Archive for the ‘Greenpoint’ Category
skeptical, cynical, and disinclined
Note: This is another one of my “notebook” postings, which are often a little unfinished. When I’m studying something, all sources are initially considered, and sometimes a blind alley or false lead turns out to be wrong. I’m studying Greenpoint at the moment, not unlike the “Bloody Sixth Ward” posts that were presented a few months ago.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another one of those little observations which serves to shock and stun the more recently arrived and strictly modern populations of the ancient cities found along the Newtown Creek, municipalities like Greenpoint or Long Island City, is that both long time residents and newcomers alike fish in these waters and consume their catches. Same thing happens along the Hudson, of course, and often it is financial necessity which demands that even suspect sources of protein such as those organisms routinely observed in New York Harbor make it to the dinner table. My Dad used to go crabbing along Fresh Creek, for instance, and off the Canarsie Pier.
According to the EPA, fish caught in Newtown Creek have been observed to be offered on neighborhood restaurant menus, so not everything that wriggles out of the water is meant for personal consumption.
It’s also fun, a chance to hang out at the waterfront with friends, as in the case of the anglers pictured above- a group of good natured Greenpointers who were exploiting (as I was) an open street end bulkhead on Kent Street, just off West. Don’t bother looking for it, or them, as fences have been thrown up around this spot at the end of the summer and it is no longer accessible by the general public.
from nycgovparks.org
When European mariners arrived here in the 17th century, they called the entire peninsula “Greenpoint” because of a grassy bluff on the bank of the East River. The Dutch bought Greenpoint, including what would become Williamsburg and Bushwick-Ridgewood, from the Keskachauge in 1638 and named it Boswijck (Bushwick) Township. A Scandinavian ship’s carpenter, Dirck Volckertsen, acquired Greenpoint from the Dutch in 1645. The land then passed to a Dutch military captain, Pieter Praa, and afterwards to an inventor and industrialist, Neziah Bliss.
For almost two centuries, the area thrived agriculturally and remained isolated from the rest of the region. At the time of the Revolutionary War, only five families lived in the Greenpoint area. Annetti Bennett, Pieter Praa’s daughter, and her husband Jacob built the first house near the playground site. This house was close to present-day Clay Street, between Manhattan Avenue and Franklin Street. The first road was built in Greenpoint in 1838, and a regular ferry service followed soon after.
When Greenpoint’s streets were further laid out in the mid-19th century, they received a letter designation in alphabetical order, running roughly southeast starting with A Street and ending with O Street. Many neighborhood residents did not like these initial names, and the streets were renamed with more colorful names, while keeping pattern. A Street became Ash Street, followed by Box, Clay, DuPont, Eagle, Freeman, Green, Huron, India, Java, Kent, Lincoln, Milton, Noble, and Oak. Lincoln Street was later changed to Greenpoint Avenue.
Industrialization and an influx of residents soon followed, flooding the newly laid streets. The area became known for shipbuilding, as well as for what were known as the five “black” arts: printing, oil refining, cast iron manufacturing, and glass and pottery making. By 1875, more than 50 oil refineries were located in Greenpoint, Williamsburg, and Bushwick. Charles Pratt’s great Astral Oil Works were located along nearby Newtown Creek. Notable products from Greenpoint include the first ironclad warship, The Monitor, built by Thomas Rowland’s Continental Ironworks at Calyer and West Streets. Examples of the wrought ironwork created during that period can still be seen in the details of Greenpoint residences and businesses today. Immigrants from Ireland, England, Russia, Italy, and Poland crowded into Greenpoint during the late 1800s to work in the factories.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Kent is just down the riverfront from Java street. The duo in the right corner of the shot above are actually sitting on the bulkheaded shoreline of Java, which was the location of the Meserole House- once found on the East River shoreline between India and the aforementioned Java street.
The Meseroles were one of the original Dutch families which populated Greenpoint, and were crazily well off by the financial standards of the time. In 1810, one of their descent- one Mary A. Meserole- married a particularly important person in Greenpoint (and Queens) history- the yankee engineer Neziah Bliss, and this is where their home once stood.
Bliss, of course, was a superintendent of the Novelty Iron Works in Manhattan and was instrumental in laying out the early roads that connected post colonial Greenpoint with the larger towns of Brooklyn and Queens, and ne of the fathers of the industrial city which would emerge later in the century.
from nyc.gov
Greenpoint is generally defined as the district bounded by North 7 Street on the south, the East River on the West, Newton Creek on the north and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway on the east, corresponding approximately to the area of ward 17 in the 19 century. th
Once also known as Cherry Point, Greenpoint, got its name from the eponymous spit of grassy land that extended into the East River near the foot of what later became Freeman Street. The name came to designate all of the 17 ward when Greenpoint, Bushwick, and Williamsburg were joined to Brooklyn in 1854. At that time, the 17 ward was home to approximately 15,000 inhabitants. A sandy bluff, over one hundred feet high in some parts, overlooked the shoreline between Java and Milton Streets, but it was leveled before the middle of the 19 century for use as building material and landfill both in New York and locally. The original Greenpoint spit disappeared between 1855 and 1868 when the western half of the blocks along the once white sandy shoreline west of West Street were created by landfilling. During this period, the blocks west of Commerce Street between Ash and Eagle Streets were also created or in the process of being filled.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
By the late 19th century, and the first half of the 20th, this part of Brooklyn was defined by heavy industry and maritime interests. Vast agglutinations of what Dickens or Milton might have described as “dark satanic mills” lined the shore, until they were crowded out by the growing petrochemical industry. In the case of this locale, Kent Street that is, it was Jones’ Lumber Yard. The shot above is from a couple of blocks away near the remains of the Brooklyn Terminal Market around Noble Street complex, exhibited just for context.
also from nyc.gov
For Greenpointers in the first half of the 19 century, the waterfront was a place for both work and play. Before oil refineries lined the shore, the waters of Newtown Creek were ideal for boating, fishing and swimming. At the mouth of the creek, where it joins the East River, Pottery Beach, named for early pottery works that operated there, was a favorite place for swimming. Above the beach rose Pottery Hill, where spectators gathered to watch the start of yacht races up the East River. At other times, thousands lined both sides of the creek to watch oarsmen race their sculls from the Manhattan Avenue Bridge to the Penny Bridge at Meeker Avenue, two bridges that no longer exist.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Friends who grew up here warn me not to talk with people you might meet along the waterfront, lest I find out more about the ancient place than is desirable, and that the whole stretch of West Street was once a stupidly dangerous place to be at any time of day- but especially at night.
One buddy of mine, a highly corruptible italian irish hybrid employed by certain union interests, swears that the entirety of the East River waterfront in Greenpoint is haunted- “and I mean effin ghosts- bro- izz-all-fockt-up down there”. He describes odd shadows cast by impossible forms, and half imagined faces that appear in the flash of automobile headlamps.
Greenpoint is a very, very strange place- apparently.
and finally, also from nyc.gov
Another important shipbuilder of the time was John Englis of New York City, who established a ship yard on the Greenpoint river front between Java and Kent Streets. He manufactured some of the ships that were used in the blockade of the Confederate states during the Civil War; vessels for the China trade, and passenger steamers. Englis’ shipyard, established in 1850, endured until 1911. The Sneeden and Rowland shipyard, formed as a partnership between Thomas Fitch Rowland and Samuel Sneeden in 1859, was also located along the East River waterfront. The first contact awarded to Sneeden and Rowland was for the manufacture of the wrought-and cast-iron pipes, 7½ feet in diameter, to carry the water over the Highbridge Aqueduct of the Croton system. The partnership was dissolved in 1860, and Rowland reorganized the company, renaming it the Continental Works.
the very worm that gnaws…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Forays into those insidious malignities which can be found only along the storied cobbles of Greenpoint, a village of ancient days which stretches out from a long island into a tidal straight, have been committed by your humble narrator during the torrid months of summer. Blasted in the manner of some second world war set piece, the fire stricken area found along West Street fascinates, and reveals a centuries long industrial tale. This post isn’t about that though (the Greenpoint Terminal Market, that is), this is just one of those weird stories that people like to tell me.
The lumber yards and rope factories mentioned in the ubiquitous quotation below were located along this strip in the independent City of Brooklyn, in those halcyon days of the late 19th century.
from wikipedia
Greenpoint is the northernmost neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is bordered on the southwest by Williamsburg at the Bushwick inlet, on the southeast by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and East Williamsburg, on the north by Newtown Creek and Long Island City, Queens at the Pulaski Bridge, and on the west by the East River. Originally farmland (many of the farm owners’ family names, e.g., Meserole and Calyer, still name the streets), the residential core of Greenpoint was built on parcels divided during the 19th century, with rope factories and lumber yards lining the East River to the west, while the northeastern section along the Newtown Creek through East Williamsburg became an industrial maritime reach.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A transformative process, the elimination of these abandoned and tenantless structures- viewed from Manhattan as a drain on the tax base, and a magnetic location for the lower eschelons of Greenpoint Society to conjure deviltry and hooliganism’s, a pure waste of prime land- is under way. A few temporary tenants- mechanics and warehouse operations, artists and artisan studios might be found in certain structures- all will make way for development of private residential structures operated under the condominium or cooperative concepts. The transformation has already begun, at former pencil factories and iron foundries all along the shallow banks of the East River.
Greenpoint has always been all about real estate ultimately, all the way back to the beginning.
from wikipedia
Greenpoint was originally inhabited by Keskachauge (Keshaechqueren) Indians, a sub-tribe of the Lenape. Contemporary accounts describe it as remarkably verdant and beautiful, with Jack pine and oak forest, meadows, fresh water creeks and briny marshes. Water fowl and fish were abundant. The name originally referred to a small bluff of land jutting into the East River at what is now the westernmost end of Freeman Street, but eventually came to describe the whole peninsula.
In 1638 the Dutch West India Company negotiated the right to settle Brooklyn from the Lenape. The first recorded European settler of what is now Greenpoint was Dirck Volckertsen (Dutchified from Holgerssøn), a Norwegian immigrant who in 1645 built a one-and-a-half story farmhouse there with the help of two Dutch carpenters. In was in the contemporary Dutch style just west of what is now the intersection of Calyer St. and Franklin Street. There he planted orchards and raised crops, sheep and cattle. He was called Dirck de Noorman by the Dutch colonists of the region, Noorman being the Dutch word for “Norseman” or “Northman.” The creek which ran by his farmhouse became known as Norman Kill (Creek); it ran into a large salt marsh and was later filled in.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My purpose in coming here from the blessed hills of raven haired Astoria- for reasons connected with that name which must not be mentioned, and my attempts at its discovery- when described to a saturnine neighbor back in that ancient village elicited him to tell me to stay away from Brooklyn’s rusting shoreline.
The older man, an octogenarian at least, described to me an occasion in the 1960’s when business obligations brought him to West Street to receive a package which had been shipped to him from behind the Iron Curtain.
Already a major percentage of the local population by then, the local Poles had developed certain underground shipping methods which allowed them material and emotional egress to a distant and politically isolated homeland, and my neighbor had contracted with some of them to import certain goods from his native Czechoslovakia. His parcel was wholesome, of course, as he was a record producer who specialized in eastern european folk music and its contents consisted of taped recordings of hundreds of hours of choral singing and wild instrumentals, as performed by Roma musicians, which he planned to sell for use as office elevator Muzak. (you actually can’t make this stuff up- I love Astoria)
The ancient Czech, already pale and wan due to advanced age and fragile health, grew whiter still when he described something he saw happening on West Street.
from nytimes.com
Dirck Volckertsen, one of the early settlers, “was known as ‘Dirck the Norman’ despite being Scandinavian.” This also seems to have confounded a number of local historians. Actually, he was called “de Noorman” precisely because he was Scandinavian. Norman/Noorman means Norseman or Northman in Dutch.
Volckertsen’s 1645 house was probably not the first house in Greenpoint either. A group of settlers, mostly of Scandinavian origin, had already settled in the area (illegally, I might add) by the time the Dutch West India Company purchased the land in 1638. Volckertsen did not secure legal title until 1645, when he may have decided to build a more substantial dwelling.
In addition, although it is not improbable that Greenpoint received its name because of its verdant appearance when viewed from the East River, the Dutch version was Hout Hoek, or Wood Point, which must have been translated into Greenpoint at a later date.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was late in the day he said, nearly 7 p.m. during the late summer, and as any resident of Greenpoint or Long Island City knows- a bright time of high contrast, deep shadows, and crimson glare typifies the setting as that thermonuclear eye of god itself dips beyond the shield wall of that Shining City across the river of Sound.
The old man said that he saw something…
…he pretends that his english is lacking to avoid describing it in detail at this point in his telling…
…reach out of a sewer , grab at and seize upon a sleeping dog.
My witness describes the appendage as a greasy black sinewy thing with the texture of a burnt sausage, yet possessed of a hideous strength which allowed it to drag the hapless canine into the sewer and under the street. When pressed, he just says the word “vodník” to describe it and crosses himself.
Shaken by the display, my Czech informant iterates that he heard the dogs panicked barking abruptly stop, and that he has never returned to Greenpoint in all the decades since that day.
He later contacted one of the stout Slavs – via telephone- who oversaw the clandestine network that ran mail, packages, and comestibles between the Soviet world and New York City and offered an insignificant sum to deliver the present and all future shipments to my aged friends Astoria offices – an arrangement which lasted well unto the end of the Cold War and pleased both parties.
Greenpoint is a very, very strange place- apparently.
from nycgovparks.org
The native Keshaechqueren originally inhabited this part of Brooklyn. Dutch mercantilists and farmers, arriving in 1638, rapidly developed it into a hub of seafaring commerce. In the 1850s, the community swelled with new residents, of primarily Irish and English descent, when two ferry lines began regularly scheduled runs from the Greenpoint coastline to Manhattan’s East Side. With the almost simultaneous addition of big businesses like the shipbuilding firm Continental Iron Works and fuel provider Astral Oil Works, Greenpoint began to compete on a national level with older naval foundries in Boston and Norfolk.
From the decades following the Civil War through the 20th century, Greenpoint’s population has steadily grown. In the early 1950s, the community began to suffer strain as several waves of immigration met with limited economic opportunities in the neighborhood.
Superfund me
– photo by Mitch Waxman
LO, BEHOLD, and TREMBLE… for the Newtown Pentacle is back in session…
Over several of the last few years, agents and officials of the Federal Government have conducted a strange and secretive investigation into certain conditions within and around the ancient New York waterway called the Newtown Creek.
The public first learned of it in 2009, when a vast series of public meetings and pronouncements were offered by agents of the Environmental Protection Agency which confirmed and introduced the news that the ancient corridor of industry and forbidden history called the Newtown Creek was being considered for inclusion on the Federal Superfund list.
This listing would bestow extraordinary powers over the waterway, and ultimate authority, to the Federal Government. Effectively, the 3.8 mile long border of Brooklyn and Queens with its enormous number of crumbling bulkheads, worm eaten piers, and supposedly empty warehouses are now the responsibility of the G-Men. Uninquiring souls let the occurrence pass as one of the major developments in a spasmodic war on environmental pollution and the toxic legacy of the industrial revolution.
from epa.gov
Release date: 09/27/2010
Contact Information: John Senn (212) 637-3667, senn.john@epa.gov
(New York, N.Y.) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today added Newtown Creek in New York City to its Superfund National Priorities List of the country’s most hazardous waste sites. The final listing will allow EPA to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the creek to determine what remedial actions need to be implemented. Various sediment and surface water samples have been taken along the creek. Potentially harmful contaminants such as pesticides, metals and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have been detected in Newtown Creek along with volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOCs are potentially harmful contaminants that can easily evaporate into the air.
“The toxic pollution in Newtown Creek is more than a century in the making. EPA is placing Newtown Creek on the Superfund list to ensure the creek receives a thorough cleanup,” said EPA Regional Administrator Judith Enck. “Newtown Creek is a key urban waterway, which provides recreational and economic resources to many communities. Throughout the investigation and cleanup, we will work closely with the communities along the creek to achieve a revitalization of this heavily-contaminated urban waterway.”
EPA proposed Newtown Creek be added to the Superfund NPL list in September 2009. EPA received and considered public comments on its proposal before making its final decision.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On Monday the 27th of September in this year of 2010, the EPA announced the Superfund listing of Newtown Creek would be moving forward.
Interesting coincidences abound for this date:
The first Ford Model T rolled off the assembly line in 1908 in Detroit, Einstein had his E=MC2 formula published for the first time in 1905, Crete fell to the Turks in 1669, and the Jesuits were granted a Papal charter in 1540. The Warren Commission released its report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1964, the Ottoman Siege of Vienna began in 1529, the Taliban captured Kabul in 1996, and Thomas Nast was born in 1840.
It is also 110 years and 19 days after this report appeared in the NY Times, and some 122 years and 11 days since this report appeared in the same publication.
also from epa.gov
EPA had previously responded to requests by members of Congress to evaluate specific sites along Newtown Creek by publishing a September 2007 report that contained a review of past and ongoing work being conducted to address the Greenpoint oil spill as well as recommendations regarding future work to assist with the spill response. The state of New York referred the site to EPA due to the complex nature of the contamination in the creek. EPA’s Superfund study and cleanup are expected to focus on the sediments in the creek and on identifying and addressing sources of pollution that continue to contribute to the contamination.
Newtown Creek is part of the core area of the New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary, which has been designated by EPA as an “estuary of national significance.” Despite the ongoing pollution problems, some residents currently use the creek for recreational purposes such as kayaking, while others eat the fish they catch from the creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
According to statements rendered by Government representatives, the actual work on the remediation project is not scheduled to begin in earnest for several months (if not years), as a period of further study and evaluation of the endemic situation before the final formulation of their plans to ferret out and eradicate all that there is which may be buried down there.
The government plans on removing hundreds of metric tons of the sediment which lines the bottom of the Newtown Creek. Privileged to have been included on the conference call during which EPA announced their decision to the third estate, your humble narrator queried EPA personnel as to the methodology of its removal (terrestrial industries versus maritime) and whether they had determined a probable destination for the contaminant laced material they intend to dredge out.
Both questions seemed to have been unexpected, and they reported that answers will be readily uncovered when the final action plan is unveiled sometime in the near future.
additionally, from epa.gov
In the mid -1800s, the area adjacent to the 3.8-mile Newtown Creek was one of the busiest hubs of industrial activity in New York City. More than 50 industrial facilities were located along its banks, including oil refineries, petrochemical plants, fertilizer and glue factories, sawmills, and lumber and coal yards. The creek was crowded with commercial vessels, including large boats bringing in raw materials and fuel and taking out oil, chemicals and metals. In addition to the industrial pollution that resulted from all of this activity, the city began dumping raw sewage directly into the water in 1856. During World War II, the creek was one of the busiest ports in the nation. Some factories and facilities still operate along it, and various adjacent contaminated sites have contributed to its contamination. Today, as a result of its industrial history, including countless spills, Newtown Creek is badly polluted.
In the early 1990s, New York State declared that Newtown Creek was not meeting water quality standards under the Clean Water Act. Since then, a number of government-sponsored cleanups of the creek have taken place. The New York City Department of Environmental Protection has sampled sediment and surface water at a number of locations along the creek since 1980. In early 2009, EPA sampled the sediment throughout the length of Newtown Creek and its tributaries. EPA will review existing information about Newtown Creek to develop a plan for further investigation.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The professional press also on the call seemed more interested in the Gowanus Canal, how the Mayor felt about the announcement, and grew fixated on the cost of the cleanup effort. EPA clearly spelt out that its budgeting process has barely begun, and they can neither supply a final cost estimate or time table at this early date. This is actually the logical course, as the secrets of the Newtown Creek must- as always- bubble up and reveal themselves to those who stare deeply into its occluded depths.
And, in their own time, all the poisons in the mud will leach out.
and also, from epa.gov
EPA conducted an Expanded Site Investigation (ESI) of Newtown Creek in 2009 as part of the Hazard Ranking System scoring process for NPL listing under Superfund. Based on the ESI, which was focused on Newtown Creek itself and not its tributaries, EPA concluded that metals, volatile organic compounds, and semi-volatile organic compounds (including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and polychlorinated biphenyls) were present in Creek sediments at elevated concentrations. The variety and distribution of the detected contaminants suggests that they originated from a variety of sources. Previous environmental investigations of Newtown Creek, or specific portions of the Creek, also disclosed that sediments in Newtown Creek are contaminated by a wide variety of hazardous substances. Environmental investigations of upland parcels adjacent to or nearby the Creek have disclosed contamination of those parcels by hazardous substances similar to hazardous substances found in sediments in Newtown Creek.
Project Firebox 11
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This soldier of the realm is found along the hoary streets of Greenpoint in Brooklyn, specifically the corner of Leonard and Bayard streets. Having suffered the attentions of local vandals and inopportune traffic collisions for much of its long reign, this watchtower of the FDNY is stalwart in its mission. One wonders if it took up its position in the ancient time when Bayard was known as Sandford Street, and Leonard as Third Street?
ps- postings will be a bit sporadic over the next few days, your humble narrator is a bit burned out again, and requires a little break. There still will be posts coming your way through the Labor Day holiday, but they’ll be shorties- a few more “Project Firebox” and a couple of things I’ve noticed that aren’t earth shattering but interesting nevertheless. A full schedule of damned revelations and hellish probings will resume after said holiday. I’ll be roaming around the neighborhood, however, so if there’s anything crazy going on- you can always contact me here or just leave a comment. All comments are held back from immediate posting for review of course, so if its something you don’t want to disseminate to everyone, mention it at the top of the missive.
Look forward to updates on the St. Michael’s ritual site, which I haven’t mentioned for a while, but which has been monitored after each full moon. There’s also a trip through Greenpoint in the works, and a chance for you- lords and ladies- to get tickets for a boat ride up the Creek in October . More to come, promise.
wonderful epics of a nameless city
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is not the world you know, this unmentioned and currently undefended border between Brooklyn and Queens, where the requiescant waters of the Newtown Creek gurgle and splash. Beyond the Pulaski Bridge- where an observable and otherworldly colour stains animal, and structure, and vegetable- the heavy industries which conspire to sustain the shining city of Manhattan spread out under the Newtown sun.
from nycedc.com
The Newtown Creek according to the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) had a listing of 26 piers with a total of 8,483 feet of berthing space. However, only 16 piers with a total of 4,986 feet of berthing space are in use by 12 firms. Furthermore, six firms are using their 1,952 feet of pier berthing space and waterfront facilities occasionally only. The waterfront activity is primarily for ship and barge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Along its path, the bulkheaded shorelines of the Newtown Creek reveal the rotted timber and risible decay associated with exposure to the poisons and refuse of the vast human hive, and its associated infestations. The waters have been observed, personally, to host a surprising variety of life forms- including a dizzying array of non vertebrates. Within the cemented and artificial shores, internal voids and long abandoned pipelines shelter teeming populations of rodent forms, and unguessable possibilities present themselves when discussing what else may be hiding down there, in flooded cellar and forgotten basement.
from wikipedia
The creek begins near the intersection of 47th Street and Grand Avenue on the Brooklyn-Queens border 40°43′06″N 73°55′27″W at the intersection of the East Branch and English Kills. It empties into the East River at 40°44′14″N 73°57′40″W (2nd Street and 54th Avenue in Long Island City) opposite Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan at 26th Street. Its waterfront, and that of its tributaries Dutch Kills, Whale Creek, Maspeth Creek and English Kills, are heavily industrialized.
The creek has no natural waterflows. Its outgoing flow of 14,000 million gallons/year consists of combined sewer overflow, urban runoff, raw domestic sewage, and industrial wastewater. Being estuarine, the creek is largely stagnant. Since there is no current in the creek, sludge has congealed into a 15-foot thick layer of “black mayonnaise” on the creek bed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just after passing the yawning mouth of the malign Dutch Kills, one encounters a scrap metal operation, which operates a car shredding operation. The great mill utilizes the “Newtown Creek Dock” and is owned and operated by the Hugo Neu Schnitzer East Co.
In a nutshell, the way that things work is:
Hugo Neu Schnitzer East Co. (HNSEC from this point) receives the metal glass and plastic collected by the DSNY and private contractors at its Hunts Point bulkheads in the Bronx, New Jersey, and Brooklyn…
- HNSEC then barges certain materials to Newtown Creek, where bulk metal is separated from the less valuable plastic and virtually worthless glass.
- A preliminary sorting of plastic and glass is performed, while the bulk metal is loaded onto barges.
- The metals are shipped by barge to other facilities, and offered for sale on the worldwide commodities markets.
According to those principalities who authored and designed this system, it reduces the per ton cost of processing the waste stream as well as reducing the reliance on automotive conveyance for it and nourishes the maritime industry.
from a nytimes.com article of 2004
One of the toughest challenges with recycling has always been finding markets for the recycled goods, whose resale can then help defray the costs of the program. In announcing a 20-year recycling contract yesterday, the Bloomberg administration said it had solved that problem by encouraging a company to find those markets.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As is the way of things, Hugo Neu merged with Sim Group in 2005, and formed one of the largest recycling conglomerates in the world. According to our friends at Habitatmap, whose stout adherence to the scientific method and stalwart advocacy of the unvarnished truth has both terrified and impressed your humble narrator, the composite company- SimsMetal- is the largest single source of air pollution to be found along the modern Newtown Creek.
from simsmm.com
Sims Metal Management was originally established in 1917 by Albert Sims, a Sydney-based recycled metals dealer. The business was incorporated as Albert G. Sims Limited in 1928 and was renamed Simsmetal Limited in 1968.
In 1970, it merged with Consolidated Metal Products Limited and the merged ASX-listed company was named Sims Consolidated Limited. In 1979, Sims Consolidated Limited was acquired by Peko-Wallsend Limited and subsequently delisted. Sims Consolidated Limited was then acquired by North Limited (previously known as North Broken Hill Holdings Limited, and then North Broken Hill Peko Limited) in 1988. In 1989, North Limited sold the business to Elders Resources NZFP Limited, a diversified resources company.
In 1990, Carter Holt Harvey Limited made a successful takeover bid for Elders Resources NZFP Limited and divested that company’s non-forestry businesses, which included Sims. Sims changed its name to Simsmetal Limited in 1990 and relisted on the ASX in 1991. Simsmetal Limited changed its name to Sims Group Limited in 2003.
Sims Metal Management’s corporate strategy includes leading industry consolidation through acquisitions. Over a number of years, with experience gained from numerous international acquisitions, Sims Metal Management has established strict acquisition criteria. The acquisition criteria require that any acquisition target holds the number one or number two market position, delivers access to domestic and international customers, offers a sound platform for future growth and, above all else, will likely enhance shareholder value. The acquisition criteria have underpinned Sims Metal Management’s strong track record of international expansion.
In October 2005, Sims Group Limited merged with the recycling businesses of Hugo Neu Corporation, a privately owned U.S. corporation. The merger created a new ASX listed company named Sims Group Limited, which is traded under the ASX code “SGM.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I am told by knowledgeable sources that much of this scrap metal will eventually find its way to the mercantile courts of far away Asia, with the bulk of it headed to the smokestacks of China. This is less recycling and waste disposal than it is mining, if one actually takes a step back and looks at it.
from wikipedia
The scrap industry contributed $65 billion in 2006 and is one of the few contributing positively to the U.S. balance of trade, exporting $15.7 billion in scrap commodities in 2006. This imbalance of trade has resulted in rising scrap prices during 2007 and 2008 within the United States.[2] Scrap recycling also helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and conserves energy and natural resources. For example, scrap recycling diverts 145,000,000 short tons (129,464,286 long tons; 131,541,787 t) of materials away from landfills. Recycled scrap is a raw material feedstock for 2 out of 3 pounds of steel made in the U.S., for 60% of the metals and alloys produced in the U.S., for more than 50% of the U.S. paper industry’s needs, and for 33% of U.S. aluminum. Recycled scrap helps keep air and water cleaner by removing potentially hazardous materials and keeping them out of landfills.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Frequently observed on the East River, these barges of shredded steel and metal maintain a regular schedule back and forth from the Newtown Creek. This particular barge is the 886 gross ton Cape Lucy, a 146 foot long freight vessel operated by the Inland Barge Corporation, and constructed by Bethlehem Steel in 1953.
Always fascinated by minutia, your humble narrator wonders if this barge is a “leave behind” from the construction of the Pulaski Bridge by the self same Bethlehem Steel in 1953.
from nyc.gov
In 1881, the New York City Department of Street Cleaning was created in response to the public uproar over litter-lined streets and disorganized garbage collection. Originally called the Department of Street Cleaning, the agency took over waste responsibilities from the New York City Police Department. In 1933, the name was changed to the Department of Sanitation.
Throughout the 1880’s, 75% of NYC’s waste was dumped into the Atlantic Ocean. In 1895, Commissioner George Waring instituted a waste management plan that eliminated ocean dumping and mandated recycling. Household waste was separated into three categories: food waste, which was steamed and compressed to eventually produce grease (for soap products) and fertilizer; rubbish, from which paper and other marketable materials were salvaged; and ash, which along with the nonsalable rubbish was landfilled. The Police Department, under the direction of its Commissioner, Theodore Roosevelt, enforced the recycling law.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Heavy equipment and esoteric machinery is always on display at this location, and it attracts no small amount of attention from area photographic enthusiasts. Proximity to the Newtown Creek Waste Water Treatment Plant Nature Walk, with its wide open sight lines and panoramic scope, no doubt aids in the fame of this place. These shots, however, were captured from onboard a boat which was plying the volatile surface of the Newtown Creek.
from wikipedia
Critics dispute the net economic and environmental benefits of recycling over its costs, and suggest that proponents of recycling often make matters worse and suffer from confirmation bias. Specifically, critics argue that the costs and energy used in collection and transportation detract from (and outweigh) the costs and energy saved in the production process; also that the jobs produced by the recycling industry can be a poor trade for the jobs lost in logging, mining, and other industries associated with virgin production; and that materials such as paper pulp can only be recycled a few times before material degradation prevents further recycling. Proponents of recycling dispute each of these claims, and the validity of arguments from both sides has led to enduring controversy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Weirdly organic, the Sennebogen hydraulic loaders which effortlessly move the scrap from land to barge seem to be a favored item for the scrap industry to purchase (and Sims Metal in particular), valued for its mechanical advantages and engineering accumen. Sennebogen, like the fabled Steinway clan which has left such an indelible stamp on the surrounding communities, is a German corporation operated by a single family and founded by an enigmatic sire.
from sennebogen-na.com
RICHMOND, CA – The existing pedestal crane at the 18-acre Sims Metal Management scrap metal yard in Richmond, California had become a bit of a production liability for Jesse Garcia, Sims NW Equipment Manager. Repairs to the pedestal crane were difficult and Garcia often found himself having to lease replacement equipment to keep up production on the yard’s shear when the crane went down. When it came time to replace the crane, Garcia chose a SENNEBOGEN 840 R special, a purpose-built material handler that gives him the mobility and problem-free reliability and uptime he was seeking.
“Metal on metal”
“A scrap yard is a tough environment – it’s constant metal on metal. You need dependable equipment that is built for this application. SENNEBOGEN machines are purpose-built for handling scrap metal, they’re not just retrofitted excavators,” says Garcia. “Our tracked SENNEBOGEN 840 R special is perfect for this application. We can move it in and out for quick, easy maintenance, and should the shear go down, we can utilize it elsewhere in the yard.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Forgotten by modernity, even your humble narrator had to consult with one of the “Rabbi’s” to double confirm that this dock was originally the location of the “Manure Dock”, where Manhattan’s human waste products, animal carcasses, and organic waste would be barged to.
Journalists of the era referred to it as the “Offal dock“.
Some of the redolant cargo would be shipped untreated to points East by the LIRR to be utilized as fertilizer on the bountiful farms which once typified the eastern counties, and some percentage of it was processed by local commercial rendering operations owned by the likes of Conrad Wessel and Peter Cooper who saw the rotting filth as a raw material for various food products- aspic, isenglass, and gelatin amongst others. The remnants of that process, which involved the usage of high pressure steam and other state of the art victorian technologies, were further processed into glues, waxes, and potent acids.
from wikipedia
Where a cargo is coarser in size than minerals, commonly for scrap metal, then an orange-peel grab may be used instead of a shell. These have six or eight segments of “peel” independently hinged around a central core. They are better able to grab at an uneven load, rather than just scooping at small pieces. If the load is made of long thin pieces, a grab may also be able to carry far more than a single “grabful” at one time.
Although orange-peel grabs may be hung from cables on a jib, they’re also commonly mounted directly onto a jib. This is more suitable for grabbing at awkward loads that might otherwise tend to tip a hanging grab over. They may also use hydraulics to control the segments rather than weight and hoist cables.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The concept of recycling is nothing new, here in the megalopolis of New York, and then as now- it was the Newtown Creek and its surrounding communities that absorbed and absolved Manhattan’s sins. The stink, as reported in the late 19th century, that arose from this section of the Creek was legendary even to those hardened by close quartered tenement conditions and the press of an unventilated and crowded city which counted its draft animals in the hundreds of thousands.
Imagine a hot August day in Manhattan, 100 years ago, and that same day… on a slick of oily water some 4 miles long that defined the undefended border between the cities of Long Island City, Newtown, Greenpoint, Bushwick, and Williamsburg.
Pictured above is the DonJon towing Tug Peter Andrew, part of the DonJon Marine fleet that handles the metal and other recyclables trade from Newtown Creek to and from the Newtown Creek to the other links in the waste stream scattered about the New York Harbor archipelago. Photo is from last year, and was shot on the East River.
from donjon.com
Donjon Marine Co., Inc. offers the marine community full-service solutions to meet your every need in the field of marine salvage, dredging, material recycling and related services. Founded in 1964 by Mr. J. Arnold Witte, Donjon’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Donjon Marine’s principal business activities were marine salvage, marine transportation, and related services. Today Donjon Marine is a true provider of multifaceted marine services. Donjon’s controlled expansion into related businesses such as dredging, ferrous and non-ferrous recycling and heavy lift services are a natural progression, paralleling our record of solid technical and cost-effective performance.
The Newtown Pentacle 