Archive for the ‘DUGABO’ Category
DUGABO 2 Canarsie
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A visit to Newtown Creek Alliance HQ on Kingsland Avenue found me waving the camera about in yet another overly familiar spot.
One of the last times that I actually cared, the NYC DEP had changed the name of that sewer plant up there to the ‘Newtown Creek Wastewater treatment and resource recovery plant.’ Can you imagine being the one who answers the phone here? Sheesh. It’s the largest sewer plant in NYC, drains Manhattan below 79th street, and parts of Brooklyn and a sliver of Queens. The stainless steel eggs are bio-digesters which process the poop.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
From the Green Roof at 520 Kingsland, looking north towards Queens, and that’s a new theatrical production mega structure which has risen from the former FreshDirect location along Borden Avenue. Again – no connection to the railroad or to the industrial canal it neighbors.
For a ‘mega massive’ panorama of the scene above, click here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The camera was waved about, at all the familiar places. Allocco Recycling, SimsMetal, everywhere. There was a weird sense of finality for me while doing so, can’t tell you why.
Going to miss this place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was the last Newtown Creek shot for Day 3. I had yet another assignation to accomplish, which would require a bit of a commute.
Luckily, one of my NCA pals has driven to Kingsland Avenue, and offered me a ride to the L train, at Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg.
Brrr… stairs…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the many food cravings I’ve been having in Pittsburgh has involved Kosher Deli. I mentioned this when talking to one of my cousins, and he suggested that I take the train out to his neck of the woods and we’d go out for a meal. Getting to and from the ‘old neighborhood’ has always been a pain in the butt. Terminal stops at Rockaway Parkway for the L and Brooklyn College for the 2 & 5 are pretty far away from the specific area where I grew up, and where my cousin still dwells.
Luckily, he agreed to pick me up at Rockaway Parkway, terminal stop on the L line subway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The cars were nicely air conditioned, and I resisted the urge to debark the train at Broadway Junction to get some photos there.
We arrived in Canarsie, where I observed that in the many, many years since this was ‘home,’ that the old population of Jews and Italians seem to entirely left the ‘zone’ and the population of the area seems to have become entirely Caribbean. Cool! If I wasn’t actually heading to dinner at a Jewish Deli, my cousin would have pulled up and found me eating Jerk Chicken out of a paper bag…
Back tomorrow.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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“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.
DUKBO 2 DUGABO
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My beloved creek…
After visiting the Maspeth Plank Road and Maspeth Creek as well, my next destination involved a walk through Blissville, and then to the Kosciuszcko Bridge’s bike and pedestrian path. If you haven’t figured it out, that’s the view from ‘up there’ in the photo above.
I was heading over to Newtown Creek Alliance HQ, in Greenpoint, to touch base with a few former colleagues and extant friends. Oddly, I was actually experiencing emotions, of the sort which literature has suggested to me that the normal humans might. Odd.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Several mentions at the start of this series of NYC posts have alluded to the fact that this trip was actually a bit of an emotional journey for me.
Possibly the last chapter in the broken ankle story? Hope so.
In many ways, I needed to see what my physical capabilities actually are now, and so I returned to the place where I’ve defined that sort of thing for the last sixteen years – since the last major medical situation I found myself in, when I experienced a heart attack at 39. It was a bad moment for me personally, of course, but the recovery from that incident led to everything I’ve been doing ever since – including this, your Newtown Pentacle.
Needless to say, I was in a heightened emotional state during this four day stint. Remarkable, a couple of times I was actually displaying inner emotions to other people. Normally, my armor is up and other than brief flashes of annoyance or anger, trying to read me is difficult.
Never, ever, let anyone know what you’re actually thinking.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The struggle, during the whole recovery period from the broken ankle, was to ‘remain chipper.’ Getting depressed wouldn’t have helped, at all, and I did the usual great job of suppressing and containerizing my emotional tumult, with the intention of releasing the enclosed pressure at some future point, when expedient.
As I always say: Freak out after the crisis.
A lot of this sort of thinking, I think, is a direct reproach of how my Mom handled the world. She had one reaction to everything, a screaming and sweaty fit of anger aimed at whomsoever caused the agitation. Everything was treated with the same intensity. Russian fighter jet just fell out of the sky, and crushed the family car? Spilling a few coffee grinds on the kitchen counter? Dad has cancer? My hair is wet? Too much salt on her fries at the diner? Same reaction, everytime.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This was Day 3 of the NYC trip, and by this point the ankle was actually pretty sore. Exercise days have been spaced out, with at least a 72 hour recovery period of low activity following a walk. The joint still swells up on me, a situation which the surgeon tells me could last as long as two years after the reconstruction surgery. It was indeed swollen by Day 3, but I was still able to scuttle around pain free. It was the end of Day 4 when it started giving me some trouble, but I was already slouching roughly towards LaGuardia Airport by that point.
Did I mention how hot it was? That’s the end of my Monday morning moaning and self introspection.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back in Pittsburgh, I laugh and laugh when people describe traffic as being heavy. Even in a slow down ‘rush hour’ scenario, traffic in Pittsburgh is still moving at 10-20 mph. The Brooklyn Queens Expressway at the Meeker Avenue exit, however, was moving at the average speed of vehicle traffic in NYC, which – last time I checked – is estimated to be about 3.2 mph. It was lovely, the way that the sunlight filtered through the shimmering engine exhaust.
The Kosciuszcko Bridge was left behind, and your humble narrator reentered the street grid in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section. It would be about a 3/4 of a mile scuttle to get to DUGABO (Down Under the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge Onramp) where NCA HQ is found at 520 Kingsland Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Boy, they just don’t have sewer plants in Pennsylvania like this one, I tell’s ya. We got’s a mammoth series of scary factories out here though, like Brooklyn used to.
After arriving at NCA HQ, I began drinking copious amounts of water, rehydrating after a sweaty few hours on Newtown Creek’s ‘mean streets.’ Several friends actually made a special trip to coincide with my visit, and we had a bit of an NCA reunion going on for a bit. I was faklempt.
Back tomorrow with more.
“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.
DUGABO awaits
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This post begins in DUPBO, or ‘Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp,’ and ends in DUGABO – ‘Down Under the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge.’ I’ve caught a lot of crap from the mouth breather crowd over in Maspeth for these terms over the years, but there you are. ‘Eff’ them. You have to refer to ‘zones’ along the Newtown Creek somehow, with some sort of geographical reference for an otherwise fairly unfamiliar area.
As mentioned in prior posts, I was walking with a couple of the ‘new guys’ at Newtown Creek Alliance, chatting and telling stories. Sometimes histories instead of tales, but I was trying to pass on my legendarily combative view of the Creek situation to them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the view of the fairly ancient Long Island Railroad yard at Hunters Point, which dates back to 1870. As mentioned in a prior posts, the MTA seems to have found the funding to build a flood wall around the facility. It’s as ugly and ‘anti street’ as they could possibly manage.
This is the part of today’s post where I say ‘Bah!’
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Greenpoint Avenue Bridge, at Railroad Avenue and Van Dam Street in Blissville, that’s what the picture above delivers. We walked down to Railroad Avenue, and since leaving NYC I’ve discovered that almost every major city in the United States has a ‘Railroad Avenue.’ Universally, they all suck as far as being dirty and the place where polluting industries like waste transfer stations ot asphalt and concrete factories set up. I mean, this is logical, given that ‘Railroad Avenue’ has rail tracks.
At Newtown Creek, in the Blissville section of Long Island City, only Waste Management regularly uses the rail – everything else here is truck based.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ll be talking about that giant monster of a last mile warehouse facility that’s going up along Dutch Kills in a subsequent post, but I’ve included this shot just to bring home the scale of the structure. Huge!
Is it connected to the industrial canal it sits alongside? Is it connected to the freight tracks which it neighbors? What exactly does the NYC Economic Development Corporation do, other than letting developers run amok with no requirements or ‘buy ins’ so as to not be the worst possible neighbors?
I’m told there’s going to be six active loading bays within the building, with exterior truck parking that can accomodate 118 semis. Y’all do know that semis don’t turn off their engines while waiting for a chance to deliver cargo, right? That at any given moment there will be at least a hundred heavy trucks just sitting there and idling alongside the Long Island Expressway? That there is no way for those trucks to get here without traveling through Sunnyside, Woodside, Astoria, Maspeth, Ridgewood, or Greenpoint? That one maritime barge would carry the equivalent cargo of 38 of those trucks? It isn’t bike lanes that are causing the traffic to increase by about 5% per year.
Ok, twice today – ‘Bah!”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The two fellows from NCA had to head back to HQ, at 520 Kingsland Avenue in Greenpoint, and get back to work saving the world. Me? I had something that I wanted to see, so I headed back into Queens and in the direction of the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek.
Evening would find me in Woodside meeting up with that crew of knuckleheads whom I call friends, but the afternoon still held a few destinations which I wanted to get shots of.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I wasn’t wearing the NCA hat which was a standard part of my ‘uniform’ all those years. Instead I had on the flash orange ball cap which I’ve taken to wearing in Pennsylvania, as I often find myself walking in woodlands and don’t want to get shot at by hunters. At least, any more than is necessary.
Back tomorrow.
“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.
Archives #013
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My beloved Creek, how I miss thee… This shot looks towards Brooklyn’s Greenpoint from LIC’s Blissville along the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge. What’s missing here is a rail bridge which used to connect LIRR freight trains to the Brooklyn side, where the Mobil Refinery used to stand.
Today, another archives post from broken ankle country (#brankle) greets you, with all represented posts having been originally presented on this date in their respective years.
This 2015 post discusses the garbage train in LIC’S Blissville section.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I always figured that if I broke an ankle it would be all the way back in Brooklyn at the end of English Kills, which is also the end of Newtown Creek, and is found some 3.8 miles from the East River. I never liked going back here alone, either. Too easy to get hurt and too difficult to get help if you did.
This 2017 post visits the actual last mile of Newtown Creek in Brooklyn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
End of December in 2022 is when I left NYC and moved to Pittsburgh. No regrets, I would add. Again, it’s an interesting thing for me to recollect about the actual sensory experience of this particular day when viewing the photos. I remember the day this shot was captured as offering near perfect weather conditions for a long walk.
This 2023 post from October 23 involved me trying to ‘get back on the stick’ exercise wise, after an interval of being stuck at home while caring for Our Lady of the Pentacle after she endured a medical procedure. A year later and our positions have reversed, and I’m the one in trouble.
Back tomorrow.
“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.
Archives #004
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Continuing with the archives posts today, due to a humble narrator’s broken ankle dealie. I screwed up the whole date thing yesterday, thinking that it was the 11th rather than the 9th, so there you go as far as a window into how messed up my brain is at the moment.
This post from 2013 details an art project on the old Mobil refinery site in Greenpoint, designed and executed by Jan Mun and Jason Sinopoli in partnership with ExxonMobil. Miss those days.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve grown bored with the Police body cam footage thing, and am honing my list of ‘20 things not to do when the Cops show up’ list for future dissemination. #3 is ‘not threatening to track them down and rape their families when you get out of jail.’ The Cops react badly to that one.
Compositional magic in photos? Umbrellas are discussed in this context in this post from 2018.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Seeing my beloved Creek in these photos really grinds as -surprise- I was scheduled to be back home for a few days next week. Had plane tix and everything. Best laid plans and all that, huh?
Here’s a few shots from Newtown Creek in this 2019 post,
“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 