Archive for the ‘Photowalks’ Category
old native
The Carroll Street Bridge, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve said it so many times on the Newtown Creek “Dutch Kills” tours that I’ve conducted – “The Borden Street Bridge is one of just two retractable bridges in NYC, the other is on Carroll Street over the Gowanus.” Then I go on to talk about Chicago and what a retractable bridge does and why its special, but it occurred to me that I’ve never done a post on the Carroll Street span. Today, the remedy.
Also, just as a note, I’ll be repeating the above quotation on this coming Saturday’s tour, see the link at the bottom of this post for details.
from nyc.gov
The Carroll Street Bridge is a retractile bridge crossing the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. The bridge, which was opened to traffic in 1889, supports a 17 foot wide roadway and two 4.5 foot sidewalks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What’s super cool about the Carroll Street span is the wooden road surfacing that allows vehicular egress over this section of the Gowanus Canal. There’s still one more bridge before the Gowanus reaches its inevitable conclusion, Union Street Bridge, but Carroll is where the industrial canal seems to shallow out and is one of the places where its entire “raison d’être” seems to have been forgotten.
from wikipedia
Retractable bridges date back to medieval times. Due to the large dedicated area required for this type of bridge, this design is not common. A retractable design may be considered when the maximum horizontal clearance is required (for example over a canal).
Two remaining examples exist in New York City (the Carroll Street Bridge (built 1889) in Brooklyn and the Borden Avenue Bridge in Queens).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pictured above are the pulleys and gears which provide locomotive force to the structure, and the aperture into which the roadway actually retracts to allow theoretical maritime egress. The Gowanus Dredgers boat club is nearby, and I suspect that they can tell you everything you’d want to know about the mores and habits exhibited by the NYC DOT engineers who care for and maintain the structure. Business has called me to South Brooklyn all year, and one of the more interesting “Gowanus People” I’ve met is a fellow named Joseph Alexiou, who provides a satisfying historical narrative for the Gowanus.
from tedxgowanus.com
A journalist and history buff, Joseph Alexiou is writing a book about the Gowanus Canal. He is the author of Paris for Dummies and contributing author to Frommer’s Paris 2012 and has written for New York, the New York Press, New York Observer, Gothamist and Paper Magazine. He is a former associate editor at Out magazine and has a master’s degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Somebody else from the Gowanus crew that has impressed the heck out of me is Eymund Diegel. His knowledge of the Gowanus and its hydrology, history, and personality is staggering. Be forewarned and forearmed though, for if you seek his wisdom, bring a notepad or recording device with you – as the cascade of information he offers can be a bit overwhelming.
also from tedxgowanus.com
Eymund Diegel is the chair of Public Laboratory, a citizen science group partnered with the Gowanus Canal Conservancy’s Grassroots Aerial Photography program, where local citizen’s insights help improve Google Earth and City mapping of the neighborhood. As a Gowanus resident, he also helps out at the Hall of the Gowanus, a community historic research resource. Trained as an urban planner with a focus on watershed and environmental planning, he works with other local residents who have been tying digital cameras to kites and balloons to map and reconstruct the Gowanus Canal’s “ghost stream” network.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
There’s a Newtown Creek walking tour, and a Magic Lantern show, coming up.
Saturday, June 7th, 13 Steps around Dutch Kills with Atlas Obscura.
Click here for tickets and more info.
Wednesday, June 11th, Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show with Brooklyn Brainery.
Click here for tickets and more info.
odd sense
Here’s some of yer vibrant diversity right over dere.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Spotted this Frankenstein monster on Broadway, at the angle between Woodside and Astoria, recently. That’s an electric delivery motorcycle, although legally speaking it’s a bicycle or moped, with two supermarket shopping carts that are welded together and forming a caboose hitched to a homemade hinge on the back of the bike. Seriously speaking, the engineering of this arrangement is staggeringly competent, and this is a precise example of “American Ingenuity” parked on the sidewalk.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Friends in Manhattan, some of whom work for the City in regulatory positions, always make accusations that your humble narrator has a vivid imagination. That the circumstances and inventions witnessed on the streets of Queens, improvised by those who don’t have two pennies to rub together and which are cobbled together from available materials, cannot possibly exist. I remind them that a future president of the United States is sitting in a carriage on Roosevelt Avenue eating a Churrasco, and that her parents came here as undocumented immigrants.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
There’s a Newtown Creek walking tour, and a Magic Lantern show, coming up.
Saturday, June 7th, 13 Steps around Dutch Kills with Atlas Obscura.
Click here for tickets and more info.
Wednesday, June 11th, Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show with Brooklyn Brainery.
Click here for tickets and more info.
kneel before
Mister or Master, Softee is a cad.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I say this every time that the Mister rings his bells: Mrs. Softee is lonely during the torrid nights of a New York summer, wondering for whom her man plays his song. Mister Softee is no damn good, and she’s sure of it.
Pictured above is a proper “Mister Softee” truck, found on its rounds in Astoria one night, doing exactly what he told the Mrs. that he’d be up to.
Still, the Mrs. hears stories. It might be that people are describing the romantic misadventures of Master Softee, who is single, and unapologetic about it.
from wikipedia
Mister Softee is a United States-based ice cream truck franchisor popular in the Northeast. It was founded by William and James Conway (Oct. 30, 1927 – May 28, 2006) in 1956 in Philadelphia. It is one of the largest franchisor of soft ice cream in the United States. It has about 350 franchisees operating 600 trucks in 15 states. The company is headquartered in Runnemede, New Jersey. It is still run by the Conway family; James Conway, Jr. is now President.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Simone Weichselbuam wrote a fantastic piece over at nydailynews.com back at the beginning of May, describing the conflict between the long running “Mister Softee” Ice Cream Truck empire (based in NJ) and the upstart “Master Softee” operation which runs its business out of LIC. Check it out below.
from nydailynews.com
Mister Softee is anything but soft when it comes to safeguarding his cherished name.
The New Jersey-based owner of the ubiquitous ice cream trucks is suing a rogue Queens vendor, charging he opened his depot in Long Island City to peddle a knockoff version.
A mix of about two dozen nearly identical Master Softee and Mister Softee trucks are lined up inside and outside Dimitrios Tsirkos’s 11th St. garage.
The fledgling business has soured tempers throughout Mister Softee headquarters in South Jersey and its franchisees across Queens and the Bronx.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has been observing the “Master” variant with increasing frequency during recent forays across the concrete devastations. So many so that I might have to start offering the following statement:
Mistress Softee is lonely during the torrid nights of a New York summer, wondering for whom her man plays his song. Master Softee is no damn good, and she’s sure of it.
from law360.com
“All Triskos did was change the ‘i’ in ‘Mister’ to an ‘a,’ [and] Tsirkos continues to use all of Mister Softee’s trade dress and the Mister Softee truck design and [jingle],” the injunction request said. “Clearly, changing just one letter in the mark and using it in conjunction with the other Mister Softee marks constitutes trademark infringement that continues to cause Mister Softee irreparable harm.”
Mister Softee says that customers buying ice cream from Tsirkos’ rogue trucks “may believe they are dealing with an authorized Mister Softee franchisee, who is storing and dispensing Mister Softee food products in a sanitary manner … when in fact, they are not.”
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
There are two Newtown Creek walking tours, and a Magic Lantern show, coming up.
Saturday, May 31st, Plank Road with Newtown Creek Alliance.
Click here for tickets and more info.
Saturday, June 7th, 13 Steps around Dutch Kills with Atlas Obscura.
Click here for tickets and more info.
Wednesday, June 11th, Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show with Brooklyn Brainery.
Click here for tickets and more info.
one night
A Dark and Stormy night, upon the East River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recently, an opportunity to go out for a trip on a Circle Line excursion presented itself. While onboard, Kenneth T. Jackson (The Encyclopedia of New York City) narrated the journey, which first traveled down the Hudson and then proceeded to the tip of Roosevelt Island on the East River before hanging a U-Turn.
I amused myself onboard in accustomed fashion, waving the camera around at points of interest as they were presented. On the return journey, to Circle Line’s Hudson piers, we encountered the Robert Burton tug.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A 1981 vintage boat, currently operated by Norfolk Tug, the Robert Burton’s story is well told at tugboatinformation.com, click here for their page. Her crew was manipulating a fuel barge under the Brooklyn Bridge, amongst the busy chaos of the East River’s ferry and tour boat traffic. My life was complicated by the growing fog, as an infestation of clouds began to descend upon the City, at just about the same time that sunset was meant to happen. Light and photography are complimentary, and an absence of the former precludes the latter.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Luckily, there were still a few photons floating about in the blanketing aerosol, and these admittedly grainy shots were captured. Working Harbor Committee is about to kick into its Summer 2014 schedule, by the way, check out the offerings for diversion and enlightenment here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
There are two Newtown Creek walking tours, and a Magic Lantern show, coming up.
Saturday, May 31st, Plank Road with Newtown Creek Alliance.
Click here for tickets and more info.
Saturday, June 7th, 13 Steps around Dutch Kills with Atlas Obscura.
Click here for tickets and more info.
Wednesday, June 11th, Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show with Brooklyn Brainery.
Click here for tickets and more info.
elder worlds
From Woodside
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A hand painted seal, signifying the “Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States” organization, as observed in the Woodside section of Queens, NYC.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
There are two Newtown Creek walking tours, and a Magic Lantern show, coming up.
Saturday, May 31st, Plank Road with Newtown Creek Alliance.
Click here for tickets and more info.
Saturday, June 7th, 13 Steps around Dutch Kills with Atlas Obscura.
Click here for tickets and more info.
Wednesday, June 11th, Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show with Brooklyn Brainery.
Click here for tickets and more info.
The Newtown Pentacle 