Archive for the ‘DUGABO’ Category
devilish anxiety
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As described in yesterday’s post, on the 27th of September one was provided with a uniquely wonderful offer by my friend, Carter Craft. Carter owns a boat, and he offered to take me out for an afternoon’s navigation upon the absolutely lugubrious Newtown Creek.
We got lucky, with perfect autumn weather. That’s what the Pulaski Bridge looks like from below. Over the years, everything that’s I’ve written about that’s in the vicinity of this bridge, on either side of the creek – Brooklyn or Queens – has been tagged with the acronym DUPBO – short for “Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For the first 10 years or so of the time I’ve been hanging around Newtown Creek, boat excursions and tours were pretty frequent. With either Working Harbor Committee, or Newtown Creek Alliance or sometimes both – we’d hire out ferry boats to conduct public or private facing tours of the waterway. Working Harbor’s mission includes “educating the public about the harbor” and NCA’s is “reveal, restore, revitalize,” so bringing people here was a significant action for us. We’d also partner up with Open House NY and others to do boat tours.
When NYC Ferry came along about 8 years ago, they began hiring all the available ferry boats in NY Harbor to handle their success on the Rockaway line, and what that meant to us was that the only boats still available were luxurious party and dinner vessels, which were way out of the price range that any of the non profits could support. Ticket prices would have had to have been north of $100, just to cover costs of the boat itself.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This hasn’t really been a terrible thing, necessarily, as my pal Will Elkins from NCA is a leading member of the North Brooklyn Boat Club and has been organizing paddling trips up the Creek for years. There’s a couple of giant row boats in their inventory, and plenty of kayaks. This provided for a more relaxed form of narration, and a slower pace.
Then COVID came along, and thereby it’s been nearly three years since I’ve been out on the waters of my beloved Newtown Creek. When my pal Carter Craft contacted me, and said “I can’t let Mitch Waxman leave New York without taking him out on Newtown Creek,” one jumped at the chance to do so.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Every time might be the last time. In this case, it’s my penultimate trip on the Creek. If you’re along the waterway this Saturday afternoon and you see a historic Fireboat passing by, wave at me. I’ll be the one in the filthy black raincoat waving a camera around. That’ll be the last one.
As of Sunday, I’ll be closing the cover on this part of my life. I’ve decided to keep on publishing here for a bit, just to maintain my own sanity. Things are so hectic at the moment, as I prepare to move to another state, that I find myself having to check with my phone to see what day it is. Writing these posts is the singular “non chaotic” activity I’ve got at the moment, so…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge. Every post that’s been published here since 2009 involving this bridge or the terrain surrounding it has been tagged with “DUGABO” or Down Under the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge Onramp.
The logic behind the DUPBO or DUGABO or DUKBO thing has always been to break the creek up into regions. The waterway is 3.8 miles end to end, with a large tributary called Dutch Kills branching off of it, and the surrounding territory and street grid is so byzantine and obtuse that it made sense to create “zones” just to stay organized around the “landmark” bridges.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s what it looks like under the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge. You’re looking towards the Queens side there, in LIC’s Blissville, where Railroad Avenue is found. We navigated on, which I’ll describe in subsequent postings.
More coming…
“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.
voyages incalculable
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator was accomplishing a longish scuttle on the 23rd of September, one which saw me perambulating from the rolling hills of almond eyed Astoria in Queens towards the concrete devastations of the lugubrious Newtown Creek and the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn. Pictured above is the view from mid span on the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge.
“Every time might be the last time.” That’s my mantra at the moment, and thereby I’m trying to visit everywhere one last time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the poetically named “Unnamed Canal” along Newtown Creek, I spotted the tug Miss Madeline struggling a barge against an incoming tide flooding in from the East River. There’s a bit of laminar or horizontal tidal movement in this section of Newtown Creek, whereas in other areas – notable the tributaries like Dutch Kills and Maspeth Creek, where tidal action is discernible only in a strictly vertical form.
Everybody tells me that I’ll be coming back to NYC within two years. This is extremely unlikely. If things go badly for me in Pittsburgh, Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself will just move on to the next place, or the one after that. I’m sure that there will be occasional visits here for work or extended family events, but my residence will be elsewhere.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hey, it’s the New York City Department of Environmental Protections’ Newtown Creek Resource Recovery and Wastewater Treatment Facility pictured above. Can you imagine being the person who answers the phones there? Due to my influence, everybody associated with the various Newtown Creek community groups have just started using “the sewer plant in Greenpoint” instead. Give DEP five years and they’ll have probably inserted the first stanza of “T’was the night before Christmas” into the place’s name by then. Jeez.
My next destination was the Newtown Creek Nature Walk, which was funded under the NYC Charter requirement known as “1% for art.” The stipulation commands NYC to commit one percent of the budget of any new municipal construction project to either public open space or to a work of public art. Phase 2 & 3 of this Nature Walk was a project which a humble narrator was deeply involved with, as a member of the community oversight “Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee” or NCMC. I ended up putting in a lot of hours for this one.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
From Phase 1 of the Nature Walk, one observed Miss Madeline still struggling against the physics of the tidal cycle. They had maneuvered out of Unnamed Canal and into Whale Creek, as pictured above.
The hour was beginning to grow late, and my desire was to find myself somewhere else, with an interesting and elevated point of view, when the descent of the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself behind New Jersey occurred in about 60 or so minutes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One leaned into it, and began quickly scuttling eastwards, past the largest source of greenhouse gas in the borough of Brooklyn, pictured above and found at the Department of Environmental Protection property known as “the sewer plant in Brooklyn.” Those four pipes are burning off the methane produced by the sewer plant. The venturi jet burner is tuned up to produce a clear flame, and you need to look for the heat distortion emanating from the things to visualize the horror of it all.
DEP has been working with the National Grid outfit for nearly a decade to work out a “waste to energy” program which would harvest the greenhouse gas, and will often talk about this project in public in a manner suggesting that it’s up and running, but in reality not a single visible screw has been turned yet and it’s kind of a scandal waiting to explode and embarrass them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Every time might be the last time…
You may have noticed that I’m centering that scaffold clad chimney in a few of my shots lately. It’s all that remains of Van Iderstine, the ghastly fat rendering company who’s redolent presence defined the Queens side of the Greenpoint Avenue for nearly a hundred years. It’s being taken down and demolished currently, which feels like a quite appropriate thing for me to witness, as regarding my own situation. The edifices of the past and all that.
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.
local dangers
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
First off – Newtown Creek Alliance will be honoring John Lipscomb of Riverkeeper, Christine Holowacz, and… your humble narrator… tonight, (the 20th) at the annual “Tidal Toast” fundraising event. Ticketing information can be found here, and the tax deductible donation of your ticket money will help to fund NCA’s ongoing mission to Reveal, Restore, and Revitalize Newtown Creek. NCA has been at the center of my public life over the last 15 years, and I hope you can make it. This is officially my finale, in terms of public facing events, and the end of this chapter of my life.
On the 23rd of September, a humble narrator set out for what ended up being an extremely long walk. Upon leaving HQ, a black cat with yellow eyes skated past me. Such an occurrence is always indicative of a good photo day coming. You have to learn how to listen to Queens, I always say, and recognize her omens.
The late model pick up truck pictured above was the first cool thing that she showed me. I’m going to miss Queens, but I don’t think she’ll miss me. I don’t think anyone in NYC is actually going to miss “me,” rather they’ll miss the idea of me. I think, on the other hand, that there will be a lot of people happy to see me go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My next stop was at “hole reliable” at Sunnyside Yards, which lived up to the name I’ve assigned it. Hole Reliable is a surveyor’s aperture cut out of the plate steel fencing over the Harold Interlocking.
Wonders, I tell you, wonders.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My pathway continued on, south to Greenpoint Avenue and then into Blissville, which carried me over the Long Island Expressway.
Why do I think no one will miss me, and why some will be happy to see me go? Experience. It’s the way of NYC. When somebody leaves the megalopolis, or dies here, there’s a lot of hugging and handshaking for a little while but then life goes on. As far as the “happy to see me go” people, I’m either in their way right now, or perceived as a wizened scold whose knowledge of past events and the circumstances is inconvenient to the current dialectic on offer.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Down Under the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge Onramp, in Long Island City’s Blissville section, that’s where my next stop was. Railroad Avenue, specifically. I call it DUGABO.
Melancholy actually rules my roost at the moment. On the one hand, ebullient excitement for all of the challenges and opportunities that relocating to a different part of the country offers is undeniable. Conversely, I’m leaving behind everything I know and everything I’ve ever known. It’s manic and depressing – all at the same time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a reason that they named this particular street in Long Island City “Railroad Avenue.” During my travels on Amtrak last year, one of the realizations I enjoyed was the one that stated “Everywhere you go, there’s a Railroad Avenue.” Really. I found one along Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont, of all places.
I’ve been forced to craft a little speech in order to save time. It starts off with “Not to get all Doctor Who here, but we’re all different people at different times of our lives…” Deep thoughts have accompanied the underway diving expedition of ridding myself of the material detritus of a lifetime in preparation for this move. Over all, I like to think that I’ve done some good, in this most recent version of myself.
The trash bags in front of HQ have included yearbooks from schools that some early variant of me attended, the toys and tools acquired over a half century by several of the “me’s”, and clothing worn by a younger man which no longer fits.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Saying all that, a humble narrator is currently exhausted. A thousand thousand small but important details are being maintained in active thought, and a never ending landslide of physical task work, that I’ve scheduled around garbage pickup days, is underway at HQ.
There’s no way that NYC is going to let me go without an attempt at slamming some kind of whammy at me on the way out – that’s my governing terror. One of the reasons I’m so exhausted is that I have my radar on at full power every time I leave HQ just to buy a bagel.
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.
gleaming rows
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
First off – Newtown Creek Alliance will be honoring John Lipscomb of Riverkeeper, Christine Holowacz, and… your humble narrator… this coming Thursday night (the 20th) at the annual “Tidal Toast” fundraising event. Ticketing information can be found here, and the tax deductible donation of your ticket money will help to fund NCA’s ongoing mission to Reveal, Restore, and Revitalize Newtown Creek. NCA has been at the center of my public life over the last 15 years, and I hope you can make it. This is officially my finale, in terms of public facing events, and the end of this chapter of my life.
An afternoon walk that I found myself on, during the afternoon and evening of the 16th of September, ended up becoming a fairly long and extensive affair. I was “everywhere.” Pictured above is the collapsing bulkhead at 29th street, along Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kills tributary. Foremost in my mind these days is the fact that every time I’m visiting one of my “old familiar places,” it might be the last time given that I’m moving away from NYC in the now very near future.
I’ve been talking publicly about this for several months now, of course, but as the timeline grows short, and the seminal date wherein my life inextricably alters is near.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back at HQ in Astoria, it’s all business for me right now. I’ve torn apart most of the habitation, and there are piles and piles of cardboard boxes everywhere. Most of our furniture is in the process of becoming “gone,” at the time you’re reading this. So are the piles of books and comics which I’ve been storing for apparently no reason at all, given that I’ve never reread the things once they went into a box or onto a shelf. Saying that, there’s just something heretical to me about throwing out a book. Beyond all that, these are just “things,” manufactured items in the circular material continuum of a consumer based capitalist system. They have the value we assign to them, ultimately.
Ultimately, I don’t want to pay a mover to transport useless or unused items 400 miles westwards and then store them until I die. The less I take, the less it costs me. Believe me when I tell you that I’m keeping too much stuff anyway. Sentimentalism costs money.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Everybody keeps on asking what I’m going to do in Pittsburgh, and will I keep up with updating the Newtown Pentacle. Then they ask me if I’m going to rename it Pittsburgh Pentacle or something. Honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to do next, but for the time being I’m going to keep in publishing here as long as it’s feasible. There’s a few ideas I’m toying around with, but another big change that’s hopefully about to occur – as this post is being written – is that I’m soon going to be a car owner. I’ve got a lot of new bills associated with that one – loan payments, insurance etc., and thereby my financial situation is altered in significant ways. I’ve got a new set of bills to pay, and financial homeostasis demands that my freelancing life give way to a salaried staff job somewhere. Regular tides, and all that.
“All depends on what sort of job I get in Western Pennsylvania,” that’s my answer to the Newtown Pentacle question. Saying all that, I’d be loathe to give up on broadcasting my various adventures. Have no doubt that adventure awaits, though. I can’t sit still. Let’s see.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the “meantime” of the next several weeks, however, I’ll continue to scuttle around and point the camera at things. Pictured is the Borden Avenue Bridge in Long Island City, crossing the Dutch Kills tributary of the lugubrious Newtown Creek. For some reason, the last few weeks I’ve found myself turning the camera sideways for “portrait format” shots. 99.9% of what I’ve shot over the last ten years has been “landscape format,” and I’m desirous of getting a few vertical ones in before I go into the west like one of Tolkien’s elves.
“Every time, right now, might be the last time.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has friends who try to trip him up along Newtown Creek, pointing at this nearby thing or that distant one on the horizon and asking “what’s that?”. I’ve become so familiar with this place, and its features, that trying to trip me up on the subject is a fool’s errand.
What are you asking me about – the Crane company, the Van Iderstine’s property, the nearby NYS DEC’s crank case oil remediation wells, the Railroad Avenue corridor, Waste Management, or maybe Green Asphalt? Maybe you want to know about the first major petroleum refinery in the United States that opened in 1837, just east of here? Lower Montauk tracks of the Long Island Railroad, or “Deadman’s Curve?” Blissville?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Kosciuszcko Bridge pictured above, the new one(s). I got to walk around on it, before it opened, with Carolyn Maloney and Eric Adams amongst others. I was there when Andrew Cuomo cut the ribbon for the new span, standing alongside a group of politicians who would now deny that they ever met him in person, despite the fact that “day of” they formed a little line and then waited on it patiently for their turn to kiss his ass.
Of course, I wasn’t done walking around Queens yet on the 16th of September, and since I was standing on the “LIC/Maspeth” line, I decided to just scuttle on…
More tomorrow, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
breathing things
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was mid span on the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge, a double bascule drawbridge that spans the fabulous Newtown Creek, and photographing a maneuvering tug called “Seeley” when the bridge’s alarm bells began to sound and a NYC DOT employee began motioning for me to get to the other side.
The bridge was about to open!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m known, in my middle 50’s, for running down the block and chasing a fire engine while yelling “firemen, firemen” just like I did when I was 5. I get excited about things that other adults consider to be a nuisance.
I love it when a drawbridge opens up, and never miss a chance to grab shots of the action.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I didn’t have time to swap out lenses for the one that fits into the apertures of the chain link fence, so I just fired the shutter anyway.
I prefer a clean shot, but the fence is part of the environmental milieu, so, there you go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As traffic was stopped for the open bridge, I was able to run across Greenpoint Avenue Bridge without getting squished by traffic.
Found a decent spot, one which long experience dictated as being a good one to shoot from, and followed the Tug Seeley as it headed westwards towards the East River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve grown fairly jaded about this sort of thing in recent years, but the sun was painting the sky with orange and gold.
What a dynamic set of weather conditions it was on August 1st. The fog and mist, the dispersal of the same, and now this sort of saturated color. Wow.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Shortly after these shots were captured, I decided to make a right turn after arriving in Long Island City’s Blissville section and head towards the Kosciuszcko Bridge. Ultimately, that was a bit of wasted effort, bu there you go. Cannot complain, this was an extremely productive day.
Back tomorrow with something 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 