Posts Tagged ‘Dutch Kills’
fired spectacularly
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As alluded to yesterday, the bulkhead situation along the 29th street side of Dutch Kills most definitely got worse in the 2 weeks or so that I hadn’t been there. Unfortunately, I was not about to try and get some shots of it in the dark as it was way too risky due to the degradation of the shoreline. Saying that, I came back a couple of days later, during the afternoon, and documented the scene. I’ll show y’all that in the future.
Meantime, I visited all of my usual “stations of the cross” at Dutch Kills. There’s my favorite tree.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At what used to be the campus of “Irving Subway Grate,” another concrete factory is building its equipment and site. All the politicians are “very concerned” about the environment, but when it comes time to consider a heavy trucking based business from an industrial sector notorious for its product ending up in the water wanting to situate itself in LIC, they allow these businesses to set themselves up on the waterfront. Jobs. No requirement that they use their bulkheads, no preference or encouragement to use the nearby freight rail line. Nada.
Nothing matters, nobody cares.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The last meeting I attended as a Steering Committee member of the Newtown Creek Community Advisory Group was horrific. EPA offered a revised timeline of their Superfund project which pushed the “shovels in the ground” phase of the cleanup back to the 2040’s, with a 2050ish “done” date. Their team describe to the community how hard their jobs are, how many regulations they must oblige and how difficult that is, and how their efforts can basically be sent back to square one by reviews from anonymous “alphabet acronym” Federal level committees that no one has ever heard of. They don’t talk about how the Corporate and Governmental PRP’s – Potentially Responsible Parties – have run them around and around in circles for twelve years.
A blind elephant which only knows how to do one thing – moving forward slowly – and whose pathway can easily be nudged in one direction or another by regulatory or political nudging from the PRP’s Mahouts – that’s the EPA.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Yeah, I’m kind of pissed off about their schedule. Everyone on the meeting call gave the EPA a bit of spleen about the timeline. Many, including myself, commented on how we’ll all be dead and how every member of the EPA team will be long retired from Federal service by the time they stick a shovel into the ground.
I found myself having to remind them that each and every day that goes by is another one during which children in the always growing residential neighborhoods surrounding Newtown Creek are exposed to its poisons.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Doesn’t matter what they do. The scene you’re looking at above will be under water by 2050. I don’t believe in Santa Claus, and you don’t believe in climate change and rising sea levels. That’s cool.
I’m done, y’all. We had a window, and instead of addressing the existential issues that a metroplex built on a series of sandbar islands faces in the 21st century, we built “affordable” housing and jammed as many people as we could right in next to the water.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not exactly a cheer filled post, this.
My plan is to get out of here asap, and go live in the mountains. What’s your plan? I’m not saying you have to move on it right now, instead I’d predict you want to enact it within the next decade. That’s when things are going to start becoming fairly dicey from a weather point of view here in NYC. Your kids and grandkids are the ones who are going to have to deal and live with terms like “managed retreat.”
Me? I’m not a strong swimmer, so the safety of higher elevation is what I seek in my dotage.
“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.
harrow up
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After confirming that Dutch Kills was indeed still bubbling, one accomplished his usual shot list at the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge. All these years, one of my self appointed obligations has been to take the same photo from the same spot over and over and over again. Pedantic, yes, but I can show you the evolution of this area over the last 15 years. The skyline has changed, but somehow Dutch Kills never benefits.
What can I tell you? This entire section of my life is ending soon, and I’m deeply – deeply – caught up in sentiment and reflection at this moment. Every time I do something, it’s theoretically the last time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Tree of Heaven is thriving right now, is in full bloom, and remains an eidolon to me.
After accomplishing the usual shot list, I decided to walk with the camera mounted on the tripod and continue doing deep focus and longish exposure shots.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you can see, the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself was descending behind Manhattan and into whatever fiery pit it spends its nights in, over in New Jersey.
There was quite a light show on this particular evening.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One was making his way over to Borden Avenue for this particular sunset. The overhanging clouds of humidity rising from the City were causing all sorts of lovely color to manifest up in the vault.
I kept on keeping on to the south.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Up on Borden Avenue, I couldn’t resist this shot, with the Empire State Building framed by a series of illegally parked moving trucks.
Well, they were “technically” legally parked as it was prior to 9 p.m., but you just know for a fact that they would still be there the next morning. Nothing matters, nobody cares.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the one I was hoping to get, above. I also shot a few hundred individual exposures which I’m planning on turning into a time lapse, but that’s on the back burner right now. I’m still working out the production/capture/delivery system for time lapse videos.
Back tomorrow.
“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.
inside information
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whenever I try to say what kind of a bird a bird is, I get it wrong, so I just make up names for them. Thereby, that’s an Old Republic Throat Chewer in the shot above.
As described yesterday, I spent a bit of time at Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kills tributary on Saturday the 30th of July right about sunset.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The vertical tide of Dutch Kills was rising while I was shooting these. The design of the canal, coupled with its distance from the East River and lack of water flowing in from its banks, negates horizontal flow of the water. The water here goes up and down, rather than exhibiting a laminar pattern like a natural waterway.
The material spilling into the water from the collapsing bulkhead seems to forming spirals, which is fascinating.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s some of the timber structure I described to you yesterday, which forms the underpin framework of what we perceive as being the land of Queens.
The light began to decline as the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself descended behind New Jersey. I packed up the kit and moved on.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One stopped at his various “stations of the cross” at Dutch Kills.
My favorite tree is doing pretty well this year, have to say.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There were a bunch of big white birds, which I’d call “Non Striped Juvenile Uncle chasers” but which were likely Snowy Egrets, in position over the water waiting for some slimy dinner to appear in the water under them.
The water was teeming with tiny fishies called “Mumichaugs” which are colloquially referred to as “Killie Fish.” There’s also predator fishies in there, Bunkers and the like.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The tripod section of my evening’s excursion was at an end after capturing this shot along the Borden Avenue Bridge. A quick walk would take me to the Jackson Avenue stop on the 7 line in Hunters Point, which would in turn carry me to Queens Plaza and an assignation with an Astoria bound N train.
Something somewhat different tomorrow.
“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.
so inquisitive
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So… I was in a quasi “ok” place for these, after a handshake with the property manager who handles this particular location on Dutch Kills. Nothing in writing, mind you, but a handshake. Still, I felt like I was doing something naughty. It was a Saturday night, after all. Wasn’t exactly the “naughty” of illegal street racing for pink slips on Fountain Avenue during the 1980’s, but there you are.
This one looks towards the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge, and a different view of that Tree of Paradise growing up from under a factory eave which has been the focus of so many shots over the years.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
When Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kills tributary was canalized at the start of the 20th century, a “T” shape was built into its terminus which is meant to act as a “turning basin” for maritime traffic. This created a stagnant dead end, which has had horrific effects on the environment. Somebody abandoned two oil barges here sometime in the dim past. They’ve been here since I showed up around fifteen years ago, and my buddy Bernie Ente told me that the two barges had been in this spot for twenty years before that. So, approximately 35 years… leave your car double parked for 5 minutes and you get a ticket, but abandon oil barges in an industrial canal? Nada.
I showed up at Dutch Kills on the 30th with a light kit bag, and then got busy with the camera with an ND filter and the tripod.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One arrived at this spot about twenty minutes prior to sunset. By “light kit,” I mean that I was carrying the two lenses – a 35mm and an 85mm – which I usually use for night photography. Full kit involves a second bag with a couple of longer reach zoom lenses in it. Sometimes I like to travel light, especially when it’s warm out.
I made it a point of really taking my time with these.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The point of the ND filter, which is basically a sunglass for the camera, is to “slow” the shot down and allow for longer exposures in daylight condition. I use this sort of filter a lot for these kind of shots. It’s why the water attains that mirror surface, as all of the distracting ripples and movement get smoothed out over the 15-30 seconds of an individual exposure.
The technical issues introduced by the filter include the color cast of the filter glass itself. You can spend a thousand bucks on one of these filters and you still get a color cast, so instead I spent about fifty bucks on one and then I figured out a set of settings for the development process in photoshop which neutralize it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the collapsing bulkhead associated with Long Island City’s 29th street which all of the recent hullabaloo is about. When the canal was created a hundred years ago, state of the art for “land reclamation” involved building a latticework of timber boxes whose structure was formed by dock piles driven into the saturated soil and mud of wetlands. Once you had the wooden framing done, you filled the “box” with rock and soil.
At the start of the 20th century, massive amounts of money and labor filtered through Western Queens in pursuit of this sort of land reclamation. More than one Queens Borough President was convicted on corruption charges because of these efforts, and much of the land we walk on today – which is between six and ten feet higher than the tidal zone – was created using the reclamation technique described above. One of Dutch Kills’ tendrils used to snake all the way to 31st street at Northern Blvd. for instance.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The term I’ve encountered time and again in late 19th and early 20th century reports and literature about this section of Long Island City is “waste meadows.” This refers to grassy tidal lowlands which would flood with the East River tidal cycle. Depending on where you’re talking about, these waste meadows were either swamps or marshes or even Juniper tree lined waterways. Every account I’ve read speaks about lots and lots of deer, waterfowl, shellfish, and the sort of critters who make their living in this sort of environment. In fact, when the Dutch arrived in the 1640’s, they talked about problems arising from an abundance of wolves.
That’s pretty interesting, actually. According to the “wolf people,” an adult wolf of breeding age needs a minimum of nearly 4 pounds of meat a day to survive. That’s a minimum, and whereas Wolves don’t necessarily eat everyday, a breeding age wolf prefers about 10 pounds of meat a day. If you’ve got a “wolf problem,” which indicates a large population of these top predators, you’ve got to do the math on this, regarding the prey animals that fed them. Ten wolves – 100 pounds of meat, 100 wolves – 1,000 pounds, etc. Wolf problem? That’s a whole lot of meat.
This used to be a highly productive ecosystem, these waste meadows.
“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.
quickly anyhow
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The 30th of July offered a brief climatological break from the bake of mid summer in NYC, a season which is affectionately referred to as “swamp ass” by we aficionados of the local milieu. Accordingly, one set out for a walk to take advantage of the pleasant atmospherics.
Shortly after leaving HQ, one encountered a fairly traffic free Broadway here in Astoria, which is actually noteworthy in its own right, and the maneuvering of an MTA Q104 line bus. Couldn’t resist.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My destination for the evening was Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kills tributary, and the area surrounding it. This was a Saturday evening, and since I desired solitude and an extended period of time during which I was not involved in conversation with anyone about anything, I went to where no one else would be.
To get from “here” to “there,” the pathway leads through an area known as the Degnon Terminal. The large brick building on the left side of the shot is a prison (different units inside offer varying levels of security, but it’s classified as a minimum security facility by Corrections Dept.) known as the Queensboro Correctional Facility. It opened in 1975, is designed to house 424 inmates, and is found on the corner of Van Dam Street and 47th Avenue. It’s an “intake and processing” center, I’m told, wherein convicted inmates are classified and categorized on the way to whatever upstate hellhole they’re permanently headed to for the duration of their sentences. Except for the barbed wire and constantly swiveling security cameras, you’d barely notice the place as being a jailhouse.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Degnon Terminal was constructed in more or less the same time period as the nearby Sunnyside Yards. It offered rail connections, and barge to rail connections at Dutch Kills, and to Pennsylvania Rail Road/Long Island Railroad trackage infrastructure at Sunnyside Yards. Built by a company headed by Michael Degnon, the terminal had its own railroad system – the Degnon Terminal Railway. Said railway ended up being folded into the MTA property portfolio when that agency was created.
I’m told that rail companies seldom allow their unused tracks to be dug out of the ground as they’d never be able to reacquire the precious “right of way.” Even if the tracks haven’t been used in 50 years, they still pay tax on it to the Federal rail authorities to maintain the right of way. You see these relict tracks everywhere in this area.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The buildings which composed the Degnon Terminal, despite long 20th century decades of degeneracy, have been coming back to life in recent years. The elimination of hundreds of square acres of industrial space in the name of “affordable housing” in recent decades has reversed a trend that began shortly after the Second World War which saw heavy industrial or “M1” zoned space devalued because there was so much of it laying fallow and empty. Rezonings in East New York, South Brooklyn, Greenpoint, and even here in Long Island City have allowed for the razing of the old factories and for their replacement with tower apartment buildings.
The operative period for the creation of Sunnsyide Yards and the Degnon Terminal developments is during the first 20-30 years of the 20th century. That’s also when the United States Army Corps of Engineers oversaw the canalization of Newtown Creek’s tributaries, and land reclamation efforts that eliminated their wetlands, into what we see today.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Speaking of Dutch Kills, here I am at 29th street again. The red, white, and blue self storage warehouse – and the television studio next door – used to be the factory HQ of an outfit that called itself “U.S. Cranes.” You can guess what their line of business was, I imagine.
Both the TV Studio and the Storage warehouse are situated on a pier, which sits on stout concrete and steel columns driven down into the Newtown Creek mud. Tracks of the Degnon Terminal Railway are visible on 29th street, which is technically classified as a “railroad access road” and MTA property – which is why MTA is holding the modern bag for the collapsing bulkhead along Dutch Kills.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Like a vampire, I need to be invited in before I do my work. This is the standard line I offer if I’m ever accused of illegal trespassing. After that press conference I told you about a couple of weeks backs, I’ve actually got a handshake agreement regarding one of those invitations I require.
I mention this in advance of what I’m going to show you over the next couple of posts, so stay tuned.
“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 