Posts Tagged ‘Brooklyn’
Project Firebox 94
An ongoing catalog of New York’s endangered Fireboxes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This soldier of the realm is found at the corner of Grand Street and Morgan Avenue in infinite Brooklyn, not too far from the darkest of those hillside thickets found along the Newtown Creek- which is its tributary English Kills. This is is Bushwick, historically, but the area has come to called East Williamsburg in modernity- a term which has zero historical precedence. Of course, ask a realtor where Williamsburg ends these days and they’ll tell you Lake Ronkonkoma.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
too acute
The concrete devastations are nepenthe to me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This past weekend was a rather busy one, with a trifecta of tours completed. On Friday, a short walk around Dutch Kills with a group from LaGuardia Community College, a Saturday tour with the Obscura Society explored the Insalubrious Valley, and Sunday found me leading a group from the Brooklyn Brainery through the Poison Cauldron. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again- to be seen by so many diminishes me.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shots in today’s post were gathered while I was headed for last weekend’s excursion- a Newtown Creek Alliance sponsored event which was conducted as part of the Open House NY weekend event on October 12. This was a novel concept, a “surf and turf” wherein my walking tour met up with a party of rowers from the North Brooklyn Boat Club at the Maspeth Avenue Plank Road. Along the way, I noticed this Yeshiva bus parked in a bus stop. The driver must have literally interpreted what “bus stop” means. This was a Saturday morning, so the chances that this vehicle was still in place on Sunday morning are pretty high, but I wasn’t there to see it moved so I can’t comment authoritatively. As the saying in my old neighborhood used to go- now Hasidim, now ya don’t.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All over the upper Creek, there seems to have been some sort of bloom going on for the last couple of weeks, as the water had assumed a chalky green coloration. Last year, while onboard the Riverkeeper boat, just such a happenstance was witnessed. Captain Lipscomb, who operates the boat and scientific equipment onboard, investigated the phenomena and offered the theory that this was a bacterial bloom rather than the effects of an industrial spill or leak. It seems that there are lakes in upstate New York which also suffer from low oxygen levels in the water, and that they exhibit a similar coloration and turbidity as witnessed at the Maspeth Creek tributary in the shot above.
sluggish river
Maritime Sunday witnesses a somber duty.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The infamous Newtown Creek, at its junction with the East River, flows languidly between Greenpoint in Brooklyn and Long Island City in Queens. This post is being written on Friday the 18th, and at the time of this writing, a young fellow named Avonte is still missing. Avonte Oquendo, a 14 year old Autistic boy, wandered out of his school in LIC on October 4th and has been missing ever since. To their credit, the NYPD is leaving no stone unturned in the search for the kid, which includes my beloved Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Patrol Boat 315, a SAFE boat, was recently observed combing the shoreline. One of my informants on the Brooklyn side told me that they had witnessed NYPD individually checking the private boats which proliferate on the Queens side as part of the so called “Vernon Boat Sanctuary.” Descriptions of uniformed patrol units working in concert with the harbor units have all reached my ears. The sky has been alive with helicopters as well, which I can personally attest to.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Today’s Maritime Sunday shout out goes to the uniformed crew of 315, tirelessly searching Newtown Creek for a local kid who’s in trouble. If you’ve got any info about Avonte or his whereabouts, his family is absolutely sick with worry. Avonte is described as 5-foot-3 and weighs about 125 pounds. He was last seen wearing a grey striped shirt and black jeans.
Those with information are asked to contact the NYPD at 800-577-TIPS.
this impression
Name a phobia, and I probably exhibit symptoms of it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m afraid of anything meant to represent a sentient being, so Automatonophobia is on my list, As is Algophobia- which is what my fear of pain is called. One presents Frigophobic symptoms when a fear of cold flares to life, which usually happens to me between the months of November and March. Globophobic fits keep me away from any public event wherein balloons will be displayed, especially ones which are yellow. I’ve never liked being touched, but rampant Haphephobia relegates one to a horrid and crumpled mass of quivering defeat whenever someone brushes past on the subway and makes physical contact- no matter how casual. These conditions are all quite debilitating, and I demand pity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Obsessions and compulsions notwithstanding, the work must come first. Nyctophobia must be denied, for what is there to fear about the dark that isn’t also there during the day? For those who suffer from an inverse affliction- a fear of the sun known as Heliophobia, the night is nepenthe. I believe that the non medical term “panphobia,” or the fear of everything, best describes my outlook. Despite this, a humble narrator dares both the fuligin night and the emanations of the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself, but does remain scared of all that might be hidden, out there, in plain sight.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lengthening shadows and shortened intervals between dawn and dusk indicate strongly that the wheel of the year has turned once again to Halloween. Fundamentalists of modern times decry this most Christian of holidays as “the devils night,” lambasting the celebration of manifest fear and terror as antithetical to their limited interpretations of biblical narrative. One such as myself, however, prefers to embrace the army of phobias and trooping night terrors as they gambol along with the goblins and ghasts.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
different place
More goings on at 400 Kingsland Avenue with Jan Mun.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For one such as myself, the simple fact that I was occupying a spot on the property of ExxonMobil in Greenpoint during the summer of 2013 was a spectacular and unheralded surprise. As a member of an environmental and community advocacy group whose devotion to “reveal, revitalize, and restore” Newtown Creek is taken quite seriously, being the invited guest of the ExxonMobil corporation on the former SOCONY (Standard Oil Company of New York) property- which stands at the very center of the remediation efforts aimed at cleaning up the Greenpoint Oil Spill- was startling. I was thrilled, frankly.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in earlier posts, this was the navel of the oil business on Newtown Creek, part of an economic machine which was once called Standard Oil. This is where an industrial revolution occurred, right on the spot where artist Jason Sinopoli was placing a burlap bag of sterilized hay and mushroom spores (as pictured above), was a gargantuan oil refinery complex which by 1911 had occupied some 50 acres of Greenpoint. So much of the history of North Brooklyn and Western Queens revolves around the energy industry, it was staggering to be on this spot which has always been forbidden to inspection.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In 1882, lightning struck and the whole complex burned down.
In 1919, the rebuilt refinery operation completely burnt down a second time, and at the time this property stretched from Kingsland Avenue to Sutton, Norman to the Creek. Standard Oil was able to rebuild the entire operation in just 90 days that time. Between the two fires, Standard reported losses exceeding 140 million gallons of petroleum products- according to contemporaneous accounts published at the NY Times. Pictured above, for the curious, is what a bag of the mushroom spores which Jan Mun and Jason Sinopoli were working with looks like. This is the stuff which was combined with the inoculated hay mentioned in yesterday’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While pondering the lucky fate which had carried me here (a destiny which had been engineered by NCA’s Kate Zidar and ExxonMobil’s Kevin Thompson), Jan Mun and Jason Sinopoli toiled away in the terrible heat and humidity suffered on our work days. It was pretty rough, I have to say, and all I was doing was standing around and taking pictures. Zero cover from the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself coupled with the sort of high humidity one would expect to encounter in a low lying spot next to a slow moving water body, and all the while clad in a mandated “safety” costuming of hard hat, vest, long sleeves and pants, steel toe boots, and rubberized gloves. My little dog Zuzu wouldn’t come near me, upon returning home, until after I had a shower.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We were of course there to work, not muse about the Greenpoint Oil Spill, ponder the dichotomies inherent in the relationships between the oil industry and Newtown Creek, or worry about heat stroke. The hardship was made worth it, of course, when the mushrooms began to grow.
Upcoming Tours
Saturday – October 19, 2013
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek with Atlas Obscura- tickets on sale now.
Sunday- October 20th, 2013
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek with Brooklyn Brainery- tickets on sale now.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 