Archive for the ‘newtown creek’ Category
natural result
Nehua notōcā Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last weekend, one found himself at Newtown Creek Alliance HQ for an event, and then stuck around for a while to capture a few photos. Depicted above is the sewer plant in Greenpoint. The NYC DEP has changed the name of the place so many times in the last ten years that I’ve decided to just stick with “the sewer plant in Greenpoint” in retaliation. The DEP’s Deputy Commissioner has chided me about this, saying that I’m denigrating her profession. Sorry Pam, if you’re reading this, but when you changed it to the “Newtown Creek Wastewater and Resource Recovery Plant” you lost me.
Imagine answering the phones there.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s been a minute since I’ve set up the tripod and got busy like this at night around Newtown Creek, given that I’ve been enjoying the freedom of my vaccinated status out on the rivers and in the larger City. It’s funny how the same people who are describing the latest missives from City Hall about proving vaccination status before entering a theater or restaurant as “show me your papers” are the same ones who are demanding that Election Day poll workers and cops say “show me your papers.” Everybody wants to see my papers, for different reasons, apparently. Armbands are likely the next frontier.
Personally, I’m still on my Eric Burdon kick, and listening to his two collaborations with LA Funk Band “War” endlessly. Great version of Paint it Black on “Black Man’s Burdon.” Recommendation.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Those four pipes are where the DEP burns off the methane generated by the sewer plant in Greenpoint. They are also the largest point source of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere in the entire borough of Brooklyn. “DEP” stands for “Department of Environmental Protection,” incidentally.
One of Eric Burdon’s biggest hits was “We Gotta Get out of this Place.” Listen to that guy, he was (and still is) the Walrus – koo koo kachoo.
Speaking of Lonely Hearts Club Bands… what are you doing tomorrow – August 7th? I’ll be conducting a WALKING TOUR OF LONG ISLAND CITY with my pal Geoff Cobb. Details and ticketing available here. Come with?
“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.
black plastic
Mi chiamo Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last Friday, a humble narrator decided to spend the afternoon on the water, so yet another ticket for the NYC Ferry was purchased. This particular trip paid off for me in terms of seeing maritime industrial activity, but truth be told – once a boy has visited the Kill Van Kull on a busy night, he’s jaded. The central section of the East River isn’t exactly super interesting in terms of variety and quantity of shipping activity, but it’s definitely got the best backgrounds.
That’s the Paula Atwell tug, towing a barge of what is likely either sewer solids or garbage, rounding the bend nearby Corelars Hook under the Williamsburg Bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The NYC Ferry swings over to Manhattan’s 34th street street for one of its stops, and our Captain navigated that by moving past the north side of U Thant Island. Formerly Belmont Island, this little pile of rocks sits in front of the United Nations Building, and it’s manmade. Literally, these stones were the mining spoils for what we call the 7 train’s tunneling operation. U Thant was a United Nations Secretary General for whom the little island was renamed for when it was converted to a bird sanctuary and taken over by the NYC Parks Dept.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My ride continued south, and two more tugs – a large Reinauer one (gold and red) towing a fuel barge and a smaller DonJon one (blue) towing two empty bucket barges – rounded the bend in the river at Corlears Hook, opposite the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Did you know that the Williamsburg Bridge was considered to be so hideous in the years after it was built that the Municipal Arts Society was formed to ensure that nothing like it ever got built again?
Speaking of ugly… what are you doing on August 7th? I’ll be conducting a WALKING TOUR OF LONG ISLAND CITY with my pal Geoff Cobb. Details and ticketing available here. Come with?
“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.
inconceivable tensions
Thursday, Brü, Thursday.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Priorities are a big deal for a humble narrator. First thing’s first, and there’s other less time sensitive stuff you leave on the back burner while dealing with exigent reality. If something suddenly bursts into flame, you drop everything and deal with that. The people in charge of our common enterprise – the Government, as it were – don’t seem to think like this. This isn’t about political party or philosophy, it should be mentioned. At the moment, there’s a fairly large bundle of “have to’s” which seem to have been overlooked, while the stuff that really isn’t urgent – for whatever reason – is being treated as number one with a bullet.
If you’re fighting to rezone a Manhattan neighborhood in this part of 2021, and acting like it’s a 4 alarm fire to get it done “right now,” you’ve mixed up your priorities. NYC’s existential crisis isn’t “big business” related, rather it’s small business. We need to marshal the forces of our society right now in the name of entrepreneurs and shop owners, and for small landlords who own residential buildings with less than eight units. The latter entities are the most commonly held form of small business citywide, and the ones who are really in trouble at the moment, but the Governmental types and their masters in the Real Estate Industrial Complex seem hell bent on demonizing and destroying them in favor of mega corporations.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Establishing Municipality based Credit Unions and low fee Financial Institutions designed to serve and service the sort of people and businesses written off by commercial banks like Chase or Citigroup would be a great start for the so called “Progressives” and “Socialists.” So would creating a mechanism by which NYC and NYS could resell the same insurance plans offered to their own employees with a small markup margin. That margin assures the Unions that they still enjoy an edge and advantage over the private sector, and would provide the funding required to extend health and pension benefits to the destitute or needy. The business of New York City is business, but the people who run NYC don’t seem to have ever thought about owning or operating their own business. It certainly doesn’t occur to them that few of us started out rich. Policy these days favors Alexander the Great situations. It’s easy to be remembered as “great” when your Dad built the world’s greatest army and died when you were still a teenager. We need more Phillips, and fewer Alexanders, right now.
John Lindsay went out of his way to make the poorest New Yorkers dependent on the City in the 1960’s. Michael Bloomberg went out of his way to insinuate a social Darwinism aspect into that dependency in the early 2000’s. Bill De Blasio and his ilk are a nightmare combination of the two.
Why isn’t encouraging and laying the groundwork for good old fashioned American Entrepreneurship not a part of the equation when the redistributing of common treasure occurs via taxation? Ecosystems work best when they’re varied and broad. You need a top predator – a wolf or tiger like Chase – but you also need mice and shellfish and shoreline vegetation for the baby fishes to hide in. In a properly functioning ecosystem, food falls off of the trees and everybody gets fat.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Next – Imagine if we created a single semester class for High School Seniors that taught the stuff you actually have to know as an adult. The significance of April 15th, how to claim legitimate deductions on your 1040, and how to approach starting a generic business in New York City. Jury duty, how to vote, the basic rules which adults have to follow in pursuance of avoiding fines and or jail time. What to do and who to call if you do get into trouble with the cops. I’d even plan in a remote visit or two with the “Scared Straight” crew at the local Penitentiary. How do I get health insurance, and what’s involved in signing a lease. What’s a household budget, and how much of your income should you save for a rainy day? Basically… Life 101.
When I was in High School, back in the early 1980’s when a young Joe Piscopo taught us all how to laugh again, there were mandatory classes called “Home Economics” and “Shop,” and whereas “Civics” had already been combined with “History” as “Social Studies,” they still talked about all this stuff. Saying that, I’m a grown ass man and that list in the former paragraph intimidates. Imagine being a kid trying to figure out the playing field and its rules?
Speaking of fixing the world… what are you doing on August 7th? I’ll be conducting a WALKING TOUR OF LONG ISLAND CITY with my pal Geoff Cobb. Details and ticketing available here. Come with?
“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.
tinsel emptiness
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The 11th of July was meant to be a “Manhattanhenge” night, and despite the gloomy weather a humble narrator decided to throw the dice and see what could be seen from up on the Kosciuszcko Bridge. The weather precluded any sort of henge, but what – I’m not going to set up the tripod and get busy after shlepping over here from Astoria?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Obviously, this shot was gathered a bit earlier than the first one. Heavy humidity and low flying clouds marred the astronomical phenomena of Manhattanhenge, wherein the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself’s transit through the sky aligns neatly with the street grid of NYC’s master cylinder. Regardless, I was digging the fact that the skyscrapers were actually scraping sky.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The bum foot and pulled muscle in my back resulted in me waiting for yet another cab to carry my sorry butt back to HQ in Astoria. I’ve discovered that if you stand on the Maspeth side of the street, as opposed to the LIC side, Lyft knocks a few bucks off the fare. That’s a pro tip for y’all.
See you next week. Vote Quimby.
“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.
listless fury
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One does enjoy it when they accidentally leave the industrial fences open, over at the Dutch Kills tributary of the fabulous Newtown Creek in Queens’ Long Island City section. It was a hot night in LIC, with high humidity. One was hoping for a spectacular sunset which didn’t materialize, which is sort of a metaphor for my entire life, but that’s neither here nor there. Here’s this profundity however – If you’re working at sorting different grades of gravel and sand, you need the sort of stuff pictured above to do so. That’s a sly observation, no?
There was some sort of drama playing out on the street behind me, wherein a woman was displaying all sorts of outré behavior while two uniformed men sat in a car not far away and watched her. They had DHS logos on their polo shirts, so the entire tableau likely involved official business on the part of the Department of Homeless Services. I didn’t inquire into the matter as it was none of my actual business.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oh, the sewer jellies. The sewer jellies are categorically my business. Over at Dutch Kills’ intersection with Hunters Point Avenue, a work barge has been stationed. The gear they’re using seems to involve large chunks of lumber and a lot of rope. These floating apparatuses allow the sewer borne lipids dancing along the surface of the water to congeal into fungible fecundities. When the light is just right, one may discern the conditions.
New York City has a combined sewer system. What that means is that sanitary and storm water travel through the same pipes. A quarter inch of rain in NYC, citywide, translates into a billion gallons of water entering the system. During thunderstorms and other sudden deluges, the people who operate the sewers – the NYC Department of Environmental Protection or DEP – are forced to release untreated combined sewer waste water into outfall pipes which empty into area waterways. A lot of cooking grease and oils get carried in this flow, as does petroleum residue from the streets.
Jellies. Meringue. Syrups. The DEP calls the stuff honey.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One always scolds newcomers to the Newtown Creek watershed to beware the trucking traffic and be very careful when moving about. Eyes are crinkled, smiles are forced, and they tell me that they know how to cross streets. I offer “this is not the world you know” and then point out safety cones which are squished by, or torn apart by, the wheels of heavy trucks.
If a safety cone ain’t safe on the street, you ain’t. Never walk in front of a truck without first getting acknowledged by the driver that they know you’re there. You don’t want to get squished by a gravel sorting machine, which would turn you into a kind of red street jelly.
“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 