Posts Tagged ‘Grand Street Bridge’
idiomatic voice
Friday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You don’t need to resort to filters or camera tricks to create a perfect mirror out of the waters of Newtown Creek, about three miles back from the East River. One of the core environmental problems back here is “flow.” Historically, there were dozens of small creeks and streams that flowed down out of the hills in Bushwick and Ridgewood and fed fresh water into the English Kills tributary of Newtown Creek, but colonization/industrialization/gentrification has turned them all into underground sewers. Natural springs were either capped or exploited. The water here rises and falls with the East River tide, but there’s virtually zero “laminar” or horizontal flow.
Anything that ends up in the water precipitates vertically down, building a sediment bed which is currently 15-20 feet thick that is referred to as “Black Mayonnaise.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To combat this lack of current, and the low oxygen levels inherent in still or standing water, the State commanded the City to build an aeration system which seems to be fairly useless. Expensively useless would also be a phrase that applies. I keep on bringing up the creation of small waterfalls, the engineered kind where water flows and splashes down concrete steps. Hydrological engineering for the bulkheads to accommodate the water’s flow via the introduction of compression and expansion zones is something else I ponder.
The concept underlying the latter is that since water has an absolute limit on its top – atmospheric pressure – and another absolute limit at the hard bottom of the waterway, if you compress the water column horizontally the water will flow faster to its only egress. Same principle as holding a thumb over a garden hose’s outlet increases the pressure of the water. If the bulkheads included some sort of repeating scallop shape, it could theoretically create “flow” without having to power up pumps or impellers. That’s the theory, anyway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
If improving Newtown Creek requires the use of a mechanism that needs to be fueled or powered, the improvement has already failed before it left the design phase. The physics of how water moves over, past, and through certain shapes embedded in its columnar body is what really matters to my eyes. Irrigation and petroleum pipeline professional engineers handle this sort of thing all the time, moving pressurized liquids around to where they’re needed. Pumping is largely accomplished with gravity and pipes that narrow and then widen.
Ehh. What do I know, I’m just some wandering mendicant with a camera.
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apologetic hesitancy
Thursday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Grand Street Bridge pictured above, which I’d suggest you photograph soon if you were planning in doing so. The NYC DOT is going to be replacing it in the very near future, and this crossing of yet another Newtown Creek tributary – the East Branch – is going to look very different in just a few years time.
Oddly enough, at the start of the 20th and end of the 19th centuries, this was a very popular spot to commit suicide. There was a Catholic priest who did so here in his full ritual vestments, carrying his Mitre and everything. What?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Speaking of self destructive ideations, this sort of graffiti has been turning up all around the Creeklands in recent weeks. Allow me to decode this one for you – a “fat” lie plays into a certain political dog whistle which states that the only people who get sick or die from Covid are either overweight or already burdened with comorbidity factors like diabetes or heart disease. The “rugged individualism” types push this out there to let you know that they are too morally and physically strong for the virus to find a foothold in them. It’s like lord of the flies, I tell you.
Other lines from the same crowd include “I’ll get the shot when the illegals get it,” and “I’d gladly sacrifice my grandmother’s life for the sake of the economy.” As I’ve been opining for nearly two years now, don’t listen to Politicians about anything. Instead, observe what the most risk averse corporation in America does. Watch Disney.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Did you know that nobody has ever died on Disney property in either Florida’s Disneyworld or at any of their global parks, resorts, and cruise lines? A monorail operator employee of theirs was decapitated in an accident in Florida, and Disney’s EMT’s kept the guy’s heart beating until the stretcher wasn’t on their property anymore. He died in Orlando, not Disneyworld. Like I said, “risk averse.”
The chair pictured above was discovered on the approach to the Grand Street Bridge, and it was covered in barnacles (here’s a close up). The logical supposition is that somebody pulled this thing out of Newtown Creek. The good news is that there seem to be barnacles in the water.
“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.
mighty venture
Tuesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In yesterday’s post, a humble narrator asserted that the so called “Generation Y” or “Millennials” are godawful at crime. This isn’t some “boomer” statement against this cohort, rather it’s built around something a young narrator was taught in Southeast Brooklyn back in the late 1970’s and all of the 1980’s. Simply put – when you commit a crime, don’t tell anyone about it, and should somebody someday invent a global cellular computer network called the Internet don’t confess to or brag about your crime on it.
When “criming” a suggested rubric would inform that if only you know what the sin is that has occurred, don’t tell anyone. The only secrets you’ve got are ones that no one else knows about. If you “crimed” with a friend, it’s no longer a secret and you want to preemptively figure out a straight story in case you get clipped and your friend likes talking to Cops. If you like “criming” as part of a large group, you’re pretty much screwed and it’s only a matter of time before you’ll get to meet the Cops.
I used to know a guy in Brooklyn who swore that by wearing jackets with brand colors and marks from cigarette companies (Marlboro, Kool, etc.) on them, the only thing a witness to his illicit multitudinousness would remember when describing him to the Cops would be the jacket or hat or mirror sunglasses he wore and ditched somewhere. Guess it worked, he’s a shipping executive nowadays.
Keep your mouth shut, essentially, when “criming.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In other news, as you may have guessed by now, these photos were captured in the Grand Street Bridge section of Newtown Creek. About three miles back from the East River, the center of the bridge offers the currently undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens no true demarcation. I propose that NYC should paint a six inch wide yellow line from here to the Nassau County border because people should implicitly know what borough they’re in. How many times have I stood on Scott Avenue in Ridgewood, undecided about which side of the street – or which Borough – I should be in. Pfah.
This is, by the way, a particularly long walk from HQ in Astoria. When I set out, weather forecasts had been foreshadowing a dew point conducive to fog and mist. There was a bit, and although I was disappointed that a “London style fog” wasn’t setting up the gloomy twilight caused by overcast conditions was quite accordant to my mood.
I considered doing some private criming, but hung around and took a bunch of shots instead. I did pee on a truck tire around the corner, which used to be a crime. Since it’s decriminalized it’s ok, but still distasteful, to talk about. See the way that works? Don’t talk about crime on the internet.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned above, this was kind of a long walk, something I’ve been needing to do. Exhausted from sitting around at home for a year is a bit of an oxymoron, but it’s where I am and why I’m going lots of places. All of my internally lubricated parts need actuation, the skinvelope is saggy and bleached out, the bones and rubber bands creak and crack, there’s an inch too much of sub cutaneous fat everywhere – especially between my ears. I no longer believe in anything or anyone, it’s all deception. All presumptions that people are smarter than they appear have evaporated. If you die in front of me, I’m going to immediately try and sell your body to an organ broker. I don’t care anymore. The only thing I want to do is wander around with a camera and take photos. Every minute I’m not doing that is a waste of time. Wasting time is a crime, and when I’m not out shooting it’s criminal.
It’s actually quite liberating, this confessing to crime on the internet. Maybe the Millennials have something here?
“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.
ominous potions
Maspeth Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One scuttled over to the Grand Street Bridge “zone” one recent evening, an area found some 3.1 miles from the East River and straddling the lamentable Newtown Creek, to see what’s what. It was chilly, but it is – in fact – wintertime.
Eschewing a perambulatory tour of the Brooklyn side, one instead set his toes towards Industrial Maspeth, oft referred to as “my happy place.” Did I mention the cold?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One seems to recall this particular night as being a Sunday, as if the nomenclature of an individual day might matter during this dark and endless era of pandemic, sedition, and financial desperation. Frankly, I’ve lost track of how many days have passed here in the “after time” since March 13th of 2019. I could check with google to find out, but one tries to remember things rather than using technology for the basics.
Industrial Maspeth has received several new layers of graffiti paint, and more than a couple of its industrial businesses have flown the coop. The downed fence-line, pictured above, used to vouchsafe a large property that housed construction cranes and other heavy equipment. Don’t know if they went out out of business or just moved on to grayer pastures somewhere else.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Patrolling the lighting choked streets of the Newtown Creek like some sort of low rent Batman, one is constantly scanning the environment for potential threats and hazards. Recent weather events had deposited a fair amount of liquid onto the grease stained and quite concretized devastations of industrial Maspeth, which offered an extra layer of slippery hazard to my worries.
One interesting observation I can offer is that there are a large number of people who are living in RV’s and trailers and exploiting the long term parking rules of the industrial business zones nowadays. This is a trend I started noticing a couple of summers ago, but since we exited the “before time” it’s really kicked into gear.
More tomorrow.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, January 18th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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.
triangular gulf
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in the last couple of installments, a humble narrator recently perambulated aimlessly about in Industrial Maspeth while waiting for the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself to descend behind the skyline of Manhattan. Many were the poison acres which were crossed, and I managed to get in a few decent shots at the venerable Grand Street Bridge, spanning the fabulous Newtown Creek approximately 3.1 miles from the waterway’s intersection with the East River.
Ribald happiness abounds, for one such as myself, in such actions.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The appointed time was approaching and therefore one made his way to the Maspeth Avenue Plank Road where my intentions revolved around setting up the tripod and configuring the camera into landscape modality. It’s a simple process, there’s a checklist, and it’s just a matter of getting to the location a few minutes ahead of when the sky and light will be “just right.”
I mentioned this fire hydrant and the puddles surrounding it yesterday, and since I’m calling your attention to it again… suffice to say that this bit of urban street furniture will figure heavily into the narrative of tomorrow’s post at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the meanwhile, one achieved the location and arrived at the timing of that which had carried me to Industrial Maspeth – a 6:39 sunset cue. I actually missed an important step on that camera checklist, which forced me to trash a few shots and start over. The whole point of a checklist, Mitch… ennui.
It was while I was actuating the shutter for the shot above that I heard a distant “POP” and then a “whoosh” but wasn’t sure where the sound came from. I soon found out. More tomorrow.
Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, October 12th. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.
“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 