Archive for the ‘Metropolitan Avenue Bridge’ Category
perpetually ajar
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent serendipity found your humble narrator onboard a vessel plying the languid waters of the Newtown Creek. This particular adventure was part of a larger and laudable effort which will be the subject of a posting later in the week, but urgent demands and unavoidable deadlines preclude discussion of the outing at this point. Instead, one is anxious to share the scenic wonders and hidden landscape of this water body that defines the currently undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens.
Captured in the heart of DUMABO (Down Under the Metropolitan Avenue Bridge), the shot above depicts the far off and omnipresent Sapphire Megalith rising over industrial Brooklyn and framed by the Metropolitan Avenue Bridge while opening at English Kill.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The self same Megalith again provides geographic context for the scene, and the thrice damned Kosciuszko Bridge and Calvary Cemetery occupy the foreground.
To the right is the Phelps Dodge site, and to the left is found the lurking fear and that rampant darkness which lurks on the Brooklyn side of DUKBO (Down Under the Kosciuszko Bridge Onramp).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the shot above, gaze in wonder at the skyline of the Shining City itself, as framed by the titan National Grid tanks and the myriad works of infrastructure arrayed across the Brooklyn flood plain. Inextricably linked, the heavy industries and energy installations along the Newtown Creek allow the Shining City to maintain the facade of assumptions which Manhattanites prefer to believe about this place where aspirant and realist metaphors clash.
More, on why exactly I was on this boat, will be forthcoming. Apologies for brevity and obfuscation.
inaccessible locality
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It would be nice to own a piece of Newtown Creek real estate, don’t you think? I know this sounds like an odd dream of mine, but I’d really love to buy some waterfront parcel were I financially capable. The whole lot would be fairly feral after a short time, of course, except for the teams of archaeologists I’d invite to dig there for treasure. Captain Kidd is supposed to have buried a chest of pirate booty somewhere on the Brooklyn side, don’t you know?
The creek is the receptacle for all the refuse from the sewers, factories, and slaughter-houses of the east of Brooklyn; constant deposits are therefore forming in it, especially at the upper end, from these causes and from the caving in of the unprotected banks, which consist of marsh mud. To remedy this difficulty, annual dredging will be needed until the banks are protected by bulkheads throughout their whole length. The commerce of the creek is so large that this improvement should be pushed at least 3 mile.s up from the mouth as soon as possible, so that vessels drawing 20 to 23 feet may pass in and out of the creek with full cargoes at or near low water.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Wouldn’t live there, of course, but there would be a public dock. Assuming that a multi million dollar property like this was within my reach, I’d probably have enough left over for one of those flat bottom boats with the big propellor on the back that they use in the swamps of Florida and Louisiana to hunt gators. Of course, I can’t afford the nice zoom lens that I covet, and that’s just a couple thousand, so I can just forget about owning a valuable industrial bulkhead. The last people who let this land go cheap were the aboriginal Lenape, and they were largely wiped out by Smallpox by the 1680’s.
from “Queens Borough, New York City, 1910-1920; the borough of homes and industry, a descriptive and illustrated book setting forth its wonderful growth and development in commerce, industry and homes during the past ten years … a prediction of even greater growth during the next ten years … and a statement of its many advantages, attractions and possibilities as a section wherein to live, to work and to succeed” at Archive.org
Some further idea of the immense commerce of this waterway can be obtained from the figures compiled by the Department of Plant and Structures of New York City, which show that during the year 1918, 59,389 boats passed through the Vernon Avenue Bridge, 56,735 passed through the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge, 27,000 through the Meeker Street Bridge and 5,007 through the Grand Street Bridge.
Steamers schooners and unrigged vessels are the principal freight carriers. Their drafts range from 5^ to 20 feet; 2 to 19 feet; 2 to 18 feet respectively. Some steamers of still larger draft lighter in their cargoes.
Among the larger plants on the Queens shore of Newtown Creek are the National Sugar Refining Company, Nichols Copper Company, National Enameling and Stamping Company, General Chemical Company, Standard Oil Refineries. American Agricultural Chemical Company, and the Wrigley Chewing Gum Company.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s a stupid aspiration, and even dumber to think that I’d just let scholars “have at the place”. What could possibly be learned by turning over a few shovels of dirt in this place, where the only tale to tell is about a certain oil spill or endemic pollution? What else has ever happened here?
from junipercivic.com
On September 15, 1776, General Lord Howe decided to attack Manhattan Island. He ordered three Ships of War to sail up the North River and get the American’s attention while he launched his entire First Division in flatboats against Kips Bay. The flatboats were embarked from the head of Newtown Creek as General Lord Howe and General Warren watched from the Sackett-Clinton House (later Gov. DeWitt Clinton’s mansion) in Maspeth. The Americans on Manhattan Island under General George Washington made their retreat to Harlem and escaped the British attack.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Can you imagine how cool it would be to restore just a single section of the Newtown Creek to its natural state? To see the salt marsh grasses rippling in the wind, and stout trees sprouting, beneath the golden rays of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself? What could possibly go wrong with that?
from 1901’s “Forest and stream” Volume 57- By William A. Bruette, courtesy google books
Mosquitoes Galore
Lieutenant Schwatka’s experience with mosquitoes reminds me. Years ago I crossed the Newtown salt meadows on a horse car. It was from a point where Williamsburg left off and Newtown then called Maspeth began. Both are now included in Greater New York. The sun had set and in the twilight from the surface of the meadows could be seen innumerable coils of smoke each one as clearly defined and separate as if emanating from the dying embers of a redman’s camp fire.
First would the dark mass of smoke leave the ground in a slender spiral thread to broaden out as it ascended keeping up the spiral twining of the cloud.
This phenomenon could be seen upon the entire stretch of meadow ahead of us. It was a curious and interesting sight to watch those thousands of small camp fires giving forth their spiral canopies of smoke.
The air had been still and quiet and the smoke ascended slowly and gracefully from the grass. Suddenly a gust of wind passed over the meadows blowing toward us and instantly the spiral harmony of the situation was changed into a grayish atmosphere and as it reached the open car in which I sat a realization that we were looking at spiral clouds of mosquitoes arising from the grass instead of smoke was forcibly thrust upon myself and the well filled car of passengers.
The woodwork of the car the inside of the roof the backs of the seats the hats and clothing of the passengers instantly assumed a dark gray color. The horses were covered from head to foot and became almost unmanageable The car became as some one once remarked all bustle and confusion.
While the passengers with handkerchiefs whipped the mosquitoes from their necks and faces the driver urged the frantic horses to their utmost speed and after a race of about ten minutes we emerged from the meadows and spent the remainder of the trip gradually getting rid of the mosquitoes that were traveling in our car.
I know nothing about Alaska mosquitoes but if they are as thick every summer’s day in Alaska as they were that particular evening twenty years agp on the Newtown Creek meadows then I wonder how grizzly bears moose or any other furred animals can live in Alaska and thrive
-Charles Cristadoro
warnings and prophecies
2011’s Greatest Hits:
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In January of 2011, while walking along in knee deep snow, your humble narrator happened across this enigmatic and somehow familiar item sitting in a drift at the NYC S.E.M./Signals Street Light Yard of the DOT at 37th avenue near the Sunnyside and Astoria border. It looked familiar to me, but I didn’t recognize it for what it was until sharp eyed reader TJ Connick suggested that this might be the long missing Light Stanchion which once adorned the Queensboro Bridge’s Manhattan landing.
These two posts: “an odd impulse“, and “wisdom of crowds” discuss the discovery and identification in some detail.
Some good news about this iconic piece of Queens history will be forthcoming, but I’ve been asked to keep it quiet for the moment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In February of 2011, “Vapour Soaked” presented a startling concurrence of comparitive detail for the discerning viewer, when the shot above was presented in contrast with a 1920’s shot from The Newtown Creek industrial district of New York City By Merchants’ Association of New York. Industrial Bureau, 1921″, (courtesy Google Books).
Admittedly, not quite as earth shaking as January’s news, but cool nevertheless. I really like these “now and then” shots, expect more of the same to come your way in the future.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In March of 2011, “first, Calvary” discussed the epic (for me) quest to find a proverbial “needle in a haystack” within First Calvary Cemetery- the grave of its very first interment, an Irish woman named Esther Ennis who died in 1848. I have spent an enormous amount of time searching for this spot, where Dagger John Hughes first consecrated the soil of Newtown.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In April of 2011, the world lost one of its best people and my official “partner in crime”, Bernard Ente.
He was ill for awhile, but asked me to keep the severity of things quiet. He passed in the beginning of April, and one of the last requests he made of me (along with “taking care” of certain people) was to continue what he had started along the Newtown Creek and all around NY Harbor.
This was when I had to step forward, up my game, and attempt to fill a pair of gargantuan boots. Frankly, I’m not even half of who he was, but I’m trying. That’s when I officially stepped forward and began introducing myself as a representative of Newtown Creek Alliance, and joined the Working Harbor Committee– two organizations which Bernie was committed to. I’m still trying to wrap my head around his loss.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In May of 2011, while attempting to come to terms with my new roles in both organizations, it was decided that a fitting tribute to our fallen comrade would be the continuance of his annual “Newtown Creek Cruises” and the date of May 21 was set for the event. An incredible learning experience, the success of the voyage would not have been possible without the tutelage of WHC’s John Doswell and Meg Black, NCA’s Katie Schmid, or especially the aid of “Our Lady of the Pentacle” and the Newtown Pentacle’s stalwart far eastern correspondent: Armstrong.
Funny moments from during this period included the question “Whom do you call to get a drawbridge in NYC to open for you?”.
During this time, I also became involved with Forgotten-NY’s Kevin Walsh and Greater Astoria Historical Society’s Richard Melnick and their ambitious schedule of historical tours.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In June of 2011, the earliest Newtown Creek Chemical Factory which I’ve been able to find in the historical record, so far, was explored in the post “lined with sorrow“- describing “the Bushwick Chemical Works of M. Kalbfleisch & Sons”.
Additionally, my “Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show” was presented to a sold out and standing room only crowd at the Greater Astoria Historical Society.
This was also the beginning of a period which has persisted all year- in which my efforts of behalf of the various organizations and political causes which I’m advocating for had reduced my output to a mere 15 or fewer postings a month.
All attempts are underway to remedy this situation in 2012, and apologies are offered.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In July of 2011, another Newtown Creek boat tour was conducted, this time for the Metropolitan Water Alliance’s “City of Water Day”. The “Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show” was also performed at the Admiral’s House for a packed room.
Additionally, my so called “Grand Walk” was presented in six postings. This was an attempt to follow a 19th century journey from the Bloody Sixth Ward, Manhattan’s notorious Five Points District, to Calvary Cemetery in Queens. Once, this would have been a straightforward endeavor involving minimal connections of Trolley and Ferry, but today one just has to walk. These were certainly not terribly popular posts, but are noteworthy for the hidden and occluded horde of forgotten New York history which they carry.
From the last of these posts, titled “suitable apparatus“- “As the redolent cargo of my camera card revealed- this “Grand Walk”, a panic induced marathon which carried your humble narrator across the East River from St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in Manhattan into Williamsburg and up Grand Street to Maspeth and the baroque intrigues of the Newtown Creek– wound down into it’s final steps on Laurel Hill Blvd.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In August of 2011, “the dark moor” presented intriguing aerial views of the Newtown Creek Watershed, and “sinister exultation” shared the incredible sight of an Amtrak train on fire at the Hunters Point Avenue station in Long Island City. “revel and chaff” explored the aftermath of Hurricane Irene in LIC’s Zone A, and an extraordinary small boat journey around Dutch Kills was detailed in: “ponderous and forbidding“, “ethereal character“, “pillars and niches“, and “another aperture“.
This was an incredible month.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In September of 2011, a posting called “uncommented masonry” offered this declaration:
” By 1915, there approximately 40,000 automotive trucks plying the streets of New York City.
What’s surprising is that 25% of them were electric.
Lords and ladies of Newtown, I present to you the last mortal remains of the General Electric Vehicle Company, 30-28 Starr Avenue, Long Island City– manufacturer of a substantial number of those electrical trucks.”
I’m particularly fond of this post, as this was a wholly forgotten moment of Newtown Creek and industrial history which I was able to reveal. Organically born, it was discovered in the course of other research, and I believed at the time that it was going to be the biggest story that I would present all year about Blissville.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In October of 2011, a trio of Newtown Creek Tours (two public and one for educators) were accomplished. The public tours were full to capacity, as were the Open House New York tours I conducted on the 15th and 16th of that Month. Also, the Metropolitan Water Alliance invited me to photograph their “Parade of Boats” on October 11th, and I got the shot below of the FDNY Fireboat 343.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In November of 2011, a visit to Lovecraft Country in Brooklyn was described in “frightful pull“, and “vague stones and symbols” came pretty close to answering certain mysteries associated with the sky flung Miller Building found at the foot of the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge in Brooklyn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A December 2011 post titled “An Oil spill… in Queens” broke the news that petroleum products are seeping out of the bulkheads of Newtown Creek, this time along the Northern shoreline, which lies in the Queens neighborhood of Blissville.
Rest assured that your Newtown Pentacle is on top of the story of “the Blissville Oil Spill”, lords and ladies of Newtown, and will bring you breaking news as it develops in 2012.
into the world
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sleep has not come easily for your humble narrator of late, and dreaming offers little nepenthe. Days and nights it would seem, are consumed with images of the dread Newtown Creek and its insalubrious valley. English Kills in particular, the logical paramount of the waterway and the heart of darkness itself, draws my attention.
It is important to mention here that I am speaking from a personal point of view in this post and not espousing a majority opinion or policy of any of the “groups” with which the Newtown Pentacle has become affiliated. There are those I work for, work with, or work for me- who might not agree with statements made in this post offered to stimulate discussion on “common wisdom”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A decision which proved controversial this summer, on several Newtown Creek boat tours, was my demand that we no longer cross the Metropolitan Avenue Bridge with the general public on board. This is a deviation from prior years, but the prurient interest and wonderment of viewing the place is far outweighed by the risk posed to those who are exposed to its poisons. If you want to go back there, there are other options and other parties who will take you. Often it will be in a small vessel, often a kayak. Which is the point of this missive.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned, last week your humble narrator met with that staff of Manhattan doctors which have long maintained my delicate equilibrium. One of the topics of examination which the white coat crowd brought forward to me was the environmental exposure which my activities along the Creek brings, the long term consequences of same, and certain laboratory testing which they would like me to undergo due to my walking its banks. Paradoxically, certain interests involved in the ongoing story of the Newtown Creek held me to task for statements about water quality as related to recreational boating, fearing that my opinions might harm their particular interests and provide fuel for their critics in officialdom.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Everybody’s friends at EPA are still in the process of discovering all that there may be which is buried down there, and until the results of their analysis are revealed (which will be nearly a decade from now)– no hard and fast statement about the water quality can be considered reliable or sound. Apocrypha and incomplete discoveries, however, suggest that a witch’s brew of worst case scenarios are to be found all along the Creek- and especially in the section of English Kills which lies beyond DUMABO (Down Under the Metropolitan Avenue Bridge).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The “numbers” which most use to discuss water quality in this place are relative to the presence of microscopic entities like the enterococcus, bacterial counts of which are calculated relative to recent rain events and so called “outfalls”. Famously, the rule in most of NY harbor is to wait 72 hours after it rains before swimming or boating because of a “high count”, and the folks at DEP calculate the success of their endeavors based on an accounting of the population of this particular microbial specie (a Federal Standard, they used to use Fecal Coliform). Virii and Prions are neither tested for, nor counted.
When a beach is closed, its usually because “the count” is high, for instance. The difference to the surrounding waters which Newtown Creek presents is that sewer borne bacteria are merely the tip of the iceberg which floats in this stagnant water.
Don’t forget- orange juice and ice do not a screw driver make, it’s when you stir in the vodka that you achieve a proper and singular cocktail bearing a potency beyond that of its individual components.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An enormous waste transfer station acts as a concentrating point for the putrescent waste of New York City just back there, producing an excruciating stink. The shorelines of this particular valley are lined with state superfund sites, and large sewer outfalls feed millions of gallons of human waste into English Kills annually. That CSO “flow” also carries with it every chemical which has passed through a human filter- birth control and steroid pharmaceuticals, undigestable food additives and dyes, and all the runoff from the gutters which carries solvents, automotive drippings, and whatever washes out of the enormous acreage of cemeteries which distinguish the neighborhoods around the Newtown Creek watershed.
Not trying to “gross you out”, but facts are immutably facts.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Detractors would offer that your humble narrator is not a doctor, scientist, or much of anything at all. They would further inform you that I am a doomsayer, alarmist, and given to making unfounded statements based on a layman’s understanding of the complex chemistry which composes the so called waters of Newtown Creek. They call me a vulgar fool as well, but not to my face.
All this is true, of course, but it doesn’t mean that I’m incorrect.
life, matter, and vitality
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Paramount in my apprehensions about this unremembered walk- which began at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, continued down Delancey Street, went over the Williamsburg Bridge, staged into Williamsburg, and continued up Grand Street in the direction of that assassination of joy called the Newtown Creek- is the ideation that something happened to me in the ancient church.
Remember, this unknown fellow from the interwebs offered me information which is dearly sought, the location of a certain interment lost in the ghoulish multitudes of Calvary Cemetery which I have spent too much time searching for. When my anonymous assignee walked into the church with two troglodyte ruffians, I panicked and fled… but a nagging suspicion that something else might have happened in there torments me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Could a mere intuition have sent me into this flaming paroxysm of cowardly flight, carrying me blind miles in a stupor? A delicate constitution and deep physical cowardice are my hallmarks, yes, but a multiple mile flight which propelled me across most of the eastern districts of Brooklyn? Nevertheless, according to my camera card, I had nevertheless returned to the loathsome lands of the Newtown Creek and was standing upon the Metropolitan Avenue Bridge once again.
The coincidental concurrence of my route with certain long forgotten street car (trolley) routes continues to intrigue me as I write this in the sober and controlled environment of Newtown Pentacle HQ.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The tugboat which is often noticed here is the “Mary H.” which runs fuel barges from the outer harbor to the Bayside Oil depot located on Metropolitan Avenue itself, near it’s junction with Grand Street. The section of the Creek visible in these shots is actually a tributary, called English Kills. Two ancient pathways, which we call Grand St. and Metropolitan Avenue these days, cross each other here at a sharp angle.
Metropolitan was formerly known as the Williamsburgh and Jamaica Turnpike, and it connected Newtown in Queens with the Eastern District of Brooklyn- Bushwick, Williamsburg, and Greenpoint. The crossing of Grand and Metropolitan was also one of the stops on the New York and Manhattan Beach Railroad, its depot would have found at the foot of Greenpoint’s Quay Street in 1912.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A theory which guides me of late requires a paradigm shift in thought and perception, simply put- the older communities of western Queens and north western Brooklyn have more in common with each other than they do with the boroughs they reside in. In earlier times, before the bridges, intimate (and railroad) ties knit these communities together and Bushwick has more in common with Astoria than it does with Flatbush.
The unifying principal, the organizing principal in fact, was access to the waterfront not just at the East River- but all along the various creeks and kills which once penetrated inland. The culture which grew along Sunswick and Newtown and Bushwick Creeks is lost to time and shifting populations, buried beneath centuries of concrete and the remnants of long vanished industry.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It would seem that your humble narrator continued down Grand Street from Metropolitan, toward the border of Brooklyn and Queens at the Grand Street Bridge, and area I dare to call DUGSBO- Down Under the Grand Street Bridge Onramp.
This section of the City of Greater New York, incidentally, is called East Williamsburg by modern cartographers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Fear exists in my heart for the noble little Grand Street Bridge, as modern traffic races across it’s delicate mechanisms. Long has it been since boat traffic has crossed it, the last official opening was in 2002. One misstep by a careless trucker and this historic structure would require replacement, no doubt by an economical fixed span.
Who speaks for it, save I? It deserves a better advocate.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An oddity and relict vehicle appears next in this fever dream found on my camera’s memory card, which is most probably a 1940 Ford Deluxe Coupe. It appears to be a loving restoration, although a powerful and enigmatic auto like this should either be painted black or fire engine red in my eyes.
What do I know, after all, I’m some guy who gets scared of strangers in the City and then wanders around the boroughs in a haze of panic and all the while I’m taking pictures that I don’t remember taking…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s actually funny, considering that in this odd state which I was suffering from, that when seeking a safe haven my subconscious mind bought me here to the Newtown Creek. It has been some time since warnings and admonishments to newcomers about this place have been offered at this- your Newtown Pentacle.
Irresponsible of me, in fact.
This carrion relict of a forgotten age is not the world you know, and those rules and conventions which govern the City that encompasses it’s district do not always apply here. Trucks and railroads operate at high speed along these streets, the very air you breathe is a fume, and there are malign forces long thought dead or neutered which still thrive here. The ground is a broken minefield of powdered glass and tetanus tainted metal, and just below the surface is a writhing agglutination of the very worst stuff that the 20th century ever managed to conjure. Who can guess all there is, that might be buried down there?
Welcome to the Newtown Creek.
Note: apologies for the absent updates this last week, but the City of Water Day Newtown Creek Tour and Magic Lantern Show seriously drained my strength. To be seen by so many diminishes me.
The Newtown Pentacle 