Archive for the ‘Maspeth Plank Road’ Category
The happy place
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After visiting the Maspeth Avenue Plank Road, my next destination was in Queens, and another one was in Brooklyn a couple of miles away nearby the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge. I had decided to walk one of my familiar routes there, past Maspeth Creek and to the Kosciuszcko Bridge.
It was about 85 humid degrees at ten in the morning, and I was wandering through the section of Maspeth where the term ‘urban heat island effect’ was first described. What ‘urban heat island’ means is that this is an area nearly devoid of greenery and composed almost entirely of concrete, asphalt, and masonry. The latter materials both store and then release ambient heat, causing temperatures in this ‘zone’ to be ten to fifteen degrees hotter than in surrounding areas which are planted with trees and other vegetation – even at night.
It’s why ‘green roofs’ are important in new industrial construction hereabouts.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Department of Sanitation New York (DSNY), maintains a garage nearby the Maspeth Plank Road which causes the pedestrian quite a few problems, navigating obstacles wise. Did I mention that I’m now able to fully smell everything, after losing my environmental adaptations while living far away in Pittsburgh? Did I mention the heat and humidity?
Yikes.
After rounding the corner, and finding a small patch of shade, it was time to readjust the bags and straps hanging off of my torso. Luckily, I was able to leave the secondary bag back at my buddy’s house in Middle Village for this part of the experience, but having that big knapsack on my sweaty back during this kind of heat just sucked.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Maspeth Creek was in the worst condition I’ve seen it in for about ten years. When it’s all emerald colored like it is the shot above, it means that somebody has been dumping nitrogen rich ‘something’ in one of the sewers which ultimately outfall here. Ten years ago, it was a ‘Pollo Viva’ abattoir and slaughterhouse doing it, illegally dumping blood and bird shit into the sewers around a mile from here on the Brooklyn side. Could also be a laundromat, or any number of shoestring operations trying to increase their margins by ‘getting away with something.’
If there’s any value whatsoever to all those years I spent on Newtown Creek it was this sort of observation. Showing up and noticing things, and then passing on documentation of these ‘things’ to relevant authorities for proper investigation and enforcement. There’s a long list of such issues along Newtown Creek, which I’ve discovered thusly.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I have to admit, this leg of the walk was arduous. Direct sun, no cover, heat releasing and radiating out from the sidewalk and masonry warehouse walls… just awful.
Your humble narrator was sweating bullets.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Some street furniture was encountered, cementing Queens’ reputation in my mind for its native art form – illegal dumping.
Yeah, I did think about having a quick sit down on those chairs, but decided that I’d wait until I was in a shadier spot.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, when you’re in DUKBO, Down Under the Kosciuszcko Bridge Onramp, you can always shelter from sun and rain under the bridge.
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.
DUGSBO & the plank road gooses
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Welcome to the start of ‘Day three’ on a recent trip ‘back to the old neighborhood’ and my first stop after leaving Hank the Elevator Guy’s crib in Middle Village was DUGSBO – Down Under the Grand Street Bridge Onramp. You have to call a place something, and ‘White’s Dock’ as a place name is historical trivia recognized by maybe two or three living humans, one of whom is likely the webmaster at Forgotten-NY.
Long ago, I decided to just start calling unnamed places ‘something’ and enjoyed the conceit of using the model for ‘DUMBO’ for these otherwise uncommented upon spots. That’s the Grand Street Bridge pictured above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I scuttled out onto the Grand Street Bridge, and straddled the currently undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens. The NYC Department of Environmental Protection dumps so much untreated sewage into this section of the creek that a judge ordered them to do something about the low oxygen levels therein. Rather than stem or divert the flow of ‘honey’ to their outfalls, the DEP built an aeration system instead. It’s a bit like an enormous aquarium bubble wand, one that also transports bottom sediments to the surface where they can aerosolize. The judge told them oxygenation needs to be solved…
Yeah, it’s all Exxon’s fault, just ask the DEP – they’ll tell you all about Exxon and how everything wrong with Newtown Creek is because of Exxon and the millions of gallons of raw sewage they release here annually isn’t a problem.
Here’s today’s: Bah!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If failure had an icon, it would involve this aeration system.
One of the problems with the generation coming up is that if a group of governmental employees appeared who called themselves ‘The Good Guys, Girls, and everyone else who’s good too crew,’ it would come as a surprise to most of the youngins when they found out that this outfit were eugenicists or something. Just because it’s government doesn’t mean it’s good, and just because it’s corporate it’s not guaranteed bad. My advice is to be suspicious of everybody and everything until they prove themselves trustworthy. How’s that for ‘thought leading’?
Please, please, please… judge things by what they are rather than what you hope they’ll be. Evidence! Patterns! Do they do what they say they do?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Next stop was the Maspeth Avenue Plank Road, long described as ‘my happy place.’ I sat down for a bit, as it was ludicrously tropical out weather wise. That’s when I started noticing movement all around me.
It was them, one of the menaces which have long bedeviled me around Newtown Creek – in fact for decades now.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of these malfeasants captured my attention when swimming right past me, waggling its tail provocatively while doing so. It maintained eye contact, and so did I. It’s a Dinosaur, sort of.
This was all a deception.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another one of their cohort was circling around and trying to get behind me, so I stood up and shouted ‘NAAAG,’ as I speak a kind of goose.
These Canada Gooses are far and away one of the nastiest sort of Dino-Birds you can meet. I once got into a fist fight with one at Calvary Cemetery, and all these years later I’m still dealing with the blowback. (The Audubon Society people didn’t like my related tale of fighting a goose, as a note, but that ‘icehole’ started it. I finished it. Brooklyn!)
NAAAG!
I packed up my camera bag, bid these objectionable swamp chickens ‘adieu,’ and continued along my way. Very cheeky behavior for critters who don’t seem to have any cheeks, if you ask me…
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.
Aces
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One found himself within the confines of the City of Greater New York a couple of weeks ago, tending to some personal business.
A point was made of visiting some of the old familiar places, which obviously included the fabulous Newtown Creek, and Astoria. I had the car with me, which ended up being a bit of a curse, but I don’t like to fly and there was a not inconsiderable amount of cargo which I’d need to transport back to Pittsburgh, at the end of the trip.
Seven dozen bagels. Some of them were for my personal cache, and immediately bagged up and frozen for later deployment upon my return to Pittsburgh. Others were requested, from friends in Pittsburgh. Two weeks later, the Mobile Oppression Platform still smells of ‘everything bagel.’
Check me out, I’m an interstate bagel trafficker now.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A friend put me up at his crib in Middle Village, so that was my home base for the interval. Beer was quaffed at my old ‘local’ in Astoria in the evening, and I ran into a bunch of the old neighborhood types and got caught up. I kept it a bit quiet that I’d be back, but saw a few of the people whom I’ve made it a point of staying in touch with.
Nothing but trouble greeted me when trying to use the car to get around, and at one point I just drove back to Middle Village and parked the thing. I called a ride share taxi to get me out of that transportation desert and took a walk around my beloved creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I stopped off at Newtown Creek Alliance HQ in Greenpoint and caught up with my old crew. NCA HQ is across the street from the sewer plant in Greenpoint, and one couldn’t resist cracking out a shot or two for old times sake. I felt disconnected from it all, which was an extremely odd sensation for one such as myself.
It’s a 7 hour drive, back to Pittsburgh. One had lots of time to ruminate about the experience of returning to NYC for a few days, something I couldn’t help but do, since I was awash in bagel aroma for some 400 miles.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Everything back home seemed to have been magnified a bit, and definitely it’s gotten a lot more intense. This is the third version of this post you’re reading, with the other two having been essentially rants about how horrible everything there seemed to me, compared with what’s become ‘normal’ to me after a year.
I’ll happily fill your ear with invective about this subject during a conversation, but the text version of it was just boring. Everybody knows what’s wrong back in NYC, but ultimately it’s not my problem anymore. I’m rooting for y’all from afar, but NYC is a city of the young and wealthy and I’m neither. Armchair Quarterbacking really isn’t my style.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I got lucky, weather wise, on this trip. Bright skies and a lack of precipitants. Despite being fully ‘kitted out,’ I ended up only using one lens the whole time I was there. As mentioned yesterday, there’s very little on Newtown Creek in particular that I haven’t fully explored and photographed at every time of day and in all seasons.
Also, to be honest, I was more interested in human interaction with the people I left behind than I was in expanding my catalog of creek shots.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m digging the anonymity I experience in Pittsburgh, I should mention. It became pretty common for me to be standing on the Kosciuszcko Bridge, behind the tripod, and hear ‘get that shot, Mitch’ from a passing vehicle, or to have a business owner walk up to me on Review or Kingsland Avenue and ask ‘are you Mitch Waxman.’ This happened a surprising number of times, believe it or not.
Back tomorrow with more from a visit to the greatest City in the history of mankind, a hive of villainy and perdition called New York.
“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.
Fourteen Months later…
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator stumbled out of HQ in Pittsburgh’s Borough of Dormont at about five in the morning, fired up the Mobile Oppression Platform, and then drove through the entire state of Pennsylvania into New Jersey, and then across the George Washington and Triborough Bridges into NYC. I timed it right, and was traveling at 50 mph on the Harlem River Drive by mid afternoon.
All told, the drive is about 400 miles – and with bathroom and lunch breaks, costs about 7 hours of my life and a full tank of gasoline to execute. One wasn’t planning on returning to the corruption of the nest until the end of this year, but exigency is what it is.
Pictured above is the Maspeth Avenue Plank Road site, along the fabulous Newtown Creek. In my absence, decking and seating has been installed.
I had some family business to attend to, back in the old neighborhood, if you’re wondering.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I was staying at a friend’s place in Middle Village, but he wasn’t going to get home from work until well after 5 p.m., so I had a bit of time to kill.
The Maspeth Avenue Plank Road site has been discussed endlessly here at Newtown Pentacle.
When I first started offering walking tours of Newtown Creek’s uplands, this often flooded spot was hidden by invasive weeds and thorny brush. A buddy of mine, who works nearby, had a stack of wooden palettes he couldn’t get rid of, so we loaded them into the bed of his pickup and set them into the soil here to create a pathway. Literally recreating a plank road at Plank Road.
My pals at Newtown Creek Alliance have been working here since, executing no small amount of time and treasure to ensure that an intentional point of public access to Newtown Creek exists in Queens. In the intervening years, the place has become quite well used by workers and Maspeth residents for a variety of purposes. If you build it, they will come.
As you’d imagine, returning here was a bit of a ‘head trip’ for me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
“Why bother, it’s a dump,” “they should just fill it in and pave it over”… I’ve heard it all from the people of Maspeth. The only way I ever found to motivate that part of the Newtown Creek world was to intone that Superfund money was going to go to the Hipsters in Brooklyn and Ridgewood (whom they generally hate), and Queens would get left out of the equation unless they got involved with the process. That side of the community, however, never really bothered to get involved with things here so my colleagues and I ‘took the bull by the horns’ for them instead.
Contemplative after my long drive, I took just a few photos. There’s very little on Newtown Creek which I haven’t exhaustively photographed – and especially so the Plank Road – which I’ve shot at every interval of the day, including the dead of night. This is where I photographed the implosion of the old Kosciuszcko Bridge from, as an example, and I’ve brought hundreds of curious lookie loos here on tours over the years.
It was weird, being here again. It almost felt like I was visiting my own grave. I always referred to this area as ‘the happy place,’ but instead I was filled with a deep melancholy, and possessed by reminisces of times past and absent friends.
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.
falling on
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On September 10th, one found himself at the Maspeth Avenue Plank Road, here in NYC’s borough of Queens. The Tribute in Lights at the World Trade Center site in Manhattan, and this section of Newtown Creek has pretty good views, so there you are.
This shot was gravy, I was there for a musical performance.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My pals at Newtown Creek Alliance helped out with this event, called the Newtown Odyssey. Kind of ethereal music, the high concept kind, was being performed. As part of the ensemble, they had rigged up these floating doohickeys with ukulele’s. A bow attached to a connected but separate float that rose and fell with the water differently the ukulele one did would play the ukuleles like violins.
There you go.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back in Astoria, on September 13th, and I was at a bar drinking a beer when this “Smash My Trash” truck came by. Do yourself a favor and check out the site link for this outfit.
At last, lords and ladies, real anti-zombie equipment is in the field. Mobile, fuel efficient, smashing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the 14th, a humble narrator waited until about a half hour before sunset to sally forth for an evening constitutional. This was a relatively short walk, all in all. One of the type where I walk somewhere sort of far away from HQ and then take the train back to Astoria. On this particular night, my penultimate destination was the Hunters Point Avenue 7 train stop in Long Island City.
I stopped by “hole reliable” at Sunnyside Yards, and photographed trains for a little while.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was a relatively busy interval at hole reliable, and commuter trains were zipping around down at the track level of the Sunnyside Yards. The one, on the left coming at you, is an Amtrak heading for the Hell Gate Bridge via the NY Connecting Railway, and the one on the right is a Long Island Railroad heading into the City.
I’ve literally taken this sort of shot, from this vantage point, thousands of times. Can’t get enough of it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One decided that since I hadn’t been to Dutch Kills in a couple of weeks, and inspected its collapsing bulkhead on 29th street, that it would be a good idea to do so.
South, headed a humble narrator. 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.
The Newtown Pentacle 