Archive for the ‘DUGABO’ Category
austere patriarch
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On October 29th, my friends at the John J Harvey Fireboat (1931Fireboat.org) made good on an offer to take me and about 50 friends out for one last Newtown Creek tour. I drove into the City, and boarded the Harvey there. There was a scary moment where one of the electrical systems onboard was malfunctioning, and we almost had to turn back to dock, but the onboard engineers managed to fix it and we arrived at our second passenger pickup point in Long Island City’s Blissville section only a half hour late.
This was my last, and final, time on the waters of Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I had to arrange with the NYC DOT to open the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge for us, which is always kind of thrilling.
There was a fun and congenial atmosphere onboard. I wasn’t doing a narration for this trip, instead, I was drifting around from group to group and saying my goodbyes. Some people got advice, others were chided, and still others were patted on the back.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We headed eastwards on the Fireboat. I tried my level best not to be hiding behind the camera during the event, and to be “present.” I wanted to drink it all in, one last time.
…my beloved creek…
“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.
noxious heap
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Continuing with the sights witnessed along a longish scuttle on October 8th, a humble narrator found himself crossing the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge and heading towards Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section.
That’s my beloved Newtown Creek in the shot above. About 1.3 miles back from the East River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Kingsland Avenue is in the process of being redesigned in response to the opening of Phase 3 of the Newtown Creek Nature Walk at the sewer plant, which has brought lots and lots of pedestrian and bike traffic to the former entirely industrial street. As always seems to be the case these days, NYC DOT’s traffic engineers has managed to imagine up the worst possible design, and implemented it in a piecemeal and inconsistently thought out fashion.
Somebody else’s problem now. I’m done fighting City Hall.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the Nature Walk, which hugs the water facing side of the Sewer Plant, the Pulaski Bridge opening for a passing tug was observed.
Somebody recognized me, and I was having a conversation with them while climbing on a fence. They were clearly afraid that I was going to fall in the water while doing so, but there you are.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The next section of my walk involved attaining the Pulaski Bridge’s pedestrian path. Which carried me back out of Brooklyn and into Queens’ Long Island City section.
One briefly considered hopping on the subway, but it was a beautiful day and I just kept on scuttling.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One headed eastwards on Jackson Avenue, heading towards Astoria.
“Every time might be the last time.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Queens Plaza has become absolutely unrecognizable at this point. The few remaining industrial buildings and warehouses which survived the reconstruction of the area have finally been consumed by the real estate frenzy.
Tomorrow – something a bit different, 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.
slate tombstone
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
October 8th was one of the days in Long Island City that passerby might have noticed a pile of black sackcloth being carried along by the wind. Closer inspection would have revealed a humble narrator clothed in his street cassock, a filthy black raincoat flapping about in the poison breeze. One was enjoying an afternoon constitutional, and occasionally startling the elderly and their dogs if they gazed upon my countenance while passing by. A face for radio, that’s me.
One was feeling particularly invigorated, and it was a beautiful day for a stroll over to a hopelessly polluted industrial zone.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Somebody left their shop door open, and I cracked out an exposure or two of the scene within while shambling past. Neat!
In accordance with recent policy shifts here at HQ in Astoria, one had timed the walk for the late afternoon. This was around 5 p.m., give or take. In October, the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself lobs about in the sky at fortuitous angularities relative to the street grid of New York City. Not so much in January, so take advantage when you can.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the torments which my friends endure revolves around me having led them through over hill and dale and onto hell’s favorite streets, baking in the sun the whole way, whereupon I present them with a description of our destination as being “only 2-3 miles more to go” followed by “but, it’s all down hill from here.” To wit: the shot above. Several of you reading this just groaned.
What you’re actually looking at above is the hydrological reservoir and surrounding sloped basin of the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek. The flat lowlands around the waterway were wetlands, or “waste meadows” as they called them in the old days. Behind me, and further up the hill from where I was standing, is Greenpoint Avenue. Greenpoint Avenue connects with, and used to incorporate Roosevelt Avenue, which went all the way to Flushing back in the days of the decadent Dutch in the form of a turnpike. Greenpoint Avenue was set up as a high ground ridge road which connected two isolated waterfront colonies separated by bogs, swamps, and grass land.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
1940 is when the monstrosity pictured above, which largely follows Borden Avenue’s far more ancient path, was opened for traffic. Formerly, the horse or oxen drawn traffic followed Borden or Hunters Point Avenue on its path to the East River, where ferry or boat transport would complete the journey of passengers or cargo to Manhattan from Queens. Back then, there were shops and restaurants and inns along the route. Houses too, a few blocks back.
When the City bound traffic disappeared onto the Long Island Expressway and into the similarly aged Queens Midtown Tunnel, it blighted the area, and an already onerous catalog of industries in this area got worse in terms of character and pollution.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When you’re on the south side of the Long Island Expressway, you’ve entered Blissville. That’s the name of the neighborhood. Really.
This neighborhood, and many of its residents, have a special place in my heart. I like having beers at Bantry Bay on Greenpoint Avenue, and I can point you at a very comfortable socialist bench nearby Review Avenue (it was donated to the Blissville Community by the campaign of Jonathan Bailey, who ran as a Democratic Socialist for City Council in the last cycle, so “socialist bench.”)
I am unaware of any public furniture donations to Blissville from the Republican Candidate for the seat, Marvin Jeffcoat.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One such as myself is probably the only person in Brooklyn or Queens happy to see the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge opening at 5:30 p.m. on a weekday, but there you are. I enjoyed the show, and waited patiently, unlike everybody else, for the thing to resume “bridging” after it finished “drawbridging.”
More 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.
unvisited mountain
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One last batch of photos from my penultimate boat trip down Newtown Creek greets you in today’s post.
The very first time I came back here by boat was back in 2007 or 2008, and it was a tour led by my future friend Bernie Ente with Working Harbor Committee acting as the organizer. Bernie was one of the founders of Newtown Creek Alliance, a great photographer, and he left his family and this world while still far too young in 2011.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Bernie and I had been working together for a while when he passed, doing boat and walking tours, and having adventures. My pal Mai Armstrong started hanging around with us, and we all worked on the NYC Bridge Centennial Commission with Barry and Judith Schneider, Gridlock Sam Shwartz, and the then NYC DOT Commissioner Jeanette Sadik-Khan on the City’s centennial celebrations for the Queensboro, Manhattan, Madison Avenue, and Hunters Point Avenue Bridges. Bernie almost missed the latter one, and he ended up checking himself into a hospital just a few days after it. He never checked out.
Bernie Ente introduced me to a circle of incredible people, all experts on one subject or another, and we collectively referred to ourselves as “Team Bernie” afterwards.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There was John Doswell, and Meg Black. There was John Skelson and Rich Taylor, a guy named John who works for the city and I can’t say his last name out loud in public or he’ll get in trouble with his boss, the self proclaimed “Harbor Wenches,” and Captain Maggie and…
Over at Newtown Creek Alliance, which had recently become a “proper” non profit rather than a community group, there were Katie Schmidt and the new Executive Director Kate Zidar, and my pal Penny Lee from NY City Planning. At the time, I was still on speaking terms with the Greater Astoria and Newtown Historical Societies. Those two’s a tale, I tell’s ya.
The path of education that Bernie started me on was continued by all of these people. My pal Mai Armstrong was by my side through it all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Boat tours were always my favorite. I love telling the story of Newtown Creek and New York Harbor while bouncing along on the tide. I got to narrate on the Circle Line once with historian Dr. Kenneth Jackson (Encyclopedia of New York) onboard and at no point did he throw a chair at me or anything, so great success.
I’m quite reflective about all these people, many of whom have either retired to their dotage or passed on to their rewards.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It won’t be too long now. I’ll be living somewhere else by Christmas.
I’ve spent my entire life in NYC. Grew up in Brooklyn, lived for a while in Manhattan, and I’ve been in Astoria for just under 20 years now. Newtown Creek has been at the center of my thoughts and actions for nearly 15 years. It’s time for the next generation to pick up their lance and tilt at the windmills along my beloved Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In a first for me, I actually had to sort of leap off the boat and catch a ladder affixed to the shoreline to get back on land in Greenpoint.
One soon found himself scuttling again, across the Pulaski Bridge. As always, the camera was being waved around at the various wonders of the currently undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens.
Tomorrow, more – more – 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.
tenement blocks
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described yesterday, on the 27th of September my friend Carter Craft offered to shuttle me around Newtown Creek onboard his boat. These photos are from that excursion, which is likely my penultimate trip on the Creek. That’s the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge pictured above, and the POV looks westwards along the creek towards LIC. This spot is 1.37 miles from the East River.
The NYC DOT, whose 1987 vintage double bascule drawbridge this is, also refers to the thing as the J.J. Byrne Memorial Bridge. A former saloon singer and later a Commissioner of Public Works for Brooklyn, Byrne became Borough President in 1925, succeeding the previous BP – Joseph A. Guider – who died while in office. As to why the rather unremarkable Byrne ended up in the top spot, look no further than his Brother in Law – John H. McCooey – the political boss of Brooklyn who was known as “their man in Brooklyn, Uncle John” to the Tammany Hall players over in Manhattan. Byrne would also die in office, and just to show you how long the lines of political patronage in NYC government are – Michael Bloomberg is the Mayor who presided over adding the “J.J. Byrne” moniker to the bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We continued eastwards along the Newtown Creek, past the spectacle of the Green Asphalt outfit filling a barge with their product. A single maritime barge carries the equivalent cargo of 38 heavy trucks. The only hope NYC has to survive the next century without filling every single street, all the time, with heavy trucking is maritime in nature. What have we done with our waterfronts, accordingly? Luxury apartment buildings and eradicating ship to shore infrastructure and industrial centers… but, alas… nothing matters and nobody cares.
Green Asphalt, and companies like it, sprung into existence after the 2010 Solid Waste Management Act was rammed into existence by the Bloomberg people. Prior, when a roadway was milled, the asphalt surfacing that was dug up out of the roadbed would be sent to landfills. Green Asphalt receives this material nowadays from the NYC DOT road crews and contractors who maintain our streets. It’s heated up using steam, and a bit of fresh material is introduced into the stuff, which is then sent back out to be reapplied to the roadbed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We floated past the Queens side site of the first large scale petroleum refinery in the United States – the remnants of the 1854 vintage “North American Kerosene Gas Light Company” of Abraham Gesner. Later acquired by Charles Pratt (Standard Oil Company of New York), Mobil Oil would inherit the site and operate an industrial lubricant manufacturing plant here until the second half of the 20th century.
One of the petroleum enforcement actions which ExxonMobil has had to oblige on Newtown Creek started one day in 2011 when I was tagging along on one of Riverkeeper’s patrols of Newtown Creek and when I noticed that oil was migrating out of the bulkheads in this area. That’s the day that the story of the “Blissville Seep” began. The Riverkeeper folks shortly got the “official” ball rolling with the regulatory agency – NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. ExxonMobil admitted a modern day culpability for the deeds of their long ago corporate brethren, and deployed their environmental contractors (under the supervision of NYS DEC) who are busily installing all sorts of equipment in these industrial quarters to handle the situation.
This POV is on the water side of Review Avenue, behind the line of factory and warehouse buildings – and the LIRR tracks – opposite First Calvary Cemetery.
Only oil spill I ever got to help discover, at least. This was also the beginning of my whole “Citizen Waxman” shtick.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When the project to replace the Kosciuszcko Bridge suddenly received an Andy Cuomo sized shoe up its keister, I had already been cataloguing the DUKBO section of Newtown Creek for a few years. Anything collected or written about, in this area, received that particular tag. Just as this project was kicking into gear is when what I was doing on Newtown Creek got noticed by a whole big bunch of people, including The NY Times.
That’s when Citizen Waxman was invited to join the Kosciuszcko Bridge Stakeholders Advisory Committee, and that put me right in the center of the whole rebuilding and replacement project. All of a sudden, I was in the same room as Congressmen and City Council people regularly. That’s also right about when I started working for Atlas Obscura and others, doing Newtown Creek walking and vehicle tours nearly every weekend during the summer months for several years.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For one of these tours, my buddy Joey and I transported a bunch of wooden palettes from his job site at a haulage company to a weed choked mud hole along the creek in Maspeth. We laid the palettes down on top of the Poison Ivy and dodged the clouds of flying insects which we’d disturbed. Formerly, you had to just bust your way through thorns and vines to get down to the water. I’ve always been big on safety for people that came on my walks, so Joey and I created a plank road of palettes at the Maspeth Avenue Plank Road site. Eventually, after talking about its potential endlessly, I managed to “put something on the map.” Today – people actually come here as a destination, and they hang out by the water. Artists, musicians.
To each and every one of my friends, whom I’ve convinced to do utterly illogical and over the top things with me over the years along the creek… thank you. This is why.
The Plank Road has since received historic signage, and Newtown Creek Alliance has undertaken a stewardship program at the place. The ground has received some landscaping as well. It’s a site which will also be preserved through the superfund process, which is another feather I can point to in my cap.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My pal Carter turned the boat into English Kills, which is technically a tributary, but it seems like it’s just the bitter end of Newtown Creek.
This is one of the most environmentally damaged sections of the waterway, as a note. Also – “Kills” is ye olde Dutch for Creek. This spot is about 3 miles back from the East River, and it’s right at the turn out from the main channel. The Grand Street Bridge is nearby, and in accordance with my zone system acronyms – this area is tagged with DUGSBO, or Down Under the Grand Street Bridge Onramp.
More next week, 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 