Posts Tagged ‘Brooklyn’
keen wonder
It’s National Coffee Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All the “intel” coming my way indicates that this Sunday morning (Oct. 1), the remaining sections of the Koscisuzcko Bridge will be “energetically demolished” or – to quote Governor Cuomo – “blown up.” The self same intel indicates that 8 a.m. is the target time, but it’s possible that the schedule might shift around a bit depending on circumstance.
I’m recommending that if you want to watch the bridge go boom, you’d either want to be on the Grand Street Bridge looking west, or on the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge looking east. I’m also recommending that if you’ve got a respirator mask, you might want to bring it along, as I’m sure this will kick up a lot of dust when it comes down.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Scouting out the “exclusion area” which all but FDNY, NYPD, NYS DOT, and their contractors will be forbidden to enter, I took note of where the NYPD had dropped off piles of police barriers for road closure. The cordon is a bit larger than I was originally told, and there is a giant chunk of Newtown Creek and the surrounding neighborhood which will be off limits. I’ve got a different spot to shoot from, but that’s me.
As mentioned above, I’d say the Grand Street or Greenpoint Avenue Bridges would be good – and fairly safe – choices for viewing and or photographing the event. I’m told it’s all going to happen in 8 milliseconds, from detonation to drop.
Grand Street has its charms, looking west at the new bridge with the old one behind it. Morning sun will be lighting the scene, and the Manhattan skyline is visible from there. You’ll see the old bridge directly, from Greenpoint Avenue, but it will be shadowed with the sun behind it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m sure this will be an enjoyable traffic morning for you drivers, with definite closure for BQE in the morning and a likely closure for the LIE for some interval. There will be mutiple road closures in Greenpoint and West Maspeth as well, which will likely last for awhile as they scoop up all the blown steel and concrete.
The end of an era, lords and ladies…
Upcoming Tours and event
Exploring Long Island City, from Luxury Waterfront to Abandoned Factories Walking Tour,
with NY Adventure Club – Saturday, October 7th, 1 p.m. – 3 p.m.
Long Island City is a tale of two cities; one filled with glittering water-front skyscrapers and manicured parks, and the other, a highly active ground transportation & distribution zone vital to the New York economy — which will prevail? With Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
The Hidden Harbors Of Staten Island Boat Tour,
with Working Harbor Committee – Sunday, October 15th, 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.
A very cool boat tour that visits two of the maritime industrial waterways of New York Harbor which adjoin Staten Island and Bayonne in New Jersey – The Kill Van Kull and the Arthur Kill. There will be lots of tugboats, cargo docks, and you’ll get to see multiple bridges from the water – including the brand new Goethals Bridge. I’ll be on the mike, narrating with WHC board member Gordon Cooper – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
single blast
It’s National Waffle Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just a single shot today, depicting DUPBO – Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp – where I’ll be leading a walking tour tonight. Still some space available, I’m told, so if you want to take a short walk on a long Creek and enjoy what promises to be a beautiful evening and sunset with one such as myself… meetup is in Greenpoint at 7.
Upcoming Tours and events
DUPBO Newtown Creek Walking Tour, with NYCH20 – Thursday August 24th, 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Explore Greenpoint and Hunters Point, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
America’s Workshop Newtown Creek Walking Tour, with Atlas Obscura – Saturday August 26th, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Explore the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek in Long Island City, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
embroidered legend
It’s National Lemon Meringue Pie Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Once upon a time, the scene pictured above would have included the premises of one of Brooklyn’s largest employers, the American Manufacturing Company, but that would have been during the very late 19th and early 20th century. At the close of the 20th century, you’d have been looking at twenty two acres of abandoned and derelict factories and warehouse buildings which folks referred to as “Forgotten City” or simply the “Greenpoint Terminal Market.”
If you were here in 2006, you’d be looking at the largest fire FDNY had to deal with since the World Trade Center collapse on September 11th.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Ditmars terminal stop for the N and W lines of the NYCTA subway system, overflown by a concretized arch which carries the NY Connecting Railroad tracks towards the Hell Gate Bridge in the Astoria section of Long Island City. Pictured is a “work train,” as the MTA is currently busy on the elevated tracks applying some of their endless series of band aids to the centuried elevated, which opened for business on July 19 in 1917.
It’s a semantic point, incidentally, but Astoria is indeed part of Long Island City. If your zip code starts with a “111” you live in the former independent municipality of Long Island City.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s a pair of courting pigeons pictured above, high over 31st street at the Broadway stop of the N line. “Columba livia domestica” is how you’d describe these critters to the scientifically minded, but the cool kids kids just call them Pigeons. Those two above are involved in a courtship ritual, which I interrupted by taking a photo of them. Pigeons reportedly mate for life, although the fellows are known to stray when they have the opportunity.
I’m happy to have provided these two lovebirds with a shot of their first date, for posterity and to show their grandkids.
Upcoming Tours and events
Two Newtown Creek Boat Tours, with Newtown Creek Alliance and Open House NY – Wednesday August 16th, 5 p.m. and 7 p.m.
The neighborhoods surrounding Newtown Creek are home to the densest collection of these garbage facilities anywhere in the city and collectively, the waste transfer stations around and along Newtown Creek handle almost 40% of the waste that moves through New York. Join Newtown Creek Alliance’s Mitch Waxman and Willis Elkins to learn about the ongoing efforts to address the environmental burden that this “clustering” has caused. – details here.
DUPBO Newtown Creek Walking Tour, with NYCH20 – Thursday August 24th, 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Explore Greenpoint and Hunters Point, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
America’s Workshop Newtown Creek Walking Tour, with Atlas Obscura – Saturday August 26th, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Explore the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek in Long Island City, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
outspread under
It’s National Watermelon day, in these United States
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A sense of place is one of the things that I always keep in mind when I’m out shooting around Newtown Creek. Without a glimmer of the skyline, in particular a recognizable silhouette like the Empire State Building, it’s impossible to say if you’re looking at NYC or just some post industrial landscape anywhere in the great American rust belt.
Saying all that, you’ve got to be careful about how much of the frame is filled by iconic architecture like Empire State as the people who own the building zealously defend a theoretical copyright on images in which it appears. If the shot above was to appear in an advertisement, for instance, a fee would need to be negotiated with the building’s management for usage of its image. The Empire State Building is like Brad Pitt or Beyoncé.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One has been thinking about the ownership of reproduction rights over something that you can’t help but have occupy a certain proportion of shots captured whilst out in public. Back when I was a full time advertising retoucher, one of the most ridiculous assignments I received was to remove any and all identifiable “brands” from a series of stock photos. These photos were going to published in a direct mail offering for a large credit card company serviced by the agency, and the client didn’t want to negotiate with the various brand owners for usage. Therefore, one spent a week or so retouching every logo and identifiable brand image out of shots of Times Square, the Ginza strip, and Picadilly Circus.
The results were bizarre, and looked like something from the second act of a zombie movie, but the client was happy and I got paid… so… victory. I guess.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Personally, since I’ve stepped behind the camera over the last decade or so, a point is made to frame my shots in such a manner as to necessitate as little retouching out of logos and brand marks as possible. As I always say to the creative types – check with the retoucher before the shoot if you want to save yourself a bunch of money.
Upcoming Tours and events
We’re cancelling Saturday the 5th’s Insalubrious Valley tour due to a forecast of scattered thunderstorms with lightning expected.
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek Walking Tour, with Newtown Creek Alliance – Saturday August 5th, 11 a.m. – 1;30 p.m.
Century old movable bridges, the remains of a 19th century highway between Brooklyn and Queens, and explore two of the lesser known tributaries of the troubled Newtown Creek watershed. For the vulgarly curious, Conrad Wissell’s Dead Animal and Night Soil wharf will be seen and described, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
Brooklyn Waterfront Boat Tour, with Working Harbor Committee – Saturday August 12th, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Explore the coastline of Brooklyn from Newtown Creek to Sunset Park, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman, Andrew Gustafson of Turnstile Tours, and Gordon Cooper of Working Harbor Committee on the narrating about Brooklyn’s industrial past and rapidly changing present. – details here.
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek Walking Tour, with Newtown Creek Alliance – Sunday August 13th, 11 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Explore the hellish waste transfer and petroleum districts of North Brooklyn on this daring walk towards the doomed Kosciuszko Bridge, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
Two Newtown Creek Boat Tours, with Newtown Creek Alliance and Open House NY – Wednesday August 16th, 5 p.m. and 7 p.m.
The neighborhoods surrounding Newtown Creek are home to the densest collection of these garbage facilities anywhere in the city and collectively, the waste transfer stations around and along Newtown Creek handle almost 40% of the waste that moves through New York. Join Newtown Creek Alliance’s Mitch Waxman and Willis Elkins to learn about the ongoing efforts to address the environmental burden that this “clustering” has caused. – details here.
DUPBO Newtown Creek Walking Tour, with NYCH20 – Thursday August 24th, 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Explore Greenpoint and Hunters Point, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
unusually worried
It’s National Raspberry Cream Pie Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is how it all works, this municipal recycling business.
Pictured is the Sims Metal facility in Sunset Park Brooklyn. Department of Sanitation performs its collection task using packer trucks – which work curbside pickup routes, essentially – and then they head over to a transfer station of either terrestrial or marine nature. On their way in to the transfer station, they drive over a scale and are weighed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Once the trucks get past the scale, they wait their turn to “tip” or deposit the cargo they’ve collected.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is done in a fairly orderly fashion, with a Sims Metal employee directing the DSNY operator to a certain spot where the driver activates the mechanisms within the truck which push the garbage out. My understanding is that the hidden internal machinery is driven by steel cables which tension pulls a plate forward from the back of the hopper, and that’s (plus the angled hopper for a gravity assist) what pushes the load out.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If the material was collected from Boroughs other than Brooklyn, it’s brought in by tug and barge from one of the other Sims facilities like the one found at Newtown Creek in Long Island City. According to one of the Sims people I met, they said a barge carries the equivalent of a hundred garbage trucks worth of recyclables all at once.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Once DSNY has handed off the recyclable waste, a bull dozer like unit moves it into a drop shaft which in turn feeds it into the highly automated processing room.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s optical equipment that sorts plastics and glass by type, as well as fairly esoteric bits of kit which feature magnetic or electrical flux fields which capture the metals like steel cans and aluminum foil.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shapes and sizes of these moving conveyor belts also figure into the sorting and handling typology of waste.
I was told that a lot of this technology has been adapted from the agricultural industry – Big Agra, as it’s known – and that the biggest “players” in this sector are German and Dutch manufacturers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Once this mingled pile of waste products has been separated out into distinct types (including separating the different forms of plastic) they’ll be bundled up and be prepared for shipment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Plastics and glass are fairly worthless, it should be noted. Low oil prices over the last decade or so has caused the price of chemical feedstock for plastic manufacturers to plummet, as said material is a byproduct of petroleum refining and manufacture. That makes it cheaper to make new plastic than it would be to recycle old plastic. Glass recycling carries a pretty high energy cost, in terms of making it molten, so it’s mainly used a crushed up fill material in concrete and asphalt. That’s why some roads and sidewalks appear to shimmer in the sun.
Paper pulp is quite valuable, and VERY recyclable. So is metal, especially aluminum and copper. That’s based on the expense of producing new pulp, or refining mined ore. Sims Metal Management is a global corporation, and participates in a commodities market for these recyclable materials, which it sells (hopefully) at a profit internationally.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The DSNY trucks, meanwhile, having emptied their cargo into the Sunset Park facility, follow a certain path back out.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It carries them onto a second scale, just like the one they encountered when entering Sims. The differential tonnage between the weighings is what Sims bills New York City for their services.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Presumptively, this truck will head back to wherever it’s stationed to take on fuel and new crew, and head back out to perform more collection duties. Additional presumption would offer that it would likely end its next shift right back here at Sims Metal.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Well… as I said at the top of the post – this is the way it all works. Also, let’s all try to use less stuff that we can only use one time before throwing it away. Can you just imagine what all of this costs?
Upcoming Tours and events
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek Walking Tour, with Newtown Creek Alliance – Saturday August 5th, 11 a.m. – 1;30 p.m.
Century old movable bridges, the remains of a 19th century highway between Brooklyn and Queens, and explore two of the lesser known tributaries of the troubled Newtown Creek watershed. For the vulgarly curious, Conrad Wissell’s Dead Animal and Night Soil wharf will be seen and described, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
Brooklyn Waterfront Boat Tour, with Working Harbor Committee – Saturday August 12th, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Explore the coastline of Brooklyn from Newtown Creek to Sunset Park, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman, Andrew Gustafson of Turnstile Tours, and Gordon Cooper of Working Harbor Committee on the narrating about Brooklyn’s industrial past and rapidly changing present. – details here.
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek Walking Tour, with Newtown Creek Alliance – Sunday August 13th, 11 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Explore the hellish waste transfer and petroleum districts of North Brooklyn on this daring walk towards the doomed Kosciuszko Bridge, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
Two Newtown Creek Boat Tours, with Newtown Creek Alliance and Open House NY – Wednesday August 16th, 5 p.m. and 7 p.m.
The neighborhoods surrounding Newtown Creek are home to the densest collection of these garbage facilities anywhere in the city and collectively, the waste transfer stations around and along Newtown Creek handle almost 40% of the waste that moves through New York. Join Newtown Creek Alliance’s Mitch Waxman and Willis Elkins to learn about the ongoing efforts to address the environmental burden that this “clustering” has caused. – details here.
DUPBO Newtown Creek Walking Tour, with NYCH20 – Thursday August 24th, 7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Explore Greenpoint and Hunters Point, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 