Posts Tagged ‘Calvary Cemetery’
delight and understanding
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Witness the endless roads of the Newtown Pentacle, weaving in and amongst all those tribes of man gathered in western Queens, as along them walks a pedantic soliloquy. Your humble narrator, returned from familial duty and participation in a culture which has became alien, continues.
In a somewhat lucky turn, the video card on my mac went sour on Wednesday, and failed attempts at repair or replacement here in New York have resulted in my having to order the part from Apple which (in conjunction with the holiday weekend) means that I won’t have a working mac until at least next tuesday. I’m working off a late model laptop in the interim (just in case you were wondering), but processing and publishing photos or any “heavy” work is on hold. Luckily, I’ve managed to completely sublimnate the situation I can do nothing about (the funeral) by throwing myself bodily at the one I could (securing a replacement part). A shame, since I took some lovely shots of the post interment gravesite.
Yikes.
If anyone has an AGP bus ATi Radeon 9800 XT with 256mb they don’t need for a few days (or ever again), contact me.
from wikipedia
A belief in magic as a means of influencing the world seems to have been common in all cultures. There was considerable overlap between beliefs and practices that were religious and those that were magical, such that their mutual influence was significant. In many cases it becomes difficult or impossible to draw any meaningful line between beliefs and practices that are magical versus those that are religious. Communal rites and celebrations contained elements of both religion and magic. Over time, especially within the specific religious context of western monotheism as expressed in the Abrahamic religions, religiously-based supernatural events (“miracles”) acquired their own flavor, and became separated in those religious worldviews from standard magic.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Weather permitting, I’m planning on walking one of the great patterns, here in the Newtown Pentacle. The “beat”, as Our Lady of the Pentacle has heard it referred to in the past. St. Michael’s needs to be checked in on, as a full moon has just passed. Calvary demands inspection, as well as the distaff hinterlands of that lugubrious waterway called the Newtown Creek. Perhaps a trip to Mt. Zion will clear my head, or a walk over one of our many Newtown bridges or a stroll through Tower Town. Promises of holiday parties and ribald evenings here in centuried Astoria are being discussed by area wags as well. Perhaps it is for the best that the mac is down for a few days, so that life can go on. One thought though, a single question- felt in enigmatic sense impacts rather than being heard- echoes in my mind…
from wikipedia
Aninut
The first stage of mourning is aninut, or “[intense] mourning.” An onen (a person in aninut) is considered to be in a state of total shock and disorientation. Thus the onen is exempt from performing mitzvot that require action (and attention), such as praying and reciting blessings, wearing tefillin (phylacteries), in order to be able to tend unhindered to the funeral arrangements.
Aninut lasts until the burial is over, or, if a mourner is unable to attend the funeral, from the moment he is no longer involved with the funeral itself.
Avelut
Aninut is immediately followed by avelut (“mourning”). An avel (“mourner”) does not listen to music or go to concerts, and does not attend any joyous events or parties such as marriages or Bar or Bat Mitzvahs, unless absolutely necessary. (If the date for such an event has already been set prior to the death, it is strictly forbidden for it to be postponed or canceled.)
Avelut consists of three distinct periods.
Shiva – Seven days
The first stage of avelut is shiva (Hebrew: שבעה ; “seven”), a week-long period of grief and mourning. Observance of shiva is referred to by English-speaking Jews as “sitting shiva”. During this period, mourners traditionally gather in one home and receive visitors.
It is considered a great mitzvah (commandment) of kindness and compassion to pay a home visit to the mourners. Traditionally, no greetings are exchanged and visitors wait for the mourners to initiate conversation. The mourner is under no obligation to engage in conversation and may, in fact, completely ignore his/her visitors.
Visitors will traditionally take on more of the hosting role when attending a Shiva. Often bringing food and serving it to the mourning family and other guests. The mourning family will often avoid any cooking or cleaning during the Shiva period and those responsibilities become those of visitors.
There are various customs as to what to say when taking leave of the mourner(s). One of the most common is to say to them:
המקום ינחם אתכם בתוך שאר אבלי ציון וירושלים
Hamakom y’nachem etkhem b’tokh sha’ar avelei tziyon viyrushalayim:
“The Omnipresent will comfort you (pl.) among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem”
Depending on their community’s customs, others may also add such wishes as: “You should have no more tza’ar (‘pain’)” or “You should have only simchas (‘celebrations’)” or “we should hear only good news (besorot tovot) from each other” or “I wish you long life”.
Traditionally, prayer services are organised in the house of mourning. It is customary for the family to lead the services themselves.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Gilman… where is Gilman?
The appointment of Geoffrey Gilmyn as ‘ Custodian of the gate of the King’s Castle at Canterbury’ was made when Edward III. was at York engaged in the expedition against the Scots who had invaded Cumberland. No doubt he felt, during his absence in the North, he could depend on the loyalty of the Bristol townsman, Geoffrey Gilmyn, hence his appointment by Writ of Privy Seal and mandate in pursuance to the Sheriff of Kent.
Geoffrey Gilmyn probably continued to reside in Canterbury or the neighbourhood and left descendants in the county. In the year 1431, two brothers, living at Wittersham, near Appledore, in Kent, were convicted before the Archbishop of Canterbury of heresy and Lollardie and of harbouring heretical teachers, especially one Peter Gylmyn. “Mandatum factum ad vocandum hereticos ad penetenciam,” Arc (MSS. of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury.)
In 1478 Richard Gilmyn, Brother of the Hospital of Saint Harboldowne, situated about one mile from Canterbury, died ; his will, proved in the Consistory Court of that Cathedral City, shows the continuance of Geoffrey’s descendants in or near Canterbury.
The Hospital of St. Nicholas, at Harbledown (as now spelt), was founded in 1084, by Archbishop Lanfranc, for lepers: those poor outcasts from society, suffering from a loathsome disease, cared for by none, and on whom none but a ‘ religious ‘ would attend. Brother Gilmyn had no doubt devoted his life to the work and was a ‘ Father Damien’ of that period. In course of time the terrible disease has been stamped out in this country, and the ‘ Hospital’ now consists of almshouses, being a range of cottages and gardens, with a large common hall in the centre and a fine old church, consisting of chancel, nave and tower. A prior, chaplain and steward now preside over the establishment.
Harbledown is situated one mile from the West Gate of Canterbury, on the road from London, on high ground from which one of the most beautiful views of Canterbury greeted the pilgrim in ancient times on his journey to the shrine of St. Thomas-aBecket.
Here the first sight of his journey’s goal burst upon his vision. Nothing could be more striking than the great mass of the Cathedral, with the hooded outline of the Chapter House lying monk-like beside it, lifting its deep shadows against the clear blue of the mid-day sky, or flushed all over with the rosy glow of sunset. Far in the distance are visible the white cliffs of Pegwell Bay, under which Augustine landed on his mission to subject the English Church to Roman influence.
Searching for Gilman
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For several months I have been searching Calvary Cemetery in a non systematic manner for 2 particular locations. Thwarted time and again by false leads and incorrect addressing, both sites have remained elusive. One grave is the final resting place of Tess Gardella– the actress who portrayed Aunt Jemima- and the other is that of an enigma from the early 20th century whose name was Gilman.
from wikipedia
Aunt Jemima is a trademark for pancake flour, syrup, and other breakfast foods currently owned by the Quaker Oats Company. The trademark dates to 1893, although Aunt Jemima pancake mix debuted in 1889. The Quaker Oats Company first registered the Aunt Jemima trademark in April, 1937.
The name “Jemima” is biblical in origin. Jemima is the King James Version’s rendering of the feminine Hebrew name יְמִימָה (Yəmīmā), the first of Job’s daughters born to him at the end of his namesake book of the Bible.
The term “Aunt Jemima” is sometimes used colloquially as a female version of the derogatory label “Uncle Tom”. In this context, the slang term “Aunt Jemima” falls within the “Mammy archetype”, and refers to a friendly black woman who is perceived as obsequiously servile or acting in, or protective of, the interests of whites. The 1950s television show Beulah came under fire for depicting a “mammy”-like black maid and cook who was somewhat reminiscent of Aunt Jemima. Today, the terms “Beulah” and “Aunt Jemima” are regarded as more or less interchangeable as terms of disparagement in popular discourse.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Somewhere in the viridian depths of Calvary Cemetery lies an unremarked merchant from Massachusetts, who died in an accident along the delirious Newtown Creek in 1931. No obituary I can find discusses him, and Gilman slid unnoticed into the hallowed loam of Calvary’s charitable sections. His anonymity came to an end when, according to neighborhood sources and contemporary diarists, a relict 3 masted schooner arrived at the Penny Bridge docks and ordered an eccentric monument be erected on Gilman’s resting place. The captain of that black ship, a leathery bastard named Marsh, collected Gilman’s belongings and sailed via Newtown Creek to the East River, turning North toward Hell Gate- ultimately disappearing into the mists of Long Island Sound heading for New England.
from noaa.gov
Click here for : Hell Gate and Its Approaches
This nautical chart depicts Hell Gate, a narrow channel on the East River, at the confluence of the Harlem River, which connects Long Island Sound with New York Harbor. The chart shows Hell Gate in 1851, which is the year that the U.S. Army began blasting ledges and rocks within Hell Gate to ensure safe passage through the channel.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Rumors that this man was the same Gilman mentioned by members of the Boston Police Department in 1920, in connection with investigations into a string of sensational murders and for connections to a certain group of anarchists thought to be operating within the city. The Back Bay area of Boston, of course, is associated with the illustrious architect Arthur Delevan Gilman– but there doesn’t seem to be any involvement with Calvary’s mysterious Gilman other than a tangential coincidence of names.
from wikipedia
The Back Bay neighborhood was created when a parcel of land was created by filling the tidewater flats of the Charles River. This massive project was begun in 1857. The fill to reclaim the bay from the water was obtained from Needham, Massachusetts. The firm of Goss and Munson, railroad contractors, built 6 miles (9.7 km) of railroad from Needham, and their 35-car trains made 16 trips a day to the Back Bay. The filling of present-day Back Bay was completed by 1882; filling reached the existing mainland at Kenmore Square in 1890, and finished in the Fens in 1900. The project was the largest of a number of land reclamation projects, beginning in 1820, which, over the course of time, more than doubled the size of the original Boston peninsula. It is frequently observed that this would have been impossible under modern environmental laws.
Back Bay’s development was planned by architect Arthur Gilman with Gridley James Fox Bryant. Strict regulations produced a uniform and well-integrated architecture, consisting mostly of dignified three- and four-story residential (or once-residential) brownstones.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Both saint and sinner alike can be found in the emerald devastations of First Calvary- governors, mayors, and priests share in the loam with common laborer and notorious gangster. There are multitudes here, vast tomb legions awaiting only the advent of their messiah to rise and walk the earth. Gilman is amongst the many, lost in the crowd. I will find him, and the notable monument raised in his honor- it is just a matter of time.
from wikipedia
While the Christian doctrine of resurrection conforms to Jewish belief, there is, however, a minority point of view, held by certain Jewish mystics and others,[who?] which asserts that those Jewish beliefs are in contradiction with the resurrection as taught by Isaiah (Isaiah 8:16 and 26:19) and Daniel (12:1 and 13) in which the resurrection was understood as being a doctrine of physical ‘Rebirth’.
Jesus appears to have been in general agreement with the position held by the Pharisees, as illustrated by his response to a question regarding marriage at the resurrection (Matthew 22:23-32, Mark 12:18-27 and Luke 20:27-40).
Most Christian churches continue to uphold the belief that there will be a general resurrection of the dead at “the end of time”, as described Paul when he said, “…he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world…” (Acts 17:31 KJV) and “…there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust.” (Acts 24:15 KJV).
Many of the early Church Fathers cited the Old Testament examples listed in the Judaism section above as either foreshadowing Jesus’s resurrection, or foreshadowing or prophesying a future resurrection of all the dead.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Gilman, I have no first name or exact date of interment- which intensifies the difficulty in locating him- was supposedly a dealer in far eastern art. What his purpose was in coming to the Newtown Pentacle remains shadowed. Veiled references to the illegal importation of statuettes from the south Pacific, and distribution of these items to radical theosophists and heretic Masons in the Greenpoint and Maspeth neighborhoods can be gleaned from antiquarian sources but nothing definite enough for the consideration of the Lords and Ladies of Newtown has emerged. The statuettes it is said, are the product of the lost Saudeleur culture from Nan Madol found on fabled Pohnpei, and an item of particular interest to certain occultists.
from wikipedia
Nan Madol was the ceremonial and political seat of the Saudeleur dynasty, which united Pohnpei’s estimated 25,000 people. Set apart on the main island of Pohnpei, it was a scene of human activity as early as the first or second century AD. By the 8th or 9th century islet construction had started, but the distinctive megalithic architecture was probably not begun until perhaps the 12th or early 13th century.
Little can be verified about the megalithic construction. Pohnpeian tradition claims that the builders of the Lelu complex on Kosrae (likewise composed of huge stone buildings) migrated to Pohnpei, where they used their skills and experience to build the even more impressive Nan Madol complex. However, this is unlikely because radiocarbon dates have placed the construction of Nan Madol prior to that of Lelu. Like Lelu, one major purpose of constructing a separate city was to insulate the nobility from the common people.
A local story holds that when Nan Madol was being built a powerful magician living in the well inhabited region on the northwest of the island was solicited, and that his help was a major factor in completing the buildings. In particular, he was responsible for supplying the huge stone “logs” used in much of Nan Madol by “flying” them from their source to the construction site.
…Supposedly there was an escape tunnel beginning at the center of Nan Madol and boring down through the reef to exit into the ocean. Scuba divers continue to look for this “secret” route, but so far a complete tunnel has yet to be discovered.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Gilman is meant to have been killed in a curious accident on the Queens bank of Newtown Creek in Blissville, when a bail of paper fell from a second story warehouse window along the negligent shoreline of the Newtown Creek. Crushed, the peculiar condition of his body was remarked on by several hardened Detectives used to such sights. Speculations that he had been previously deformed by Polio or some other childhood disease were made, but before our era of “antigenic vaccination as public policy” was enacted, monstrous alterations of the human form by disease organisms were a common sight. Disfigurements caused by Smallpox and Leprosy or the ravages of Tertiary Syphilis are seldom observed by we happy few that enjoy the luxury of western modernity.
from wikipedia
Tertiary syphilis usually occurs 1–10 years after the initial infection, however in some cases it can take up to 50 years. This stage is characterized by the formation of gummas, which are soft, tumor-like balls of inflammation known as granulomas. The granulomas are chronic and represent an inability of the immune system to completely clear the organism. They may appear almost anywhere in the body including in the skeleton. The gummas produce a chronic inflammatory state in the body with mass effects upon the local anatomy. Other characteristics of untreated tertiary syphilis include neuropathic joint disease, which is a degeneration of joint surfaces resulting from loss of sensation and fine position sense (proprioception). The more severe manifestations include neurosyphilis and cardiovascular syphilis. In a study of untreated syphilis, 10% of patients developed cardiovascular syphilis, 16% had gumma formation and 7% had neurosyphilis.
Neurological complications at this stage can be diverse. In some patients manifestations include generalized paresis of the insane, which results in personality changes, changes in emotional affect, hyperactive reflexes and Argyll-Robertson pupil. This is a diagnostic sign in which the small and irregular pupils constrict in response to focusing the eyes, but not to light. Tabes dorsalis, also known as locomotor ataxia, a disorder of the spinal cord, often results in a characteristic shuffling gait.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Somewhere, amongst those who eternal lie, is Gilman. The disturbing detail that troubled the Detectives who investigated the reports of his death, the one that made for saloon conversation and idle speculation by neighborhood wags, was the fact that this deceased dealer in illicit eastern art had six fingers on both hands and that these polydactyl appendages were webbed all the way to the nail beds. Not much could be said about Gilman’s face, for the rodent population of Newtown Creek had discovered him long before the Police did.
Additionally, his shorter than normal legs also bore long healed scars that suggested some intense surgical experience- participation in the Civil War was speculated on by area Police, when Gilman would have been a young man. Amongst his few possessions was a watercolor postcard of some southern Plantation labeled as “Carfax Plantation, James River, Virginia”, which was quite out of place in the pockets of a Massachusetts trader who died alone during the middle of the night along Newtown Creek. Further speculations held out the possibility that Gilman hailed from a degenerate or illegitimate offshoot of the famed Gilman family of Exeter, New Hampshire.
Where and who is he? Where is Gilman?
from wikipedia
Winthrop Sargent Gilman (1808-1884) was head of the banking house of Gilman, Son & Co. in New York City. He was born in Marietta, Ohio to merchant Benjamin Ives Gilman and Hannah (Robbins) Gilman. Benjamin Ives Gilman, born in 1766, was a native of Exeter, New Hampshire, where his ancestors were among the most prominent early settlers and where he graduated in the first class of the Phillips Exeter Academy.
In 1837 Winthrop Sargent Gilman let the abolitionist Elijah Parish Lovejoy hide his printing press in one of Gilman’s warehouses in Alton, Illinois. In the ensuing riot the angry mob burned Gilman’s warehouse to the ground and killed Lovejoy. Following the Alton riots, Gilman moved to New York City and entered the family banking business.
He was married to Abia Swift Lippincott Gilman, who in 1900 narrowly escaped burning to death from a gasoline torch in front of the Charles Scribner mansion at 12 East Thirty-eighth Street.
Winthrop Gilman had an abiding interest in science and built a private observatory at his home ‘Fern Lodge’ at the Palisades, New York, where he frequently observed meteors.
Tombstone Territory
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just a short posting today, and as you might observe, your humble narrator has been hanging out around cemeteries again. The other day, as I was leaving Calvary via the Greenpoint Avenue Gates, I spotted Ladder 128’s truck (which had apparently just been washed) sparkling in the cascading emanations of the thermonuclear eye of god itself. As I’ve mentioned in the past, the subject of the NYFD and their wonderful equipment reduces me to early childhood. When a fire engine or ladder truck screams past with lights and sirens on, it is a very difficult thing for me not to run after it yelling “Firemen, Firemen!!!”.
from nypost.com
Ladder 128 has played an integral role in the community over the past 100 years, and the stories from within the house were feted as that which makes a life complete by the hundreds who attended Friday’s celebration at the Blissville location. The firehouse covers the areas of Blissville, Long Island City, Sunnyside, Woodside and Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
“Ladder 128 has produced some true strong leaders,” Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano said. “%u2026 You’ve responded to some of the toughest fires we’ve had. Members of Ladder 128 have served this city with distinction.”
Chief of Department Edward Kilduff called the centennial a tremendous milestone for the firehouse, nicknamed “tombstone territory” thanks to its location across from Calvary Cemetery, one of the largest and oldest burial grounds in the country.
“This is one of the most diverse areas in the city,” Kilduff said. “You have everything here from high-rises to tunnels to rail yards. The commercial buildings are extreme challenges for anybody. A place like this really represents the heart and soul in the Fire Department.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Far away from the carven hillocks of Calvary, along the graven lanes of Broadway in Astoria, that’s Engine 263 and Ladder 163 doing something important that involved the ancient Subway platform at 46th street.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What I believe is Ladder 136 at the scene of a 5 alarm fire in a Dutch Kills commercial building last year.
Update on the Calvary Knots
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The first thing I would say is that the name on the card does not match those on the monument. The second would be to ask you to read through this posting- Tales of Calvary 4- Triskadekaphobic Paranoia from November of 2009 which describes this odd arrangement in some detail. In the comments thread at that post, please take note of a former Calvary employee’s possible explanation of what is going on here. Third, here’s the latest addition to the knots, a mass card which has appeared just at the outset of spring.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Despite the intervening brutalities of a New York winter, the knotted cords and stick persisted in their intended places, as evinced above. Realize, of course, that the equinoxes mark special dates on the magickal calendar and cultic activity is ripe at the quarters of the solar and lunar cycle- both Passover and Easter fall near the equinox, for example. At these times of year, if you seek- ye shall find.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m not certain, however, what significance a mass card carries. Not being an adherent of the Roman Catholic religion, I’ve nevertheless purchased them when friends and associates have suffered a loss, and offered them up to grieving families. My assumption has always been that they represent some sort special devotion or ceremony which will be performed by the priestly caste, but I remain ignorant of their purpose. As mentioned above, however, the names on the monument do not match the one on the mass card.
I’m keeping an eye on this “tree fed by a morbid nutrition” here at the ossified heart of the Newtown Pentacle in Calvary Cemetery.
And don’t miss tomorrow’s post, which discusses additional weirdness found at St. Michael’s Cemetery just this past weekend.
the hillside thickets
CREEK WEEK continues…
- For the first installment, from the mouth of the Newtown Creek at the East River to the Pulaski Bridge, click here. For more on just the Pulaski Bridge, click here.
- For the second installment, which turns off the main course of the Newtown Creek and follows the Dutch Kills tributary to Long Island City’s Degnon Terminal, click here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman (from the Queens Museum of Art’s “Panorama of the City of New York”)
As the Newtown Creek follows its atavist path across the (currently) undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens, the second drawbridge encountered along its length is the J.J. Byrne Memorial Bridge, aka the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge, which provides a connection between Queen’s Blissville and Brooklyn’s Greenpoint.
A detailed posting on this bridge and its immediate environs was presented in August of 2009, which can accessed by clicking here.
from the DOT website:
The Greenpoint Avenue Bridge is a double-leaf trunnion bascule, with 21.3m wide leaves. This bridge is a steel girder structure with a filled grid deck. The bridge provides a channel with a horizontal clearance of 45.4m and in the closed position a vertical clearance of 7.9m at MHW and 9.4m at MLW. The bridge structure carries a four-lane two-way vehicular roadway with a 1.2m striped median and sidewalks on either side. The roadway width is 8.6m and the sidewalks are 4.0m and 3.7m for the north and south sidewalk respectively. The approach roadways are narrower than the bridge roadway. The west approach and east approach roadways are 17.1m (including 1.4m center median) and 11.9m respectively.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A significant petrochemical industrial footprint is observed at the 1.3 mile mark of the Newtown Creek, and the bridge marks that point at which even the current generation of shambolic urban planners throw up their hands and surrender. This is where the heavy manufacturing stage of the industrial revolution was enacted and invented, and the story preserved in the anaerobic soils of this area will be the joy of future archaeologists. Nearby the Queens onramp, Silvercup studios maintains a large film and television production campus, but this is mainly a region defined by recycling yards, warehouses, truck depots, and a sewer plant interspersed with century old petrochemical franchises. There are a few homes nearby, in both Brooklyn and Queens, but this is not a residential area. This is where the “sweaty, smelly, and dirty work” is done.
the nytimes has an article available from 1919, describing a spectacular and auspicious conflagration at Standard Oil.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Brooklyn shore of the Creek hosts an enormous yard of fuel tanks, while the Queens side is lined with rail and light industrial buildings. Review and Railroad Avenue’s follow the Newtown Creek in Queens, which intersect with Laurel hill Blvd. less than a mile away. Appropriately high security along the volatile shoreline of Brooklyn renders exploration of it a somewhat futile endeavor, with high walls and armed guards securing and enclosing privatized corporate streets. A stroll down from Kingsland ave., through Grandparents ave., to Norman ave., Bridgewater St., and Stewart avenues will reveal visual egress to the Newtown Creek in only two places, both of which are well staffed and monitored by private security. A trucking center, the streets and sidewalks here are also quite degraded, and in this part of Brooklyn- Guard Dogs are deployed in great numbers. Go to Queens, instead.
There is more than 400 years of rich, if often troubled, history on Newtown Creek. Dutch explorers first surveyed the creek in 1613-14 and acquired it from the local Mespat tribe. The Dutch and English used the creek for agriculture and fledgling industrial commerce, making it the oldest continuous industrial area in the nation. The country’s first kerosene refinery (1854) and first modern oil refinery (1867) brought jobs and infrastructure. By the end of the 19th century, Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, which began as Astral Oil Co. in 1880, had over 100 distilleries on both sides of Newtown Creek, and each refinery’s average effluent of discharge per week was 30,000 gallons, most spewing into the creek. By the 1920s and 30s, the Creek was a major shipping hub and was widened, deepened, and bulkheaded to accommodate bigger barges, destroying all its fresh water sources. Newtown Creek became home to such businesses as sugar refineries, hide tanning plants, canneries, and copper wiring plants.
Up until the latter part of the 20th Century, industries along the creek had free reign over the disposal of unwanted byproducts. With little-to-no government regulation or knowledge of impacts on human health and the environment, it made business sense to pollute the creek. The legacy of this history today is a 17 million gallon underground oil spill caused by Standard Oil’s progeny companies—7 million gallons more than the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, copper contamination of the Phelps Dodge superfund site, bubbling from the creek bed in the English Kill reach due to increases of hydrogen sulfide and a lack of dissolved oxygen, and creekbeds coated with of old tires, car frames, seats and loose paper. Nearly the entire creek had the sheen and smell of petroleum, with the bed and banks slicked black.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Queens shoreline boasts a geologic feature called Laurel Hill. High ground, as it were. A lot of time is spent on the Queens side, scuttling around in a filthy black raincoat, by your humble narrator. Of late, I’ve been curtailing my presence in the area, for fear of environmental exposure’s cumulative effects. Breathing this air, while walking the blistered concrete of its lengths, cannot be beneficent for the mammalian constitution.
Beginning at Borden Avenue near the Dutch Kills, which is roughly a mile from where the ferry docks of 19th century Hunter Point could be found, Review Avenue only goes to one place. Literally, it was the avenue that funeral reviews- elaborate parades of mourners replete with musicians and baroque carriages- would use to travel to Calvary Cemetery. A posting from July of 2009, Walking Widdershins to Calvary, explored Review Avenue and the surrounding area in some small depth. Industrial footprints are observed on the Creek side, and very active rail tracks still carry freight along the shoreline.
here’s a link to city-data.com, which details the sort of businesses and structures, and their worth, which are found along Review Avenue
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Relict factories and abandoned lots for many years, the structures along the Queens side are either being torn down or renovated to modern usage. Dirty industries like recycling and septic tank maintenance firms are seen hard at work, and a thriving light industrial facility exists, however, these businesses are predicated on the use of Trucks and ignore the reason for their original construction- which is access to the water. Not that long ago, industrial shipping along Newtown Creek outstripped traffic on the Mississippi River.
from bklyn-genealogy-info.com’s History of Queens County
The boundary line of Long Island City, “beginning at a point formed by the intersection of the easterly boundary line of the city and county of New York with the centerline of Newtown Creek,” runs “thence easterly along the center line of said Newtown Creek to the westerly side of the Penny Bridge (so – called); thence northerly along the westerly side of the Bushwick and Newtown turnpike to the road on the southerly side of Calvary Cemetery, known as the road to Dutch Kills; thence along the center of said last named road to the southerly and westerly side of Calvary Cemetery as far as the boundaries of said cemetery extend; thence northerly along the said cemetery to the center of the road leading to Green Point along the northerly side of said cemetery; thence easterly along said last mentioned road to the intersection of the same with the road leading from Calvary Cemetery to Astoria; thence northerly and north- easterly along the center of said road, Dutch Kills road, Woodside avenue, Bowery Bay road, to the easterly boundary line of land formerly of Isaac Rapelye, on the northerly side of said Bowery Bay road; thence along the line of said Rapelye land to the Bowery Bay; thence along Bowery Bay and the sound to the northerly boundary line of the town of Newtown; thence northwesterly and southwesterly along said boundary line to the easterly boundary line of the city and county of New York; thence southwesterly along said last mentioned boundary line to the place of beginning.”
The new city was divided into five wards, described as follows:
- First Ward (Hunter’s Point)– “All that portion of the city lying between the center of Newtown Creek on the south, the westerly boundary line of Long Island City on the west, the center of Nott avenue and Boundary street on the north and the center of Dutch Kills Creek on the east.”
- Second Ward (Blissville).- “Beginning at the junction of Newtown and Dutch Kills Creek, running thence easterly along the center of said Dutch Kills Creek to Boundary street; thence along the center of Boundary street to Jackson avenue; thence easterly along the center of said Jackson avenue to the easterly line of Long Island City; thence southerly along said boundary line to the southerly boundary line of said city and at the center of Newtown Creek; thence westerly along the southerly boundary line of said city to the place of beginning.”
- Third Ward (Ravenswood).– “Beginning at a point on the westerly boundary of Long Island City, at its intersection with the center line of Nott avenue when extended on its present course to the said westerly boundary line of Long Island City; running thence northerly along said boundary line to its intersection with the center line of Sunswick Creek; running thence easterly and southerly along the center of said creek to the center of Pearce avenue; thence easterly along the center of said Pearce avenue to the center of First avenue; thence southerly along the center of said First avenue to the center of Webster avenue; thence easterly along the center of Webster avenue to the center of Jackson avenue; thence southwesterly along the center of Jackson avenue and Nott avenue to the point or place of beginning.”
- Fourth Ward (Astoria).– “Beginning at a point in the westerly boundary line of Long Island City, at its intersection with the center line of Sunswick Creek, running thence northerly along said westerly boundary line to its intersection with the center line of Franklin street, when extended on its present course to the said westerly boundary line; thence easterly along the center of Franklin Street to the intersection of Flushing avenue; thence easterly along the center of said Flushing avenue to the easterly boundary line of said city at the center line of the Bowery Bay road; thence southerly along the said easterly boundary line to the center of Jackson avenue; thence southwesterly along the center of said Jackson avenue to the center of Webster avenue; thence westerly along said Webster avenue to the center of First avenue; thence northerly along the center of First avenue to the center of Pearce avenue thence westerly along the center of Pearce avenue to the center of said Sunswick Creek; thence northerly and westerly along the center of said creek to the point of beginning.”
- Fifth Ward (Bowery Bay).– “All that portion of the city lying between the northerly boundary line of Long Island City on the north, the easterly boundary line of said city on the east, the westerly boundary line of the same on the west, and the Fourth ward on the south, together with all the islands opposite thereto and comprehended in the town of Newtown.”
- The islands belonging to Long Island City are known as North Brother, South Brother and Berrien’s.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The bulkheaded docks found here, this one in particular, once allowed funeral ferries from Manhattan to dock near the Penny Bridge (a structure which allowed egress from Brooklyn). A LIRR passenger station, also called Penny Bridge, was nearby. Mourners would gather on these docks and weave through the crowds entering the main gate of Calvary Cemetery, after having completed the journey from Manhattan. Nearby, in Maspeth, Hunters Point, and along Review and Greenpoint Avenue- hospitality industries sprang up in the form of inns, hotels, and saloons. Hunters Point also offered illegal gambling (and during prohibition in the 1920’s, booze), but that was for the trip home. When the Five Points gangsters held a funeral out here, extra police from Hunters Point would be on duty to prevent a drunken riot from breaking out, here- in Blissville.
from wikipedia
Blissville is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. It is part of Long Island City. It is bordered by Calvary Cemetery to the east; the Long Island Expressway to the North; Newtown Creek to the South and Dutch Kills (a tributary of Newtown Creek) to the West. Blissville was named after Neziah Bliss, who owned most of the land in the 1830s and 1840s. Bliss built the first version of what was known for many years as the Blissville Bridge, a drawbridge over Newtown Creek, connecting Greenpoint, Brooklyn and Blissville. It was replaced in the 20th century by the J. J. Byrne Memorial Bridge, also called the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge), located slightly upstream.
Blissville existed as a small village until 1870 when it was incorporated with the villages of Astoria, Ravenswood, Hunters Point, Dutch Kills, Middletown, Sunnyside and Bowery Bay into Long Island City.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Calvary Cemetery, of course, is not the only entity which has defined this area- just the largest and longest lasting. Nearby, the Phelps Dodge corporation maintained a copper refinery, and an early chemical factory was located here. Colorants and dyes were also a specialty of the locale. Review Avenue is remarkable for a cyclopean splendor at Calvary, the towering masonry structures which girdle and contain the borders of the necropolis.
from queenslibrary.org
A history of the Laurel Hill Chemical works from the beginning in 1852, from the Phelps Dodge Corporation Laurel Hill Plant Records, 1893-1983.
The following is a chronology of Phelps Dodge Corporation’s Laurel Hill Plant starting with William Henry Nichols, the man who co-founded the original chemical plant, G.H. Nichols and Company at the site in 1872; continuing to when it was purchased by Phelps Dodge Corporation in 1930; and ending in 2000 when all the structures were finally demolished.
Chronology
- 1852 William Henry Nichols was born to George Henry and Sara Elizabeth (Harris) Nichols in Brooklyn, New York, January 9, 1852.
- 1870 William Henry Nichols and his friend Charles W. Walter started making acids.
- 1872 To expand their acid production to sulfphurc acid and support their entrepreneurial needs William H. Nichols and Charles W. Walter, with the financial backing of William’s father George Henry Nichols, formed the G. H. Nichols and Company. The new company so named, because not only did George Henry provide the majority of the capital, but also the two men were too young to incorporate a company in New York State. During the year the company began purchasing land and building buildings in the Laurel Hill (now Maspeth) neighborhood of Queens, New York on Newtown Creek. Not only did the site offer good fishing, it afforded convenient water and rail transportation to move their raw and finished material.
- 1870s-1880s Their sulphuric acid, produced from brimstone, was stronger than the industry standard upsetting their competition but greatly increasing their market share.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Calvary Cemetery, as longtime readers of this Newtown Pentacle are all too aware, is a special place which I’ve spent a lot of time exploring. Past postings on Calvary include:
- Up and Through Calvary
- Calvary Mystery Box
- Calvary Cemetery Walk
- Tales of Calvary 1 – The O’Briens
- Tales of Calvary 2 – Veterans Day
- Tales of Calvary 3 – Rumors and stories
- Tales of Calvary 4 – Triskadekaphobic Paranoia
- Tales of Calvary 5 – Shade and Stillness
- Tales of Calvary 6 – The Empire State Building and the Newsboy Governor.
- Tales of Calvary 7
- Tales of Calvary 8– the Abbot
- Tales of Calvary 9– A Pale Enthusiast
- Tales of Calvary 10– The Hatch
- Tales of Calvary 11– Keegan and Locust Hill
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot is from one of those two vantage points in Brooklyn, mentioned above, showing the bend taken by the Newtown Creek and the Shining City of Manhattan beyond. The construction work observable on the right side of the image is the self same bulkhead where the ferries from Manhattan docked that was pictured above. Everything in Brooklyn and Queens looks toward Manhattan, but as always, I have to scuttle off in a different direction and to the beat of my own drummer. Turn widdershins on your heels, Lords and Ladies, and gaze eastward toward the besotted and behemoth corpse lands of the Kosciuszko Bridge.
from wikipedia
The Kosciuszko Bridge is a truss bridge that spans Newtown Creek between the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, connecting Greenpoint, Brooklyn and Penny Bridge, Queens. It is a part of Interstate 278, which is also locally known as the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The bridge opened in 1939, replacing the Penny Bridge from Meeker Avenue in Brooklyn to Review Avenue and Laurel Hill Boulevard, and is the only bridge over Newtown Creek that is not a drawbridge. It was named in honor of Tadeusz Kościuszko, a Polish volunteer who was a General in the American Revolutionary War. Two of the bridge towers are surmounted with eagles, one is the Polish eagle, and the other the American eagle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The heart of darkness, where the slime and filth that agglutinate along the bed of the Newtown Creek defeat navigable intentions of oarsman and sailor alike, begins beyond the Kosciuszko Bridge. Untrammeled and seldom travelled pathways, a moonscape of cement dissolution awaits…
…but that’s going to be in another installment of Creek Week, here at your Newtown Pentacle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman (from the Queens Museum of Art’s “Panorama of the City of New York”)
On a side note, a ripple of revulsion and shock greeted the antiquarian and environmentalist communities that operate along the Newtown Creek recently, when a Dolphin was spotted near the Pulaski Bridge by members of the Harbor School- as reported by Gothamist.com
The Newtown Pentacle 