Posts Tagged ‘Greenpoint’
poised on
Happy Earth Day, from the Poison Cauldron in DUKBO.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last week, a humble narrator found himself in Greenpoint over in Brooklyn. One was scuttling along a proscribed route whose intention and path was built around a walking tour conducted for a private group. Given the enormous construction project underway in the area, the NYS DOT’s construction of a replacement for the 1939 vintage Kosciuszko Bridge which carries the Brooklyn Queens Expressway over Newtown Creek, there is little certainty that just because you can move from “point A to point B” via one street or another on one day you can do it on another due to street closures and ongoing construction. From a vehicular POV, it’s actually a bit of a challenge to negotiate the streets hereabouts – there’s detours and so on – but from a pedestrian’s perspective, it’s a real bugbear as you find yourself dodging heavy trucks and moving through an enormous cloud of airborne dust and particulates in this area which are less than desirable to breathe in.
This is the area I describe as “The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek” after all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I just got invited to attend a tour of the actual construction site with the DOT show runners next week, so for today I’ll abstain from making a full progress report as by next week I’ll have heard it directly “from the horse’s mouth” and I’ll have shots from within the fence lines to show you.
Saying that, observationally, the project continues to move along at a fast rate, and the roadways of the new bridge are stretching towards the turgid waters of the Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For the curious, one would like to reiterate that whereas this area is a photographic wonderland, I cannot describe how dangerous it is and that it’s really best for you to avoid the area for a number of environmental and safety reasons. A humble narrator has received multiple hours of “safety training” from various industrial giants along the Creek (requirements for stepping on several sites around the waterway include a mandatory “union” safety course) and I’m versed in the mores and methods of how to move about safely when the sort of equipment you see above is passing by.
There’s a reason I call it “the Poison Cauldron.” This area in Brooklyn’s DUKBO hosts a startling number of waste transfer stations, and all of that airborne particulate mentioned above is literally just hanging in the air.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Walking Tour – Saturday, April 23rd, 2016 –
First Calvary Cemetery Walk.
Join Newtown Creek Alliance historian Mitch Waxman at First Calvary Cemetery, found in LIC’s Blissville neighborhood along Newtown Creek. Attendance limited to 15 people.
Click here for more info and ticketing.
occasional indifference
It’s all so depressing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Not too much to report to you today, Lords and Ladies. The hermitage season has certainly seen me shooting a whole lot of macro shots of foodstuffs, but otherwise a humble narrator has been stuck in the house nursing a wounded shoulder and disabled right arm. Wish I could describe some outré tale about the infirmity, but just chalk it up to age, and the “pain squirrel.” One has hit that section of life wherein something hurts every day, and whichever branch of the bodily tree that the pain squirrel has decided to inhabit that morning is where you’ll find the offending sensation.
Aches and pains are just a part of life, like taxes and a lonely death, after all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shoulder thing has been a “mofo” however. I’m right hand dominant, and unfortunately the limb that hand dangles off of is the affected one. My left arm is used as little more than a paper weight, and the right one has been nigh useless for about a week. If this sort of thing was occurring in my left arm, of course, I’d be in a hospital and under the care of a cardiologist. Saying that, this has little to do with the heart and circulatory system, instead it’s a pinched nerve which is slowly unpinching. Opiate pain medications were required just to accomplish a few hours of sleep when the condition first manifested, and one was forced to fashion himself a sling. Shoulder and tricep were dancing around unbidden within the skinvelope, my bicep muscle felt as if it was being eaten by a horde of beetles, and my elbow was reporting back to the brain that it had become hollow. Additionally, my wrist was of the belief that it had become packed in ice.
The dog was quite concerned, but she made a play to assume the alpha/dominar position in our household pack. What can I say, she’s a dog, that’s what they do when they sense weakness. In the case of my dog, of course, rebellion took the form of her staring at me while she “woofed.” Her play ended when Our Lady of the Pentacle got home, since we all know who’s really in charge around here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Accordingly, I’ve got zilch as far as new stuff to show you this week. Today, and for the next couple of days, it’s going to be shots from the archives – such as the twilight shot of the Sunnyside Yards above. Pain Squirrel and canid rebellion notwithstanding, the show must go on.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
only the
Big doings on my beloved Newtown Creek, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Word reached me that a barge had sunk on Newtown Creek last week, at the Allocco Recycling plant in Greenpoint, and despite suffering from a debilitating shoulder injury (Don’t worry, I seem to be on the mend) a humble narrator painfully packed up his kit and headed over to the tripartite intersection of North Henry Street and Kingsland Avenue at Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Allocco Recycling are in the metals and aggregates (or Fill Materials) industries. Metals are the usual thing – copper, aluminum, iron recycling and collection. Aggregates involves the seining and separation of rock, stone, sand, and gravel from construction and excavation materials. Allocco are good guys, in my book, as they ship their processed materials out of Greenpoint using barges rather than trucks. A single barge is the equivalent of 38 heavy trucks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Allocco has a large property that borders on one of Newtown Creek’s minor tributaries – the so called “Unnamed Canal.” Across the street is the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant’s employee entrance, and down the block is a biofuel company called Metro Fuel. I’m prejudiced towards both entities, it should be pointed out. The DEP lies to me on a regular basis, so I don’t like them. Metro – whom I do like – on the other hand, was founded by my pal Paul Pullo. Paul is a friend and supporter of Newtown Creek Alliance whom I work with on a number of the NC committees like NCMC and the Newtown Creek CAG. NCA is also working with Allocco on our Living Dock project which is playing out on Unnamed Canal, as well as the “North Henry Street Project” which will be discussed in some detail at an NCA meeting next week.
All of my conflicts of interest are laid out in the paragraph above, except for one, which I’ll mention later.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Showrunner Mike Allocco, it’s a family owned business after all, told me what happened (and allowed me on the property). It seemed that they were filling a barge with stone on a Friday night and closed shop. The half filled barge was about one third of the way submerged when they returned to work the next morning. His crew did everything they could to hoist and pump out the barge, but it continued to sink and by Saturday afternoon the barge was in the state you see in the shot above.
Allocco then contacted DonJon towing to salvage the thing, and DonJon brought in its heavy equipment. The large maritime crane – which is actually the second largest unit of its type in NY Harbor – is the Chesapeake 1000, and the smaller unit with the crawler crane attached is the Delaware Bay. There were a couple of tugs keeping them in position, but I was unable to identify which boats they were.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The plan, which has already played out and been accomplished, closed Newtown Creek to maritime traffic for an interval. The DonJon crews fed a pair of cables under the sunken barge, lifted it out of the water, pumped out the water, and then moved it into a shallower section of the Allocco bulkhead for repairs. When these shots were gathered, the presumption was that the barge had a damaged hull.
That other conflict of interest mentioned above? As I was shooting these photos, I got a call from a reporter friend who was working for DNAinfo that wanted to buy a shot from me. That shot, and my buddy’s reportage, can be observed in this post at DNAinfo. As the article discusses, the barge had settled down over the Buckeye Pipeline, and luckily for all of us – the fuel delivery infrastructure wasn’t damaged. This was due to the barge settling down onto the so called “Black Mayonnaise” sediments which sit 15-20 thick on Newtown Creek. The quote from DEC’s Randy Austin presented in the DNA piece is ““That’s probably the first time in the history of the Newtown Creek when that sludge bank served as an environmental benefit.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For a maritime industrial geek like your humble narrator, seeing the Chesapeake 1000 was a real treat. DonJon Towing hosts a page listing all of the technical specifications that this 1972 vintage 2,484 Gross Tonnage crane entails. The “1000” part of its name comes from its lifting capacity, but it used to be known as the Sun 800 before DonJon got it. The Sun 800 was damaged in a storm, and during the repair process it was upgraded and outfitted with the 1,000 ton boom it currently sports. The hard hat guys I chatted with on the shoreline at Allocco related the cranes history to me as we watched the operation.
Now, this is where the interesting bit comes in.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It seems that the Sun 800/Chesapeake 1000 was originally built by the Howard Hughes corporation to facilitate the Glomar Explorer project. Glomar Explorer was a giant ship built in the early 70’s which the Hughes people told the world was going to be used for the harvesting of ocean floor minerals and specifically manganese nodules.
That was a cover story, however, for the true mission of the thing, which was to recover a Soviet submarine which had sunk some three miles down on the floor of the Pacific Ocean for the CIA. The project was called “Project Azorian.” The Chesapeake 1000 is officially an artifact of the height of the Cold War, like the Saturn V rocket.
It continually amazes me, the sort of things that Newtown Creek leads to.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The other DonJon rig on the job was Delaware Bay, which is a clam shell dredge vessel. It’s got 1,250 square feet of deck space and was built in 2006. It’s 225 feet long and 54 feet wide, and 1,205 gross tonnage.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The barge itself is unremarkable, other than the fact that it’s submerged. It’s a dry bulk type, and is essentially a giant floating bucket.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned above, the crews from DonJon were executing a plan in which a couple of heavy cables would be run under the sunken barge, at which point the Chesapeake 1000 would lift the thing up and out of the Creek and then pump out the water. To this end, there was a dive team operating.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One cannot imagine the horrors of diving into the turbid waters of Newtown Creek, nor the safety precautions that a professional diver would need to undertake in pursuance of the act. I’ve had the pleasure of chatting with members of this profession who operate in NY Harbor, and they tell me that it’s actually a blind business.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Visibility in the waters of NYC is a couple of feet under best case circumstance, but in the East River and its tributaries, you often can’t see your hand six inches from your face mask. They do a lot of their job by feeling around, and relying on their training.
One fellow kept on bobbing up around the cables which were being fed under the sunken barge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, that’s the story about the time in February of 2016 that a barge sunk at a recycling company called Allocco in Greenpoint, along the lugubrious Newtown Creek.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
overtones of
Another random series of shots, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over in Greenpoint, a line of empty taxis parked on Provost Street, across the street from the sewer plant.
It’s actually meant to be pronounced as “Provoost” despite being spelled as “Provost.” The Provosts were one of the original five families of Greenpoint, along with the Bennets, Calyers, Praas, and Messeroles. These five Dutch families dominated Greenpoint politically for nearly two centuries, owned most of the land, and only began to recede into history when Neziah Bliss married into the Messerole clan. Bliss laid out the modern street grid, erected the first bridges over Bushwick and Newtown Creeks, and is the father of the modern community.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The IND R train entering into Queens Plaza. Queens Plaza’s IND service opened for business on August 19th in 1933, but back then there was only express service between Manhattan and Queens. It wasn’t until 1955 when the 60th street tunnel opened that the Queens local trains began to travel back and forth into the Shining City. I work on getting this shot every time I’m there, and you have to time it just right to catch an arc flash that the train sets off as it comes to the station tracks grade.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s amazing how many manhole cover types there are, a subject which has been discussed endlessly at this – your Newtown Pentacle. The story of municipal consolidation can be read in the screeds embossed onto these iron discs, and the one pictured above was once the property of the “Bureau of Water and Sewers” which is now part of the NYC DEP and can be observed at the border of Sunnyside and Blissville in Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is a “Brooklyn Department of City Works” access cover, which was found back in Greenpoint. DCW is also now a part of the consolidated DEP.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Back in Queens, on the “carridor” of Northern Blvd., a puzzling bit of signage has emerged on one of the enormous advertising bill boards found on the corner of 38th street. The easterly facing side says “Stay Calm” with a screed reading “-Peter.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The westerly facing side says “Don’t Panic,” and also has the “-Peter” signature. Dictionary definitions are superimposed on the block print messaging, this one bears the definition of courage. I’ve looked around for what these signs are meant to be selling or saying, but haven’t been able to find out much. If anybody knows what’s up with these messages, please share in the comments.
Either way, they are reminiscent of the sort of things Rowdy Roddy Piper observed in the John Carpenter film “They Live.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A gorgeous bit of hand painted signage adorns the back of a NYCHA emergency truck back in Greenpoint, and is pictured above.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
of them
I cannot understand why others do not find these things quite as thrilling as I do.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On one of my constitutionals, a humble narrator found himself at the veritable edge of Queens, heading in a southerly direction through Blissville on my way to “the Pernt.” Hoary Greenpoint can be accessed from Queens via just a few easily defensible littoral spots, one of them being an eponymous path called “Greenpoint Avenue” and the bridge which is named for it.
It’s a double bascule draw bridge which spans my beloved Newtown Creek, and I refer to the area surrounding it in both Brooklyn and Queens as “DUGABO” which is short for “Down Under the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge Onramp.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Off in the distance to the east, another one of these Thermopylae like passages is visible, the Kosciuszko Bridge.
Should hostilities between Brooklyn and Queens ever break out, it is certain that their respective militaries will make every effort to take and control these passes. Ultimately, you’d want absolute command and control over Pulaski, Kosciuszko, and Greenpoint Avenue Bridges, although sentries and artillery units would no doubt be deployed all along the Newtown Creek to guard against an amphibious invasion. The crumbling bulkheads and industrial fence lines would no doubt make for a daunting landing, and the Queens faction would have a de facto advantage in the conflict due to their ability to deploy artillery on LIRR flatbed cars.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Brooklyn side would be devastated by the first wave of a rail based artillery attack, given the massive presence of oil storage tanks on the southern shoreline. The sewer plant would be an easily targeted site, but vast reserves of Kings County loyalist troops can be found to the South and could easily be brought to the front by the G line. I’m sure there would be a fierce battle in the G tunnel underneath the Vernon/Manhattan avenue area, fought by locally raised units. Lentol’s Leathernecks, and Nolan’s Raiders, would fortify on either side of the tube, with setups reminiscent of WW1 trenches. It wouldn’t be long before both sides resorted to the usage of wonder weapons like poison gas, supplies of which are easily attainable on either side of the fabled Newtown Creek.
Queens would likely attempt the use of the 7 line to ferry in reinforcement troops like Van Bramer’s Sunnyside Battalion and Dromm’s Sikh and Gurkha Jackson Heights Commandos and the terrifying forces of the Meng Men from Flushing and Elmhurst, while Brooklyn would likely use the L line to bring in Reynoso’s Roughnecks, Levin’s Loppers, and Reyna’s Reapers from points east and south. Further to the east – where the borders of Brooklyn and Queens are not aqueous but rather terrestrial in nature – Dilan’s Death Dealers, Liz Crowley’s Maquis Freedmen, and Joe Crowley’s Fenians (backed up on their flank by Grodenchik’s Garroters, Vallone’s Vanquishers, and Katz’s Killers) would all be engaged in a Stalingrad like guerrilla struggle over Maspeth, Ridgewood, and Fresh Pond.
Media attention on the conflict would be of course be focused on LIC and Greenpoint, since you could see that from Manhattan’s east side.
Irregular sappers, freelancers like the Gambinos and Latin Kings, would no doubt be utilized by both sides in this Blood War of the Boroughs.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Whilst musing about the idea of internecine and interborough warfare, I suddenly realized that traffic had stopped flowing on the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge. Worrying that the dark day had arrived at last when the border of Brooklyn and Queens would be marked by fire and death, it suddenly became apparent that the DOT was preparing to open the bridge to allow a maritime transit.
Whooopppeeee!!!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To all of those stopped in traffic, it must have appeared odd, seeing some despoiled creature In a filthy black raincoat jumping up and down while squealing with joy and waving a camera around.
A minor inconvenience experienced by others is often a moment of joy for me.
I got busy with the camera, and ran out onto the non movable part of the roadway, which is normally quite a chancey thing to do on the highly travelled span over Newtown Creek, as you’d get squished by a truck.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
God help me, but I just love watching a draw bridge at work. Also, check out those bike lanes. I encouraged a bicyclist to make a try for it, telling him he could easily jump the gap if he got enough headway speed. He ignored me and played with his phone instead.
Some people, I tell you, have no sense of adventure.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The apogee of the bridge roadway’s open posture was attained shortly, and it rose in monolithic fashion. This is likely the position that the Bridge would be fixed into should hostilities between Brooklyn and Queens break out, which is offered as a strategic and or tactical note to the future combatants.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In my incessant research of all things Newtown Creek, an eventuality in which the Creek would have become militarized was actually set down by the War Department of the United States, during the World Wars period of the early 20th century.
Naval Destroyers (sometimes the presence of a battleship is discussed as well) were set to be stationed along the Newtown Creek (as well as the East and Hudson rivers) and its tributaries to defend the Petroleum and Industrial bases along its shorelines from air or naval attack. The anticipated pathway which a German invasion fleet would have followed involved a passage through Jamaica Bay and the Narrows in pursuance of invading Manhattan at the Battery and Brooklyn via Bay Ridge. The naval guns on Newtown Creek would have been trained on the Narrows, shooting artillery in a parabola over all of Brooklyn and bombarding enemy vessels on the waterway. The defensive plan was to create a “death zone” between and supported by Forts Totten (Staten Island) and Hamilton (Bay Ridge). Governors Island was also meant to play a role in the deployment of long range defenses and weaponry.
I know, sounds silly to we children of the atom, but this was an actual military plan. It’s part of the reason why the Kosciuszko and Long Island Expressway over Dutch Kills were built as high as they are, to allow the smoke stacks of ocean going Naval Ships purchase. The East River Bridge heights were also built with the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the presence of Capital Ships in NY Harbor during times of war in mind. It’s one of those “alt history” scenarios which leads to a fascinating thought experiment – a Kriegsmarine and Wehrmacht invasion of New York Harbor (their ACTUAL plans, btw, would have included the setup of a German base of operations at Sandy Hook). Just to reiterate – the Germans were ACTUALLY and ACTIVELY planning for this.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Of course, an invasion of the United States would have been contingent on the Germans not being involved in two major European land conflicts simultaneously, and Germany being at peace with the UK and the Royal Navy. The invasion of NY Harbor would have represented about a third of the German assault, with other units landing at Cape Cod in Massachussets and in Virginia. A simultaneous landing of troops from the Japanese Empire would have occurred in Seattle and in San Diego.
Lost in my alt history thoughts, I suddenly realized that I didn’t know which vessel the bridge had opened for, and a quick dog trot to the fences of the eastern side of the bridge was enacted.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Mary H tug was towing a fuel barge, no doubt headed some three and change miles back from the East River to the Bayside Fuel depot found nearby another one of the flash points in a Borough on Borough war – the Metropolitan Avenue Bridge. Both Grand Street and Metropolitan Avenue Bridges span narrow passes on the Creek, where small arms fire and snipers would be easily able to command and control access between the two warring sides.
What would be the cause of a war between the two boroughs? Good question, lords and ladies.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My bet is that it would be a trade dispute, with Brooklyn enacting a restrictive tariff on all things artisinal and organic.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 