Posts Tagged ‘Greenpoint’
loosely knit
It’s National Piña Colada Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Given that the final weeks of the old Kosciuszcko Bridge spanning the fabled Newtown Creek are at last upon us, one has been determined to record a few portrait shots to commemorate its long tenancy over the waterway. To wit, last week, one determined that it was time to carry the tripod all the way to eastern Greenpoint and stand there in the dark while shooting the end of an era in this particular corridor of the “House of Moses.” The tripod was needed to allow for long exposure, hyperfocal aperture depth, and deep saturation. Where I was will be instantly recognizable to some Newtown Creek enthusiasts, but to most – not so much. It’s off the beaten path, off the pavement in fact, and my specific vantage was shielded from street lights, perfectly dark, and stunk to high heaven from a passing slick of sewage.
Ahh… my beloved Newtown Creek.
I’m pretty happy with what I got in the shot above, which is a 30 second exposure captured at about 9:10 p.m. As always, if you click the photo it will open up a new window to Flickr, where you can zoom in or whatever.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While I was there – and as you’d imagine – one shot multiple variations of the first shot in today’s post using different exposure triangles, but it was randomly decided at the end of my little seission to pivot the tripod head about and get some shots of the surrounding creek as well. This is looking northward at the Queens side, and that black slab forming the background against the sky is the tree line of First Calvary Cemetery.
Documenting this project has been a long standing project of mine – this 2012 post tells you everything you could want to know about Robert Moses, Fiorella LaGuardia, and the origins of the 1939 model Kosciuszko Bridge. Just before construction started, I swept through both the Brooklyn and Queens sides of Newtown Creek in the area I call “DUKBO” – Down Under the Kosciuszko Bridge Onramp. Here’s a 2014 post, and another, showing what things used to look like on the Brooklyn side, and one dating back to 2010, and from 2012 discussing the Queens side – this. Construction started, and this 2014 post offers a look at things. There’s shots from the water of Newtown Creek, in this June 2015 post, and in this September 2015 post, which shows the bridge support towers rising. Additionally, this post from March of 2016 detailed the action on the Queens side. Most recently, here’s one from May of 2016, and one from June of the same year. Here’s one from August of 2016, the December 2016 one, one from March of 2017 which discusses the demolition of the 1939 bridge.
Most recently – a post showing what I saw during a pre opening walk through in early April of 2017, and the fanfare surrounding the opening of half of the new bridge in April of 2017, and a walk through of the Brooklyn side job site in June of 2017.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking west along the Newtown Creek, towards the Shining City of Manhattan. The burning thermonuclear eye of God itself doesn’t dip behind the skyline until about 8:30 this time of year, and the shot was captured less than five minutes after the first shot in today’s post. That’s about when Indecided to break down the gear and head back to the rolling hills of Astoria, after having spent about an hour at my location.
As far as the burning question everybody’s been asking me – no, I don’t have any intel on when the old bridge is coming down or not. Newtown Creek Alliance has recently published this post, which discusses the issue in detail and tells you what to expect from the operation.
Upcoming Tours and events
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills Walking Tour, with Newtown Creek Alliance – July 15th, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m..
The “then and now” of Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kills tributary in LIC, once known as the “workshop of the United States.” with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek Walking Tour, with Atlas Obscura – July 22nd, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m..
Explore the hellish waste transfer and petroleum districts of North Brooklyn on this daring walk towards the doomed Kosciuszko Bridge, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
collective deliberation
It’s National Onion Ring Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few odds and ends greet you today, lords and ladies. Pictured above is my beloved Newtown Creek, as seen from a bulkhead in Greenpoint. That barge is being filled with aggregate soil material by the Allocco recycling operation on Kingsland Avenue. Aggregates are an interesting side of the recycling industry, wherein excavated soil is sieved and graded according to particle size (gravel, sand etc.) and then sold in bulk for industrial “fill,” or packaged and sold at consumer hardware stores in fifty pound bags. It diverts the stuff from ending up in landfills. Who knew?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator was on his way out one fine afternoon, and caught this meteorological sight. A curtain of rain was trailing a storm cloud, on an otherwise sunny day, as the cell headed eastwards. For some reason, I’m fascinated by this sort of thing, but I also routinely throw rocks at the moon when it rises outside of my cave.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The weather down in the rotting concrete bunkers and tunnels of the Subway system never ceases to amaze me. Given that it’s a series of shaft ways open on both ends and which are open to the air at nearly every station, and have de facto pistons moving through them at somewhat regular intervals, how and why is it that the atmospherics in subway stations always seem to lag twenty four to forty eight hours behind the surface? Also, why is it also so damned hot at 34th street/Herald Square?
I avoid that station like the freaking plague because of the heat.
Upcoming Tours and events
Newtown Creek, Greenpoint to Hunters Point, walking tour with NYCH2O – June 29th, 7-9 p.m..
Experience and learn the history of the western side of Newtown Creek, as well as the East River Parks Hunters Point with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
indelibly inked
It’s National Rotisserie Chicken Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The new green roof at Broadway Stages’ 520 Kingsland Avenue building was recently made available to me for a couple of hours by the folks who installed and created the place – Alive Structures – in pursuance of creating a portfolio of photographs for brochure and website purposes. This is also a Newtown Creek Alliance project btw, and I packed up the “full kit,” including tripod and cable shutter release, in anticipation of getting both “artsy” and “fartsy.” It ain’t that often that I get to do the full set up for “proper” landscape style shots.
As always, I went well beyond my shot list, and figured that I’d show off a little bit in today’s post. That’s the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in the shot above, with the camera looking through the invisible methane flames that the DEP is burning off towards lower Manhattan.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking across Newtown Creek towards Long Island City – you can see the Long Island Expressway truss bridge rising some 106 feet above its tributary, Dutch Kills, but it’s been completely overshadowed by the titan slabs of mirror glass rising along Jackson Avenue between Court Square and Queens Plaza.
The truss dates back to Robert Moses and 1939, btw, and its height was dictated by the needs of the maritime and industrial powers who used to rule the roost in LIC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking eastwards, towards the two Koscisuzcko Bridges (1939 and 2017 models), and over the petroleum tanks of Metro Fuel. The Greenpoint Avenue Bridge is just on the other side of these tanks, but occluded by them in this shot. At the extreme left of the photo is the tree line of Calvary Cemetery in Queens’ Blissville section.
Nothing like getting high along Newtown Creek, I always say.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For those of you who saw me looking particularly sun burnt in middle May, these shots are the reason why. I spent something like two and change hours up on the roof at 520 Kingsland Avenue, mainly waiting for the burning thermonuclear eye of God itself to dip behind the Shining City and make the shot above possible.
If you’d like to take a look at 520 Kinsgland for yourself, NCA and Riverkeeper will be conducting a “community visioning” project there tomorrow between one and four, and then between five and seven I’ll be offering a history lecture and green roof tour of the space… come with? It’s all free, and the RSVP details are in the links below.
Upcoming Tours and events
Newtown Creek Alliance and Riverkeeper Visioning, June 3rd, 1-4 p.m..
Imagine the future of Newtown Creek with Riverkeeper and NCA at the Kingsland Wildfowers Green Roof (520 Kingsland Avenue in Greenpoint) – details here.
Newtown Creek Alliance History lecture with NCA historian Mitch Waxman, June 3rd, 5:00- 7:30 p.m.
An free hour long lecture and slideshow about Newtown Creek’s incredible history at the gorgeous Kingsland Wildfowers Green Roof (520 Kingsland Avenue in Greenpoint) followed by a walk around the roof and a Q&A – details here.
Green Drinks Queens LIC, June 5th, 6:00- 9:00 p.m.
Come celebrate UN World Environment Day with Green Drinks: Queens on the LIC Waterfront! This year’s theme is “Connecting People With Nature.” – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
certain captives
It’s National Raspberry Tart Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Call me Ezekial for my visions of a dire future are informed solely by the lessons of the past. When the NYC DEP people told the Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee of their plans for a “waste to energy” project at the sewer plant in Greenpoint a while back (I think at the end of the last Bloomberg administration?), they also mentioned that they intended for the equipment which would convert the waste methane produced by their industry into a usable fuel – “natural gas” – on the Greenpoint Avenue side of the sewer plant, a humble narrator grew agitated.
The DEP people said “c’mon, it’s behind the fence, what could happen?” I turned around to Councilmember Steve Levin, who was observing the meeting, and said “Greenpoint has a long history of huge industrial fires, and it’s only a matter of time before a car or truck accidentally blasts through the fence, or a fire starts nearby that could threaten the perimeter here.” “Do we really want a high pressure gas manifold on heavily trafficked Greenpoint Avenue with only a chain link fence to protect it? What if?”
Mr. Levin took note, but the DEP was dismissive. The DEP is always dismissive, and the agency does not like its pronouncements or plans being questioned by unwashed rabble like myself, the State of New York, or the Federal Environmental Protection Agency.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not six months afterwards, a paper recycling yard across the street from the sewer plant caught fire and burned for several days. DEP had people on the plant’s grounds sweep their property facing the smokey fire with hoses, for fear that wind scattered embers from the blaze across the street might cause damage or start a fire at the plant. The next Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee meeting came around and I got to say “I told you so” to the DEP. The councilman gave me a knowing look and acknowledged that I “called it,” and that was the end of that. The DEP people went along with their plans to install the gas equipment on a busy truck route called Greenpoint Avenue.
Of course, the Citistorage Building fire on the East River side happened a few months later, so allow me to reiterate…
Greenpoint has a history of fires that occur in large industrial buildings that tend to burn for days and days. In 1882 and again in 1919, the entire refinery complex on the Newtown Creek coastline between Greenpoint Avenue and Meeker Avenue were immolated and utterly lost, and in the 1882 fire – the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge burned down. Don’t believe me? Ask my colleague, Greenpoint Historian Geoff Cobb, or do your own research on the subject.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Imagine my recent joy, therefore, when another of my little prophecies came true.
I was at the plant to attend a presentation offered by the DEP regarding their “Long Term Control Plan” for combined sewer overflows into Newtown Creek. The plan is a lot of hoo-hah if you ask me, a Potemkin Village’s worth of politically convenient bioswales, rain gardens, and unfunded mandates for large scale construction projects which is designed to compel future generations into finding a way to pay for it all, rather than asking it of the current one. The LTCP process, citywide, is turning out to be a wonderful example of non urgently passing the buck while billions of gallons of sewage flow into New York Harbor every single time it rains. They want to build pump houses and dig retention tunnels, but all of it begins in twenty to thirty years and…
Thirty years ago, New York City was financially crippled and crime was at an all time high, and you couldn’t give away the waterfront land in Williamsburg or Long Island City. Twenty years ago, America had “won the Cold War” and it was the “end of history.” Rudy Giuliani was already a bit crazy, but not like now… Bill Clinton was President… you would have been hard pressed to get anyone to believe the sort of dystopic world we now live in, or the property valuations of Williamsburg, were just on the horizon. Donald Trump? What?
A lot can happen in 20-30 years, and there’s no time like the present for “getting it done.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Funnily enough, I had attended a tour of the plant on Sunday April 22nd, and these shots were captured on Wednesday the 26th. Anonymous informants who work at the plant informed me that some driver had not recognized the presence of the fence when traveling west from North Henry Street, and crossed Greenpoint Avenue at accelerating speed, and plowed into the fenceline without braking.
As a point of trivia, North Henry Street actually does continue through the plant, it’s just closed to non official traffic. I seem to recall seeing a street sign for it inside the fence quite a while ago, but I also might be imagining it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The good news, which came to me in another Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee meeting on the 30th of March, is that DEP’s partners in the “waste to energy” project – National Grid – now prefer a spot deeper within the plant’s grounds to install their equipment to harvest the waste methane which is not on Greenpoint Avenue.
Ezekial, call me Ezekial, for I am a prophet.
Upcoming Tours and events
First Calvary Cemetery walking tour, May 6th.
With Atlas Obscura’s Obscura Day 2017, Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour – details and tix here.
MAS Janeswalk free walking tour, May 7th.
Visit the new Newtown Creek Alliance/Broadway Stages green roof, and the NCA North Henry Street Project – details and tix here.
Newtown Creek Alliance Boat tour, May 21st.
Visit the new Newtown Creek on a two hour boat tour with NCA historian Mitch Waxman and NCA Project Manager Will Elkins, made possible with a grant from the Hudson River Foundation – details and tix here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
prime strength
It’s National Zucchini Bread Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned yesterday, Our Lady of the Pentacle and myself spent a rainy Earth Day in industrial Greenpoint, and our first stop was at the brand new Green Roof at 520 Kingsland Avenue. Our second appointment was with the NYC DEP, who were offering tours of the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant pictured above. As a note, this was an abbreviated version of the tour, which only included an audience with the newly hired and immensely cool Deputy Commisioner Pam Elardo and the second Superintendent of the plant, Zainool Ali. A brief lecture on sewer operations and the DEP’s mandate was followed by a visit to the walkway that hovers over the digester eggs. The old version of the tour included a few other areas of the plant such as the electrical rooms and screening facility.
As you’d imagine – I’ve been on this tour several times over the years as a member of the Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee, my role as Newtown Creek Alliance Historian, and just out of my own puerile interest.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The walkway above the digester eggs is encased in greenish blue glass, which always poses a bit of a challenge – photographically speaking. The glass tends to act as a neutral density filter and lends a color cast to the shots you can capture up there. Also, as mentioned, this isn’t my first rodeo up there – so I’ve developed certain countermeasures on both the capture and digital darkroom sides to deal with the glass issue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s nothing you can do about rain, however, so as my pal Bernie Ente used to advise – just use it to your advantage. One is quite enamored with the image above, which is one of the better atmospheric shots I’ve managed to capture so far this year. This is looking west, obviously, towards the shining city of Manhattan and over Greenpoint.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking eastwards, towards Maspeth and the Kosciuszcko Bridge project. You’ll notice that there aren’t rain or glass distortions present in this shot, or the one below. That’s due to my having visited the walkway multiple times in the past and knowing where there are lapses in the wraparound glass big enough to shove a camera lens through.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s probably going to be the very last “birds eye” shot of the 1939 era Koscisuzcko Bridge seen above, doing the active duty it’s been engaged in for 78 years, that I am going to ever take. On Thursday the 27th, Governor Cuomo is going to officially open the new bridge and the NYS DOT is going to shortly thereafter reroute the BQE onto it. The demolition process of the 1939 bridge is meant to begin playing out over the summer and should be completed sometime this fall, whereupon the second half of the “K Bridge” project will start.
Upcoming Tours and events
First Calvary Cemetery walking tour, May 6th.
With Atlas Obscura’s Obscura Day 2017, Calvary Cemetery Walking Tour – details and tix here.
MAS Janeswalk free walking tour, May 7th.
Visit the new Newtown Creek Alliance/Broadway Stages green roof, and the NCA North Henry Street Project – details and tix here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 