Archive for the ‘Greenpoint’ Category
mountain folk
The whole horde of loathsome sentience came to Greenpoint recently.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One received an email recently, from the “powers that be” in lower Manhattan, which announced the most super duper secret in the whole wide world. The Mayor himself would be coming to Greenpoint, to make a major announcement about a very, very important thing. “Ok”, says a humble narrator. I mean… it’s Newtown Creek he’s coming to… I had to go.
Now, before I continue, allow me to lay down a few ground rules for this post.
a) I’ve never been a sports guy. While the other kids were trading baseball cards, I was collecting politician cards. “I’ll trade you two near mint 1985 Donald Manes’s for that 1993 rookie year Chuck Schumer” – that’s my sort of thing. I know a bunch of the people in these shots from Newtown Creek “stuff” – like Diana Reyna, who is pictured in the shot above. All the politics and policy stuff notwithstanding, there’s a lot of genuinely nice people involved in public life – and Diana Reyna is one of them.
There’s also certain elected officials who can best be described as being a “bag of dicks that talks.”
b) the press conference was announcing a policy intended to protect the M1 and IBZ zones from being overrun by hotels and storage facilities. As policy goes, it doesn’t entirely suck. The idea is that any new hotel or storage facility will now have to approved by some city council led process which hands off even more power to the individual council members, and the speaker, than they already possess. There’s also some “yada yada” about money for training industrial workers of the future – that sort of thing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
c) I’ve been following the Mayor’s career since shortly after he stopped aiding, abetting, and providing comfort to America’s enemies in Nicuaragua back in the 1980’s. I watched him during his years on the council, noted his turn at public advocate, and thoroughly enjoyed the campaign he ran in 2013 in which 73.15% of the 1,087,710 eligible voters who cast a ballot gave him what he calls his mandate.
d) There are 4.3 million eligible voters in New York City, so remember that the Mayor’s “mandate” represents, in actuality, 73% of roughly 24% of the electorate. Suffice to say, and for those of you who follow my Twitter stream this will not be a surprise, I’m not a fan of this adminstration and I don’t have any Bill de Blasio cards in my collection. He’s kind of the Pete Rose of politics – you can’t deny his record, but…
e) Everything that follows is heavily inflected with sarcasm, written in a mocking tone, and designed to make the Mayor seem churlish, dishonest, and strange. I really don’t like this Mayorality, and the creeping entropy which is nibbling its way back into the very fiber of our municipality which the adminstration coddles. If you want a straight “journalistic” kind of thing on this topic, google it and you’ll find Marcia Kramer from CBS throwing him shade, or any of the other press people’s straight up reportage of what was in the press release that was handed out. I have to say that, because the de Blasio people are notoriously lacking in the sense of humor category, and this post is going all tangential on me as I’m writing it.
f) I’m actually registered as a Democrat, something I felt forced to do as my former status as an “independent” kept me from voting in primaries. If NYC had open primaries, I’d likely be independent again. My politics are odd, can be somewhat severe, and hard to fit into any box manufactured much later than the late 60’s – when I was manufactured, coincidentally. I mention this only so you don’t think this post is some sort of partisan “party thing.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One found it funny, actually, that the spot chosen to make this announcement about saving industrial zones from development and the pressures of the real estate market occurred in North Brooklyn, with Newtown Creek and Tower Town in Long Island City as backdrop. I found it humorous when passing tugs, and locomotives moving along the Queens side, interrupted the Mayor’s speech with industrial noise and distracted him.
Amusing as well, the fact that we were at the Newtown Creek superfund site, which is on the same Federal list that the Mayor fought to keep the Gowanus Canal from being named to several years ago.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One found it bizarre to hear the Mayor decry the power and reach of the Real Estate Industrial Complex, the very “powers that be” whom he has enjoyed a long relationship with that have reduced the amount of market rate housing in Brooklyn, and New York City as a whole, creating the so called “crisis” he has to solve. As responsible as any in the government for the destruction, dismantling, and gentrification of the industrial zones in South Brooklyn during his time in the City Council, the Mayor has long been allied with real estate interests like Bruce Ratner and the Toll Brothers.
He pushed through the decking of the Atlantic Yards for one, a project which still has not yielded “affordable housing” or “community amenities” or anything other than a basketball stadium and a couple of luxury towers which rise above it. For the other, he fought tooth and nail against the Gowanus Canal being named to the Superfund list.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Feckless, the Mayor has announced his intentions to deck over the Sunnyside Yards here in Queens in his mad quest to build 200,000 units of “affordable housing” before he leaves office – which God willing will happen during the next election cycle with the job unfinished. What he doesn’t mention is that much of that “affordable housing” will be incorporated into a far larger build out, using ratios like 60/40 or 70/30 for representing the number of luxury/affordable units found therein. Also, “affordable” means a one bedroom at north of $2,500 a month.
Cynically, his plan involves no new infrastructure – subways, fire, police, or sewer. Ten pounds of people in a five pound bag, indeed. The developments themselves will enjoy long periods of tax free existence, subsidies, and no interest municpal loans which will rob the “city of the future” of any chance to actually pay for the municipal services required to sustain itself. At Atlantic Yards, there is a 99 year tax forebearance on the part of the City which is enjoyed by the Stadium and luxury towers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A “PINO” or Progressive in Name Only, the Mayor likens himself to LaGuardia and the Roosevelts.
He seeks to stride the national stage, and would do so – he claims – if only the world would listen to him without interrupting. LaGuardia, with Robert Moses, built the highways, tunnels, parks, firehouses, hospitals, libraries, schools, and police stations first. Exurb neighborhoods like Flatbush and Sunnyside bulked up from sleepy hamlets to bustling urban centers when mass transportation became available, not before. You don’t build the housing first, and then hope for the next guy to connect all the dots.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m sure the Mayor is a very nice fellow, and honestly believes he is doing something grand and noble.
I’ve been asking this about him for years though – does he seem like the kind of guy whom you’d trust with something in your personal life that was important? Your wife is pregnant and just about due and you have to leave town on a business trip – is Bill the guy you ask to take her to the hospital? If Rahm Emmanuel of Chicago was lonely, and called Bill in the middle of the night, would he just let it go to voicemail?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Blogging is a lot more fun than journalism, incidentally, as modern journalists aren’t allowed to have opinions. They have to strike a line defined by lawyers and corporatists. The elected officials can, and will, turn access on and off to entire media organizations if they feel that they were treated badly. Accordingly, modern day journalists can’t report the “inside baseball” on these characters, as their entire operation will suffer the payback. They don’t have the budget, frankly, and modern news isn’t about in depth institutional memory anymore. It about forcing some good looking girl to stand out in the middle of a hurricane at Rockaway Beach.
I have no budget, actually, and it pisses me off that the mainstream guys and gals (with a few exceptions, like Marcia Kramer) who do don’t poke at the electeds with a stick often enough.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There were a whole crew of camera people and reporters, an entourage that follows the big fellow around the City as he makes his rounds. The elected officials all came to the mike, one by one, to say how great the “Save Industry” plan is and how needed it was. The big crew who were at the podium at the beginning of the event began to peter out, and after Assemblyman Lentol of Greenpoint said his peace, the Mayor announced to the third estate that Hizzonner would be willing to answer questions which were “on topic.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This tactic is often employed by the de Blasio adminstration, incidentally. “On topic” indicates that the Mayor isn’t interested in discussing the issues or problems which bedevil him, rather it’s meant to be a continuation of the “speechifying” portion of the event during which he can amplify his “message.” This is something which the third estate actually does protest in vociferous tone. Recently, to counter the charges of evasiveness which members of the press have accused him of, the Mayor has instituted “town hall” meetings. A recent one held in Queens saw an audience which was composed only of his supporters, all of whom had been vetted by a local councilman.
Needless to say, the Town Hall was a ribald success, according to City Hall.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, that’s the post about the time that the Mayor came to Newtown Creek in Greenpoint to announce a very, very important thing. This post is emblematic of the Mayor’s problem, by the way. No matter how good or bad the policy is, he’s always in the way of it. The guy could have improved sliced bread, but you’d be suspicious of “why” he was tinkering with baked goods and discover that he’s had a life long relationship with a bagel consortium or something who were early contributors to his campaign.
I wonder what this industrial zone protection thing is actually about – as in who it is really designed for rather than who it’s said to benefit. Were there that many hotels opening in industrial neighborhoods that it required the “full court press” from City Hall? Define what you mean by “hotel”? Who benefits from this? Who loses? Can the City still continue to place homeless shelters in industrial zones? What about “single room occupancy” and other “short stay” apartments?
Also, if industrial zones are going to be protected, what about the one adjoining the Sunnyside Yards?
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
shaky strokes
The Invisible Flame, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured above is the so called “Unnamed Canal” tributary of Newtown Creek, found in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint. Roughly analogous to North Henry Street’s intersection with Kingsland Avenue, were North Henry’s northern terminus not enclosed entirely within the NYC DEP’s Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant’s fence line.
Directly to the west is the former DSNY Maritime Waste Transfer station, to the east is the home of Allocco Recycling. Sharp eyes will notice the Newtown Creek Alliance Living Dock project bobbing around in the water at the eastern, or left side of the shot.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A fairly uncommon view of the sewer plant, with its iconic stainless steel digester eggs dominating the shot. These eggs process “thickened sludge” using biological processes. What comes out of them has been effectively sterilized by the micro organisms which are cultivated and maintained within, but the process does generate several waste products along the way. Within, a material called “Struvite” collects on the hard surfaces which requires the DEP to perform maintenance at regular intervals to scrape the stuff away.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another byproduct of the digester process are mephitic gases. The four Venturi jet structures you see at the left side of the image above are the exhaust pipes for the process, and the mephitic gas they are designed to handle is Methane, which is burned off. When the system first came online, the Methane flames were the characteristic bright blue turning to orange that anyone with a domestic stove is familiar with. Passerby on the Long Island Expressway who saw the flames would regularly call 911 to report a fire occurring at the plant. The DEP responded by “tuning” the speed and temperature of the Venturi structures to render the flames invisible.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The largest point source of greenhouse gases on the Brooklyn side of the Newtown Creek, these jets produce an invisible flame whose only visual cue is the diffraction of light. The DEP has famously entered into a contract with the National Grid corporation, which will harvest the Methane currently being burnt off. National Grid will use the Methane to augment their “Natural Gas” network, selling it to their customers.
The Invisible Flame, btw, is an analogy used in Islamic mysticism when referring to a supranatural race of mischievous or malign spirits whom they call the Djinn. Western Europeans use the term “Demon” for the Djinn.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
gently heaving
Tis the Season.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recently, one found himself headed towards DUGABO in Greenpoint for a Newtown Creek Alliance event. My intentions were merely to photograph and record the occasion, but as a humble narrator is cursed with the attention span of a house fly, I soon became distracted by a calvalcade of death.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Mysteriously, an abandoned DSNY property in the area is littered with animal bones. It is actually difficult to trespass on the property without crunching the most intimate of internal organs beneath your booted foot.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A good number of these ossuarial remains are cut, in the manner which a butcher might employ. All are sun bleached, and whereas the vast majority are definitely avian in character, the higher animals are clearly represented as well.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Of interest is the fact that you mostly find limb bones, with nary a skull nor pelvis apparent.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oddly, a floppy disc was observed at the site. Once ubiquitous, this sort of device has been obsolete for a generation, and it is odd to spot one. Who can know what information it might have once held?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are fresher remains to be found all over DUGABO, this ex rat was spotted on the Queens side of DUGABO whilst one was in transit to Brooklyn. Truly, DUGABO seems “death magnetic.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The views from this dead end, as is the case all over my beloved Creek, are spectacular.
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horrors and marvels
My beloved Creek, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured above, Newtown Creek.
This is a section I refer to as DUGABO, or Down Under the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge Onramp. On the left side of the shot is the Allocco family’s aggregates recycling yard in Greenpoint, on the right is the SimsMetal recycling facility in Long Island City’s Blissville section. Today’s post will be taking us eastwards from DUGABO into oil country.
Technically speaking – all of the Brooklyn side of the Newtown Creek, from the Pulaski Bridge east to Meeker Avenue was once oil country, home to a series of Standard Oil (SOCONY) refineries and distribution facilities. The industry’s footprint in the area began to shrink as early as the 1950’s, and refining on the Creek literally stopped in the middle 1960’s.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Literally “DUGABO,” the Greenpoint side on the left shows the tanks of Metro Fuel, a bio fuel company which actually performs some refinery operations in the modern day. On the Queens side, you’ll notice the Tidewater building. Tidewater was a pipeline company that challenged Standard Oil’s monopoly on shipping petroleum using the railroads. Tidewater was destroyed and taken over by Standard. The Standard Oil company then bankrupted the railroads by switching its nationwide distribution system over to pipelines rather than rail cars – despite having spent a couple of decades trying to convince Congress and everyone else that pipelines were inherently unsafe and uneconomical to operate.
You’ve really got to love John D. Rockefeller.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A bit further east, you’ll notice the tanks of the BP Amoco yard nearby Apollo Street in Greenpoint, which sit on part of the footprint of the Locust Hill refinery.
This is roughly the dead bang center of the Greenpoint Oil Spill, the second largest such event in American History. The BP Amoco yard is a distribution hub, with its product brought in from refineries in New Jersey and beyond by articulated Tug and fuel barge combinations like the Crystal Cutler, which is pictured above. The digester eggs of the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant are visible in the shot above as well, as is Manhattan’s iconic Empire State Building.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A bit further back, that’s Meeker Avenue’s street end on the left or Brooklyn side, and Blissville’s Calvary Cemetery is just out of frame on the right. The former site of Penny Bridge, which looms large in the memory of long time residents of both boroughs, would have been right about the center of the Newtown Creek. Penny Bridge, of course, was replaced in 1939 by Robert Moses. Moses had to work around some pretty big land owners when building it.
On the right hand – or Queens side of the photo – that brick building is part of the former Queens County Oil Works of Standard Oil. The Petroleum facility in Blissville is actually a bit older than Standard, believe it or not. That’s where Abraham Gesner erected the first large scale petroleum refinery in the United States, the North American Kerosene Gas Light company, which imparted to “coal oil” the brand name Kerosene.
When Standard Oil bought Gesner’s operation, the company made the brand name “Kerosene” so ubiquitous that it became an American colloquialism, and it defined the product in the same way that Xerox or Kleenex define photocopies or facial tissue.
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Upcoming Tours –
September 20th, 2015
Glittering Realms Walking Tour
with Brooklyn Brainery, click here for details and tickets
vast and vague
Cool Cars in Greenpoint (?), in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That long walk under the Brooklyn Queens Expressway in Greenpoint and Williamsburg mentioned at the beginning of this week provided one with several interesting diversions, and notably this undeniably “Cool Car” was one of them.
I’m of the opinion that this Dodge 4 door coupe was likely a 1948 model, an educated guess based on the shape of the windows, fenders, and bumpers – but it is definitely a product of the 1946-1949 era and the very definition of what I like to refer to as “cool cars.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There were no tags or registration information adorning the auto, which makes it kind of a difficult endeavor to identify, and given the relative homogeneity of post World War 2 automobile manufacture (Detroit was still gearing down from the war, and the explosion of creativity which auto manufacturers displayed in the 1950’s was not in effect in the years directly following the war).
from wikipedia
Civilian production at Dodge was restarted by late 1945, in time for the 1946 model year. The “seller’s market” of the early postwar years, brought on by the lack of any new cars throughout the war, meant that every automaker found it easy to sell vehicles regardless of any drawbacks they might have. Like almost every other automaker, Dodge sold lightly facelifted revisions of its 1942 design through the 1948 season. As before, these were a single series of six-cylinder models with two trim levels (basic Deluxe or plusher Custom).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator is far from an expert on vintage automobiles, it should be mentioned, so if anybody who is reading this is possessed on knowledge on the subject – or recognizes the specific model – please share your smarts with the rest of us in the comments section found below.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The location at which this artifact of America’s golden age was found spawns several semantic points as well for the infrastructure nerd. This auto was parked south of McGuinness Blvd. along the west side of Meeker Avenue, under the BQE. Technically, the east side of Meeker is in Bushwick (according to the old ward maps of the pre conolidation City of Brooklyn) and the area to the south of McGuinness is in WIlliamsburg not Greenpoint.
Life long Greenpernters will tell you that their neighborhood actually continues for several blocks east and that the nebulous border Greenpoint shares with Williamsburg is around Withers Street and south of Manhattan Avenue, however.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ultimately, this atavistic automobile seemed to be in decent condition, at least externally. It obviously has been parked in this spot for a while given the amount of soot and dust which adorns it. Being Brooklyn, someone felt obliged to trace out “wash me” in the soot – natch.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s a funny thing for me, of course, seeing a 1940’s Dodge parked here in the “House of Moses,” where it fits in with the esthetics of Robert Moses’s early career.
Robert Moses was the master builder of much of NYC’s infrastructure, and personally responsible for creating both the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and the Kosciuszko Bridge. It was his Triborough staffers that mapped out the vast swath that the BQE moves through and was built – condemning and demolishing mile after mile of homes, businesses, and stores to make way for the automobile. Moses plunged Meeker Avenue into centuried and unending darkness when the BQE was constructed, and callously created the divisions between neighborhoods that we all know today. He sort of invented “urban blight.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Manufactured items from the middle of the 20th century like this Dodge Coupe are notoriously rare, and extremely attractive to hot rod enthusiasts. A restored or modified iteration of this vehicle would be an extremely valuable commodity. Back then, they really knew how to “build ’em” – both highways and the cars which populate them.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
August 22nd, 2015
First Calvary Cemetery – LIC, Queens Walking Tour
click here for details and tickets.
September 3rd, 2015
Newtown Creek Boat Tour
with Open House NY, click here for details and tickets.
The Newtown Pentacle 