Archive for the ‘Queens’ Category
tightly packed
Just a short one today, got to catch a cab.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An uncanny valley of off duty cabs, called Skillman Avenue in Queens.
excitement and fatigue
In today’s post, what not to do on the Subway, a public service announcement.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To start, I’d like to remind you that time well spent and the daily round for old Mitch normally includes trips to sewer plants, waste transfer stations, and hanging around a certain superfund site which defines the currently undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens. I can describe the different smells of residual sewage material versus that of putrescent garbage in some detail, and will often stop short and sniff at the air, proclaiming “there’s something dead nearby.” Saying that, the most disgusting thing I encounter on a daily basis is actually an electrified Petri dish we call the Subway.
from nytimes.com
The team identified no known human pathogens and found that about 5 percent of the microbial species (a fifth of those identifiable) probably came from human skin — our heels, heads and forearms, mostly.
“Every time you step down, you pressurize the air that’s in your shoe,” Dr. Pace said. “You stomp down, you squirt out a little warm air, carrying foot microbiology.” This so-called convective plume radiates from some 1.6 billion riders annually and disperses throughout the subway system.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m sure that the system is cleaned as much as possible, and that the MTA folks do everything to the letter of the law. Theirs is a hopeless task, however, as the system is the focal point through which all of us must squeeze. We apes are a particularly disgusting lot, who often carry and consume foodstuffs down there, and riding along with us are the multitudinous pathogenic organisms which infect us. Urine, blood, and sputum adorn the platforms, and god itself only knows what might be festering in the rat blown darkness of the tunnels.
from nbcnews.com
Gerba found e-coli (a bacterium often responsible for food poisoning); MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a staph infection that’s resistant to most first-line antibiotics); and fecal matter on handrails. Fecal matter is on 50 percent of all handrails (people, it’s time to seriously wash your hands after using the bathroom). It’s not uncommon for handrails to have flu, staph bacteria, and respiratory and cold viruses, as well. Previous research in England found that people are more likely to get a cold from handrails than any other public surfaces.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sandals are, perhaps, the most illogical choice for footwear (IMHO) in the City of New York but I won’t go so far as to petition City Hall to ban them. My prejudice against this specie of shoe no doubt emanates from growing up in the glass strewn milieu of 1970’s Brooklyn, when smashing beer bottles against brick walls was all the rage. This fellow whom I noticed on the train recently, however, had apparently decided that even the open toed pseudo shoes were a bit too restraining for him. Folks, its bad enough we have to breathe the same air down there, exchanging our personal biomes via aerosol vectors, but… keep your damned shoes on when you’re riding the train. Bleh.
from myfoxny.com
Here are the numbers: in 2011, 46 track-cleaning positions were eliminated saving the MTA $3.9 million; 11 escalator cleaning positions were cut, saving $1 million; and 116 car cleaner positions got the ax, saving the agency $8.6 million.
Project Firebox 86
An ongoing catalog of New York’s endangered Fireboxes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This municipal button has style, verve, and swagger. It towers precipitously on Crescent Street at the border of Astoria and Dutch Kills (the neighborhood, not the waterway, baby) awaiting the emergent and quite uncool news that trouble has arrived. Always at the ready to raise the roof or the alarum, this party loving firebox lets all that pass know help is just one shake of the lever away.
Things to do!
Working Harbor Committee presents: Great North River Tugboat Races and Competition, September 1st, 2013
9:30-11:30 a.m. at West 42nd Street and the Hudson River. Spectator Boat tickets now on sale.
imaginative stimuli
In today’s post- the chiaroscuro of Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Visual splendor makes Queens remarkable, with its open vistas and relicts of vainglory. Whenever the City of New York, since its consolidation, feels itself broken or in need of some experimental improvement- Queens is the place where it has tinkered with rail and expressway, bridge and tunnel, or with municipal zoning and tax abatement schemes. The old girl supports a lot of people these days, and all signs point to the Queens family growing larger.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are things which we aren’t talking about in this election cycle, like what happened to the Bowery Bay Sewage Plant during Hurricane Sandy, or the alarming antiquity of the electrical grid. If you spend as much time as I do around Newtown Creek, specifically the Dutch Kills tributary of that infamous ribbon of urban malfeasance and political neglect, the future of Queens is very much reflected in its past.
How long, I wonder, how long before the tinkering begins anew?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My predictions for the future are dire, as one is pessimistic both by nature and through experience. The growing modern corridors of western Queens will require new power plants and a modernized waste water control system before long which “somebody” will have to pay for. How long before stainless steel digester eggs reminiscent of the type found in Greenpoint tower over Astoria? How long will it be before red and white smokestacks rise over Dutch Kills here in Queens?
When will the tinkering begin?
Things to do!
Working Harbor Committee presents: Great North River Tugboat Races and Competition, September 1st, 2013
9:30-11:30 a.m. at West 42nd Street and the Hudson River. Spectator Boat tickets now on sale.
An unexpected birthday
This is a reblog from exactly one year ago, commemorating both the Birthday of the Kosciuszko Bridge and the Night of the Living Dead.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oh, the old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be,
Ain’t what she used to be, ain’t what she used to be.
The old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be, Many long years ago.
Seventy Four years ago today, the Little Flower cut the ribbon and officially opened the “New Meeker Avenue Bridge” to traffic. The following April in 1940, it was renamed as the Kosciuszko Bridge.
It’s the Night of the Living Dead, by the way. Also, it’s Vulcanalia…
August 23, 1939, image New York City Municipal Archives at nycma.lunaimaging.com
– photo by Arthur J. Foley
According to the Long Island City Star-Journal of August 24th, 1939– the lineup of folks in the shot and action above are described as:
Mayor LaGuardia snips the ribbon which admitted the first autos lo use the lofty new Meeker Avenue Bridge over Newtown Creek in Laurel Hill, at the dedication held yesterday at Laurel Hill Plaza. To the right of the mayor is Acting Borough President John J. Halloran of Queens. To his left is Borough President Raymond V. Ingersoll of Brooklyn. Left of Ingersoll is Frederick J. H. Kracke, who was commissioner of Plant and Structures when that department originated plans for the bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
American Bridge Company and Bethlehem Steel worked on her, along with dozens of other contractors. The Big K was part of what was known as “the Regional Plan”, which also provied the pretext for the erection of the Triborough, Whitestone, Marine Parkway and a slew of other bridges across the archipelago.
July 14, 1939, image New York City Municipal Archives at nycma.lunaimaging.com,
– photo by Arthur J. Foley
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Odds are very good that this is her last birthday (wrong again, Mitch), as the “Fast Track” program announced by the Governor will be kick starting the construction of a “Newer Meeker Avenue Bridge”- or perhaps the “Kosciuszko Two”- by the late spring of 2013. She will be gone by 2017, if one were to believe the schedule currently touted by State officials.
June 29, 1939, image New York City Municipal Archives at nycma.lunaimaging.com,
– photo by Joseph Shelderfer
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The historic shots included in this post all link out to the New York City Municipal Archives site, which has famously begun releasing thousands of historic images of the City online. One of the tricks to using the system, I’ve discovered, is knowing what things used to be called. It’s a “streetcar” versus “trolley” kind of thing. We call the former light rail system by the latter name, while those who dwelled in the past used the former.
June 29, 1939, image New York City Municipal Archives at nycma.lunaimaging.com,
– photo by Joseph Shelderfer
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Very little information is available about the construction and planning of the Kosciuszko, but there’s plenty about the New Meeker Avenue Bridge. The Big K was built for two official reasons- first, to provide a link between the multitudes of infinite Brooklyn and the World Fair Grounds in Flushing (Flushing Meadow Corona Park), and secondly to replace the aging swing bridge that spanned Newtown Creek between Meeker Avenue in Brooklyn and Laurel Hill Blvd. in Queens. Unofficially, Robert Moses really wanted to get the Brooklyn Queens Expressway built and this was as good a place as any to start.
August 14, 1939, image New York City Municipal Archives at nycma.lunaimaging.com,
– photo by Arthur J. Foley
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One does look forward to that day in the latter half of this decade, which I seriously doubt will be anything even close to 2017, when the pedestrian lane of the new bridge will be open for inspection. One of the most frustrating parts of the current bridge is that it once sported such a lane for perambulation, but it has long been closed off- thwarting photographic exploitation of the surreal vantage point that it offers.
How I would love to set up a tripod on the Kosciuszko Bridge…
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.
Here’s a rare historic shot- in color- of the mighty span, from the year it was opened, also courtesy New York Municipal Archives
– photo by New York City Municipal Archives
– photo by Mitch Waxman
And just as a reminder, in the name of public good and an abundance of caution- don’t forget about the whole Night of the Living Dead thing- this could be trouble.
from youtube–
Want to see something cool? Summer 2013 Walking Tours-
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek – Saturday, August 24, 2013
Newtown Creek walking tour with Mitch Waxman and Atlas Obscura, tickets now on sale.
