Archive for the ‘East River’ Category
June 6th, Magic Lantern Show at Greater Astoria Historical Society
Metropolitan Avenue Bridge, English Kills – photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve neglected to inform you all of the Magic Lantern Show which this, your Newtown Pentacle, is staging at the Greater Astoria Historical Society on Monday, June 6th at 7pm. There won’t be any archaic museum pieces in use, of course- my magic lantern is all digital and uses a standard and quite modern projector- but the concept is much the same. A photographer captures some hellish reality from the wild and shadowed corners of the world, and presents them with the intention of revealing hidden truths to a comfortable and otherwise wholesome audience who would never encounter this reality otherwise.
from a Newtown Pentacle post of April 13th, 2011
Just under an hour long, this Magic Lantern Show about Newtown Creek is personally narrated, and transports the viewer to every corner of the Newtown Creek- every tributary and street end, on the water and above it, and is presented in the idiosyncratic and off beat manner which has become familiar to regular readers of this- your Newtown Pentacle. It attempts to explain certain core questions in under an hour which have been repeatedly presented to me over the last couple of years, and the entire talk is illustrated with both my own photography and the product of my historical research:
- What exactly do you mean by the “Newtown Pentacle”?
- When did the Newtown Creek begin to matter?
- Why should I care, how does the Newtown Creek affect me, as I live in Manhattan?
- Where exactly is this place?
- Who is responsible for this mess, and exactly who is it that’s going to clean it up?
- How can I get involved and help my community revitalize and or restore the Newtown Creek?
Empire State Building rising over industrial Brooklyn and Newtown Creek – photo by Mitch Waxman
It would probably be “politique” to mention that this is not a Newtown Creek Alliance event, which is one of the many organizations which I’ve become affiliated and identified with. Instead this is purely a Newtown Pentacle show, which the studied philosophs who inhabit the upper echelons of the Greater Astoria Historical Society are allowing me to present in their convenient location on Astoria’s Broadway- stumbling distance from the R,M, and N trains. The efficacy of gambling their precious time and effort upon such a poor specimen as myself would be proven by the event being well attended, and the negligible $5 fee at the door should prove an easy burden for most to bear. Therefore, a narrator humbly invites and requests your support and attendance.
from astorialic.org
Mon Jun 6, 7:00 pm
Travel the length and breadth of Americas most polluted waterway, the Newtown Creek, with newtownpentacle.com‘s Mitch Waxman.
Breathtaking photography illustrates the journey, exploring the various tributaries and discussing the industrial history of New York City‘s least known waterway.
Witty and irreverent, the narration describes Waxman‘s own discovery of this place and the fantastic journey it has taken him on.
Question and Answer period follows.
DUKBO, Down Under the Kosciuszko Bridge Onramp – photo by Mitch Waxman
The actual presentation is just over a hour long, and during it, you’ll travel the length and breadth of the Newtown Creek- every tributary and bridge, each keystone of historical import will be illustrated with both personal experience and historical meaning. For those of you new to the story of the Newtown Creek (or the neighborhood) this will make a fine primer. Attempts will be made by your humble narrator to reveal this willfully hidden place, and introduce the uninitiated to the hellish flames of revelation which only the Newtown Creek can offer.
Greenpoint Avenue Bridge over Newtown Creek – photo by Mitch Waxman
The places I go, the things I see… often strain credulity. This is not the world you know, this 3.8 mile long waterway located directly across the East River from Manhattan’s Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital which provides the currently undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens. If it can happen, it has happened here, and if it happened here it happened worse and grander than anywhere else it ever happened. Come visit the night soil and offal dock, hear the stories of the great men- Bliss and Kingsland and Flowers and Degnon and Cooper. This is the place where the Industrial Revolution actually happened, where the death of nature itself was accomplished, and our modern world was born.
Welcome to the Newtown Creek, poison heart of the Newtown Pentacle…
growing ferocity
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Witness the most technologically advanced fire fighting vessel on earth, the FDNY’s newest, known to commoner and king alike as the “Three Forty Three”. An enigmatic and photogenic craft, it’s still shaking out it’s bugs in the harbor of New York, and is regularly observed by a humble narrator. This ship (which is a pregnant point which will be discussed in a paragraph below) and it’s capabilities as reported exist on the edge of what would have been called science fiction 10 years ago, and exhibits the kind of cutting edge technology which the modern FDNY’s mission calls for.
Click here to witness the initial launch of the craft at the Marine 1 homepage.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The question of whether a vessel is considered a boat or a ship is a bit contentious. Technical descriptions by maritime experts always use the mantra that a ship can carry and launch a boat, which defines what a “ship” is and what a “boat” isn’t. My buddy John Doswell of the Working Harbor Committee however, asks “have you ever heard of a fireship?”, and given his insider status regarding the retired John J. Harvey Fireboat and general maritime expertise one must lend certain shrift to his assertion.
Although, to me, the 343 is a $27 million vessel which can launch another craft as part of it’s onboard arsenal and design, so I have some difficulty referring to it as a boat.
from wikipedia
140-foot, 500-ton, $27 million dollar boat will be the country’s largest fireboat with a maximum speed of 18 knots. The Three Forty Three will provide the FDNY with the latest technology available for Marine vessels, including the capability of pumping 50,000 gallons of water per minute; nearly 30,000 gallons more than its predecessor. The need for this increased pumping capacity was graphically displayed as FDNY’s existing fireboats supplied the only water available for many days after the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. However, the technological advances of these new boats do not end there. The boat’s original design by Robert Allan Ltd. of Vancouver, B.C. will catapult FDNY’s Marine Division into the 21st century and beyond.
Because of the very real threat of additional terrorist attacks after 9/11, the boats will also be capable of protecting firefighters from Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear agents (CBRN). While performing in any of these hostile environments, the crew will be protected in a pressurized area that will also have its air supply filtered by special charcoal and HEPA filters. Assistance on the design of the CBRN system was provided by engineers from the U.S. military’s Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense and Naval Sea Systems Command. United States Navy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A sister vessel, the Firefighter 2, follows the same design principals as 343 although I haven’t managed to get any shots of it yet. Both will allow fire commanders to place as many as 50,000 gallons of water a minute in a gps guided arc onto a conflagration in Manhattan or on the harbor. Veiled references to parabolic calculations of the reach of this torrent have suggested to your humble narrator that it can be expected to reach further inland than any Fireboat in memory. Additionally, a forward ballast tank allows these ships to match the deck level of other vessels, allowing egress to the Staten Island Ferry amongst other civilian watercraft during emergencies.
from nycfireboat.com
- Length, overall = 140′-0″ (excluding fenders)
- Length, waterline = 130’–0″
- Beam, moulded = 36’–0″
- Depth, moulded = 16’–0″ (midship, deck edge)
- Draft (maximum) = 9’–0″
- Air draft design loaded waterline to highest point = 39’–0″ (maximum)
- Main Engines = MTU 4×2000 HP- total = 8,000 HP
- Propellers and Reduction Gears = Hundested 4 X Variable Pitch Propellers
- Fuel oil = 6,850 US gallons (trial condition), = 9,350 US gallons (maximum capacity)
- Fresh water capacity = 1,000 US gallons
- Foam concentrate = 3,600 US gallons (total)
- Sewage holding tank = 100 US gallons
- Oily water = 120 US gallons
- Sludge = 60 US gallons
- Decon wastewater tank = 100 US gallons
- Calm water trial speed – 20 mph at fully loaded condition operating at 100% vessel power rating (8,000 hp) and 15% sea margin.
- Design seastate – 6′ significant wave height
- Pumping capacity – 20,000 gpm on two engines as fire-fighting ship and 50,000 gpm on four engines as pumping station
- Monitor throw – 700′ from midships
- Operating crew – seven (7)
- Fire-fighters – 27 in transit
feeble horns
Hell Gate and Triborough bridges from Old Astoria – photo by Mitch Waxman
Loathsome memories of recent setbacks- and also of certain rebuffs- plague your humble narrator during these gloomy and sunless days, and always only solace can offer nepenthe. Thus, during a recent stroll by the pacific maelstrom of Hell Gate, nestled between two steel structures whose unearthly vibrations and omnipresent vocalizations form the aural environment- this series of shots were captured.
curiously scattered bones on sidewalk in Astoria – photo by Mitch Waxman
Vengeance and malice, indeed all of the seven deadly transgressions, populate the infernal dream world which has plagued me since childhood. Of late, a vivid character has typified these somnambulist hallucinations, and at least once during the night I’ll awaken in cold sweat grasping at the void of a curtain draped chamber. Surely, these negative humors are manifestations of another failing displayed by your humble narrator and least of all men, the inability to not bear grudges well beyond all sensible intervals.
sinister seeming bird at Hells Gate – photo by Mitch Waxman
Having grown up in a lonely and isolated existence, in dusty rooms of sculptured green carpeting and vinyl covered couches with odd knick knacks that betrayed basic tenets of adherence to the Hebrew faith, family members carried a charge of eastern European distrust for outsiders. Don’t trust anyone, my mother used to tell me while still in the cradle. As such, your humble narrator has grown into a hostile and suspicious man, contemptuous of authority even when such authority is necessary to govern over and control chaos and anarchy.
Amtrak at Hellegat Hell Gate Bridge – photo by Mitch Waxman
Often I stand on a point of principle, in a combative and tenacious- and vastly unpopular- stand over small matters such as allowing a police officer the right to inspect my belongings on demand. Of course I realize the age we are living in is fraught with the consequences of living in a global military empire the likes of which even the Romans or Turks would gasp and genuflect at, and that to most “standard of living” trumps “individual rights” but the constables have to follow the rules too. That’s what our modern Metropolis operates on, and as the saying in Brooklyn used to go “if I gots to stands in lines, youse gotta stands in da line”.
Psychiatric Hospitals at Hell Gate – photo by Mitch Waxman
Often, I fear that someday my darker impulses will take control of me, and I’ll spin off and become some comic book villain like parody of myself, the defeated antihero of a cosmic parable. Perhaps I will be remembered as a cautionary tale, your humble narrative of the man who looked under too many rocks. The Rumpelstiltskin of Newtown Creek, or perhaps just some old man in a shack who talks only to a collection of bottles?
Wards Island from Hell Gate – photo by Mitch Waxman
Preoccupations with such bizarre concerns has led me to believe in and visualize conspiracy lurking behind every corner. The attentions of certain malign elements, teenage adherents to some form of the Hip Hop cult, have been noted milling about around headquarters of late. Additionally, strange vehicles not usually parked in the neighborhood have been observed, adorned with mysterious antennae and blacked out windows- even on the windshield, which is unusual in itself due to municipal regulation.
Such bizarre notions, undoubtedly the product of lonely studies and a massive workload, were what led me to seek the solace of Astoria Park. I had hoped (futilely as turns out) to photograph passing Tugboats, but instead grew focused on certain uluations which seemed to be emerging from the impossibly distant Psychiatric hospitals at Wards Island…
The President of the United States on Marine 1 over Hell Gate – photo by Mitch Waxman
And that’s when the President of the United States flew by in Marine One on his way to the World Trade Center site to commemorate the death of his arch enemy.
In short, I’m all ‘effed up, and this post hits six points out of seven of the ICD-10 for paranoid personality type.
And the Newtown Pentacle is back in session.
longings and welcome
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The first bit of business today is about our departed friend Bernie Ente, and a memorial moment we have planned for the Newtown Creek Cruise tomorrow.
As many of you know, Bernie was and remains an inspiration to those of us involved in the story of Newtown Creek, in many ways he was “the King of the Creek”. He was the founder and institutor of this annual exploration of the troubled waterway, and there won’t be anyone connected with the organization and execution of this trip who won’t acutely feel his absence.
Accordingly, there is going to be a memorial moment performed for our fallen King, and several people have contacted me saying they wish to be present, but cannot afford the price of the boat trip. I have been instructing all who wish to attend to gather at the Maspeth Avenue street end (click here for google maps location and pictured above) and be there by 11:30. You’ll see a gigantic boat coming up the Creek, that’ll be us. The whole shebang will be short and sweet, as Bernie would be embarrassed by such honorifics and would chide me to focus in on what’s truly important- the revelation of Newtown Creek’s often occluded past, and the stunning possibilities for our communities offered by it’s revitalization and renewal.
Erik Baard will be paddling up the Creek with Richard Melnick of the Greater Astoria Historic Society, should any of you wish to attend on the water, although I stress that this is not an official Long Island City Boathouse event. Erik can be contacted via this facebook link if you wish to join them.
(afterwards, you can then cross the Grand Avenue Bridge and head over to Rust Street, where a rally to save the St. Saviour’s site and turn it into a City Park is meant to be happening at 1pm, but you’ll have to hit Google for specifics on that- I’ve been too busy with my own business to pay much attention to this effort in the last month- but there’s meant to be quite a gathering of elected officials and the folks from COMET and other Maspeth based community groups)
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Secondly, when our vessel returns to South Street Seaport at 1pm, those of you onboard who wish to discuss what you’ve just seen with Working Harbor personnel and or your humble narrator should plan on joining us for our customary post game. We will be proceeding to a local cafe bar where the camaraderie and libation will flow, and a relaxed conversation will be offered. Your tab, of course, is your own. This is not a part of the tour, and is not offered as part of the ticket price, but if you buy old Mitch a drink or two- he might tell you about some of the unknowable things he’s seen dancing around in the Creek during thunderstorms or share the story of the “Blissville Banshee” with you.
Nothing loosens Mitch’s tongue like a flask of cheap hip pocket liquor.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lastly, and I promise- this is the last time you’ll see this string of text, there are still a few ticketed seats available but I can’t promise they’ll be there when you leave work tonight. If you’ve been prevaricating about whether or not to come, now is the time to “drop the hammer”.
And… did I mention we’ve got a speaker from Riverkeeper scheduled to be onboard?
Lastly:
It is critical for you to purchase tickets for the Newtown Creek Cruise soon. We’re filling up rapidly and seating is limited. Your humble narrator is acting as chairman for this journey, and spectacular guest speakers are enlisted to be onboard. Click here to order tickets. Something I can promise you, given the heavy rain we’re having at the beginning of this week, is that the Newtown Creek will be especially photogenic on Saturday. Current forecasts call for “Partly sunny. A slight chance of showers in the morning. Highs in the mid 70s. North winds around 5 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent” (we leave the dock at 10- late morning)! Photographers in Greenpoint, Long Island City, and beyond- this is going to be hyperfocal MAGIC.
From workingharbor.com
he May 21st, Newtown Creek Cruise:
Explore Newtown Creek by Boat
Saturday, 21 May, 2011
Pier 17, South Street Seaport.
Departs 10 am sharp
Returns 1 pm
Price: $60
Join us for a special water tour with expert narration from historical and environmental guest speakers.
There are limited tickets available on the MV American Princess for a very rare tour of Newtown Creek. Guest narrators will cover points of industrial and historical interest as well as environmental and conservation issues during your three-hour exploration. New York’s forgotten history will be revealed – as well as bright plans for the creeks future.
MV American Princess is a large, comfortable vessel with indoor and outdoor seating. Complimentary soft drinks and a tour brochure are included.
Cruise runs rain or shine
Queries? Contact Tour Chairman Mitch Waxman: waxmanstudio@gmail.com
Hosted by Hidden Harbor Tours ® in association with the Newtown Creek Alliance.
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
The Newtown Pentacle 