Archive for the ‘DUKBO’ Category
gorgeous concealment
My beloved Creek, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last Thursday, the Open House New York organization organized two boat tours of Newtown Creek. Back to back, there was one that embarked at 5 and one at 7, and the two tours were sold out. Open House NY asked Newtown Creek Alliance to participate on the tours, and your humble narrator as well as our Project Manager Will Elkins were onboard and on the microphone. Pictured above, the Donjon Towing vessel Brian Nicholas manipulating a series of barges at the City of New York’s Newtown Creek dock, which is occupied by the SimsMetal corporation.
Tom Schadt, who is the Project Manager for the Newtown Creek Group at the Newtown Creek Superfund Site, also participated, and everybody’s friends at the NYC DEP sent along engineer Frank Loncar. Tom Schadt discussed the environmental science his company, Anchor QEA, is conducting for the Superfund “Scoping Period” and Fran Loncar talked about the NCWWTP and DEP’s efforts at ameliorating the effects of the Combined Sewer system that the DEP inherited from the agencies which preceded it (the Bureau of Sewers of Brooklyn and Queens as well as other historical Municpal entities). Will Elkins of Newtown Creek Alliance discussed some of the shoreline restoration and environmental projects NCA has underway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As is my habit on boat tours of the Creek, once my section of the narration was accomplished – which is a historical overview and accounting of the various issues affecting the waterway – I handed the mike over to the other speakers and raced down to the bow of the boat to get some photos. The shots in today’s post were gathered at the end of the second tour, which was – quite obviously – well after the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself had ducked behind that western horizon offered by the shield wall of Manhattan.
Pictured above, the aggregates recycling yard of the Allocco family, with the DEP’s Newtown Wastewater Treatment Plant’s digester eggs in the background.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Further east on the Newtown Creek, that’s Blissville in Queens on the right, and the petroleum district of Greenpoint on the left. The fuel tanks are the BP Amoco yard on Norman Avenue, right around Apollo Street. That’s the former boundary between the Sone and Fleming and Locust Hill refineries of the Standard Oil company and was once the home of the Standard Oil Company of New York – better known to modernity as Mobil Oil.
It’s also the epicenter of the Greenpoint Oil spill, which is actually a completely separate “thing” from the Superfund designation which the rest of the Newtown Creek enjoys.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Futuristic, the National Grid corporation’s Liquified Natural Gas tanks are found even further east, all the way back at the border of Bushwick near Varick Avenue and Lombardy Street. All of the shots in today’s post were captured while onboard the OHNY boat, and are handheld. Can’t tell you how much I wish it was possible to use a tripod for these kind of shots, but camera support is actually fairly useless when the platform you’re standing on is moving at around five knots. You have no other choice than to open the lens up as far as you can, and jack the ISO up as high as possible, as you still have to use a relatively quick shutter speed to avoid motion blur.
It was exceptionally dark, but that’s Newtown Creek for you.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
September 13th, 2015
Poison Cauldron Walking Tour
with Newtown Creek Alliance, click here for details and tickets
September 20th, 2015
Glittering Realms Walking Tour
with Brooklyn Brainery, click here for details and tickets
gleam and grin
Checking in on that little bit of construction occurring down in DUKBO.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Kosciuszko Bridge replacement project is in full swing these days, and there’s a small army of optic orange clad construction workers at work in that shallow valley between Laurel and Berlin Hills which has always provided a border betwixt LIC’s Blissville and West Maspeth’s Berlin neighborhoods. The old blue gray mare was built by the “House of Moses” back in 1939 as the “New Meeker Avenue Bridge,” carries the Brooklyn Queens Expressway over Newtown Creek, and is considered as being dangerously deficient from the structural integrity and the traffic engineering points of view – so the NYS DOT is overseeing the implementation of its replacement.
Nobody else seems to be paying any mind to this mega project, but a humble narrator is not at all like anybody else.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These shots are all from the Queens side of the project, which will see the new bridge rise nearly one city block to the east of the 1939 model’s footprint. One has begun to refer to the street it will adjoin as “used to be 43rd street.” The shot above was captured on Laurel Hill Blvd., and depicts one of the many elevated piers which will carry the BQE towards its intersection with the Long Island Expressway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Closer to “used to be 43rd street” you’ll notice that the NYS DOT engineers have had the orange clad fellows jamming big bits of steel deep into Queens. The substrate which the bridge(s) sit upon is the elluvial flood plain of Newtown Creek – which is basically a giant agglutination of mud and aggregate. The piles need to be sunk down around one hundred and eight feet to meet bedrock, with the anchoring mechanisms for the piers going far deeper – from 160-180 feet depending on location.
Who can guess all there is, that might be buried down there?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An unoccluded view of the metal bits, which are marked off with gauge measurement indications. This is the corner of “used to be 43rd street” and 54th avenue, for the curious.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Same corner, but looking to the south rather than the antipode displayed in the former shot.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Skanska crews working on the site, who are the aforementioned “fellows dressed in orange,” have a disturbing habit of leaving their fences open – given the fact that the BQE continues to run along the span offered by the 1939 model Kosciuszko Bridge.
No big “whup” of course, as this section of the highway has never really been “secure” in any real manner and has been a target for graffiti and illegal dumping enthusiasts for multiple generations.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The project continues along Laurel Hill Blvd. and includes the Kosciuszko Bridge approaches. The Meeker Avenue side of the approaches, which roll through Greenpoint and Williamsburg, have been receiving quite a bit of attention from the fellows in orange in recent months. The work on the Queens side is just getting started, in comparison.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Phase One of the project will see the eastern half of the new bridge erected, followed by the dismantling of the 1939 era Kosciuszko Bridge. Traffic on the BQE will be rerouted onto the new span, and the construction on Phase Two will see the western section of the new bridge erected – whereupon traffic patterns on the BQE will be given their new and permanent form – with the eastern “Phase One” section carrying the South to North (Brooklyn to Queens) flow and the western “Phase Two” section allowing North to South (Queens to Brooklyn) traffic.
The good news is that Phase Two will include a pedestrian and bicycle path, which will overlook my beloved Newtown Creek.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
September 3rd, 2015
Newtown Creek Boat Tour
with Open House NY, click here for details and tickets.
September 20th, 2015
Glittering Realms Walking Tour
with Brooklyn Brainery, click here for details and tickets
haunted steep
At the Maspeth Plank Road, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the same morning walk described yesterday, wherein one was heading over to East Williamsburg from Astoria to conduct a walking tour of My Beloved Creek, I found myself at the Maspeth Plank Road.
Whenever possible, an attempt to scout the day’s intended route is enacted, to ensure against any of the little surprises which are known to pop up in the neighborhoods surrounding Newtown Creek. Bridge closures, road work, chemical spills – you know, the usual.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I ran into this family of Canada Geese, whom I’ve been noticing all over the Creek for the last few weeks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not too much I can tell you about this specie, other than that like swans – you don’t want to get too close to them. Geese can be mean tempered and vast physical cowardice notwithstanding, who wants to get pecked?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The gaggle seemed to take some umbrage at their unwanted portraiture, it seemed, and they headed back to the loathsome ripples of that cataract of urban neglect known as the Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My decision to scout the route was actually quite fortuitous, as the Grand Street Bridge was closed. The NYC DOT was conducting some sort of repair job here, something about fixing the deck plating on the pedestrian walkways so that it could accommodate bicycle traffic. This, of course, directs vehicular flow onto the sidewalks and directly into the path of pedestrians, but priorities are priorities for City Hall.
NYC MUST REPLACE ALL SURFACE ROADS AND PEDESTRIAN PATHS WITH BIKE LANES, AT ALL COST, INCLUDING SACRIFICE AND TORTURE.
Also, AFFORDABLE HOUSING.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
July 12th, 2015
Glittering Realms Walking Tour
with Newtown Creek Alliance, click here for details and tickets.
mixed anger
Detestation of convention, polity, and custom
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has mentioned the amazing sense of finality felt when encountering the soon to be absent Kosciuscko Bridge before. This bridge is significant, and its replacement more so, as its opening in 1939 signalled the beginning of the era of Robert Moses in NYC, and the replacement of this first link in his chain of intracity highway projects that would become the Brooklyn Queens Expressway means that Moses is finally gone.
Don’t mention that to our current Mayor, of course, whose grandiose plans for “affordable housing” are essentially the “urban renewal” projects of our modern age. For those of you not in the know on that term, “Urban Renewal” was the blanket term used by Mr. Moses and his cohorts for destroying existing neighborhoods and replacing them with federally funded housing projects.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A creature such as myself loathes the souless nature of the “towers in the park” concept promulgated by the French Crypto Fascist LeCorbusier and his mid century devotees, like Robert Moses. It is my belief that many of the underlying societal forces which drove and continue to drive crime in public housing emanates from the depersonalization and alienation from the surrounding neighborhoods which is engendered by life in the “houses.” Urban Renewal era projects like Stuyvesant Town or the Ravenswood or Cooper houses destroy the street grid and eliminate the sense of ownership residents of traditional blocks feel for their corner or block. Jane Jacobs was entirely correct about this.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The bridge replacement is entirely necessary, of course, as the old gray truss bridge over my beloved Creek is in a sorry state. One wonders what unexpected consequence the new span will bring us – will the corrected patterns of “flow” for automobile traffic do to the southern extents of Sunnyside or northern edges or Greenpoint?
Only time will tell, I guess. When the Queensboro or Alfred E. Smith housing projects went up they were meant to stem a wave of crime and youth violence thought to be caused by life in dilapidated tenements. Within twenty years of their construction, both of these projects ending up becoming bigger problems than those which they sought to solve, and the slum conditions which they sought to clear had expanded and intensified around these projects to encompass entire regions of the greater City.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It is truly astounding, seeing that none of the lessons of the 20th century seem to be part of our current Mayor’s agenda. There is a dearth of affordable housing in NYC, you just cant get there and back again from Manhattan easily as this building stock is found in central areas of Brooklyn and Queens which are only accessible by the automobile – thanks to Mr. Moses.
If we have the municipal bucks to even consider decking the Sunnyside Yards, why not think in truly grand terms and extend or create new Subway lines for the first time in nearly a century. If you build it, the forces of the capitalist market will take care of all the housing you need. Building Soviet style blocks in the LeCorbusier style will only magnify the problems of NYC’s most vulnerable classes, not solve them. Then again, maybe thats what the Bureaucrats want – job security.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
May 3, 2015 –
DUBPO, Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp
with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, a free tour offered as part of Janeswalk 2015, click here for tickets.
May 16, 2015 –
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills with Atlas Obscura
with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for details and tickets.
May 31, 2015 –
Newtown Creek Boat Tour
with Working Harbor Committee and Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for tickets.
heavy boots
Yeah, Happy Earth Day.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another Earth Day rolls around, wherein large numbers of happy little sophists will gather together in Manhattan Parks and congratulate themselves for separating their trash into “recycling” and “garbage” parcels. They will pat each other on the back, and claim that NYC is the “greenest” and most “resilient” of American cities. You won’t see any of them visiting LIC, or Greenpoint, Maspeth, or Bushwick, or Ridgewood. They won’t think about what happens after they flush their toilets, either.
Few, if any, will find themselves having arrived at the Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
They won’t see the black waters of Newtown Creek’s tributary Maspeth Creek, or smell the battery acid odor of raw sewage as it is entering the waterway. They won’t comment on the illegal dumping, or the true nature and environmental impact of the recycling industry. Greater good, they would say, were they to leave Manhattan.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Few will visit Dutch Kills at low tide, over in LIC. If they did, they would be forced to rationalize the rotten egg smell as being produced by anaerobic microbes. They wouldn’t puzzle over the neon colors of this tributary of Newtown Creek, whose mouth is .75 of a mile from the East River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
They won’t wander through the borderlands of Brooklyn and Queens to Ridgewood, and witness what the recycling process actually looks and smells like. They won’t worry about what they are breathing either.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Manhattan people like to feel as if they’re doing something to help the environment, and will do so in front of television cameras. They will make a show of discussing the banning of plastic grocery bags, or demand that NYC begins to compost its organics. They won’t realize that this composting has to be done somewhere within throwing distance of their Borough, and that it will carried by truck to some central receiving facility where it will be collected and stored whilst awaiting processing. They don’t know that this area will be somewhere along the Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
They certainly won’t visit the tracks of the LIRR’s Bushwick Branch line, and see the hundreds of filled cargo boxes that compose the “garbage train.” They won’t care that the concentrating point of roughly 30-40% of NYC’s garbage is found on the corner of Varick Street and Johnson Avenue, nor about the thousands of trucks which descend upon it daily.
So – Happy Earth Day, from Newtown Creek.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
May 3, 2015 –
DUBPO, Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp
with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, a free tour offered as part of Janeswalk 2015, click here for tickets.
May 31, 2015 –
Newtown Creek Boat Tour
with Working Harbor Committee and Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for tickets.
The Newtown Pentacle 