Archive for the ‘Dutch Kills’ Category
May 21st
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The show must go on, as they say, yet your humble narrator is of heavy heart in announcing the Newtown Creek tour of May 21st, 2011- which is offered for your consideration by the Working Harbor Committee.
It is not the task of course, which tempers the normal ebullience experienced when an opportunity to share the wonders of the Newtown Creek with a group of enthusiasts from the comfort and safety of a modern vessel like the MV American Princess (which is outfitted with all the amenities one would expect to find during a harbor trip in a tourist Mecca such as New York City), crosses my path.
It is not that unnatural and uncontrollable timorousness which plagues me when I am asked to speak before “this group of pale enthusiasts” or “that gang of antiquarians”. Revealing and sharing the history of this amazing place is one the things I revel in, and brings me close to understanding what joy must be like.
from workingharbor.com
Visit Beautiful Newtown Creek Saturday, May 21, 2011
On MV American Princess, Boat departs from Pier 17, South Street Seaport, Manhattan NYC, 10am – 1pm
Souvenir Tour Brochure with historical information and vintage maps. Narration by experienced historical and environmental guest speakers. Complimentary soft drinks will be served. Come aboard for an intense Newtown Creek exploration! Our comfortable charter boat will travel the length of Newtown Creek. The tour will pause at many interesting locations for narration and discussion. Guest narrators will cover historical, environmental, and conservation issues. Large comfortable vessel with indoor & outdoor seating. Cruise runs rain or shine. Price: $60
To purchase tickets click here
or contact Tour Chairman Mitch Waxman: waxmanstudio(AT)gmail.com
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is where the Industrial Revolution happened, and this trip will transverse and offer certain observations about the Newtown Creek’s present form and usage, and reveal a potentially bright future which this neglected ribbon of water- which provides the currently undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens- were it to be revitalized and renewed, might offer the future.
After boarding at South Street seaport, Working Harbor’s maritime experts will discuss the waterfront of Brooklyn as we pass beneath the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan Bridge, and finally passing under the Willamsburg Bridge. Our vessel will smoothly move past the neighborhoods of Dumbo, Williamsburg, and Greenpoint in Brooklyn, and offer spectacular views of Manhattan. This entire trip will be a photographer’s delight, incidentally, offering spectacular and unreal urban panoramas.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At Long Island City, your humble narrator will presume to expose you to a short history of the Newtown Creek, and offer an identity to some of the enigmatic structures arrayed around the troubled industrial waterway.
Luckily for all concerned, there are other speakers who will relieve the crowd from my droning prattle, maritime experts and environmentalists included. Around Newtown Creek Alliance headquarters, there is some buzz amongst the staff about which one of the heavyweight orators will be onboard.
Soft drinks, one to a customer, will be complimentary as well.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The American Princess will proceed past the titan Newtown Creek Waste Water Treatment Plant, the malign Dutch Kills, the cyclopean SimsMetal dock, the brutal symmetry of the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge, through the agglutinated heart of the Greenpoint Oil Spill, past the severed Penny Bridge at Meeker Avenue, and beyond the emerald devastations of Calvary Cemetery.
Then, we’re going to take a moment to remember our fallen friend… for just a moment.
I’m hesitant to mention this… as this is not what this trip is meant to be about, this is not a memorial event… but Bernie Ente is and will be so profoundly missed by many of us who will be conducting this tour, of which he is the originator and founder of… it would be in bad taste if a moment of silence to remember him, in this place which he expended so much of his attentions revealing and teaching and guiding about, were not offered. More on this in a later posting, but as the initial line says “the show must go on”, and that is exactly what Bernie would have us do.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The course will continue, past the middle point of the Newtown Creek, and will plunge past the Maspeth Plank road, past the Phelps Dodge site and the Kosciusko Bridge. At the branching of the Newtown Creek which exists at the confluence of the East Branch and English Kills, we will witness the remains of the Maspeth Plank Road and approach the wicked end of the navigable section of the Newtown Creek itself and approach one the hydra like tributaries which spread languishing tendrils of rotting bulkheads and unused yet prime industrial waterfront locations all across Brooklyn and Queens.
This is not the world you know.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Witness the startling elegance of the Grand Street Bridge, a century old swing bridge connecting Brooklyn and Queens, which signals the entrance to English Kills has been reached. Industrial heartland, this is a grossly contaminated section of the waterway which has- of course- been designated as a Federal Superfund site. Seeing the Newtown Creek in this state, this bizarre half life which is neither tick nor tock- industrial nor residential, is a fairly short term proposition.
Vast changes are coming which will literally alter the very landscape.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Kosciusko Bridge replacement, and the enormous new populations and residential conversion in progress and expected in Hunters Point South and Greenpoint, and the EPA conducting the initial stages of Superfund remediation (which will involve dredging and vast public works projects conducted by hundreds of contractors) will all be happening in roughly the same timeframe. Ten years from now, it will hard to recognize the place, and twenty more will render it a stranger to those who know it today.
In the English Kills, you will become transfixed by a waterfront frozen in some other century, and witness the extant vitality of those economies of heavy industry which build, and drain, and recycle, and dispose of. You don’t get Manhattan without a Newtown Creek, after all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We will proceed into the depths of English Kills near the Third Ward in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Our journey will cross the navigable sections of the Newtown Creek and begin it’s return journey to the Shining City of Manhattan and the South Street Seaport, leaving Greenpoint and Long Island City behind.
The plan for the return narration includes a full description and explanation of the Superfund situation by representatives of the Newtown Creek Alliance, and a return to Manhattan’s South Street Seaport. Personally, I’ll be at the bow during this part of the trip, as the photographic possibilities of moving languidly along the Creek with the sun behind us and illuminating both the creek lands and the Shining City as we smoothly speed across the East River beyond will be awe inspiring.
You haven’t experienced the Newtown Creek until you’ve sailed down it, and such a trip will disabuse you of viewing it with anything but wonder afterward. Simply, what is offered is a new perspective on the City of New York, one that less than 10% of New Yorkers have ever even heard of.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Once again…
from workingharbor.com
Visit Beautiful Newtown Creek Saturday, May 21, 2011
On MV American Princess, Boat departs from Pier 17, South Street Seaport, Manhattan NYC, 10am – 1pm
Souvenir Tour Brochure with historical information and vintage maps. Narration by experienced historical and environmental guest speakers. Complimentary soft drinks will be served. Come aboard for an intense Newtown Creek exploration! Our comfortable charter boat will travel the length of Newtown Creek. The tour will pause at many interesting locations for narration and discussion. Guest narrators will cover historical, environmental, and conservation issues. Large comfortable vessel with indoor & outdoor seating. Cruise runs rain or shine. Price: $60
To purchase tickets click here
or contact Tour Chairman Mitch Waxman: waxmanstudio(AT)gmail.com
ruthless conquest
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Terrible in its grandeur, the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant dominates the landscape around Greenpoint’s border with Long Island City. The Nature Walk which skirts part of its shoreline with Newtown Creek affords rare and untrammeled access to the industrial waterway, and provides an interesting vantage point to the traveling photographer.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All sorts of artistic flourishes adorn the Nature Walk, one of which is pictured above that purports to show the primeval Newtown Creek and the vast meanderings of it’s course. The bottom of the frame represents the East River, and the coiling shape to the left is Dutch Kills. Note that the original course of the waterway was far reaching, and extended far beyond the modern bulkheads. In olden times, this area was referred to as “waste lands” while in modern times we call such territory “coastal wet lands”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Still under construction, the section of Whale Creek hidden from view is where the sludge handling docks will be. One can expect the enormous sludge tank at the East River on Commercial Street to be demolished when these are done, and opportunities to photograph the City’s fleet of Sludge Boats up close and personal are sure to abound.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Without a hint of irony, this section of the Nature Walk is called the Scent Garden, and it is well stocked with (often indigenous) aromatic plantings. It extends back a few hundred yards, and seems to be the spot where workers at the plant go to on breaks as evinced by cigarette butts and garbage pails full of fast food packaging. Interesting spot, but not so much visually.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Across the Newtown Creek on the Queens side is the “big show”. The mouth of Dutch Kills is occluded by a non functioning swing bridge and a static truss bridge. I’ve been told that should the swing bridge need to be opened, it is accomplished by using Tow Trucks of the sort used for heavy vehicles which winch stout steel cables temporarily attached to the structure. Your humble narrator hasn’t observed this himself, so it is hearsay- albeit from a quite reliable source.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Newtown Creek Dock, once the Night Soil and Offal Dock and later the LIRR Manure dock, is currently under a century long lease to SimsMetal. A global player in the recycling trade, Sims is contracted by the DSNY to receive several of the materials they collect for processing and disposal. They shred paper and plastic, shatter glass, and sunder metal.
I can sit and watch this operation go for hours at a time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I would be keen to actually visit Sims, but I’ve been told that this is another one of the VERY dangerous places to be on Newtown Creek. That giant pile of metal that is being sorted used to be automobiles, and the tiny toy dump trucks in the background are actually oversized wreckers. Enormous machines moving at industrial speed, with vast tonnages of metal being shredded? Not a place for a civilian, or so I’m told.
Still…
vapour soaked
– photo from “The Newtown Creek industrial district of New York City By Merchants’ Association of New York. Industrial Bureau, 1921”, courtesy Google Books
My weird obsession with recreating very old photographs once again turns toward Dutch Kills, this time it’s looking to the end of the Degnon Terminal barge turning basin toward LaGuardia Community College’s building C- which was the former Sunshine Biscuits or Loose Wiles Bakery.
The shot above was captured in 1921 or thereabouts, and the ones below from 2011.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An interesting parallell to this shot is the one presented at the end of the “Hunters Point Avenue Bridge Centennial, Dec. 11” posting from December 3rd in 2009, which presents the inverse viewpoint of today’s.
That shot was obtained from a 7th floor window of the building, on the wall with the red detailing, 3rd window from the left some four score and ten years or approximately 24,855 days later than the original and focused on the spot where these were shot.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the uncropped version, showing Dutch Kills just around sunset, on February 17th, 2011 from the deck of the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge.
a ghastly plot
“Newtown Creek for the Vulgarly Curious” is a fully annotated 68 page, full-color journey from the mouth of Newtown Creek at the East River all the way back to the heart of darkness at English Kills, with photos and text by Mitch Waxman.
Check out the preview of the book at lulu.com, which is handling printing and order fulfillment, by clicking here.
Every book sold contributes directly to the material support and continuance of this, your Newtown Pentacle.
Project Firebox 20
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are many places in and around Astoria where time and space fold in upon each other and you find yourself at the corner of an avenue and street which bear the same number. This scarlet paladin withstands and discharges its duty despite the frozen indignity heaped on and around it at the junction of 37th avenue and 37th street- just off Northern Blvd. Who can guess what odd sights it has witnessed at this tripartite angle between Dutch Kills and Astoria and Queens Plaza, and what strange attractors frequent such concurrent corners?
The Newtown Pentacle 