Archive for the ‘Greenpoint’ Category
staves and axes
Walking down Meeker Avenue, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
First – a confession – I had something else planned for today’s post, as it was a rather exciting (and highly combustible) weekend in Astoria, but the photos aren’t ready for public consumption quite yet. As a result, what was going to be tomorrow’s installment of your Newtown Pentacle is offered in its stead.
Last week, occasion found me in Greenpoint to photograph a Newtown Creek related event in the afternoon. Having a few hours to kill, since my next engagement was in lower Manhattan in the early evening, a humble narrator decided to walk into the City via the Williamsburg Bridge. A medium sized scuttle ensued, and one found himself walking through and beneath one of the “House of Moses’s” more onerous creations – an elevated section of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway which over flies Meeker Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whilst my walk played out, several photos were captured, including shots of this charming bedroom set. One would guess that the Mayor can scratch one unit of affordable housing off of his “to do” list.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Signs of morbid habitation like this one drive me crazy of some reason. To begin with, it’s likely the unhealthiest environment upon the earth for a human being to exist in, here in the traffic choked House of Moses beneath the BQE. Secondly, it exposes the farcical realities of “homeland security” and the so called “security state” in the era of the Terror Wars. If you can set up housekeeping alongside the steel pillars supporting a roadway that carries nearly 200,000 automobiles a day… well… let’s just say you wouldn’t be able to get away with basing yourself in similar circumstance in Riyadh or Tel Aviv.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My path continued along Meeker Avenue, towards the home of the Artisinal Pickle in Williamsburg, which has become one of the most pedantically boring neighborhoods in all of New York City in recent years. Dispassionate and jaded esthetes were observed as they moved aimlessly about the place, searching for some sort of “authenticity” or diversion from the tyranny of the now, which seemed to be in short supply hereabouts.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Shimmering memories of the old Williamsburg, with its DMZ’s and danger, are hinted at here and there. The whores and the bangers are relegated to history, however, and after having walked from McGuinness to Metropolitan along Meeker Avenue, it occurred to me that not once did I feel danger. There were no hookers blowing truckers, no collections of scabby kids selling vials of death candy… just a rather well appointed homeless camp or two and construction workers eating lunch.
There were also grown men riding skateboards in the middle of a Thursday afternoon, incredibly thin women covered in tattoos that were ignoring them, and both sexes seemed to be staring into their smart phones while Brooklyn writhed incessantly around them unnoticed.
“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.
horror
Into every life, a little rain must fall. My life seems to be Hurricance Sandy, every day.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shot above is the very last one which will ever be captured by the camera which has been utilized to record the startling truth of our times, as presented in graphic narrative at this – your Newtown Pentacle – for the last 4 years. The device has been, as those of you who know me, omnipresent. Normally, the thing is strapped to me and never leaves my hand. If it was to be put down, extreme care and attention to its resting place has always been exercised. Friends often chide a humble narrator as to why the camera got its own chair.
All that is over now, due to a single careless moment on the 4th of July.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The other day, shots captured from Williamsburg depicted the 4th of July fireworks. After the rooftop gathering attended to view the show, which a friend had graciously invited Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself to join in on, Our Lady insisted that we hire a taxi to cross the short distance from Williamsburg back to Astoria. While exiting the vehicle, the camera tumbled out of my hand and struck the street.
The lens, my “good lens,” shattered into multiple pieces.
The camera body seemed fine at first, but soon revealed itself as non functional after just two mirror flips. Massive self recrimination ensued, as one might imagine, but just as in the case with any kind of accident – what are you going to do? “Command Z, undo, undo” cried I.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Unfortunately, given my tremulous financial equilibrium, (hey, you think environmental activist – historian – blogger – photographer – tour guide – actually pays well?) a trip to BH Photo was demanded. One such as myself cannot be without a capture device, and replacement equipment was expensively acquired. The horror.
The good news is that I’m back in business. The bad news is that I’m out a big chunk of change. For those of you that feel my pain, I beg you to buy some tickets to one of the walking tours I’m doing this summer.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
July 12th, 2015
Glittering Realms – Greenpoint, Brooklyn Walking Tour
with Newtown Creek Alliance, click here for details and tickets.
July 26th, 2015
Modern Corridor – LIC, Queens Walking Tour
with Brooklyn Brainery, click here for details and tickets.
far within
A bright, light, sunshiney day, in Today’s Post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recently, the Federal NOAA agency placed a plaque at Bushwick Inlet’s U.S.S. Monitor Museum site, signifying the launch site of the United States’ first ironclad war ship from the spot in Greenpoint. One made it a point to arrive early, there was an event planned which involved dignitaries speaking and children singing, and take a bit of time to get “artsy – fartsy” with the camera and grab some shots.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The one above is a stitched panorama, representing around 200 degrees of view. Just to the right of center are some of the big condo buildings in Williamsburg, and at far right are the tanks of Bayside Fuel.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s Franklin Street on the other side of the fence, btw, behind an overgrown fence line which one didn’t explore except with a zoom lens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There was, indeed, a duck of some kind there.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Rotting timbers found in the littoral zone, which look quite a bit different than the ones you’ll find along my beloved Newtown Creek. These are green and teeming with life, as the East River is actually quite a bit cleaner here than in its northern tributary.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There were lots of rusty bits sticking up out of the ground, but heck – this used to be Continental Iron Works after all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Continental Iron Works, in addition to building the Monitor, also fabricated the caissons of the Brooklyn Bridge here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Most of this stuff doesn’t date back to the 1860’s, obviously, there’s a large MTA warehouse and workshop on the landward side and this was the industrial coast of North Brooklyn. Nothing laid fallow here until pretty late in the game – the 1960’s at the very earliest. The experts on this site are George and Janice from the Greenpoint Monitor Museum, who can tell you all about it here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My interest in Bushwick Inlet is Newtown Creek oriented, of course. The historical definitions of the wetlands surrounding my beloved Creek always mention Bushwick Creek (here) to the south, and Sunswick Creek (Hallets Cove) to the north.
The area between Newtown and Bushwick Creek was called “the Cripplebush,” which is a fun fact.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking past the mouth of Bushwick Inlet, one finds the Freedom Tower, rising from the LeCorbusier inspired NYCHA housing which rings the Shining City.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
June 20th, 2015
Kill Van Kull Walking Tour
with Brooklyn Brainery, click here for details and tickets.
historical realities
From the Magic Lantern show…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Welcome to DUPBO, Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
May 3, 2015 –
DUBPO, Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp
with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, a free tour offered as part of Janeswalk 2015, click here for tickets.
May 16, 2015 –
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills with Atlas Obscura
with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for details and tickets.
May 31, 2015 –
Newtown Creek Boat Tour
with Working Harbor Committee and Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for tickets.
heavy boots
Yeah, Happy Earth Day.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another Earth Day rolls around, wherein large numbers of happy little sophists will gather together in Manhattan Parks and congratulate themselves for separating their trash into “recycling” and “garbage” parcels. They will pat each other on the back, and claim that NYC is the “greenest” and most “resilient” of American cities. You won’t see any of them visiting LIC, or Greenpoint, Maspeth, or Bushwick, or Ridgewood. They won’t think about what happens after they flush their toilets, either.
Few, if any, will find themselves having arrived at the Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
They won’t see the black waters of Newtown Creek’s tributary Maspeth Creek, or smell the battery acid odor of raw sewage as it is entering the waterway. They won’t comment on the illegal dumping, or the true nature and environmental impact of the recycling industry. Greater good, they would say, were they to leave Manhattan.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Few will visit Dutch Kills at low tide, over in LIC. If they did, they would be forced to rationalize the rotten egg smell as being produced by anaerobic microbes. They wouldn’t puzzle over the neon colors of this tributary of Newtown Creek, whose mouth is .75 of a mile from the East River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
They won’t wander through the borderlands of Brooklyn and Queens to Ridgewood, and witness what the recycling process actually looks and smells like. They won’t worry about what they are breathing either.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Manhattan people like to feel as if they’re doing something to help the environment, and will do so in front of television cameras. They will make a show of discussing the banning of plastic grocery bags, or demand that NYC begins to compost its organics. They won’t realize that this composting has to be done somewhere within throwing distance of their Borough, and that it will carried by truck to some central receiving facility where it will be collected and stored whilst awaiting processing. They don’t know that this area will be somewhere along the Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
They certainly won’t visit the tracks of the LIRR’s Bushwick Branch line, and see the hundreds of filled cargo boxes that compose the “garbage train.” They won’t care that the concentrating point of roughly 30-40% of NYC’s garbage is found on the corner of Varick Street and Johnson Avenue, nor about the thousands of trucks which descend upon it daily.
So – Happy Earth Day, from Newtown Creek.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
May 3, 2015 –
DUBPO, Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp
with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, a free tour offered as part of Janeswalk 2015, click here for tickets.
May 31, 2015 –
Newtown Creek Boat Tour
with Working Harbor Committee and Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for tickets.
The Newtown Pentacle 