cloudy throne
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m not joking when I say that I’m obsessed with that little tree which is growing out from under a factory building in Long Island City, along the banks of Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kills tributary. One feared, during a post deluge walk, that it might have become unrooted due to the heavy rain but there it was. It’s passed from being a tree to being a metaphor for me. Nature wins, ultimately, no matter how hard we try – nature wins.
Hope, basically. It represents hope to me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s why we should be striving to enslave the insects to do our bidding. Imagine commanding armies of ants or termites. It’s just a matter of figuring out their pheromone language and changing their marching orders. Ants can move mountains, one particle of sand at a time. Give me enough indentured ants and I’ll change the course of the Hudson.
To get started – we’ll just need a bag of sugar, a laptop, and a couple of lengths of copper speaker wire. Yeah, eventually we’ll need an AI to act as the Queen, but one thing at a time – huh?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I don’t know why I automatically go to “mad science” as my solution for intractable problems. I have a friend who’s the kind of scientist who does horrible things to monkeys at work (for good reasons, as he’s trying to cure blindness, but it’s still a pretty grim laboratory setup). I’ve asked him if the “science industry” has any sort of safeguards against he or his colleagues going rogue. If you notice your co worker has a human hand wired to a computer, for instance, is there an 800 number to call?
The answer, after he finished laughing about the term “science industry,” was no. There are no restrictive or societal rules against mad science. Order your Tesla coils, lords and ladies, the sky’s the limit.
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frightful velocity
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Reliable actuations of the new(ish) camera, wherein I can point it at a scene and get back what I’m expecting, have been achieved. What I’m up to right now is figuring out how far I can push the thing before the images fall apart. These shots were captured at an ungodly high ISO (128,000) to see what that might look like if I needed it in a pinch.
The answer is that it looks fairly “otherworldly” and a little weird, huh?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shot above is beyond the range of human vision. Literally, I could barely make out anything but the shape of the concrete truck above when I was shooting it. Frankly, I was startled when the autofocus found something to bite into when the camera was pointed at the shadowy mass.
That puddle under the truck was basically the only standing water I encountered on this walk. And the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek is right on the other side of that truck, as a note.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Again, the startling fact that I was seeing so little damage in the industrial zone from the Ida deluge was staggering. I was expecting hydrological evidences – mud slicks, debris piles stacked against chain link fences, puddles. Nothing, nada.
Back next week with more wonders at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
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“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.
all petrifying
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After the rains of Ida blasted through Queens, a humble narrator packed up his camera bag and headed over to the industrial zone of Long Island City to see if my there was any interesting damage to take pictures of. My destination was the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek, and to get there from HQ here in Astoria, I have to cross over to the south side of the Sunnyside Yards.
That’s the Standard Motor Products Building, one of several dinosaur sized industrial buildings which line the Northern Blvd. side of the Federal rail yard. Standard was a manufacturer of switches and electronics for automobiles, and still are. I have a friend who still works for them in an office in that building. On the roof is the Brooklyn Grange Urban Farm, which is definitely worth a visit if you’ve never been up there.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Given the sloping character of Skillman Avenue, one expected to find all sorts of storm damage here. Nada. It was as if nothing had changed since the last time I walked through here.
Well, maybe they managed to toss another luxury condo up in the last week, it’s hard to tell with Long Island City these days.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One thing about that storm, however, is that everyone forgot to pat the NYC DEP on the back afterwards. I’m often in an adversarial posture towards this particular city agency, and a lot of my activist/advocacy time is spent decrying their bureaucratic obfuscations on Newtown Creek. Saying that, however, you do have to appreciate the fact that when the rain falls on us in buckets, they are the ones who drain the flooding away. Also, in NYC, you seldom get warnings about having to boil drinking water as it’s become contaminated after flooding. DEP delivers our clean water, maintains the resovoirs, and also handles sewage at their 13 treatment plants. They have a few more duties, but those are the big ones.
Thank you to Commissioner Vincent Sapienza and his DEP pals for getting us through yet another crazy weather event.
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seared unbearably
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few more views from Newtown Creek Alliance HQ in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section for today’s post. That’s the sewer plant in Greenpoint above, with 3 of its 8 stainless steel digester eggs in frame. It’s a technological marvel, I tell you.
For this trio of shots, I was actually on the roof of HQ at 520 Kingsland Avenue, where NCA has partnered up with several other entities around the creation and maintenance of a 26,000 square feet green roof.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Heavily cropped, the shot above depicts night time operations for yet another tug – which I think is the Helen Laramy. Tug companies paint their vessels with certain “colorways” which indicate who owns what and are graphic enough to be seen at a distance. This is a lot less important today than it was in the past, as the United States Coast Guard maintains a system wherein onboard radio transponders don’t just identify vessels in NY Harbor, but also indicate where – exactly – they are, and what their heading and speed are.
Seriously, you’ve seen science fiction movies where the starships have fewer electronic doo dads than the bridge of a modern tugboat.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
From what I was able to discern, this particular tug was operating along the bulkheads of Allocco Recycling in Brooklyn. Yesterday’s post displayed another tug working the opposite shore. Allocco is in the metals business like SimsMetal in Long Island City, but their main line seems to involve aggregates. Aggregate recycling involving passing excavated soils through a series of sieves to grade it by particle size – sand, gravel, rock etc. The material is then poured into barges and taken away for further processing or redistribution back into the ground somewhere.
I’ve been asked this a few times, so… Allocco doesn’t stand for anything as a corporate amalgamation name, instead it’s the last name of the family who owns this business. I know the showrunner there, Mike. Nice guy.
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“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.
intense concentration
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One found himself visiting the HQ of the illimitable Newtown Creek Alliance over in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section the other day, where a maritime industrial show was on offer. I had just conducted an introduction to Newtown Creek for an academic class and while my colleague continued the narrative, I wandered off and got busy with the camera.
That’s the DonJon Towing Company’s Caitlin Ann, towing barges of scrap metal about, which were filled up by the SimsMetal company on the Long Island City side of my beloved Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A maritime barge carries the equivalent cargo of about 38 heavy trucks. You spend carbon and fuel running the tugboat, of course, but the greenest possible way to move bulk cargo around involves the water.
Also, as I’ve often said: it doesn’t matter if they’re pushing or pulling the barges, tugboats are in the towing business.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
SimsMetal handles municipal recycling for DSNY, who bring their collections here. They also do commercial recycling for private entities – recycling structural steel, aluminum, even cars which are all headed for the shredder. Sims also operates the shredder, but that’s at their joint in New Jersey. I’ve asked, they won’t let me and the camera anywhere near the shredder – too dangerous for a non employee to be anywhere near.
Newtown Creek is the most feature rich and interesting section of New York City to me. Period. Back tomorrow with more wonders.
“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.
The Newtown Pentacle 