Archive for the ‘Photowalks’ Category
hideous meaning
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Startling, recent transmissions and recitations from a weird and alien country called Albany brought word that the Governor of New York State has arranged to accelerate the Kosciuszko Bridge project. Complicated planning, difficult execution, and extreme expense hang gruesomely around this project- originally scheduled to commence in 2014, and now expected to begin in 2013.
from nydailynews.com
Construction on a new bridge is now expected to begin in spring 2013 — a year ahead of schedule, thanks to $460 million made available for the job by Gov. Cuomo’s New York Work initiative.
The 73-year-old bridge, which carries the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway over the Newtown Creek, qualified for the money in part because it is on the state’s “deficient bridge” list.
The initial phase of construction will build an eastbound lane next to the existing bridge, according to the state Department of Transportation, the agency overseeing the project. The 1.1-mile bridge is expected to be done in 2017 and will cost about $800 million.
When completed, two new spans with a total of nine vehicle lanes and paths for pedestrians and bikes will replace the original structure.
It’s the single biggest project made possible through the New York Works program, an initiative to create jobs while repairing the state’s infrastructure.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The 1939 workhorse, erected at the whim of Robert Moses, will no longer soar above that mirrored ribbon of risible metaphor known as the Newtown Creek in just a few years, as scheduled work is meant to conclude in 2017. Area wags shrug and sigh at this, wearily offering that such projects often extend well past their scheduled and budgetary goals, and that the Creek itself will present a series of unexpected problems to be solved.
from dot.ny.gov
Following seven years of alternatives analysis, environmental studies and extensive partnering with community groups and stakeholders, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) approved the New York State Department of Transportation’s (NYSDOT) selection of Alternative BR-5 for a new Kosciuszko Bridge in its March 9, 2009 Record of Decision and granted authorization to proceed with Final Design. The Project Team has been working to complete key initial phases of the Final Design which would lay the groundwork to develop and complete the detailed design of the new bridge structure.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Extensive documentation exists at the State DOT website, with coruscating revelations about both the current structure and anticipations of obstacles and opportunities which will be encountered during pursuit of the new structure. Your humble narrator, threatened by such rapid change, remains nevertheless excited about the idea of a pedestrian walkway overlooking not just the Creek itself- but Calvary Cemetery. Architectural drawings of the future DUKBO (Down Under the Kosciuszko Bridge Onramp) show an intriguing and modernist setting.
from dot.ny.gov
Under all Build Alternatives, excavation of soil would be performed to a depth of about 4.5 m (15 ft), and the walls of the excavation would be braced. Contaminated soil and groundwater would be collected and disposed of. The new foundations would be pile supported, and either large diameter drilled piles or concrete filled driven pipe piles would be used. Drilled pile construction would generate less noise and vibration than driven piles, but may be difficult to install if boulders are encountered. Additionally, there is widespread soil contamination in the area, and contaminated soil and water extracted while drilling would need to be collected, treated and disposed of properly. This construction impact study assumed the use of driven piles.
After pile installation is complete, formwork for the pile cap would be installed, rebar installed, and concrete placed. Pier construction would follow, working from ground level up in approximately 2.5 m (8 ft) segments. Formwork would be installed, rebar installed and concrete placed. After the concrete has cured sufficiently, the forms would be stripped and the sequence would be repeated until the pier was complete.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A frequent commenter at Newtown Pentacle, “George the atheist”, asked me a while back for clarification and or documentation of my assertion that the reason for the truss bridge’s enormous height over the Creek was to allow egress to ocean going vessels with high stacks (smokestacks). During the course of some general research on Newtown Creek in the first half of the 20th century, this 1951 photo popped up at the NYS Digital collections site which illustrates just such a scene.
from wikipedia
The Kosciuszko Bridge is a truss bridge that spans Newtown Creek between the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, connecting Greenpoint, Brooklyn and Maspeth, Queens. It is a part of Interstate 278, which is also locally known as the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The bridge opened in 1939, replacing the Penny Bridge from Meeker Avenue in Brooklyn to Review Avenue and Laurel Hill Boulevard, and is the only bridge over Newtown Creek that is not a drawbridge. It was named in honor of Tadeusz Kościuszko, a Polish volunteer who was a General in the American Revolutionary War. Two of the bridge towers are surmounted with eagles, one is the Polish eagle, and the other the American eagle.
Project Firebox 43
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lonely for olden times, this lonely sentinel stands vigil on Vernon blvd. in Queens. Once, it saw ferries and trolley lines busily engaging in their occupation, today it witnesses only automobiles coming and going from a big box store across the street.
fulgent images
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is not the world you know, this 3.8 mile long cataract of water which forms the currently undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens, whose mouth is found directly opposite the Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital in Manhattan. The very air you breathe is a poisonous fume, and beneath the languid ripples of its mirrored surface hide a morass of centuries old poisons which have been allowed to agglutinate and congeal in fuligin depths. This is where the industrial revolution actually happened, around the canalized bulkheads of the infamous Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Great fortunes have arisen here- the Pratts, and Rockefellers, even Peter Cooper- all grew fat at this banquet table. Five great cities arose around the Creek- Williamsburg, Long Island City, Greenpoint, Bushwick, and New York- and by 1900 a thriving maritime industry saw more cargo cross this tiny waterway than could be found on the entire Mississippi river. The vast populations of those five cities found employment here, in titan rail yards and factory mills whose smokestacks blotted out the light cascading down from the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself. This is where the bill came due in the early 20th century, as you cannot have a “Manhattan” without causing a “Newtown Creek”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Thought irredeemable, this place became a dumping ground, with raw sewage and every imaginable kind of filth allowed to pool and mingle with the water. By the end of the 20th century, it was a literal backwater and forgotten by all but those cursed to live nearby. Petroleum swirls about beneath the ground, mingling with the esoteric byproducts of early chemical factories and one and a half centuries of breakneck industrial growth. The top soil is impregnated by heavy metals, asbestos, and tons of soot deposited daily by automotive exhaust. Along the rotting bulkheads, sediment mounds of sewage rise from the water, and from forgotten pipelines unknown chemical combinations drip and drool. Who can guess, all there is, that might be buried down there?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hope rises, however, at the start of the Superfund era. Federal authorities have begun the laborious process of analyzing and categorizing those sediments which lie fifteen to twenty feet thick on the bottom of the waterway, colloquially referred to as “Black Mayonnaise”. The Superfund legislation which governs their actions has compelled them to remove and remediate these sediments, and deliver Newtown Creek to the future in a healthier condition. Community groups, industrial stakeholders, and officials from both the State and City have begun the task of planning the Newtown Creek of future times. This is the literal backbone and center of New York City.
maddeningly untransmissible
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A curious thing happens when one exits the former Celtic Park at 43rd street in Queens, and crosses beneath a titan viaduct carrying the Long Island Expressway near its singular junction with the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. First, one realizes the enormity of having entered DUKBO (Down Under the Kosciuszko Bridge Onramp), and secondarily the realization that this is not the safest path for a pedestrian to have chosen becomes readily apparent.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is a “back door” to the massive truss bridge, thrice damned, which spans the Newtown Creek and has done so since 1939. Any driver with NY plates on their vehicle, ones worth their salt at least, has several of these short cuts etched into their mind. Taking Hunters Point Avenue to Skillman Avenue when exiting the Pulaski Bridge in order to avoid the traffic at Queens Plaza is another one of the Creek specific ones, but there are hundreds of similar opportunities to shave a few minutes off of a drive found all over the megalopolis.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent announcements by the elites of Albany have made it clear that the Kosciuszko Bridge replacement project has had its timeline amplified, and work will begin on the endeavor in 2013 rather than the following year. Accordingly, your humble narrator has been attempting to spend a whole lot of time in the neighborhood of late, with the goal of recording everything in the place during its final days.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the features here that I will sorely miss is this lovely little footbridge which carries pedestrian traffic from the 43rd street sidewalk over to the head of Laurel Hill Blvd., which runs alongside Calvary Cemetery’s eastern wall. As far as I’ve been able to discern, this structure is unnamed, here is where it might be found on a google map. If anyone reading this post works for an “official” agency and has information on the structure which you can share, please email me here, and let me know if you’d like to stay anonymous.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you can see, the foot bridge spirals over the onramp of the Kosciuszko fed by the Long Island Expressway’s “Queens Midtown Expressway” section, and said road channels Brooklyn bound traffic onto the truss bridge. In my estimation, the foot bridge is just wide enough to accommodate an automobile, although the turns would be tricky to negotiate in anything larger than a compact. Perhaps this is what it was originally intended to do, or it might just be a feature designed to allow emergency access to police.
Unlikely, but long have I wondered why the foot bridge is so over built. Look at all that steel.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An access hatch is visible beneath the brick and mortar abutment which is freestanding from the LIE ramps, and evidence of some regular habitation is readily apparent. Someone is indeed living under, or actually within, this little footbridge.
One can imagine few places less peaceful to exist, at the locus point of the BQE and LIE at the foot of the Kosciuszko, within a masonry cairn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Habit and expectations demand that this person be labelled a “troll”, after the mythical creatures which European folklore describe as living beneath bridges. Odds are that this would be a cruel description for whomever it might be that calls this his or her “little hole in the wall”. Of course, this somewhat circular apartment offers one of the finest city views in all of Queens, and easy access to the B24 bus.
What tales might this individual describe, living across the way from Calvary Cemetery?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All around the Newtown Creek, hidden amongst the bridges and rails tracks and amongst weed choked lots and abandoned industrial buildings, live an undocumented population. The odd thing is that they have jobs, or seem to, and just don’t mind a little discomfort if it means not paying rent. Once, it would have made sense to me to try and help out somehow, but age and experience have taught me to be afraid of people who brave such hardships.
Whoever this troll is, it is probably best to leave them alone, as the NY State DOT will be evicting them before long in any case.
You may think this is callow, or callous, or claim it to be madness.
This is not madness, this is DUKBO.
elaborately fashioned
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While moving through DUPBO (Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp) the other day, a passing train forced me to halt my ceaseless marching momentarily. Suffering from a malfunction, my headphones were not working, and the ultimate horror of being alone with my thoughts occurred. A brief interlude with your humble narrator has been described as exhausting, and that’s when the interviewee is feeling generous or is governed by polite behavioral norms. Long exposures to my uniquely abhorrent personality have been known to induce madness, encourage alcoholism, and destroy all hope for peace. An expectation of normalcy is usually abandoned by those unable to escape my presence shortly after first contact.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My family describes me as best taken in small doses, and does their best to disavow, deny, and distance themselves. Imagine what it must be like, between my ears, as one cannot escape from oneself. With the headphones roaring their cacophony, it is often possible for me to drown my endless narrative of self referential critique and worry, but without them the omnipresence of paranoid wonderings is impossible to evade. What you read in this blog is what I’m like all the time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Poverty stricken of late, my plan to get every last millimeter of sole from my last pair of hiking boots backfired, causing an injury of some kind to my left foot. Not severe, discomfort is barely noticeable until several miles into a walk, but after a while it becomes uncomfortable. While standing in DUPBO, one wondered if it might be something truly horrible and I began to ponder if it might be foot cancer. This led me to begin thinking about whether or not there was any such thing as “foot cancer” (there is), which led me to begin wondering about all the other aches and pains which I experience and attempted to ascribe a hypochondriacal “worst case” scenario to each.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Constant thought is given to being struck by a truck, or car, or train of course. I also worry about things falling off of buildings- did you know that bricks sometimes just come loose and fall? Falling air conditioners, electrified utility lines, even sinkholes could randomly cross my path. There are feral dogs, packs of rats, hordes of flesh eating centipedes, and aggressive seagulls… One could fall in the creek head first and get stuck in the mud, be drawn into a wood chipper, or end up stuffing a fifty gallon drum after taking a photo of something I shouldn’t have. It is not fun thinking these thoughts, and impossible for me to turn them off. Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of things happen in New York City, things which are admittedly “statistically unlikely” but happened nevertheless- decapitation, bloodcicles, and pineapple with ham on pizza. Oddly enough, I seldom worry about being struck by lightning- go figure.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is, of course, why I keep my headphones buried firmly in my ears and the volume turned way up, on these long walks around Queens and the Newtown Creek. It’s also why, as soon as budget allowed, a new pair of shoes were purchased, because you cannot run away from imagined dangers when your left foot hurts. The repair to the headphones has been accomplished as well, and as this shadow of what looks like a man strides forth, he no longer is forced to listen to a fear crazed maniac within his head. Still worried about foot cancer though… So many things can happen to you…
The Newtown Pentacle 