Archive for the ‘DUKBO’ Category
prism clusters
Labor Day
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One last archive post today, before a flood of all new stuff begins filtering your way, this one depicting one of the people who keep our entire societal machine functioning.
Ask your self – which side are you on, boy, which side are you on? If you don’t get the reference, then the bankers and corporatists continue to succeed in the diminution and destruction of the Organized Labor movement in these United States. Your Dad and certainly your Grandpa would recognize the lyric.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, September 7th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
chittering scavenger
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is colossally bored, and wandering around the Newtown Creek is basically all I’ve got these days. Recent endeavor found a humble narrator on the Queens side of DUKBO – Down Under the Kosciuszcko Bridge Onramp. The difference between the two fencelines in the shot above is profound, with the chain link section rooted in the Blissville section of Long Island City and the iron fence planted firmly in the soil of Maspeth. Once upon a time, this was a municipal border, rather than a bit of geographic trivia.
When Robert Moses built a bridge, or highway viaduct, he often did so along these sorts of borders.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Bob Moses 1939 version Kosciuszcko Bridge went bye bye in 2017, of course, and that’s the spanking new Andy Cuomo 21st century style one pictured above, from a bit further back along the Newtown Creek than I usually show you. I got to meet the security guy at Restaurant Depot just prior to this shot being captured, and I can tell you he was a heck of a nice guy once we established that I wasn’t a graffiti artist, skateboarder, or illegal street racing enthusiast. Unique set of problems this particular fellow has in his daily round, thought I. Also, the sound of generators was omnipresent, since this is one of the sections of western Queens which lost power entirely after that recent storm. The air was vibrating.
This section of the Newtown Creek – east of DUKBO, south of the Maspeth Creek tributary, and west of the Maspeth Avenue Plank Road – is called the “Turning Basin.” It’s an intentionally wide and fairly deep area that allows shipping to reverse course.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Turning Basin is far and away the most chemically contaminated section of the waterway, if degree matters when discussing Newtown Creek. The black mayonnaise – which is the goo found at the bottom – is a devils brew compound of coal tar, petroleum, organocoppers, and a whole lot more. This is where the amount of time for “benthic survival,” as the environmental professionals would call a fishie’s chances of making it from one side to the other alive, is surprisingly narrow. A copper refinery and a manufactured gas plant, an enameling factory and an oil refinery, fertilizer mills and rendering plants, a night soil dock. That pretty much describes the Turning Basin shorelines of about a century ago. They all were pretty sloppy with the industrial waste, and there’s a lot of that Black Mayonnaise down there.
The oil guys, the gas guys, and the copper guys are all on the hook here with the Feds to clean the Turning Basin. They have to scoop out the yuck, and cap what’s left over to keep whatever they missed sequestered away. The argument right now is about how deep a depth they will need to dredge to. The deeper you go, the more money gets put into the water.
Personally, I won’t be happy until they’re bringing up arrowheads and tomahawks.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, August 10th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
dismal eyrie
It’s Wednesday, the day of Woden (Odin), from the Old English word “Wōdnesdæg.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Street furniture. That’s the term coined by my old friend Ms. Heather at NY-Shitty for the abandoned or dumped furnishings or accoutrements you encounter while walking around the city. I always get a giggle out of that one, but in the case of this love seat encountered on the Pedestrian/Bike path of the Kosciuszcko Bridge, I have to respect the amount of physical labor it must have taken moving this fairly massive hunk of furniture to a prime viewing location fairly close to the center of the bridge.
A lot of muscle, time, and energy goes into illegal dumping. It’s so much simpler to throw things out in a legal fashion. The number of tires you see submerged in Newtown Creek is absolutely staggering, for instance.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot looks down from the bridge on the truck yard of a company which calls itself Empire Merchants. They do the holy work of god, which is delivering liquor and beer to bars and retail shops. This company has a fairly large footprint in Greenpoint, with both enclosed warehouse spaces and large vehicle storage yards like the one pictured above. They’re officially a “distributor” as a note. “Last mile delivery” is the current buzz phrase for this sort of business.
I’d love to see them replace the surface of their parking lot with something a bit more environmentally friendly in order to drink up rain water, but this isn’t necessarily the place where you’d want a lot of water entering the underground. The Greenpoint Oil Spill is centered a few blocks away, and this particular spot sits on top of a different environmental nightmare – the Meeker Avenue Plumes. Said plumes are composed of dry cleaning chemicals spilled by a now out of business factory. The hard cap of asphalt and concrete insulating the ground water from surface flow actually helps keep those chemicals in a static position.
Who can guess, all there is, that might be buried down there?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Part of a largish waste transfer station, one which handles all of the good stuff – paper, metals, and putrescents – but specializes in construction debris, is pictured above. One of the interesting things, for me, about the new Kosciuszcko Bridge walkway is the window it gives you onto this sort of scene.
For years, when walking by on the street, you’d be able to see peeks of this scene. The fellows who work here… well… let’s just say that they’ve never been friendly to the odd itinerant photographer and environmental activist who was just passing by.
Back tomorrow with something else, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, August 3rd. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
essential salts
Monday, from the old German word “mōnandæg,” means day of the moon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A little bit of continuity with last Friday’s post is seen above, depicting the same tug and barge combination passing the Meeker Avenue/Penny Bridge street end along Newtown Creek. The difference in today’s shot are the three jet skis which got into the tug captain’s path, which sped past the combo. Yes. People are jet skiing in Newtown Creek nowadays. I know, I know.
If these recreationalists only knew about the rumors which have plagued me about “it” all summer. “It,” if “it” exists, would likely regard these jet skiers as little more than a snack.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For the shot above, I lengthened the exposure time in pursuit of getting the water all mirror like. Sometime in the next week or two, my plan is to acquire some polarized filter glass for the camera, which should aid in peering below the surface by reducing the reflected and scattering ambience of the sky.
Perhaps it will help me reveal its presence, if it does exist. Thing is… who can guess, all there is, that might be swimming around down in the gelatinous fathoms of the Newtown Creek?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A parting shot from the Kosciuszko Bridge walkway, captured as dusk was giving way to full night time.
More tomorrow, at your Newtown Pentacle.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, August 3rd. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
almost unassailably
Well, flippity floppity floop, it’s Friday again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent endeavor found a humble narrator scuttling through the humidity thickened July atmospherics typical of Western Queens and heading towards Newtown Creek for a session of waving the camera around. Pictured above is the 1848 vintage First Calvary Cemetery in Blissville, looking westwards from Laurel Hill Blvd.
What with all of this pandemic business and the new Kosciuszcko Bridge offering a pedestrian and bike path between Greenpoint in Brooklyn and Blissville here in the Long Island City section of Queens, there’s now a lot of people milling around. For years and years, it was just me wandering around this area. It’s taking a lot of “getting used to” seeing others in my happy place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The views from the Kosciuszcko Bridge are epic, and I timed my walk to put me Center span just as the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself was descending behind Manhattan and New Jersey. This point of view is 2.1 miles from the East River, for the morbidly curious. The right side of the shot is in Queens, the left is in Brooklyn.
Newtown Creek is a tributary of the East River which extends south/eastwards 3.8 miles from its junction with the larger waterway, eventually terminating in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood. There are multiple tributaries of Newtown Creek which snake off the main stem of the waterway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, for me, a tug and barge combination was navigating its way eastwards while I was set up and shooting. Once one fo the busiest maritime industrial waterways in these United States, Newtown Creek is still quite busy. While I was out shooting, I saw the Greenpoint Avenue Draw Bridge – roughly a mile to the west – open and close three times.
A recent meeting with the United States Army Corps of Engineers described the ideal depth of these waters as being 23 feet. The last time a proper navigational dredging of the entire Newtown Creek occurred (other than a minor channel maintenance operation performed at the behest of the NYC DEP a few years ago) was in the early 1970’s. Tug and barges, therefore, stick to the center of the channel where the water is deepest when navigating through.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, July 27th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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 