interpretations of my question were later greeted with scans of a historical map (which I cannot present here for copyright reasons) that confirmed the location and identity of the modern structure.
Suffice to say that Fox and Beaver follow the course set by 30th street and 31st place were they to continue to the Newtown Creek waterfront.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An effort was made to contact the employees of the self storage warehouse, and though they were thoroughly friendly and attentive, the current staff were somewhat taken aback by my queries. I displayed the historic shot of the building, but they did not have any anecdote to offer about historic remnants or curious machinery, which means that the structure must have been thoroughly gutted before modern times.
You never know what you’re going to find along the Newtown Creek, as I always say, but I’m still wondering about the Blissville Banshee.
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.
…hits the fan
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Council Member Van Bramer sent this out to his mailing list today, regarding Hurricane Irene
As everyone knows by now, Hurricane Irene is expected to hit our area sometime Saturday into Sunday. We should all take precautions to be prepared for a storm of this magnitude. Some areas in our district are in evacuation zones and at high risk for flooding. Those areas of Hunters Point/Long Island City should familiarize themselves with the map below and know that should an evacuation be ordered, Newcomers High School (28-01 41st Ave.), Aviation High School (45-30 36th St.) and W.C. Bryant High School (48-10 31st Ave.) are your nearest evacuation centers. The City will make a decision about whether to order a mandatory evacuation of Zone A for the general public by 8:00 AM on Saturday. The evacuation centers will be open as of 5:00 PM today and the City is strongly recommending that people within these areas immediately make plans to go to alternative locations outside of Zone A starting tomorrow for the duration of the storm. The orange areas are Zone A. The yellow areas are Zone B. The green areas are Zone C.
We are also concerned about significant portions of the district including parts of Sunnyside, Woodside, Astoria and Maspeth that have experienced flooding during several recent storms. Our office has been and will continue to be in contact with the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and other city agencies throughout this weekend. Anyone experiencing difficulties as a result of Hurricane Irene should contact me and my office as soon as they occur. We will report problems in real time. For those outside of Zone A areas that have experienced flooding or are concerned that you may, please click on the link below on how to protect your valuables. In addition to calling our office, DEP is asking for reports of flooding to be called in to 311.
http://home2.nyc.gov/html/oem/downloads/pdf/flooding_guide.pdf
I have also been in touch today with NYCHA and the Mayor’s Office to make certain that Queensbridge, Ravenswood, and the Woodside Houses are included in any and all emergency plans including evacuation, should that be necessary. We will continue to be in regular contact with NYCHA throughout the storm.
While we continue to hope for the best, we must prepare for the worst. The city has published some useful information in securing your home during the storm. Please click on the link below for recommendations on how best to prepare for the hurricane.
www.nyc.gov/html/oem/html/ready/hurricane_guide.shtml
Given the high volume of traffic to OEM’s (Office of Emergency Management) website there have been delays and interruptions in gaining access to some of these links. For that reason, we also include the Red Cross’ Hurricane Safety Checklist below. We have also included information from OEM’s Hurricane Guide at the end of this email should that link not respond when you try it.
http://www.redcross.org/www-files/Documents/pdf/Preparedness/checklists/Hurricane.pdf
In advance of the hurricane I wanted to remind you that clogged catch basin grates can aggravate flooding. Although DEP staff – with the help of their colleagues at other agencies – are busy cleaning catch basins now, DEP has asked us to remind homeowners and residents that they welcome assistance in removing leaves, litter or other debris that may prevent water from flowing off the streets and into the catch basins. For any of you that aren’t familiar with catch basins the attached link to a page on DEP’s website has some text and visuals that will help explain why flooding occurs and how citizens can help DEP minimize flooding by removing debris where they see it blocking catch basin grates.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/flooding/flooding_causes.shtml
I will be keeping my district office open on Saturday to field questions and concerns from constituents. Needless to say, we will close the office when the storm approaches and will reopen as soon as it is safe to do so. My district office number is (718) 383-9566. I will be in the district throughout the storm and encourage anyone with problems to email me concerns at jvanbramer@council.nyc.gov as well as using social media including Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/jimmyvanbramer) and Twitter (http://twitter.com/jimmyvanbramer) to reach me. You may also call 311. Please only call 911 if you have a very serious or life threatening emergency.
I hope this update and the attached information proves useful to you. Again, my staff and I will be working throughout the weekend and please do not hesitate to contact me should you need assistance.
Sincerely,
Jimmy Van Bramer
Council Member
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Additionally, the Council Member included the following information from the Office of Emergency Management
OEM’s Hurricane Guide
To secure your home if a tropical storm or hurricane watch is issued:
Bring inside loose, lightweight objects, such as lawn furniture, garbage cans, and toys.
Anchor objects that will be unsafe to bring inside, like gas grills or propane tanks. Turn off propane tanks.
Shutter windows securely and brace outside doors.
Place valuables in waterproof containers or plastic bags.
Help Others Prepare
- Check on friends, relatives, and neighbors, especially those with disabilities or special needs, and assist them with their preparation and evacuation.
- If you live outside an evacuation zone, offer to shelter family and friends who may need to evacuate.
If Asked to Evacuate, Do So Immediately
The City will communicate specific instructions about which areas of the city should evacuate through local media. If the City Issues an Evacuation Order for Your Area: Evacuate immediately. Use public transportation if possible.
If you are going to an evacuation center, pack lightly, and bring:
- Your Go Bag
- Sleeping bag or bedding
- Required medical supplies or equipment
- Let friends or relatives know where you are going.
What about my pets?
- Make sure your disaster plan addresses what you will do with your pet if a hurricane requires you to leave your home.
- Plan to shelter your pet at a kennel or with friends or relatives outside the evacuation area.
- Be sure you have supplies ready for your pet in the event of an evacuation, including food, a leash, a muzzle, proof of shots, and a cage or carrier.
Account for your special needs
- Consider your capabilities and make sure your preparedness plan addresses how your special needs affect your ability to evacuate and shelter.
- Determine if you will need assistance and arrange help from friends, family, or neighbors.
- Consider additional supplies and equipment that you may need to bring with you, such as medicine, icepacks, medical devices, and backup equipment. Bring food for your dietary needs.
- Include additional time and evaluate your transportation options.
IF YOU LIVE IN AN EVACUATION ZONE
Prepare A Disaster Plan
Develop a plan with your household members that outlines what to do, how to find each other, and how to communicate if a hurricane strikes New York. If you rent your home, renter’s insurance will insure the items inside your apartment. If you are a homeowner, make sure your home is properly insured — flood and wind damage are not covered in a basic homeowner’s policy.
Know Where You Will Go
The City strongly recommends evacuees stay with friends or family who live outside evacuation zone boundaries. For those who have no other shelter, the City will open hurricane shelters throughout the five boroughs.
To ensure efficient use of resources, the City will ask all evacuees to report to an evacuation center. Once at the evacuation center, evacuees will either be assigned to a hurricane shelter in the same facility or transported to an associated hurricane shelter by bus.
Every household member should have a small Go Bag — a collection of items you may need during an evacuation packed in an easy-to-carry container such as a backpack. A Go Bag should be easily accessible if you have to leave your home in a hurry.
Assemble an Emergency Supply Kit
You may be instructed to shelter in place (stay at home) during a hurricane. Keep enough supplies in your home to survive for at least three days.
If you do not live in an evacuation zone
All areas of the city could face hurricane-related hazards such as high winds, flooding, tornadoes, and loss of utilities. You may be instructed to shelter in place (stay at home) for several days until the hurricane passes.
If you live in a high-rise apartment building
Residents of high-rise apartment buildings may face special risks from hurricanes even if they live outside evacuation zone boundaries. If you live in a high-rise building outside an evacuation zone, be prepared to take shelter on or below the 10th floor. If you live in a high-rise building located in an evacuation zone, heed evacuation orders.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This looks like it will be a profound event. Personally, I’m preparing for an uncomfortable few days, but that’s because I live inland and uphill in Astoria. Long Island City and Greenpoint on the other hand…
Our friends at liqcity.com have prepared an excellent posting on the Zone A situation, which can accessed here:
http://www.liqcity.com/life/long-island-city-and-hurricane-irene-a-match-made-in-well-well-see
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Newtown Creek Alliance, an organization of which I’m a member, issued this statement earlier today…
Flood Warning for Creek Neighborhoods
Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced on August 25th, 2011 that certain emergency measures will be instituted in low lying coastal districts referred to as “Zone A” (at high risk of coastal flooding) due to the expected arrival of Hurricane Irene in the New York City area late Saturday night. Much of the land surrounding Newtown Creek is designated as “Zone A” on the coastal flooding map prepared by City officials, including large tracts of Greenpoint and Long Island City. For a map of the affected areas, please click here.
Newtown Creek Alliance cautions residents of the affected areas to monitor the situation and be prepared to evacuate should authorities warrant it necessary. If an evacuation is recommended or ordered, information about evacuation centers and hurricane shelters may be found by calling 311 or at by visiting this website. Additionally, be mindful that during such an event, the flood waters could carry a significant load of pollutants and should not be ingested. Care should be taken upon any contact with skin.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sources within the City have discussed this storm with me in the most dire tones. If you live in an area designated for evacuation, please comply. I’ll be marching out into the brave new aftermath early Monday morning, if there’s something which you think I should point my camera at, please contact me here. Good luck, and assuming the availability of both electrical power and internet connectivity, I’ll post as the situation develops.
As this post was being prepared, Council Member Van Bramer passed along another message, ordering the mandatory evacuation of Zone A by 5 pm Saturday.
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.
The Newtown Pentacle 