Archive for the ‘Greenpoint’ Category
psychopathic institution
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, a few weeks back, a barge sunk into the gelatinous waters of the gregarious Newtown Creek. This isn’t the first time, won’t be the last, this sort of thing happens. Nothing nasty got released into the water, the barge was filled with rock and sand. Saying all that, it’s quite the pickle raising a barge sitting under 20-30 feet of water, and it requires specialized gear and a crew of experts. Luckily, NY Harbor being NY Harbor, there are a couple of outfits which will rent you the equipment and help you hire the experts needed to operate their stuff.
That’s capitalism for ya, huh? There’s a solution to every problem, if the price is right. Given the times we live in – that’s not a critique of our grandiose economic system, rather it’s an appreciative comment on a part of its feature set.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lucky for a humble narrator, this particular barge went down in a spot nearby a location which I’ve got access to over in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn. After attending a Newtown Creek Alliance press event in Maspeth earlier in the day, which involved a couple of Congress members and a gaggle of local “electeds,” I hitched a ride back to Greenpoint and got busy.
It was the worst time of day for light during the winter – right around noon o’clock – but I was prepared for that, and the tripod was deployed with an ND Filter affixed to the lens to slow things down and control the amount of light a bit. I got “a-clicking.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It seems that there was a diver in the water, who was attaching ropes and airbags and all sorts of arcane hoses to the sunken barge. That hit of motion blur on the crane’s arm betrays the process – with the diver and laborers moving ropes and chains around and under the sunken barge. Every now and then, you’d see the diver’s helmet pop up out of the drink.
How exciting.
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he seeks
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The last stop on my early morning walk from the Brooklyn Navy Yard to Astoria… well, I didn’t make it to Astoria on foot since my left one was screaming with arthritic pain by this point… was the Meeker Avenue Street End site in Greenpoint. This used to be the Brooklyn side mooring of the Penny Bridge, replaced in 1939 by the “New Penny Bridge” which was renamed as the Kosciuszcko Bridge in 1940 and has since been replaced by the modern day Kosciuszcko Bridge seen above. I cannot count how many times I’ve had to make all of those connections to explain Penny Bridge over the years.
In every post describing every step of the way, I’ve mentioned the constancy of needing to find a place to pee or poop. Why? Well, in the midst of all the high fallutin political movements here in the City that never sleeps, one of the things that we continually ignore is basic human biology. You can decarcerate, you can include, you can… but you can’t work out how to create public bathrooms. The City has a hundred billion dollar budget and there’s no way to solve this.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
During non pandemic times, the “NYC system” revolved around walking into a diner or fast food joint and ordering something cheap off the menu – like a coffee – and then asking if the facilities are available. That’s what’s known as “passing a problem off to the private sector.” We do a lot of that here in NYC. The political estate mandates stuff all the time, and then hopes that the private sector can work out the details. It’s a big part of the pandemic issue right now. Vaccine requirements are meant to be enforced by bars and restaurants, but there’s no clear set of regulations for them to follow, nor is there a clear set of instructions for what to do if somebody refuses to cooperate other than summoning the cops to come and do their usual wrecking ball “overt display of authority” thing. It’s dopey.
My understanding is that NYPD’s morale is at the lowest it’s been since the late 1980’s. Telling people what to do is different than convincing them to do what’s best for everyone. It’s not a Cop’s job to do the latter, it’s a politician’s. Our Politicians all want to be superstars, and spend most of their time coming up with new laws rather than finding ways to make the old ones work better, and expect the cops to enforce whatever the hell it is they just came up with. Also, our laws never get retired, despite irrelevancy or ineffectiveness. You still can’t keep a goat, ferret, or chicken in your apartment for instance, and the NYC Anti Mask mandate of 1845 is still on the books. It’s illegal to wear a mask in public in several regions of the United States, which was a 1960’s statutory response to the Ku Klux Klan. The NYC version was installed to keep landlords from sending masked gangs into tenement buildings to keep their tenants in line.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Politicians rattle on about climate issues, but the vast majority of the so called affordable housing built under the recent regime, in the last decade, is rated “D” or worse by the City’s Department of Buildings on energy efficiency. Fossil fuel companies are the culprits, they say, and not the political campaigns which take election year contributions from National Grid and a host of other “energy and job providers.” What is the “super power” of a City Council member? It’s called ULURP, for NYC’S “Uniform Land Use Review Procedure,” which effectively gives an office holder the power to shape development in their district. ULURP power is also held by the Borough Presidents, and City Hall. You need Council, BP, and Mayor’s offices to sign off on this process. The latter can overwrite what the former opposes, but that’s a whole other story which involves pecking order and rank.
Let’s say that you’re a City Council Member – would you demand that new construction in your district include real estate investment that has environmental benefit and green space? Playgrounds? Transit contributions? Or – would you just let the same players who have been raping the urban environment and exploiting the political system’s vanity your whole life sidle up to the trough for another rich meal? Tenants don’t write checks during election campaign season, after all, landlords do.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The mantra… Nothing matters and nobody cares…
There’s a situation at another section of the fabulous Newtown Creek, one in Long Island City, which grows increasingly perilous. A collapsing shoreline and tidal action which is clearly undermining a well travelled street that’s within a stone’s throw of LaGuardia Community College and several charter schools. Reporting the situation to the relevant agency was the most depressing experience I had in 2021, and given what the rest of that cursed year was like… The agency essentially said that they wouldn’t even inspect the situation since they looked at it three years ago when a different section of the shoreline collapsed.
Now, if a thumb tack was found in a bike lane – they’d call the FBI – but… Bah.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few people on the Twitter have asked me why I keep on rattling on about bike lanes, which is a program and network expansion thereof that I’m generally very much in support of. Here’s the thing – bike lane support doesn’t make you an environmental crusader – and support for a network of protected pathways for non automotive traffic to flow through isn’t a substitute for talking about the frankly existential storm water issue, and about legitimate and actual open soil green space. The actual implementation of most of these bike lanes has been piss poor – painting the gutter green, and surrounding it with plastic sticks about 30% of the way isn’t sufficient. You need actual physical separation, as in concrete barriers, not paint and plastic sticks. You also need to install a fourth lens on traffic signals, which will allow bikes an extra thirty to forty five seconds to cross and clear intersections before vehicular traffic gets the go ahead. Other cities with fewer resources have managed this.
If I’m wrong, then why did the Vision Zero years see traffic related fatalities go up instead of down? I swear, if anyone brings up Amsterdam to me again… Amsterdam has a population of just under 900,000 living in the central city, and about 2.5 million in its “greater metropolitan” area. The latter number is about how many people live just in the Borough of Queens. When a City agency tells you why they can’t do something it’s “because of scale,” but then they bring up freaking Amsterdam as an example of what’s possible. This is New York City, we don’t follow trends, we set them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
See that leaking fire hydrant? I’ve watched it leak for about 15 years. It’s been reported to the City hundreds of times. The water it oozes carries street garbage to a nearby sewer grate which empties directly into Newtown Creek. The garbage causes the grate to become clogged, which creates a garbage pond. The pond, in turn, slowly empties into Newtown Creek carrying trash along with the flow. The last time that I managed to get the drain cleared, you want to know who I called to bring in a work crew? ExxonMobil. They operate some of their pumping equipment nearby, for the oil spill cleanup operation, and when I mentioned the “optics” of this to one of their principals, it was handled quickly and they used heavy equipment to scoop away the garbage pond’s embankments. Saying that, it was about four or five years ago. The hydrant continues to leak, and the pond grows. Someday, there’s going to be a waterbody called “Lake Meeker” here. Will that qualify as green space, or parkland?
Nothing matters, and nobody cares.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
he shuns
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described, last year, a humble narrator’s perambulatory pursuits found him shambling eastwards on Brooklyn’s Meeker Avenue from the Brooklyn Navy Yard towards Astoria in Queens. My route was entirely encapsulated by the miles long steel and concrete pergola formed by the elevated roadway of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. There has always been a population that dwells in this corridor – unfortunates and inebriates who set up camp sites constructed from tarps, cardboard, and shipping palettes – but during the pandemic months their numbers have exploded.
Empathy for their plight and situation would be expressed if I was still capable of experiencing emotions. Instead, one has become not unlike a stick of wood – dry, unyielding, uncaring, ready to burst into flame at the first hint of a spark. I’m intolerant of nonsense now, and it’s nonsensical that the greatest City in history cannot do anything about this situation other than build luxury condominiums in Manhattan’s Soho… but, alas, my new motto still applies – “Nothing matters and nobody cares.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This section of Brooklyn was once where the political boundary between Bushwick and Greenpoint was drawn, back when your electeds were called “Alderman” or “Ward Boss.” That’s before Robert Moses arrived on the scene in the late 1920’s. Moses was quite keen on something he referred to as “The Brooklyn Queens Connecting Highway” and after his ribald success in building both Mighty Triborough and the Grand Central Parkway, the Federal Government agreed to fund his ideation. Moses made the case that the multitudes of Brooklyn would choke local street traffic as they made their way to his 1939 World’s Fair in Flushing, and that a high volume/speed road was required.
Moses showed a certain predilection for building his projects right on the border between two political districts. The highway above required the whole scale demolition of a city block wide corridor, and thousands of homes and businesses were eradicated to clear the space. I’d imagine having two politicians feeding at his trough rather than one made the disruption to the locals easier to handle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The modern day Brooklyn Queens Expressway was christened in the post WW2 Urban Renewal era. The original road was a highway, which means a high speed road with frequent exit and entrance ramps and in places – bike and pedestrian paths – but when it became an expressway it lost several of those ramps and any thought of pedestrian access was removed. Parkway (planted shoulders), highway (high speed), throughway (no exits except at start and end), expressway (limited exits). These are all self explanatory terms, Moses would tell you, before offering analogies about breaking eggs and omelettes. The usage for the space below the elevated truss road was meant to saturate parking availability, but as you can see – “world longest homeless camp” is largely how it’s being used today.
The Brooklyn Queens Connecting highway, or at least the sections of it north of the Williamsburg Bridge leading into Queens, opened for business during the month of August in 1939. August 23rd, to be exact.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is supposed to be empathic towards those who dwell below. That’s virtue signaling horse shit, however. Nobody cares, nothing matters, and these people will be taken care of when the politicians and the crooks who buzz around them like shit flies figure out a way to make political capital and money off of the situation. Personally, everytime I buy a new bag of socks, the older ones get washed and thrown in a shopping bag which I leave nearby similar campsites, or are handed off to one of the many people I encounter in Queens who are living rough. I’m one bad month away from being in this situation myself, and my resources are best analogized as “not enough butter spread over too much bread.”
Life is cheap in the big city, but living costs a fortune.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
By this stage of the walk back to HQ in Astoria, one was beginning to experience fatigue. The trick left foot was singing an opera, and since my left leg was dragging a bit due to the foot, that caused a cramp to set up in my back. NYC doesn’t acknowledge human biology and thereby a series of urine splotches marked my northward progress. I also had to poop, but I’m not that far gone yet. I’ll gladly slip between two parked cars and piss into a sewer grate, but dropping a deuce in the open air isn’t a line I cross.
Also, what if somebody saw it? That’s how you end up on Instagram. “Hey, check out Mitch from Newtown Creek Alliance, he’s shitting in the street now.” Clearly, this signals that their entire thing is a corrupt eidolon offered up by real estate interests and morally bankrupt politicians. Told you he’s no good. I have a friend who advocates for bike lanes and safer streets, and he got photographed jaywalking and that spawned several days of commentary, for instance.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My destination in this section of Brooklyn was ultimately the Kosciuszcko Bridge, which would carry me into Queens. There’s a neat bit of public space under the new bridge, where – coincidentally – I know there would a “Porta Potty” where I could solve my alimentary issues in private. Along the way, a park bench of two offered some relief for the operatic conditions being offered by the left foot.
More pedantic adventures tomorrow, at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
think slowly
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator found himself wandering across the loquacious Newtown Creek, as is often the case, on the Pulaski Bridge. Count Casimir Pulaski, whom the bridge is named for, was a Polish noble and accomplished military man who – after meeting Ben Franklin and Lafayette while exiled in France – joined the Continental Army as a Cavalry General during the American Revolution. Part of Washington’s executive staff, Pulaski died of wounds he received at the Battle of Savannah in 1779.
The 1954 vintage bridge over Newtown Creek, connecting what’s now called McGuinness Blvd. in Brooklyn with LIC’s 11th street, was a product of Robert Moses’ long tenure as the high lord of transportation spending and construction in NYC. Actual construction of the double bascule draw bridge was accomplished by the Horn Construction Company, with the assistance of Bethlehem Steel and the American Bridge Company. An earlier bridge, connecting Brooklyn’s Manhattan Avenue with LIC’s Vernon Avenue (as it was known back then), was also removed as part of the project.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Surprisingly well used stair cases rise up on either side of the bridge, allowing pedestrian egress. The pedestrian lanes do indeed flow from on ramp to off ramp, but the stairs are located a lot closer to the center beam of the span. The LIC side stairs are found just south of the Midtown Tunnel and Long Island Rail Road Hunter’s Point yard.
One hasn’t used the Pulaski all that much during Covid times. One of the guiding principals for me during this interval has been the avoidance of other people. Given the increased population density of Hunters Point and Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section that has come with the real estate build out of the last twenty years…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured above is the Greenpoint side, where McGuinness Blvd. slouches roughly downwards towards the waterfront. When the bridge was built, McGuinness Blvd. was created as a double wide “arterial” street designed to carry Brooklyn Queens Expressway bound traffic to Meeker Avenue, where the high speed road has travelled on an overpass since 1939. That overpass leads to another Robert Moses project – the Koscisuzcko Bridge – which leads to his 1940 vintage Long Island Expressway and his 1936 Grand Central Parkway.
It is no accident that the Pulaski and Kosciuszko bridges are named for Polish generals. Instead, it’s good politics, given the enormous community of Polish folks who live or lived in Greenpoint, Maspeth, and LIC’s Blissville.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
curiously articulated
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A quick one today. That’s the composition I had planned for the tribute in lights shot, but for whatever reason they didn’t have them on. C’est la vie, huh?
Still, I’m pretty happy with the shot above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
From a bit earlier in the evening, and looking across the Whale Creek tributary of Newtown Creek towards the shield wall of Manhattan.
At least the Empire State Building people decided to light things up appropriately.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking down at the places I normally inhabit: sewer plants, waste transfer stations, the mean streets of Brooklyn.
Back tomorrow, lords and ladies, with something COMPLETELY different. I have actually been outside of NYC for the last few weeks! Vacation, all I ever wanted…
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
The Newtown Pentacle 