Posts Tagged ‘kosciuszko bridge’
sounds heard
It’s apparently National Soft Taco Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Unusual is a Sunday evening post at your Newtown Pentacle, but I wanted to get that piece of Kosciuszcko Bridge demolition video live – asap. Above is a panorama image of the scene as witnessed from about .6 of a mile eastwards of the span at the Maspeth Avenue Plank Road just as the smoke began to clear. I’ve been a busy bee for the last 48 hours, developing shots of the event. I also had to conduct a Newtown Creek tour for a class from the University of Toronto in the afternoon, which was a combination of a walking tour and a boat tour (via the North Brooklyn Boat Club).
The shots in today’s post were captured in the late afternoon of Sunday, October 1st from the waters of the fabulous Newtown Creek, and it’s the scene you’ll observe in DUKBO – Down Under the Kosciuszcko Bridge Onramp.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
North Brooklyn Boat Club is based alongside the Pulaski Bridge (which about 1.5 miles west of the Kosciuszcko Bridge) in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint section. The NBBC has two large canoes which can make bringing small groups of people out onto Newtown Creek possible. After a brief instruction about safety and how to handle the crafts, we all donned life vests and turned the marine radio’s switch to “on” and got onboard.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The scene in DUKBO is otherworldly, with the highway having settled into neat slabs along the still extant concrete piers of the 1939 Kosciuszcko Bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the Brooklyn side.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The steel piers are still standing, and will no doubt be disassembled via conventional demolition techniques.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking westwards, along the bulkheads of the National Grid properties at Greenpoint’s border with Bushwick (or East Williamsburg if you must).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the Queens side, in the shot above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This closeup is looking northwards, along the Blissville section of Long Island City’s border with Maspeth, towards Sunnyside. For reference, this used to be the NYPD tow yard.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As early as Sunday afternoon, there were already wielders with torches (and other labor going on as well) cutting into the rubble. This giant piece of steel truss, as far as I could discern from my vantage, was laying across the Lower Montauk Tracks of the LIRR.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I imagine getting the right of way clear as quickly as possible is a major priority.
As a note, the students from the University of Toronto we were guiding around had seemingly lost the ability to speak at this point and had become lost in the terrible majesties of the lugubrious Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As you’re reading this, I’m heading over to the Newtown Creek to go see what’s going on, and I’ll update you as things progress at the Kosciuszcko Bridge site at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
Upcoming Tours and event
Exploring Long Island City, from Luxury Waterfront to Abandoned Factories Walking Tour,
with NY Adventure Club – Saturday, October 7th, 1 p.m. – 3 p.m.
Long Island City is a tale of two cities; one filled with glittering water-front skyscrapers and manicured parks, and the other, a highly active ground transportation & distribution zone vital to the New York economy — which will prevail? With Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
The Hidden Harbors Of Staten Island Boat Tour,
with Working Harbor Committee – Sunday, October 15th, 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.
A very cool boat tour that visits two of the maritime industrial waterways of New York Harbor which adjoin Staten Island and Bayonne in New Jersey – The Kill Van Kull and the Arthur Kill. There will be lots of tugboats, cargo docks, and you’ll get to see multiple bridges from the water – including the brand new Goethals Bridge. I’ll be on the mike, narrating with WHC board member Gordon Cooper – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
close friend
It’s National Pumpkin Spice Day, in these United States.
x
– video by Mitch Waxman
Here’s a bit of video, and mind you – a humble narrator is NOT a video guy – of the Kosciuszko Bridge Demolition that happened this morning at 8 a.m. I’m developing the still shots while you’re watching the video, which will be delivered sometime tomorrow. Boy oh boy, listen to those camera shutters flipping all around me.
Upcoming Tours and event
Exploring Long Island City, from Luxury Waterfront to Abandoned Factories Walking Tour,
with NY Adventure Club – Saturday, October 7th, 1 p.m. – 3 p.m.
Long Island City is a tale of two cities; one filled with glittering water-front skyscrapers and manicured parks, and the other, a highly active ground transportation & distribution zone vital to the New York economy — which will prevail? With Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
The Hidden Harbors Of Staten Island Boat Tour,
with Working Harbor Committee – Sunday, October 15th, 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.
A very cool boat tour that visits two of the maritime industrial waterways of New York Harbor which adjoin Staten Island and Bayonne in New Jersey – The Kill Van Kull and the Arthur Kill. There will be lots of tugboats, cargo docks, and you’ll get to see multiple bridges from the water – including the brand new Goethals Bridge. I’ll be on the mike, narrating with WHC board member Gordon Cooper – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
keen wonder
It’s National Coffee Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All the “intel” coming my way indicates that this Sunday morning (Oct. 1), the remaining sections of the Koscisuzcko Bridge will be “energetically demolished” or – to quote Governor Cuomo – “blown up.” The self same intel indicates that 8 a.m. is the target time, but it’s possible that the schedule might shift around a bit depending on circumstance.
I’m recommending that if you want to watch the bridge go boom, you’d either want to be on the Grand Street Bridge looking west, or on the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge looking east. I’m also recommending that if you’ve got a respirator mask, you might want to bring it along, as I’m sure this will kick up a lot of dust when it comes down.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Scouting out the “exclusion area” which all but FDNY, NYPD, NYS DOT, and their contractors will be forbidden to enter, I took note of where the NYPD had dropped off piles of police barriers for road closure. The cordon is a bit larger than I was originally told, and there is a giant chunk of Newtown Creek and the surrounding neighborhood which will be off limits. I’ve got a different spot to shoot from, but that’s me.
As mentioned above, I’d say the Grand Street or Greenpoint Avenue Bridges would be good – and fairly safe – choices for viewing and or photographing the event. I’m told it’s all going to happen in 8 milliseconds, from detonation to drop.
Grand Street has its charms, looking west at the new bridge with the old one behind it. Morning sun will be lighting the scene, and the Manhattan skyline is visible from there. You’ll see the old bridge directly, from Greenpoint Avenue, but it will be shadowed with the sun behind it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m sure this will be an enjoyable traffic morning for you drivers, with definite closure for BQE in the morning and a likely closure for the LIE for some interval. There will be mutiple road closures in Greenpoint and West Maspeth as well, which will likely last for awhile as they scoop up all the blown steel and concrete.
The end of an era, lords and ladies…
Upcoming Tours and event
Exploring Long Island City, from Luxury Waterfront to Abandoned Factories Walking Tour,
with NY Adventure Club – Saturday, October 7th, 1 p.m. – 3 p.m.
Long Island City is a tale of two cities; one filled with glittering water-front skyscrapers and manicured parks, and the other, a highly active ground transportation & distribution zone vital to the New York economy — which will prevail? With Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
The Hidden Harbors Of Staten Island Boat Tour,
with Working Harbor Committee – Sunday, October 15th, 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.
A very cool boat tour that visits two of the maritime industrial waterways of New York Harbor which adjoin Staten Island and Bayonne in New Jersey – The Kill Van Kull and the Arthur Kill. There will be lots of tugboats, cargo docks, and you’ll get to see multiple bridges from the water – including the brand new Goethals Bridge. I’ll be on the mike, narrating with WHC board member Gordon Cooper – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
particularly pleased
It’s National Chocolate Milk Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What you’re looking at up there, lords and ladies, is my own personal piece of the old 1939 Kosciuszcko Bridge. I can now say that the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, or part of it anyway, is in my house.
Here’s the scoop on how I got it:
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last week, I described bringing an NYU class to Long Island City where we got to do a short visit at a large recycling operation, found along the Newtown Creek, called SimsMetal.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While I was there, an inquiry was proferred to the fellows who work there whether or not a sample cut from the tons of Kosciuszcko Bridge steel they had lying about might be possible to obtain. Turns out that they had to cut pieces down to size for shredding over in New Jersey anyway, so it wouldn’t be a problem, I was told. Only hitch was that the welder guy was taking a few days off, so I’d just have to wait till he returned.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So I get the call a couple of days later telling me that the welder guy was on site, and that I should pop over and tell him what I wanted. I asked him for a couple of rivets, basically.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Popping the rivets out would be a pain, I was told, but then the welder asked if I minded if they had a bit of steel attached. “Sure,” said a humble narrator and then the sparks really started to fly.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Before I knew it, a smoking and acetylene hot chunk of the Kosciuszcko Bridge hit the concrete. It’s a little hard to make out in the shot above, but the thing was literally out gassing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The chunks got tossed in a stainless steel thingamabob that looked like a giant soup ladle that was filled with water. The water instantly began to boil when the steel went in.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This little chunk of steel is going into the permanent “Newtown Creek Collection.” I’ve got a few LIRR railroad spikes that are very old, I think “Woodrow Wilson” old. I’ve also got the padlock that used to hang on the Kinsgland Avenue refinery gates at Mobil in Greenpoint, but I generally don’t collect artifacts. This time is one of the exceptions.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Think about the journey this hunk of metal has had. It was probably forged sometime in the early to mid 1930’s in Pittsburgh, travelled all the way to NYC and the House of Robert Moses, and was installed over the Newtown Creek when it was still the busiest maritime industrial waterway in North America. The Kosciuszcko Bridge opened seventy eight years ago in the late August of 1939, but it had been under construction for quite a while before that.
Now it’s mine.
Upcoming Tours and events
Exploring Long Island City, from Luxury Waterfront to Abandoned Factories Walking Tour,
with NY Adventure Club – Saturday, October 7th, 1 p.m. – 3 p.m.
Long Island City is a tale of two cities; one filled with glittering water-front skyscrapers and manicured parks, and the other, a highly active ground transportation & distribution zone vital to the New York economy — which will prevail? With Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
The Hidden Harbors Of Staten Island Boat Tour,
with Working Harbor Committee – Sunday, October 15th, 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.
A very cool boat tour that visits two of the maritime industrial waterways of New York Harbor which adjoin Staten Island and Bayonne in New Jersey – The Kill Van Kull and the Arthur Kill. There will be lots of tugboats, cargo docks, and you’ll get to see multiple bridges from the water – including the brand new Goethals Bridge. I’ll be on the mike, narrating with WHC board member Gordon Cooper – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
shrewd questioning
It’s National Pecan Cookie Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For the last few days, a humble narrator has carried you around Calvary Cemetery in the Blissville section. As mentioned, I always have at least one ulterior motive or backup plan involving anything I do. My purpose in coming here was to walk out the route which I was going to guide a group around the place via during a walking tour, refamiliarizing myself with sight lines and “rehearsing” as it were. Along the way, however, there was so much to see that the camera was clicking and whirring away as I walked through the ancient polyandrion.
My ulterior motive today was to document the current phase of the demolition of the old Koscisuzcko Bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Long time readers of this – your Newtown Pentacle – will tell you that this bridge replacement project has been explored before.
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.
Here’s 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, a walk through of the Brooklyn side job site in June of 2017. Here’s some night shots from early July of 2017. Finally – Here’s a series of posts focusing in on the removal of the central truss of the 1939 bridge from the summer of 2017 – a timelapse, some stills, and the barging out of the truss.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The “explosive” or “energetic demolition” of the remainders of the old bridge was originally meant to happen this Sunday the 24th of September, but for a variety of reasons – including the high winds and weather induced by Hurricane Jose out in the Atlantic Ocean – the NYS DOT engineers decided to reschedule the event for a later date.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In the meantime, Breeze Demolition is wrenching and prying anything off of the structure that they can.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The idea, essentially, is to lessen the amount of material which will hit the ground during the so called energetic demolition. This reduces the chances of “flyaway” debris and seismic shock, and will quicken the reopening of area streets in Greenpoint and Maspeth afterwards. From what I’ve been told by the DOT, once the charges go off, the entire mass of the old bridge will drop in its own footprint. The point of removing what they can by conventional means involves reducing the seismic “hit” of having more than a mile of steel and concrete falling all at once.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All over the old roadway, giant mechanical “insects” are chewing and chipping away at the old bridge. As the bits are removed – and these bits can weigh multiple tons, as a note – they are sent off to be recycled.
As has always been the case with this bridge project, the NYS DOT is being strangely cryptic about the recycling operation, and unwilling to discuss it in any sort of detail. Why they act like this thing is a state secret…
Honestly… do you think ANYTHING happening along Newtown Creek can be kept a secret from ME?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
…Pfft…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So… the following Saturday after the Calvary Walking Tour, I was doing a private tour for group of students from NYU while wearing my Newtown Creek Alliance hat. As it happens, I was able to arrange for our party to visit the Sims Metal Management LIC Dock so that they could understand the recycling process in a tangible manner.
Sims Metal Management is big on education – it’s a baked in part of the mission at their Sunset Park facility for instance – but the LIC location is a fairly dangerous industrial site with giant machines whizzing about and hundreds of tons of various recyclable materials stacked up. These guys and gals who work here toss around crushed cars in as seemingly casual a fashion as you would throw a napkin into the trash – and the only reason that can do this routinely and without killing each other is care, practice, and long experience.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The site manager met us at the gates of Sims, which is at the end of a long and quite dusty road found alongside a railyard in Blissville, and after a brief lecture about safety and the signing away of liability was completed, the site manager got on his radio and told his crew to shut everything down and take a coffee break. My NYU group and I followed him out onto the deck, and he took over the narrator duties. The kids from NYU were “gob smacked” having never suspected that anything like this place existed, let alone existent .8 of a mile from the East River in LIC.
While the site manager, named Lachman Hanoman, spoke to the group about what Sims does and how they do it – I waved the camera around a bit (even I don’t get in here very often), and guess what I spied with my little eyes?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Kosciuszcko, Kosciuszcko, men have named you…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A bridge found alongside a graveyard, which is no longer a bridge, being pulled apart in expectation of its final demolition. Pieces of that bridge, observed along the fabulous Newtown Creek, at a graveyard for steel. That’s the executive summary of today’s post. Also – I know all, I see all.
Tomorrow – something completely different at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
Upcoming Tours and events
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek Walking Tour,
with Atlas Obscura – Saturday, September 23rd, 11 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Join us on the wrong side of the tracks for an exploration of the hidden industrial heartlands of Brooklyn and Queens, with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
Exploring Long Island City, from Luxury Waterfront to Abandoned Factories Walking Tour,
with NY Adventure Club – Saturday, October 7th, 1 p.m. – 3 p.m.
Long Island City is a tale of two cities; one filled with glittering water-front skyscrapers and manicured parks, and the other, a highly active ground transportation & distribution zone vital to the New York economy — which will prevail? With Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 