Archive for the ‘Red Hook’ Category
fair land
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
April 5 saw a humble narrator join with other maritime enthusiasts at a NYC EDC job fair set up for NYC High School aged students at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook. Pictured above is the United States Coast Guard’s current ‘Commander of Sector New York’ Captain Zeita Merchant.
I wasn’t there to do anything other than photograph the event, and I donated my services for this one. Maritime is a great career, one that’s often overlooked by an educational system that seems to be set up for the singular purpose of creating office workers and clerks. Anything I can do to help is worth the time and effort.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The event was created by NYC EDC’s Ports unit, and they brought in Coast Guard, the Harbor Units of FDNY and NYPD, as well as a series of private capital outfits from the port. Tugboat operators, international shipping companies, lots and lots of offshore power generation companies. The kids attending the event were shuttled from table display to table display and offered a free lunch.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Longshoreman’s Union was there, and they were showing off the cool toys that they get to play with on the job. After the event ended, it started to rain and that didn’t stop for days.
Luckily, I was bogged down with photos to develop and a series of Zoom meetings which I had to attend but didn’t demand 100% of my attentions.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
April 7th, I was still in Zoom meeting hell and it was still raining, but I couldn’t help but shoot yet another rainy night view of the garishly lit Bodega across the street from HQ in Astoria.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On April 8th, it had stopped raining, but when I went out to drop off my laundry and pick up a bagel, blood trails were discovered that went on for blocks and blocks here in Astoria.
I made a few calls.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It seems that somebody was displaying his great physical prowess with the intention of impressing a young lady. This display ended when he punched out the plate glass window of a bakery and he severed arteries in both arms and the neck. Further, his reaction to the open vessels situation was to run up and down Broadway while flapping his arms. Luckily, an FDNY ambulance happened to be passing by and noticed the spot he was in. I’m told the unlucky fellow was taken to Elmhurst Hospital where he was refilled with blood.
Now, as far as cleaning up those blood trails… this is yet another one of those “incompetent fuck” NYC stories which sees the City’s various agencies passing the buck to each other as to whose responsibility it is. NYPD said it’s FDNY’s job, FDNY said to instead call Sanitation, who in turn suggested calling NYPD.
As of middle May, the shadow of the scab trails are still visible on the sidewalks of Astoria.
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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.
beckoning vistas
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It took leaving HQ in Astoria at 5:30 in the morning, freezing my falafels off on a ferry in middle December, and then walking about a mile and a half but I managed to get to the Gowanus Canal while superfund dredging was actually happening. Pictured above is the Gowanus, as seen from the Hamilton Avenue Bridge under the Gowanus Expressway. Normal circumstance, if such a thing exists anymore, would have found me taking the G train to the elevated structure at the top of the shot – which is the Smith/9th street station. The draw bridge it overflies is the 9th street Bridge. The bucket barge and fuel barge/tug at lower left aren’t part of the dredge operations, as a note, they were there for other business.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Named to the Federal Environmental Protection Agency’s CERCLA or “Superfund” list at the same time as my beloved Newtown Creek, Gowanus Canal involves a significantly smaller geographical and simpler pollution problem to solve than Newtown Creek does. The Gowanus Canal is analogous in terms of scale and circumstance to the Long Island City tributary of Newtown Creek called Dutch Kills, in fact. Since the problem is smaller and somewhat simpler, Gowanus got to this part of the process first, whereas Newtown Creek is still several years away from dredging. Saying that, it’s a real mess down there at Gowanus, under the water.
Before you ask – it really didn’t smell that bad. The most miserable thing, odor wise, was experiencing the exhaust pouring out of the stacks of the Tugs and other equipment as they performed their tasks. You’d suddenly find yourself standing in a pall of blue diesel exhaust when the wind bent in your direction.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There were distinct units working on the various “locks” created by the street bridges crossing the Gowanus. Pictured above is the operation that was stationed between the 9th street and Union Street Bridges. Gowanus Bay narrows into the canal, and it’s crossed by seven bridges; Union Street, Carroll Street, Third Street, the New York City Subway’s Culver Viaduct (Smith 9th street station), Ninth Street, Hamilton Avenue, and the Gowanus Expressway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Dredging is something I usually see all the time, but I spend a lot of time on the water under normal circumstance. Maintenance of shipping channels in deeper water usually entails using a specialized rig with it’s own power plant that has steel “pods” which are lowered into the water and act as legs to stabilize the machine. What I saw at Gowanus were “materials handlers” with specialized grabbers on them, as pictured above.
The sediments are scooped off the bottom, the water is drained into one bucket barge, and then the solids go into another. It’s likely that the more liquid material will be decanted and then processed as wastewater or sewage would be.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Hamilton Avenue lift bridge raising to allow a tug towing away one of those “solids” barges out of the canal. It’s called a lift bridge as the entire roadway lifts vertically to allow maritime egress.
As always – it doesn’t matter if the Tug is pushing, or pulling, or the barge is tied up “on the hip” it’s called “towing.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Same Tug, different bridge. This is the Hamilton Avenue Bridge, which you saw in the first shot from the other side. It’s a double bascule draw bridge, but the two movable sections are parallel to each other. A more traditional setup for this sort of structure would be the Pulaski Bridge at Newtown Creek, where the two bascules are in line with each other and form an arch when closed.
More tomorrow.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, January 4th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
sallies abroad
No matter where you go, there you are.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One spends a great deal of his time gazing in wonder and astonishment at the City of Greater New York, and no place moreso than Astoria here in the Borough of Queens. When I mention Astoria to people who live in other boroughs, they immediately go to the “Greek” thing, but whereas we still have a substantial Hellenic population hereabouts it ain’t the 1970’s no more. In my observation, there really isn’t a single dominant group in Astoria anymore, unless you start lumping folks together into “racial” groupings like “Latino” or “Black” or “Asian” or “European.” It’s a fairly unsophisticated way to look at people, in my opinion, using this sort of categorizing. One such as myself prefers to see people as individuals rather than as part of a cultural or socioeconomic super group, but I am famously not enamored with identity politics.
I guess it’s human nature to try and stick strangers into a tribal box, and define them by where they’re from. For the identity politics crowd, this means that they’re constantly surprised when assumptions about some stranger’s politics or lifestyle don’t turn out to be true. Identity politics are ultimately “nationalism” when you get down to it, just on a different side of the aisle from what you’d normally associate with the term. I find it dehumanizing when somebody categorizes me as “Jewish” or “a Yank,” and try not to do it myself. As I tell people constantly, it’s “way down the list” when I’m describing someone whom they like to noodle with or where their family is from.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Breaking into ever smaller groups seems to be the fashion at the moment, however, and folks do it to themselves. This sort of fragmentation works beautifully for the political establishment, and allows them to target either the “one legged transgender Peruvians” or “three eyed second generation Lebanese home owners” vote during election season. Are you a white small business owner who fears clear blue skies since you have been selling umbrellas since 1987 on Steinway Street? A woman of color who receives too much mail? A non binary gender neutral hog butcher disturbed about the new LED street lamps? Like riding bikes? How about a shepherd in traditionally male dominated field who has become separated from one of your charges?
Don’t worry Little Bo Peep, I’ve proposed legislation in the Assembly to place a non GMO fed and cruelty free chicken specifically in your pot. Me, I’m a “big tent” kind of guy. What have we got in common, and why is it so hard to resist it when a politician insists on using our divisions to distract and work us?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Bah. Old man shakes fist at cloud, right?
Kids these days.
Tours and Events
Canal to Coast: Reuniting the Waters Boat Tour. Only $5!
Thurs, August 30, 2018, 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM with Waterfront Alliance
Learn about the origins of Brooklyn’s Erie Basin as the Erie Canal’s ultimate destination, and its current role as a vital resource for maritime industry on this guided tour of Red Hook’s Erie Basin and the Brooklyn working waterfront, departing from and returning to New York Water Taxi’s Red Hook Dock. Tickets here.
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fled through
Break time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A single image greets you this morning, as will be the case through the Thanksgiving holiday.
A humble narrator requires a break periodically, to recharge and reinvent. Worry not, however, for pithy commentary and puckish intent returns on the Monday following Thanksgiving – the first of December.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
approaching egress
A day late and a dollar short, that’s me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sorry for today’s late and rather insubstantial update, depicting a life preserver frozen to the shoreline of Red Hook’s Erie Basin, which is somewhat metaphorical. Looking forward to the warmer weather this weekend, and your humble narrator will be everywhere along the Newtown Creek in the next few days, camera in hand.
Additionally, next week, I’ll be announcing the 2014 Newtown Creek walking tour schedule as it currently stands.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 