Archive for the ‘newtown creek’ Category
couched cipher
It’s National Sandwich Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has been between the proverbial road and a hard place for the last few weeks, as a series of rapidly unfolding projects have demanded full time attention. Accordingly, the whole wandering around and photographing has suffered due to a lack of time and opportunity. Of late, a humble narrator has been possessed of a certain bit of wanderlust, desiring to see things new and unexplored. Luckily, November is now here, with its truncated day light and decreasing temperature (supposedly). Of course, I was wearing shorts yesterday on November 2nd, but climate change is a conspiracy made up by the Chinese in order to crush the American Coal industry, right?
At this writing, one cannot tell you where he will be as you’re reading this, but it’ll be “somewhere” in the greatest metropolis which the world has ever seen. Today, our metropolis has been diminished due to yesterday’s announcement of the death of both DNAinfo and Gothamist, and the wiping of their archives at the orders of some billionaire scumbag.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Obligation and employment have been keeping me solidly in the North Brooklyn/ Western Queens zones surrounding Newtown Creek for the last few months. I’m happy to say that there are precious few times in any given week that I need to visit Manhattan. I’m unhappy to say that there’s whole swaths of the City, and even the Newtown Creek, which I haven’t paid much attention to so far this year. Now that summer has come and gone, that will be rectified.
The good news is that Newtown Pentacle isn’t owned by some billionaire scumbag who hates unions and decided to punish his employees by closing the shops in retribution, putting 140 young journalists out of work. Also, the Chicago Cubs completely suck.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Look for me in places like the ones pictured in today’s post – waste transfer stations, rail yards, skittering along under highways. That’s where I want to be, all alone, and far away. A wandering mendicant in a filthy black raincoat, taking pictures of the deserted concrete devastations… telling the truth of our times in lurid color and florid prose.
Somebody has to do it, after all…
Upcoming Tours and events
Exploring Long Island City, from Luxury Waterfront to Abandoned Factories Walking Tour,
with NY Adventure Club – Sunday, November 12th, 2:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Long Island City is a tale of two cities; one filled with glittering water-front skyscrapers and manicured parks, and the other, a highly active ground transportation & distribution zone vital to the New York economy — which will prevail? With Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
uncanny library
It’s National Breadstick Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured above is an example of the ultimate reason as to why the proposed BQX trolley line is infeasible, what with the blinking signal arm barriers and the train horn blowing – which rail is required to do at grade crossings such as the Borden Avenue location adjoining the Pulaksi Bridge and Queens Midtown Tunnel pictured above in LIC. One doesn’t want to deep dive on that topic today, however, as thinking about the Mayor depresses me and I don’t want to be “blue.”
A humble narrator was on his way to a “thing” in LIC when this train began to move across Borden Avenue, an occurrence which caused him to utter something which sounded like “squeeeee,” drop to one knee in the middle of the street, and laugh maniacally while waving the camera around.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Long Island Railroad uses their nearby Hunters Point Yard to stage train sets for rush hour duty, and the tracks lead across Borden Avenue over to the Hunters Point Avenue stop at the southern extant of the Sunnyside Yards. From there, the trains head into the City and Penn Station, before heading out to Woodside, Jamaica, and then Long Island.
At least, that’s what I think happens. I’m not a rider of the LIRR except for rare occasion, and mainly I just like taking pictures of trains moving around in crowded urban settings.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Now that tour season is just about over, and my weekends are my own again, plans for how to spend my time are being laid. I’ve got more than a few things to shoot on my list, which I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to.
It really bakes my muffins when I don’t get to regularly wave the camera around at cool things, and despite the amazing places I’ve been this summer, I’ve generally been the tour guide or if onboard a vessel – on the mike – and I’ve barely been able to “do my thing.” I’ll sneak the occasional photo in when conducting a tour, but it’s a snapshot, not a photograph (there’s a difference).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Good news is that the weather is finally in the “filthy black raincoat” range of temperatures, and since I don’t have to maintain my summertime “early bird” schedule quite as stringently – late night shooting is back on the menu.
Where will I go first? Things to do, things to see, people to avoid – here in the great metropolitan city…
Upcoming Tours and events
Exploring Long Island City, from Luxury Waterfront to Abandoned Factories Walking Tour,
with NY Adventure Club – Sunday, November 12th, 2:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Long Island City is a tale of two cities; one filled with glittering water-front skyscrapers and manicured parks, and the other, a highly active ground transportation & distribution zone vital to the New York economy — which will prevail? With Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
quiet removal
It’s National Boston Creme Pie Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If you want to know what the end of the world looks like, I can take you there. It’s about 3.8 miles from the East River, in an area of Brooklyn that is clearly Bushwick but which the real estate people refer to as East Williamburg. The end of the world is surrounded by heavy industry and waste transfer stations, and is crossed by a railroad bridge. It’s defined by a waterbody called English Kills, which is a dead end tributary of the fabulous Newtown Creek.
Just last week, a visit was paid to this paradise of nihilism.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The open sewers are just one of the apocalyptic factors back here, as is the enormous waste transfer station operated by a transnational conglomerate that handles about a third of the black bag (or putrescent) garbage collected by the Department of Sanitation. There is virtually zero laminar flow to the water here, which means that the rising and falling of the tide is a vertical affair rather than a horizontal one, creating stinking shoals along the banks and allowing sediment mounds to rise from the channel. It often smells like rubber cement thinner along this stretch of English Kills, the waters are greasy, and they commonly exhibit an uncommon and unnatural coloration highlighted by patches of weird iridescence.
Men and women seem to become possessed by the spirit of the place, wildly dumping garbage into the shallows with a gleeful abandon.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
References in the historical record refer to distinct periods in English Kills’ existential course. Once, a mostly fresh water stream fed by the springs and streams of a Bushwick that drew German beer Brewers to the area, which bled sweet water into the main body of Newtown Creek, just a decade after the American Civil War English Kills began to be described as the “industrial canals of Brooklyn.” By the time that the Army Corps of Engineers oversaw the WW1 era shaping of the Newtown Creek watershed into something we would recognize on a google map in modernity, English Kills had open pipes carrying industrial and chemical waste products into the water from acid factories and the other dirty industries surrounding it. The upland springs and steams which drew the brewers here were paved over or turned into sewers, and the only naturally occurring liquid entering the narrow channel afterwards was a tepid trickle of brackish East River water (which was itself terribly compromised) weakly pulsing in with the daily tide, or storm runoff from the streets.
Brooklyn legend suggests this area was used as a graveyard by mobsters, but that’s just a legend. Gangsters dump bodies into fast moving or oceanic water bodies like Jamaica Bay or the Hudson River. The idea is to get rid of the evidence, not to leave something incriminating in a place where it can be found.
Whatever enters English Kills stays in English Kills.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The structure pictured above is the Montrose Avenue Railroad Bridge, part of the Bushwick Branch lead tracks of the Long Island Ralroad. The bridge, and adjacent fencelines, are covered in odd graffiti which is in English but drawn with characters that betray a runic influence. The screeds warn of witches and other mythological creatures.
This is what the end of the world looks like, if… like me… the borders of your world are defined and bisected by that lugubrious ribbon of urban neglect known as the Newtown Creek.
Upcoming Tours and events
Exploring Long Island City, from Luxury Waterfront to Abandoned Factories Walking Tour,
with NY Adventure Club – Sunday, November 12th, 2:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Long Island City is a tale of two cities; one filled with glittering water-front skyscrapers and manicured parks, and the other, a highly active ground transportation & distribution zone vital to the New York economy — which will prevail? With Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
secret societies
It’s National Brandied Fruit Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another few weeks to go and then I get to become gods lonely man again, a situation which a humble cannot wait for this year. There’s been a couple of days in the last week wherein my “full armor” has been deployed, and a filthy black raincoat has been observed by the hard hats of Newtown Creek as it flaps about in the wind beyond their fences. The “me” who conducts the tours is by design a very nice fellow, generous with his time, and entirely mission oriented towards my portion of the Newtown Creek Alliance motto of “reveal, restore, revitalize.” I’m on the “reveal” side of things, incidentally. As far as the other two go, I’d advise you visit newtowncreekalliance.com and check out the various street end projects in Maspeth and Greenpoint being worked on my colleagues at NCA, as well as the very promising “North Henry Street project” and Living Dock. NCA is loosely affiliated with multiple organizations around the Newtown Creek watershed, sharing both members and goals.
One of those organizations is the frankly spectacular Smiling Hogshead Ranch on Skillman Avenue at Pearson Place in Long Island City. A community garden and urban farm, the Hogshead folks are presenting a Harvest Festival at their site tomorrow – Saturday the 21st – between noon and seven p.m. I’m going to conduct three short walks for them, free, starting at 2, 3:30, and 5 if you want to come along and meet the folks who turned a derelict set of rail tracks into a verdant green space with little more than the sweat of their brows.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One realizes that he is deluding himself about just being able to button up the raincoat and disappear into the miasmic air of the Newtown Creek for a while, since I’ve become fairly familiar to the folks who work around the creeklands and despite all of my best efforts to remain isolated from humanity… one will end up having to talk to them. Unfortunately, I have become… some how… garrulous and affable. This shakes my entire self image.
How the hell did this outsider end up being affable? Just the other day, one opined to “Our Lady of the Pentacle” that I have somehow become “approachable” in recent years. Used to be that when I walked into a shop, security would follow me around and old ladies would clutch at their purses out of shock and fear. I’d see some monster staring at me from across the room, and then while reaching out to touch its horrible countenance, suddenly realize that I was looking in a mirror and touching a pane of silvered glass. Our Lady informed that I’m old now, which makes me seem less “edgy” than formerly.
Saying that, a couple of rather inexpensive but recent additions to my camera bag have created new possibilities for night shooting, which is something I plan on doing a LOT of in the coming months of sepulchral darkness and cold.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oh, to dance along the bulkheads again. Filthy black raincoat flapping in the wind, camera in hand, dodging trucks and trains. Recording the truth of our times in graphic narrative and garish color, and uncovering the tales of days gone by when clear eyed mariners plied the grease choked water in steam powered vessels. Poking my lens into the nooks and crannies of that lugubrious cataract of urban decay known as the Newtown Creek…
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
local inquisitiveness
There is no National Food day on October 5th!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As promised in Tuesday’s post, one headed over to Calvary Cemetery in the Blissville section of Long Island City to check out the scene after the October 1st “energetic felling” or demolition of the approaches of the Koscisuzcko Bridge. Given that Laurel Hill, which Calvary Cemetery is carved into, offers some altitude and commanding views of the bridge(s) it’s a pretty good choice as far as “point of view.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Long time readers of this – your Newtown Pentacle – will tell you that this bridge replacement project has been explored before.
Documenting this project has been a long standing project of mine – this 2012 post tells you everything you could want to know about Robert Moses, Fiorella LaGuardia, and the origins of the 1939 model Kosciuszcko Bridge. Just before construction started, I swept through both the Brooklyn and Queens sides of Newtown Creek in the area I call “DUKBO” – Down Under the Kosciuszcko Bridge Onramp. Here’s a 2014 post, and another, showing what things used to look like on the Brooklyn side, and one dating back to 2010, and from 2012 discussing the Queens side – this. Construction started, and this 2014 post offers a look at things. There’s shots from the water of Newtown Creek, in this June 2015 post, and in this September 2015 post, which shows the bridge support towers rising. Additionally, this post from March of 2016 detailed the action on the Queens side. Most recently, here’s one from May of 2016, and one from June of the same year. Here’s one from August of 2016, the December 2016 one, one from March of 2017 which discusses the demolition of the 1939 bridge.
Here’s a post showing what I saw during a pre opening walk through in early April of 2017, and the fanfare surrounding the opening of half of the new bridge in April of 2017, a walk through of the Brooklyn side job site in June of 2017. Here’s some night shots from early July of 2017. A series of posts focused in on the removal of the central truss of the 1939 bridge from the summer of 2017 – a timelapse, some stills, and the barging out of the truss.
Most recently, in late September of 2017, a final series of shots of the old bridge were captured in this post. Acquisition of a souvenir chunk of steel from the 1939 bridge was described in this post, and a video of the “energetic felling” of the approaches on October 1st was offered in this one. Still shots and views of the aftermath from the waters of Newtown Creek from later in the day on Oct. 1 are found in this posting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the south side of the job site, the Breeze company’s demolition crews are hard at work, and they were chipping and grinding away at a section which must be blocking the Lower Montauk tracks and the LIRR’s right of way. This section of the tracks is known as “dead man’s curve” due to it having been the site of the legendary Blissville Rail disaster and for the number of laborers employed by the now vacated Phelps Dodge company who thought that they could outrun a freight train.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It is somewhat surreal, this current landscape in DUKBO. This view is looking north towards Sunnyside’s 43rd street, which is found on the other side of the Long Island Expressway viaduct that forms a shield wall between the industrial zone and the residential neighborhoods.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This view is looking eastwards towards West Maspeth, from a prominence inside the cemetery.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Here’s a link to a FAR larger incarnation of the stitched panorama above, which captures the entire scene. This is a HUGE file, for those of you reading this on your phones, btw.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I promise this will be the last Kosciuszcko Bridge post for a bit. In my defense though, in my roll as Newtown Creek Alliance Historian, part of my “job” is to record the events of the Superfund era and to document the seismic changes happening along the fabulous Newtown Creek for posterity.
Upcoming Tours and event
Exploring Long Island City, from Luxury Waterfront to Abandoned Factories Walking Tour,
with NY Adventure Club – Saturday, October 7th, 1 p.m. – 3 p.m.
Long Island City is a tale of two cities; one filled with glittering water-front skyscrapers and manicured parks, and the other, a highly active ground transportation & distribution zone vital to the New York economy — which will prevail? With Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
The Hidden Harbors Of Staten Island Boat Tour,
with Working Harbor Committee – Sunday, October 15th, 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.
A very cool boat tour that visits two of the maritime industrial waterways of New York Harbor which adjoin Staten Island and Bayonne in New Jersey – The Kill Van Kull and the Arthur Kill. There will be lots of tugboats, cargo docks, and you’ll get to see multiple bridges from the water – including the brand new Goethals Bridge. I’ll be on the mike, narrating with WHC board member Gordon Cooper – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 