Posts Tagged ‘DUPBO’
was invariable
DUPBO, in LIC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp, or DUPBO in Long Island City, is pictured above. Recent endeavor found one wandering around this area just after sunset about a week ago, and one decided to get busy with the camera.
The Pulaski Bridge was built by the NYC DOT as a replacement to the older Vernon Avenue Bridge which was found about a block or so to the west. The old bridge connected LIC’s Vernon Blvd. with Greenpoint’s Manhattan Avenue, and there was a streetcar or trolley service which connected the two shorelines of Newtown Creek. The former Orchard Street (bet Greenpoint Avenue and the Creek) in Brooklyn was renamed “Manhattan Avenue” about 1915 (I believe, and that’s from memory so don’t trust me on that), as the LIC side offered proximity to the brand new IRT Flushing line (the 7) subway. The trolley stop in LIC, where the trolley came to rest, is the NYC Parks Dept.’s “Vernon Mall” today. Back then, you named streets for where they were going, today you give parks meaningless names which obfuscate the past, but that’s why Greenpoint’s Orchard Street is Manhattan Avenue today.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The derelict shoreline of LIC in DUPBO between the bridge and the Vernon street end is occupied and exploited by a colony of squatter boats these days. A hundred years ago, you would have been looking at a fleet of small tugs owned by the Newtown Creek Towing Company, whose HQ was found next door to an Ulmer Brewery Tap room on Vernon beneath the old bridge. Back then, modern day 54th and 53rd avenues were part of the LIRR Pigeon Street rail yard, which adjoined the Hunters Point Yard on the north and had tracks feeding into the Jack Frost sugar factory on the East River. The squatter boats are all blurry looking because they were rolling around on the wake of a tugboat and barge combo which had just navigated past.
The large structure on the Greenpoint side is the former Chelsea Fiber and Jute Mill at the end of Manhattan Avenue, which is known to modernity as the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center – or GMDC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As part of the post WW2 citywide expansion of arterial roadways, drawn up by and overseen by Robert Moses, the Pulaski Bridge was designed as a high draught drawbridge which would span the Newtown Creek and magnify the amount of traffic flow between the two boroughs. Both 11th street in LIC and what would come to be called McGuinness Blvd. in Greenpoint were widened to accommodate this extra traffic. From DUPBO, you may notice that the Pulaski sports what appears to be an unfinished traffic ramp which arcs off of the eastern or Queens bound side. I’ve never been able to confirm it definitively, but the general presumption I hold is that Moses and his crew once intended to connect the Pulaski’s “flow” with the Long Island Expressway.
A bascule drawbridge of paralell counterweight design and driven by electrical motors, construction of the Pulaski Bridge was overseen by the New York City Commissioner of Public Works – Frederick Zurmuhlen – and the general contractor employed in building it was the Horn Construction Company, with steel and expertise supplied by Bethlehem Steel. It opened in September of 1954 at a cost of $9,664,446.25 – and a reconstruction of the bridge in 1994 cost $40 million. It carries five lanes of vehicular traffic, as well as dedicated (and now separated) bicycle and pedestrian lanes, and it’s a primary crossing between north Brooklyn and western Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking eastwards along Newtown Creek, a tug and barge passed through this thirty second exposure, causing a colorful light show to appear on my camera’s sensor. I’m fascinated by this sort of time capture, incidentally. The normal procedure for photographically capturing the passage of time is to record video, of course, or even to fire off a burst of shots. One of the things that’s emerged during all of this night photo long exposure work I’ve been doing for awhile now is that I can reveal traffic patterns, the passage of normally invisible critters in the water, even the invisible currents of air if I set the camera up correctly. You can see the pathways of fish in the water, rendered out by the reflective streaks coming off of their scales, for instance.
If I was sure that I wouldn’t blow up Brooklyn or Queens (or the Buckeye Pipeline), I’d love to throw a block of magnesium into the water and photograph it as it sank and burned – illuminating the bed of the creek. Who can guess, all there is, that might be swimming around down there? Subaqueous features, sunken boats, Jimmy Hoffa?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the staircase leading up to the LIC side of the pedestrian walkway atop the Pulaski Bridge. One advises all not to hold onto the side rails unless they have to, as the Pulaski’s rafters are full of pigeons and the entire bridge is covered in layers of guano.
The lady on the bicycle annoyed me, incidentally. Seeing me standing there with a camera and tripod setup, she first stopped her bike literally two feet away and in front of me for an interval of playing with her phone. I gently asked “excuse me, miss, can I ask you to just move forward two feet so as you’re not in my shot?” to which she silently shot me back a look of annoyance and then rolled further into the shot and right in front of the stairs. So enthralled with her glowing piece of telecommunicative glass that bodily movements all but ceased, she appears in the shot above as a semi transparent statue. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, but I wouldn’t want to trigger the “waiting to be offended” or “overly sensitive” millennial crowd.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking upwards at the control tower of the Pulaski Bridge from the waters edge, which is what you’re seeing. That’s where the various knobs, dials, buttons, and levers that open and close the thing are found.
These shots were gathered using my “minimal” carry setup (2 light lenses, cable release, air blower, couple of lens cloths, and that Ultrapod camera support gizmo), and I used the cheapo Canon “pancake” 24mm lens which I’ve mentioned in the past for all of them. For a variety of reasons, it doesn’t always work for me to grab the whole kit and kaboodle on my way out of HQ, and I’m also trying to carry a bit less around with me than I usually do at the moment in general. Also, not having zoom lenses and being “mission specific” forces me to think more about the “where” of my shots and there’s also the whole “be intentional” thing.
Also, lest I forget, “Pulaski Bridge” – Casimir Pulaski was a Polish military officer who joined General Washington’s Continental Army of the 13 colonies in order to assist in their war of rebellion against the Hanoverian Throne of England during the Revolutionary War. Google him, interesting person, and a Polish National Hero.
I have to don my monkey suit tonight and head off to the City for a party with the fancy folks on the Hudson side of things. I’ll be carrying the minimum kit again, so let’s see what I can get.
“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.
slippery thumping
A few more from DUPBO, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent endeavor found one beneath the Pulaski Bridge in LIC during a warm evening. Other photos from this series were presented last week, but for one reason or another I never showed these three off as I’ve been distracted by something closer to home and by a few medical issues. The big “project” for the last week has involved the fact that for once the City has brought the show to my own front door here in Astoria, but more on that one later in the week. Instead, here’s a few “purty” night shots.
Also, I published the wrong date for this week’s “Infrastructure Creek” walk yesterday, it’s Wednesday night rather than Thursday, and links to it are at the bottom of the post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator is already having a pretty odd week, it should be offered. It’s been decided that I’m actually going to use my health insurance rather than just having it, and a process has begun wherein I’m going to have diagnosticians examine all of the major systems which I’m in possession of. Yesterday, a Doctor and her team used microscopes to look at the entirety of my skinvelope, for instance. Made it through more or less intact, with the exception of having liquid nitrogen sprayed on a “thing” on the bridge of my nose and a scalpel carving a second but quite different “thing” off my left arm which was sent for laboratory analysis.
She wasn’t too concerned about either “thing,” the Doctor wasn’t. She kept on trying to assuage any fear I might have, whereupon I explained that what concerns me most is uncertainty. I don’t mind the proverbial sword of Damocles if I know about it, what drives me nuts is suspecting that the thing might be hanging over me and that I don’t know what to expect or prepare for. Optometrist is next, then I’ll move over to all the internals. Hoping someone can find that matchbox car I lost when I was five.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The big show that the City has brought to Astoria is a repaving project on Broadway, which has been an absolutely glorious display of millions of dollars of esoteric machinery being operated by large crews of night shift construction workers. I’m trying to figure out the right and most efficient way to show the operation, since as you’d imagine, I’ve shot hundreds of photos of the operation that’s playing out right under my bedroom windows.
Meantime, why not grab a ticket for tomorrow night’s Infrastructure Creek walk? It’s underwritten by Newtown Creek Alliance, so the ticket price is only $12!
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours and Events
RESCHEDULED FROM LAST WEEK DUE TO WEATHER
Wednesday, July 17, 7 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
“Infrastructure Creek” Walking Tour w Newtown Creek Alliance
If you want infrastructure, then meet NCA historian Mitch Waxman at the corner of Greenpoint Avenue and Kingsland Avenue in Brooklyn, and in just one a half miles he’ll show you the largest and newest of NYC’s 14 sewer plants, six bridges, a Superfund site, three rail yards with trains moving at street grade (which we will probably encounter at a crossing), a highway that carries 32 million vehicle trips a year 106 feet over water. The highway feeds into the Queens Midtown Tunnel, and we’ll end it all at the LIC ferry landing where folks are welcome to grab a drink and enjoy watching the sunset at the East River, as it lowers behind the midtown Manhattan skyline.
Click here for ticketing and more information.
Thursday, July 25, 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Greenpoint Walking Tour w NYCH20
Explore Greenpoint’s post industrial landscape and waterfront with Newtown Creek Alliance historian Mitch Waxman.
Click here for ticketing and more information.
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.
stout pillars
DUPBO, Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To begin with, when I was on site in Long Island City’s DUPBO section shooting these photos the other night, something so unique and novel occurred that I’m doubting the experience, so I’m going to be heading back sometime over the next few days when it’s light out to “get scientific” about the matter, and I’ll report it to you after a second observation and proper photo cataloguing but for now let’s just leave it hanging.
Mundane and material, that’s a late model Long Island Railroad engine sitting on a siding of the Lower Montauk tracks, awaiting orders.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the spot I was in when the weird thing happened, a location I found myself in due to the attentions of an over zealous and probably bored security guard who decided that my activities were impeding on the grounds she protects. I wish she’d spend some time on the illegal dumping, homeless camps, or the flotilla of RV’s serving as domiciles here in DUPBO, but focusing in on middle aged men with cameras and tripods standing in a parking lot is clearly at the top of her threat chart.
This shot is looking northwards, towards the LIE and Queens Midtown Tunnel.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Shlepping towards HQ, and exiting the industrial area in pursuit of getting to the train station, the 19th avenue footbridge carried me over the LIRR tracks leading from Hunters Point into the Sunnyside Yards and then under the Long Island Expressway. This is quite a well used footpath, as a note, which connects Borden Avenue with 49th or Hunters Point Avenue where a stop on the #7 train can be accessed.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours and Events
Thursday, July 11, 7 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
“Infrastructure Creek” Walking Tour w Newtown Creek Alliance
If you want infrastructure, then meet NCA historian Mitch Waxman at the corner of Greenpoint Avenue and Kingsland Avenue in Brooklyn, and in just one a half miles he’ll show you the largest and newest of NYC’s 14 sewer plants, six bridges, a Superfund site, three rail yards with trains moving at street grade (which we will probably encounter at a crossing), a highway that carries 32 million vehicle trips a year 106 feet over water. The highway feeds into the Queens Midtown Tunnel, and we’ll end it all at the LIC ferry landing where folks are welcome to grab a drink and enjoy watching the sunset at the East River, as it lowers behind the midtown Manhattan skyline.
Click here for ticketing and more information.
Saturday, July 13, 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.
“Exploring the East River, From General Slocum Disaster
to Abandoned Islands” Boat Tour w NY Adventure Club
Onboard a Soundview route NYC Ferry – Join New York Adventure Club for a two-part aquatic adventure as we explore the General Slocum disaster, and historic sights and stories along the East River, all by NYC Ferry.
Click here for ticketing and more information.
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.
when shouldst
So what’s with all the weird stuff this last week?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ten years ago this week, a humble narrator was pooping his pants out of nervousness and anticipation, as the Queensboro Bridge Centennial event was about to play out and I was transitioning from being a passive participant to becoming one of the people at the front of the line talking to the crowd. My pal Bernie Ente has dragged me, kicking and screaming, into the spotlight for this event. He asked me, roughly a decade ago today, what website I intended to tell “the audience” to visit. On May 29 of 2009, a purely text post was offered titled “what is the Newtown Pentacle,” which was followed by a couple of staccato postings. I like to think that I’ve stayed true to the outline in that post, despite being carried far afield by opportunity. Everywhere I go is someplace that the Newtown Creek has led me to.
What I consider to be the actual “first” post at Newtown Pentacle was offered on June 3rd of 2009. That was 2, 275 posts ago.
I began hanging around with the Working Harbor Committee, and with Newtown Creek Alliance. The first time Captain John Doswell handed me the Circle Line microphone on a boat tour I stuttered and sputtered, but the Captain had faith in me and with some coaching I developed into a fairly decent narrator.
NCA believed in me too, and we began doing walking tours around the Creek. Atlas Obscura started up in Greenpoint about that time, and soon I found myself working with them as a paid guide and event host. I’ve lost count of how many people I’ve brought to Newtown Creek, or out on a boat tour of NY Harbor at this point. There’s been literally tens of thousands; including college students, professional urban planners, activist organizations, environmental officialdom, and most importantly – ordinary New Yorkers. There’s also been dozens of classroom lectures, but that’s a different banana. I’ve published two paper books – “Newtown Creek, for the vulgarly curious” and a recent photo book “In the shadows at Newtown Creek.”
Ten years later, I’m a steering committee member at Working Harbor and I just joined the board of the Newtown Creek Alliance. I was also invited to join Astoria’s Community Board 1 quite recently.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Newtown Pentacle has been visited more than half million times in the last decade, and my Flickr account has seen nearly six million views. I’ve been profiled in dozens of news reports in the last decade, most notably in a NY Times piece back in 2012. When I say “google me,” I’m not kidding or being vainglorious. I’ve made some great friends who are engaged in similar pursuits to mine, like Kevin Walsh from Forgotten-NY, Nate Kensinger from Curbed, Joseph Alexiou from the Gowanus community. I’ve lost some great friends too; Bernie Ente, John Doswell, John Skelson. Our Lady of the Pentacle (my wife Cat), and my buddy Mai Armstrong, have been with me every step of the way and none of what’s happened to me over the last decade would have gone as well as it did without their counsel and help. I also have to tip my hat to some of my NCA peeps who have always been in my corner – Mike Heimbinder, Katie Schmidt, Kate Zidar, Will Elkins, and Lisa Bloodgood. Another person of note is WHC’s Meg Black, who has handed me the mike more times than I can count on boat tours of Port Newark and Kill Van Kull. Oddly enough, some of the other friends I’ve made are in elected office here in LIC, notably Cathy Nolan and Jimmy Van Bramer. It’s an honor to know and interact with all of you fine folks, and thank you for tolerating the presence of this bellicose kid from Brooklyn in your lives.
I’ve made some great enemies as well.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, why all the reflection and the bizarre POV stuff that’s been presented this last week? Short answer is that I’ve been holding that stuff back, editorially, for a while and just wanted to give myself a little freedom this week – get it off my chest, as it were.
What’s next? Good question, that.
There’s going to be a few changes coming, notably I’m going to be figuring out how to excise all those annoying ads which WordPress has been inserting into my posts of late. I’m also going to be opening up a few new channels as we move through the summer and into the fall, evolving things as it were. Ultimately, I’m going to continue trying to answer the one great question, which is the only question which matters.
Who can guess, all there is, that might be buried down there?
“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.
without mind
Old man shakes fist at cloud.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The time of the year which one refers to as “meetings season” is upon me. The good news is that laziness and inertia are cancelled out by “have to,” and the bad news is that I have to attend a bunch of meetings. The meetings mostly revolve around – you guessed it – Newtown Creek. Just last night, I was over in Greenpoint at a CAG (Superfund Community Advisory Group) meeting with several layers of officialdom – City, State, Federal. The EPA discussed part of their technical process, called “modeling”.” As described; they collect multiple lines of evidence regarding the “yuck” found in the water, assigning categories to the contaminants, and determine its nature, transport mechanisms, and risks. EPA has all sorts of algorithmic formulae through which the raw data is processed, and the modeling phase of their operation involves converting an abundance of observation into an action plan which will guide the actual physical removal or abeyance of continuing transport for the contaminants of concern found in the waterway.
If you think that paragraph sounded boring, you should attend one of the CAG meetings yourself. The paragraph above is Hemingway compared to the actual presentations, many of which are frankly “above my head,” as math is involved. I’m an arithmetics idiot, literally. On my SAT’s back in high school, I got ten points under a perfect score on the language side, and ten points higher than signing my name correctly on the math side.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After EPA finished up their presentation, a combined team from NYS’s DEC (Department of Environmental Conservation) and DOH (Department of Health) spoke to the CAG group about the many, many sites which are under some sort of environmental enforcement decree along the Newtown Creek. A lot of attention was paid to the Queens side in particular. Essentially, you couldn’t throw a stone between the Pulaski Bridge and Maspeth Creek without it landing on or close to a DEC administered site. LIRR’s Arch Street yard, a certain spot nearby the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge, the Buckeye Pipeline, the Qantas resources and the Pratt sites in Blissville, the massive former Phelps Dodge properties in Maspeth, the Greenpoint Oil Spill, the National Grid site, the Morgan Oil Terminal site, and the Manhattan Polybag site were all discussed. There was even an upland property which at didn’t know existed, the Equity Manufactured Gas site. I had no idea about that one.
The DEC guy had a bit of fun with me, saying “See, you don’t know everything.” A roomful of regulators whom I’ve been tormenting as the “walking Newtown Creek encyclopedia” for years all laughed at that one. Ha ha.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After the meeting, which occurred at McCarren Park’s multipurpose rooms and play center (or something), I decided to hoof it back to Astoria as it was a nice night and it wasn’t raining. After getting back to the neighborhood, which involved setting up the tripod a few times along the way, I ended up in a debate with two Hellenes about the origins of the ethnodecriptive term “Greek.” I favor the interpretation that it’s a latin language racial slur (Grik – short legged) popularized by the Roman Empire, and asked them if the actual Hellenic Language uses “Greek” or even refers to their nation state as “Greece” when speaking about it in their own tongue. This devolved quickly, and I was put on the spot to explain the origins of the Jews, and soon found myself arguing against the Eastern Orthodox assertion of the Jews as being Christ killers.
All in good fun, nothing like a good historical debate with the Pizza guy and his buddies at midnight on Broadway here in Astoria. It was all very civil. That’s a word with a latin origin too, civil is. Polis, and politic, are hellenic words.
“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 