supercilious and sneering
Sunset at my beloved Creek, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Around a week ago, my pal Gil Lopez was conducting a meeting of Newtown Creek Alliance’s Green Infrastructure Work Group over at the HarborLab location at the Vernon street end in LIC. Green Infrastructure, for those of you not in the loop, is a concept which seeks to use natural processes rather than mechanical ones (known as gray infrastructure) to handle issues such as flooding around waterways. Sometimes this “G.I.” manifests as bioswales, which are elaborately constructed tree pits that function as storm water retention tanks, in other cases it might mean using petroleum eating fungus organisms to clean up a brown field.
Pretty exciting stuff, actually, and the government types REALLY like it as it’s much cheaper to implement than gray infrastructure – which usually takes the form of sewer plants and expensive cut and cover projects like bending weirs.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The event was well attended, I saw Jan Mun and Jason Sinopoli, whose NCA project involving fungal or mycoremediation at the ExxonMobil 400 Kingsland Avenue site in Greenpoint I had photographed a while back. Dorothy Morehead from CB2 was there as well, and Gil Lopez is one of the founders of the Smiling Hogshead Ranch – a community garden recently opened on MTA property over on Skillman Avenue. Lynne Serpe from the Green Party, and Erik Baard from HarborLab, as well as a bunch of people I had never met before.
We discussed a few things, and since I had brought my tripod – decided to squeeze out a few sunset exposures.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is really going to miss the view from Newtown Creek, when the real estate industrial complex achieves their goal of stealing the sky and a shield wall of luxury condos is completed. The Green Infrastructure stuff is going to be increasingly important in coming decades, as we stack as many people as possible into LIC and North Brooklyn. Imagine what’s going to my beloved Creek every morning when all of these multitudes flush their toilets and bathe. Hopefully, we can imagine a solution, using nature to combat our ill conceived nurture.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
June 7th, 2015
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills Walking Tour
with Newtown Creek Alliance, click here for details and tickets.
June 11th, 2015
MADE IN BROOKLYN Hidden Harbor Boat Tour
with Working Harbor Committee, click here for details and tickets.
June 13th, 2015
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek Walking Tour
with Atlas Obscura, click here for details and tickets.
June 20th, 2015
Kill Van Kull Walking Tour
with Brooklyn Brainery, click here for details and tickets.
… down there?
Second Avenue Subway, 72nd to 86th street, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As detailed in several posts last week, with today’s offering as capstone, I was invited to join with a group of photographers and reporters on a walk through of Phase One of th Second Avenue Subway project with MTA President of Capital Construction Michael Horodniceanu. We entered the project at 63rd street, and walked all the way to 86th street, experiencing differing levels of “finish” as we went.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A constant issue encountered was the presence of other people, which bedevils me wherever I go, and efforts were made to move slowly and find myself at the rear of the group in order to attain “clean shots” of the project.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
86th street was far and away the least developed section we encountered, and work on the actual tracked hadn’t progressed much past foundations. Platforms were still under construction as well. When invited to come along, MTA personnel had warned that at the end of the trip, we would have to “climb a 130 step staircase.” One was a bit worried about the “climb” designation.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As it turns out, I was right to worry about that word “climb.” Some anonymous laborer had scrawled the graffito “heart attack ridge” on the temporary landing and by the time a humble narrator had achieved that height, a heart attack felt like it was a real possibility. As my grandmother would have said – I couldn’t stop shvitzing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Nevertheless, I plodded up the steps with camera gear in tow, while wearing my heavy steel toe boots and “PPE.” At the landing, all of us old guys decided to take a breather.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A construction worker in his mid twenties admonished us that he did this flight of stairs several times a day, which tells you about the sort of fortitude it takes to wear a hard hat. Insult to injury was added when Donna Hanover came bounding up the stairs like a mountain goat.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back at the surface, one avoided the Q&A section of the trip, and a hasty retreat back to Queens and my beloved Astoria was enacted. I had a speaking engagement on for the evening, discussing the Sunnyside Yards development plans with the United Forties Civic over on the Woodside/Sunnyside border, and needed to get home and shower off all the concrete dust and “shvitz.”
Tomorrow, something completely different, at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
June 7th, 2015
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills Walking Tour
with Newtown Creek Alliance, click here for details and tickets.
June 11th, 2015
MADE IN BROOKLYN Hidden Harbor Boat Tour
with Working Harbor Committee, click here for details and tickets.
June 13th, 2015
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek Walking Tour
with Atlas Obscura, click here for details and tickets.
June 20th, 2015
Kill Van Kull Walking Tour
with Brooklyn Brainery, click here for details and tickets.
… buried…
Second Avenue Subway, beyond 72nd street.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Continuing with the image rich posts detailing a recent visit to the MTA’s audacious Second Avenue Subway construction project in today’s post, the shot above depicts a group of laborers installing rebar in a side chamber. Everywhere you looked, there were crews of union guys busily doing this and that.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We visited the switch and signal room, where vast banks of electronic controls were in varying stages of completion.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
An enormous antechamber, of cyclopean scale, was encountered. This section was open to the sky, and that giant blue thing at the right hand corner of the shot was a crane which transports materials from the surface to the chasm below.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the north end of the 72nd street station, we encountered actual customer facing areas, where commuters will be found in a few years. This was also where we began to fully appreciate the monumental scale of all this.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
MTA’s Michael Horodniceanu, who was our guide, assured the group that we wouldn’t have to climb the temporary wooden staircase he was posing against. A collective sigh of relief rose audibly from the group of photographers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The construction guys were running up and down the breastworks, which I believe were the place where long escalators would be installed to ferry passengers to and from the station.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Northward, we continued moving through the construction site, and one paused for a moment to grab a shot of the chamber we had just exited.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Around 73rd or 74th street, the group was brought back together (we were all sort of trailing out by this point) and informed that we would be walking the final section of tracks – from 72nd to 86th – and then a Q&A session would be occurring once we regained the surface.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This section was still very much under construction, and both temperature and humidity had risen a bit – no doubt due to the curing of freshly poured concrete all around us.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We were directed towards the uptown tube.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In Monday’s post, we’ll finish out what I saw and experienced down in the guts of Manhattan at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
May 30, 2015 –
The Skillman Corridor with Atlas Obscura
with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for details and tickets.
May 31, 2015 – SOLD OUT
Newtown Creek Boat Tour
with Working Harbor Committee and Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for tickets.
June 7th, 2015
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills Walking Tour
with Newtown Creek Alliance, click here for details and tickets.
June 11th, 2015
MADE IN BROOKLYN Hidden Harbor Boat Tour
with Working Harbor Committee, click here for details and tickets.
June 13th, 2015
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek Walking Tour
with Atlas Obscura, click here for details and tickets.
June 20th, 2015
Kill Van Kull Walking Tour
with Brooklyn Brainery, click here for details and tickets.
…that might be…
From somewhere under Manhattan, the Second Avenue Subway Series continues.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There were work lights arrayed within the deep, pushing back against the enveloping darkness. Happily, they were polychromatic, and provided one with an interesting series of contrasts. Additionally, a flash gun was employed in the capture of some of these images, an evil necessitated by lighting conditions.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This section of track, which had been continuously installed in the tunnels from our starting point at 63rd street, led into a complex of chambers which will one day be the 72nd street station. One noticed that electrical equipment was already installed. This spot would likely be around 70th street.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The design of the Second Avenue Subway passenger stations is distinct from the older sections of the system, there were no steel beams hanging down from the ceiling for instance. The stations take the shape of a series of flattened cylinders with cathedral like interiors.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The gaggle of photographers and press people whom one had joined were directed to follow the tracks as we walked north, more than 100 feet below the surface of the Shining City.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In this section, the roadbed hadn’t been installed yet, and prefabricated sections of the tracks were simply placed. Notice the rebar nest underlying the sections, into which concrete will be pumped, which will provide the firm footing for the river of trains which will flow through here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My strategy of staying at the back of the group paid off several times, this shot is looking southward towards the section we had just traversed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The actual 72nd street, lower level, station appeared. There’s that rack thingamabob pointed out at the 63rd street station, which is designed to allow water to flow without destroying the “finish” tiles which will be attached to it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The group was directed to climb the stairs up to the upper level.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is where the scale of this project really began to come into view.
More Second Avenue Subway walk through shots in tomorrow’s post at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
May 30, 2015 –
The Skillman Corridor with Atlas Obscura
with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for details and tickets.
May 31, 2015 – SOLD OUT
Newtown Creek Boat Tour
with Working Harbor Committee and Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for tickets.
June 7th, 2015
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills Walking Tour
with Newtown Creek Alliance, click here for details and tickets.
June 11th, 2015
MADE IN BROOKLYN Hidden Harbor Boat Tour
with Working Harbor Committee, click here for details and tickets.
June 13th, 2015
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek Walking Tour
with Atlas Obscura, click here for details and tickets.
June 20th, 2015
Kill Van Kull Walking Tour
with Brooklyn Brainery, click here for details and tickets.
…all that there is…
Second Avenue Subway, continues in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned yesterday, one managed to attach himself to the press tour offered by the estimable MTA Press Office of its under construction facilities of the Second Avenue Subway project.
Part of largish band of reporters and photographers, one grew increasingly annoyed at the inability to capture a shot of the tunnels sans evidence of humans.
Bother.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The atmosphere in this newly carven intestine of the Megalopolis was actually a bit on the warm side, but not uncomfortably so, and no unpleasant nor mephitic odors were encountered in any abundance. Curing concrete coupled with a somewhat static and dusty air mass contributed to bodily perspiration, however, a process exacerbated by the requirements for wearing “PPE” or “Personal Protective Equipment” insisted on by the work site management.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Vests and construction hats, as well as safety glasses, were gladly offered by our hosts on this trip to the underground world. Required dress code also included long pants, and sleeves, as well as heavy boots.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Such precautions are standard going when visiting active industrial sites, in ones’ own experience, and a sturdy pair of steel toe boots are part of my personal arsenal of equipment. These are not the most comfortable shoes in the world, but the so called “steel toes” did provide me with a bit of prevaricating logic that explained to the MTA handlers why I seemed to be lagging along at the rear end of the group.
“Still breaking them in” uttered a humble narrator.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A fascinating ideation was rattling about in my thoughts, namely that after a lifetime of avoiding a situation wherein I would find myself standing on the tracks of some Subway, here I was.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One other fellow seemed to be thinking like me, hanging a little further back than me. He didn’t seem to be feigning a slight limp as I was, but there you go. The head of this press snake was pretty far ahead of us by this point, and we were asked to “catch up.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For my part at least, the request was answered, and soon I was back in a crowd of reflective vests, hard hats, and flashing cameras.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One bent over to retie the laces of the “steel toe” boots, which allowed a plausible reason for dallying. I found myself at the end of the line, walking along with the tour’s “sweeper.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One decided to retie the other boot as well, out of an abundance of caution.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s the little things which make me happy.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
May 30, 2015 –
The Skillman Corridor with Atlas Obscura
with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for details and tickets.
May 31, 2015 – SOLD OUT
Newtown Creek Boat Tour
with Working Harbor Committee and Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for tickets.
June 7th, 2015
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills Walking Tour
with Newtown Creek Alliance, click here for details and tickets.
June 11th, 2015
MADE IN BROOKLYN Hidden Harbor Boat Tour
with Working Harbor Committee, click here for details and tickets.
June 13th, 2015
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek Walking Tour
with Atlas Obscura, click here for details and tickets.
June 20th, 2015
Kill Van Kull Walking Tour
with Brooklyn Brainery, click here for details and tickets.
The Newtown Pentacle 