Archive for the ‘Pickman’ Category
even thirstier than
A few tugs, observed, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last week I was invited to attend the Waterfront Alliance’s annual conference, which takes place on a large excursion boat operated by the Hornblower corporation. Onboard, there’s a series of conferences in which bigwigs and harbor heavyweights discuss this or that issue which impacts the Harbor of New York and New Jersey. Onboard… well, let’s just say that after nearly a decade of a humble narrator hanging around with the harbor crowd that there were a LOT of familiar faces. Last year the conference boat headed north along the Brooklyn and Queens coastline, but this year I was pleasantly surprised when the trip went south and we found ourselves on the Kill Van Kull separating the north shore of… Staten Island… from the chemical coast of New Jersey.
“Cool” thought I, when Moran’s “Marie J Turecamo” tug slid past!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Kill Van Kull seldom disappoints, as it’s a busy maritime corridor connecting the upper harbor with Port Elizabeth Newark and the cargo docks which you’ll find back there. There’s almost always a ballet of tugs and cargo ships moving through here, and after Newtown Creek and the East River – it’s the one of the NYC waterways with which I’m most familiar and can speak intelligently about.
This is, of course, due to the tutelage I was lucky enough to receive from Capt. Doswell of the Working Harbor Committee, on the many, many Newark Bay tours he led back here for WHC. I’ve studied the place on my own, of course, but when you’ve got somebody like Doswell sharing his “smarts” with you – you shut up and listen.
I believe WHC is going to be conducting a Newark Bay tour this summer, but obviously our late Captain Doswell will be there in spirit only.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Waterfront Alliance boat didn’t go as far back as WHC does – we didn’t get a close look at Global Marine Terminal for instance – but it was a real treat to get to shoot some tugs. I was onboard the WA boat to shoot the actual conferences, and some Oyster thing in the morning as well, but after accomplishing my “shot list” one headed topside and checked a few things off of my personal shot list.
“Franklin Reinauer” on Kill Van Kull, check.
Upcoming Events and Tours
Saturday, May 21st at 3:30 p.m. –
A Return to The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek,
with Atlas Obscura, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Click here for more details.
Thursday, May 26th at 6 p.m. –
Brooklyn Waterfront: Past & Present Boat Tour,
with Working Harbor Committee. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
came from without
You can tell from the way this song is, Astoria Queens rules.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The quotation above is from the Murphys Law song “A day in the life” which pretty much sums up life around these parts. Pictured above is the assortment of safety equipment which my upstairs neighbor Mario keeps at the ready for situations which might present trip hazards.
My landlord recently received notice from the City that his sidewalk concrete required replacement, and his crew of noise makers got busy demolishing the old pavement and replacing it with fresher stuff. Mario got busy with the cones and barriers after they left, in the hope that he could divert the footsteps of the neighbors.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Spotted this fellow on 43rd street at the borders of Sunnside and Astoria recently. He was a delivery guy, and in the frames not presented above, was draining a can of “cerveza.” The presence of someone who was likely Mexican or Ecuadorian in front of a wall with the LIC skyline behind him made me think of Donald Trump for some reason. Something about luxury towers, and a wall.
As a note – like the villain from Harry Potter, if you stop saying Donald Trump’s name, he’ll lose his powers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The fellow pictured above was grifting on Astoria’s Broadway recently, claiming that he had tripped and gotten hurt on a sidewalk grate in front of one of the multitudes of “nail and pedi” shops hereabouts. Since the “nail and pedi” shops are part of the same Asian slave labor industry as the local massage parlors – rub and tugs, as they’re known – the grifter knew that the owners would pay him off in cash. The cops in the shot above realized this too, of course, and the kabuki show of Queens just continues.
Someday, a real rain will fall, but Astoria Queens does – indeed – rule.
Upcoming Events and Tours
Saturday, May 21st at 3:30 p.m. –
A Return to The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek,
with Atlas Obscura, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Click here for more details.
Thursday, May 26th at 6 p.m. –
Brooklyn Waterfront: Past & Present Boat Tour,
with Working Harbor Committee. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
terrible, revolting, and inexplicable
New Yorkers are a bunch of animals, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Psychological Industrial Complex would call it aversion therapy. After being permanently scarred by what I’d witnessed at the Central Park Zoo back during the cold weather months, it was with a palpitatant heart that I approached the Snow Monkeys at Central Park Zoo… In actuality, I had to go in to town for an appointment with my accountant at six, but I also had to call in to a Newtown Creek CAG meeting at four, so I decided to use my NYCID card granted free membership to the Zoo. Whilst the call in meeting was buzzing away in my headphones, I was wandering about the place and shooting. That, lords and ladies, is what you call “multitasking.”
Regardless, I was terrified that a couple of these apes were going to “do the deed” in front of me again. Last thing I need is for the Newtown Creek crowd to hear me screaming and gibbering in shocked horror.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Despite my prior protestations to the contrary, one still has not managed to bank away enough time to make the trip deep into Brooklyn to visit the Aquarium. The Queens Zoo has been visited within the last year, and last month I squeezed in a trip to the unknown country known as “The Bronx” where NYC’s premier animal prison is located. I’m going to try and squeeze the Prospect Park Zoo into the summer schedule as well, but it’s a bit of a pain in the neck to get there from Astoria. The Aquarium is actually a straight shot for me on the N or Q to the end of the line in Brighton Beach/Coney Island.
Btw, did a whole post on the Penguins at Central Park Zoo last year – click here.
Alternatively, I’m thinking about just taking the 5 to its terminus near Brooklyn College and walking from there. That’s my old neighborhood, after all, and the place where I first developed my taste for wandering aimlessly across the megalopolis. It’s been a long time since I took a walk in that part of Brooklyn.
Either way, it’s going to be an all day sort of thing to get there and back.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Time was growing short, and my appointment with the accountant was nearing. I left the zoo and on my way over to “my guy’s” office the usual line up of carriages and horses was encountered on the periphery of Olmstead’s master work. Since I was in an “animals” mode that day, a few shots were cracked out of the critters as I moved along. While I was doing this, the Newtown Creek conversation was revolving around familiar topics – largely sewers, and oil spills, trying to interpret the motives or true goals of the various “Potentially Responsible Party’s,” and puzzle out the kabuki of Federal regulators with their Sphinx like behavior. The usual stuff, in other words.
As the shot above was captured, I was thinking about sending it to the Mayor with the caption “Nice try, Bill, I’m still here.”
Upcoming Events and Tours
Saturday, May 21st at 3:30 p.m. –
A Return to The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek,
with Atlas Obscura, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Click here for more details.
Thursday, May 26th at 6 p.m. –
Brooklyn Waterfront: Past & Present Boat Tour,
with Working Harbor Committee. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
apportioned excess
At Brooklyn’s Unamed Canal, best described as a minor tributary of the Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whenever possible, on days when I’m conducting a walking tour somewhere around the fabulous Newtown Creek, I like to get there early and scout ahead. The Creeklands are full of surprises. If it’s one of the long ones, I’ll usually try and walk the route a day or two before the event, but for the shorter ones I like to “do it on the day.”
Last Sunday, we did a relatively short one revolving around Newtown Creek Alliance’s “North Henry Street Project.” The group encountered me and my pal Mai first, and I recounted the story of oil in Greenpoint, segued into the whole “CSO” or “combined sewer outfall” situation on the Creek, then talked about the sewer plant. At the end of Kingsland Avenue and what is theoretically North Henry Street, the group was handed over to my pal Will Elkins, NCA’s Project Manager and the fellow who is in charge of this whole North Henry Street situation.
Click here for NCA’s page describing the project.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, that’s why I was wandering around behind the sewer plant on Sunday morning at 9:30 in the morning. The first shot is from just three hours later, at the end of the tour when the weather had taken a dramatic turn for the better. It’s kind of lonely spot back here on Kingsland Avenue, although there’s actually quite a bit of activity – industrial wise – that happens back here.
Metro Fuel, Luna Lighting, Allocco Recycling, and a couple of others including the Department of Sanitation and the DEP are all buzzing around like busy little bees in this little cul de sac found in a part of Greenpoint which I refer to as DUGABO – Down Under the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge Onramp.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The star of the show in this section of the Newtown Creek heartlands is – of course – the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant and its stainless steel digester eggs. One of those digesters is going to be diverted from Municpal sewerage duty due to “Waste to Energy” project which the DEP has initiated with the National Grid company. Like a lot of “big green” projects, the devil is in the details with this thing.
The digester eggs are pretty incredible bits of technology, and purpose built. Within the eggs, the same micro organisms found within your own viscera are at work on an industrial scale. Said critters digest and sterilize the sewage sludge via biological processes. There’s a few byproducts to this process, one of which is a mephitic and combustible gas commonly called Methane.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Currently, the DEP uses some of this methane byproduct in pursuit of maintaining the temperature range required by the micro organisms within the digester eggs. The vast majority of it is burned off, however, making the plant an immense manufacturer of greenhouse gases. That’s where National Grid comes into the picture.
The National Grid people have partnered with DEP, and will be building a mechanism by which this excess Methane will be added to their own Methane Natural Gas network. Sounds great, right?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It seems that sewage doesn’t have the yield for viable commercial exploitation of the gas. Accordingly, one of the eggs is either now, or soon will be, offline for sewage duty, so it can be fed “food waste.” To guarantee that no pesticide or preservatives can addle the powers of the micro organisms, a preference has been stated for organic food waste. This organic waste is collected by trucks operated by the Department of Sanitation, which will converge from all over the City of Greater New York on Greenpoint’s hazy eastern border with Williamsburg and Bushwick. How do they know the food waste is organic? Let’s just say I know somebody in the school lunch lady Union that mentioned to me that their people were mandated to start separating food waste from the other trash recently. This mention was an angry one, as the City has provided no funds to facilitate the extra work.
The food waste will be “macerated” (chopped up), semi liquefied, and then pumped into another truck. That truck, which will be the sort of big tanker rigs you observe filling the underground tanks of gas stations, will then drive to the sewer plant and pump the stuff into the egg.
One year into the program, DEP and National Grid expect twelve of these tankers to be crossing through Greenpoint on a daily basis. They haven’t projected the number of truck trips through Greenpoint for the second year of the roll out yet. The “waste to energy” program, which seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the amount of compostable organics headed to landfill, has inadvertently added hundreds if not thousands of heavy trucks a year to the already heavy flow of traffic through Greenpoint and the Creeklands as a whole.
Upcoming Events and Tours
Saturday, May 21st at 3:30 p.m. –
A Return to The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek,
with Atlas Obscura, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Click here for more details.
Thursday, May 26th at 6 p.m. –
Brooklyn Waterfront: Past & Present Boat Tour,
with Working Harbor Committee. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
imperfect posture
Just a short, and selfie, one today
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As one scuttles about from place to place, lots of things are observed. Recently, the young lady pictured above was taking advantage of a (fairly) recently installed bike lane on one of the truss bridges crossing the Sunnyside Yards, at 39th street, to capture a series of selfies as she rode along. Vision Zero, or zero vision?
Upcoming Events and Tours
Saturday, May 21st at 3:30 p.m. –
A Return to The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek,
with Atlas Obscura, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Click here for more details.
Thursday, May 26th at 6 p.m. –
Brooklyn Waterfront: Past & Present Boat Tour,
with Working Harbor Committee. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 