Posts Tagged ‘LIRR’
into which
I been everywhere, man.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A humble narrator is fully “back in action” after a long hermitage. In the last seven days – I’ve conducted three walking tours of the Newtown Creek watershed, visited the Kosciuszko Bridge construction project, attended and partcipated in a Working Harbor Committee tour, and have also found myself cathechizing elected officialdom about the dangers of CSO’s (Combined Sewer Outfalls). I also shot and developed a few hundred photos, and you’ll be seeing some of them over the next few days.
I also got to take the most photogenic of NYC’s subway lines the other day, which is the IRT Flushing or 7 line, as evinced by the shot above.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Two of my walking tours last week were private affairs, and involved exposing groups of students to LIC. I brought the kids down the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek, then along the main stem of the Creek itself, and we eventually ended up along the East River waterfront in Hunters Point.
The counterpoints between “America’s Workshop” and the “Modern Corridor” are jarring, and seeing the post industrial section contrasted with the gentrified residential sections really seemed to hit home with them. I love taking out groups of students, incidentally, as ultimately our world will be theirs someday, and they have to start thinking up the solutions to the colossal mess we’re going to be leaving behind.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Funnily enough, what with all the running around, I ended up walking close to forty miles last week as I scuttled around from place to place. This weekend, I’ve got another private group tour on Saturday, but on Sunday there’s a free event I’m helping to conduct with my colleague Will Elkins from Newtown Creek Alliance. Details are found below for attending the “North Henry Street Project,” which will meet up at 11 a.m on the corner of Kingsland and Norman Avenues in Greenpoint.
This one is part of the citywide MAS Janeswalk event, and I’m hoping you can come along and check out the plans NCA has been concocting for the “Unnamed Canal,” a minor tributary of Newtown Creek.
Upcoming Events and Tours
Sunday, May 8th at 11 a.m. – North Henry Street Project,
with Municipal Arts Society Janeswalk and Newtown Creek Alliance,
in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Click here for more details.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
padding, clicking, walking
Want to feel better? Take a walk in Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Skillman Avenue between 39th street and 49th avenue is “big sky country” here in Western Queens, with the majesties of the Sunnyside Yard and the glorious skyline of the Shining City laid out for all observers. It has always been one of my favorite spots for a stroll, and never more so than at twilight.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a number of things I can tell you about the yards. When it opened, this was the largest coach yard on the planet, and it hosts the busiest tracks on earth to this day – specifically, the Harold Interlocking, which is shared by Amtrak and the Long Island Railroad. There’s an ocean of PCB’s and other industrial chemicals in the ground here, and its likely going to be listed for some sort of environmental cleanup or remediation before too long.
The odd and continuing appearances of cast off single shoes found along the fence line continues to intrigue and puzzle a humble narrator, but that’s another story.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It seems that the whole “deck over the yard and build a new neighborhood on top of it, with a stadium and hotel complex at the Queens Plaza side and affordable housing to the east” chestnut has surfaced again – the latest iteration of a plan espoused by Dan Doctoroff early in the first Bloomberg term. A number of people have asked me what my thoughts on the matter are.
My reply is always: How, in any way, would that be good for Queens? Does the proposal to deck the yards include hospitals and schools, an annex for the already stretched 104th and 114th precincts, additional FDNY personnel and equipment, or some mechanism to incorporate this new population into the existing wastewater system? Who will bear the costs of these municipal services? It won’t be the entity that builds a stadium or hotel complex, one guarantees you.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
slight remainder
Notice: the November 9th Magic Lantern Show with Atlas Obscura is cancelled for now. We hope to reschedule for sometime during the winter. Observatory, where the event is scheduled to take place, has been damaged by Hurricane Sandy and flooding.
Alternatively, it has been decided to move forward with this Sunday’s Newtown Creek “SideTour” Poison Cauldron walking tour in Greenpoint, details are found at the bottom of this posting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Having moved through one of my regular “routes” from Astoria to Greenpoint to catalog the so called lower reaches of the Newtown Creek, it was time to return via another well explored and familiar pathway back to Queens. Over the Pulaski Bridge, into Long Island City, and ultimately up Skillman Avenue back to my neighborhood. On the Pulaski, I noted that one of the many undocumented sailboats which enjoys free berth on the Queens side had sunken, as you will discern in the lower right corner of the shot above.
The other locations and concurrent postings in this series exploring the post Hurricane Sandy conditions found around the Newtown Creek are Borden Avenue Bridge in open place, The Dutch Kills turning basin in dark moor, Calvary Cemetery in solid stones, The Maspeth Plank Road in sinister swamp, The Grand Street Bridge in shallow mud, English Kills in stranger whence, and Blissville to Greenpoint in vaguer recollection.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Descending down into Queens via the Pulaski stairs, where an eerie quiet was experienced. Again, this section of my survey was accomplished on Sunday the 4th, coincidentally the day which the NYC Marathon would normally have been conducted and ran across the Bridge, and the guys with the dirty fingernails who are the motive force in LIC had been hard at work cleaning up for the better part of week at this point.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Evidence of sedimentation escaping the Creek’s bulkheads was apparent, evinced at street corner sewer grates as in the shot above. That sidewalk isn’t wet, that’s oil. An unrelated trip just two days ago revealed the corner to be in the same condition, but this is the definition of “wrong side of the tracks” down here and the larger City has bigger problems right now than some piddly corner hidden away in an industrial backwater.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Stalwart, the Long Island Rail Road yard at Hunters Point was in fine fettle, despite the orange hue which their rails had taken on, no doubt due to immersion in salt water. This was a commonality shared by all rail tracks observed around the Creek which were flooded, but remember that the historic facility at Hunters Point has survived through flood and fire since 1870, and that Sandy was hardly their first rodeo.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The big story down here, beyond the flooding in the residential sections of Tower Town along 2nd and Center Streets- which I am not going to discuss- was the flooding of the Midtown Tunnel. According to the AP and WCBS, as well as official statements from the MTA, the water in the Queens Midtown Tunnel flooded in from the Queens side and emanated from Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Anecdotal stories transmitted to me described Dutch Kills breaching its banks and flowing down Borden Avenue which met with surge waters that rose over the bulkheads from the Creeks junction at East River. So far, no photos or video of the flooding have reached me. I understand that large scale pumping operations are still underway, and that the tunnel is now passable but only by buses.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This flooding of the Midtown Tunnel is the reason why the Long Island Expressway is being diverted onto local streets after Greenpoint Avenue (at least as of a couple of days ago) and describes one of the larger casualties of Hurricane Sandy in western Queens. We got fairly lucky around these parts, as compared to southeastern districts like the Rockaways and Howard Beach.
Again, in the shot above, notice that fresh orange patina on the tracks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Noticing the large piles of trash along the rail tracks, conversation was struck up with a local woman named Marti. She maintains a small community garden alongside the fence line and revealed that she had been cleaning this mess up for days with the help of a few sympathetic laborers. All of this flotsam ended up plastered along the fence from the westerly flow moving down Borden Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The businesses along Borden, as mentioned in the first posting in this series, all experienced flooding in at least their basements. Enormous losses of vehicles and equipment notwithstanding, they were back at work on this day.
Of course, this is what Long Island City does, which is getting back to work.
Upcoming Newtown Creek tours and events:
Note: there are just 4 tickets left on this one, which is likely the last walking tour I’ll be conducting in 2012.
for an expanded description of the November 11th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
morning bright
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For once, the smell at the corner of 49th street and 56th road/Laurel Hill Blvd./Rust street isn’t being caused by the infamously aromatic Maspeth Creek tributary of the larger Newtown Creek.
It’s the three headless chickens which are rotting away on the train tracks.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
These bird corpses turned up at this crossroad shortly after the last full moon, without their heads, and have been left to moulder away. My personal theory, which has been enhanced by a recent addition on the other track of dinnerware adorned with coins and candles, is that this is some sort of “Santeria” thing- however- there are other logical possibilities…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It is entirely possible that this trio “made a break for it” from a nearby “pollo vivo” establishment, were walking down the tracks, and were struck by a passing train which decapitated them. Often has this, your Newtown Pentacle, adjured against walking these active and street grade trackways- proclaiming the existential and mortal dangers of such activity to urban explorers and other photographers. Here is tangible evidence of what might happen to you.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There might also be some sort of bird mafia at work around West Maspeth, and these three chickens might have been left out in public view as a lesson to those who might snitch to the authorities about their illicit activities. “Dese boids mights beze Canaries takins a doit nap”. You don’t screw around with the Goodfeathers around Maspeth.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Jocularity notwithstanding, it is likely a religious thing we are looking at here. The number three is significant, as is the positioning of the bodies at the crossroads of a north/south and east/west path. As stated in the past, your humble narrator is not overly familiar with the syncretic religions of the Caribbean or Central American cultures, but can spot “magick” at a hundred paces.
elaborately fashioned
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While moving through DUPBO (Down Under the Pulaski Bridge Onramp) the other day, a passing train forced me to halt my ceaseless marching momentarily. Suffering from a malfunction, my headphones were not working, and the ultimate horror of being alone with my thoughts occurred. A brief interlude with your humble narrator has been described as exhausting, and that’s when the interviewee is feeling generous or is governed by polite behavioral norms. Long exposures to my uniquely abhorrent personality have been known to induce madness, encourage alcoholism, and destroy all hope for peace. An expectation of normalcy is usually abandoned by those unable to escape my presence shortly after first contact.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My family describes me as best taken in small doses, and does their best to disavow, deny, and distance themselves. Imagine what it must be like, between my ears, as one cannot escape from oneself. With the headphones roaring their cacophony, it is often possible for me to drown my endless narrative of self referential critique and worry, but without them the omnipresence of paranoid wonderings is impossible to evade. What you read in this blog is what I’m like all the time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Poverty stricken of late, my plan to get every last millimeter of sole from my last pair of hiking boots backfired, causing an injury of some kind to my left foot. Not severe, discomfort is barely noticeable until several miles into a walk, but after a while it becomes uncomfortable. While standing in DUPBO, one wondered if it might be something truly horrible and I began to ponder if it might be foot cancer. This led me to begin thinking about whether or not there was any such thing as “foot cancer” (there is), which led me to begin wondering about all the other aches and pains which I experience and attempted to ascribe a hypochondriacal “worst case” scenario to each.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Constant thought is given to being struck by a truck, or car, or train of course. I also worry about things falling off of buildings- did you know that bricks sometimes just come loose and fall? Falling air conditioners, electrified utility lines, even sinkholes could randomly cross my path. There are feral dogs, packs of rats, hordes of flesh eating centipedes, and aggressive seagulls… One could fall in the creek head first and get stuck in the mud, be drawn into a wood chipper, or end up stuffing a fifty gallon drum after taking a photo of something I shouldn’t have. It is not fun thinking these thoughts, and impossible for me to turn them off. Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of things happen in New York City, things which are admittedly “statistically unlikely” but happened nevertheless- decapitation, bloodcicles, and pineapple with ham on pizza. Oddly enough, I seldom worry about being struck by lightning- go figure.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is, of course, why I keep my headphones buried firmly in my ears and the volume turned way up, on these long walks around Queens and the Newtown Creek. It’s also why, as soon as budget allowed, a new pair of shoes were purchased, because you cannot run away from imagined dangers when your left foot hurts. The repair to the headphones has been accomplished as well, and as this shadow of what looks like a man strides forth, he no longer is forced to listen to a fear crazed maniac within his head. Still worried about foot cancer though… So many things can happen to you…
The Newtown Pentacle 