Posts Tagged ‘Long Island City’
hereditary predilection
Queens is mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
No more. The Mayor’s plan to warehouse New York City’s most vulnerable citizens in a neighborhood of warehouses, two blocks from the Newtown Creek Federal Superfund Site and one block from the Long Island Expressway – thereby creating a two to one ratio of actual residents to homeless shelter residents in the Blissville section of Long Island City – seems to have become the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. No more. The needs of the elites of Manhattan do not outweigh the needs of Queens. No more.
On Tuesday last, Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer grilled DHS Commisioner Stephen Banks about this plan at City Hall, and community members gathered on the steps of City Hall in protest over the Mayor’s plan. Assemblymember Cathy Nolan sent her representative David Agioloro to show her support for the cause. No more.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Monday last, at Gracie Mansion, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney joined with the Blissville Civic Association to protest the Mayor’s plan at the gates of the Manhattan mansion he lives in. Western Queens’s elected officials stand in solidarity with Blissville, as does Brent O’Leary of the Hunters Point Civic Association, Senator Michael Gianaris, and your humble narrator. No more.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Next week, as a note, the NYS DEC will be presenting their findings regarding the Blissville Seep – where oil has been migrating into the waters of Newtown Creek from the Queens side bulkheads less than a mile from the Mayor’s three homeless shelter. Their informal presentation on the former Queens County Oil Works of Charles Pratt will take place on Thursday, May 24th at the NYS DEC offices on 21st street in LIC.
No more.
Upcoming Tours and Events
June 9th – Exploring Long Island City – with NY Adventure Club.
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?
Tickets and more details here.
May 17th – Port Newark Boat Tour – with Working Harbor Committee.
For an exciting adventure, go behind the scenes of the bustling Port of NY & NJ on our Hidden Harbor Tour® of Port Newark! Get an insider’s view of the 3rd largest port in the nation, where container ships dock and unload their goods from around the world. See how the working harbor really works and learn about what all those ships and tugs do. See giant container terminals, oil docks, dry dock repair, and more! Tickets and more details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
daylight around
The 2018 Riverkeeper Sweep on Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last Saturday, everybody’s friends at Riverkeeper organized an estuary wide shoreline cleanup event in which groups from all of the bays, harbors, rivers, lakes, ponds, and especially the Creeks brought their volunteers together to remove garbage and junk from the shorelines. Along Newtown Creek, there were multiple efforts underway. Pictured above is the group that HarborLab, based at the Vernon Avenue Street End in Long Island City, brought together.
HarborLab worked on the area of Newtown Creek between the East River and Pulaski Bridge, and removed hundreds of pounds of garbage from the shoreline.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
HarborLab worked out of canoes, and from the water. I was on foot, personally, and had a couple of friends walking along with me. After getting shots of HarborLab gearing up for the day, we shlepped eastwards to the next gathering.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s Gil Lopez and DNA from Smiling Hogshead Ranch with a few of their volunteers in the shot above, who were cleaning up the shore surrounding the Borden Avenue Bridge in LIC. There were others further down towards the water, and they also removed a significant amount of junk from the water. Metallic items, plastics, even a few empty suitcases.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The scuttling resumed, and my little group headed over the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge to attend the next event, which was organized by Newtown Creek Alliance and LaGuardia Community College.
The NCA motto is “Reveal, Restore, Revitalize.” I always say that I’m happy I’m on the first “R” side of the operation since the other “R’s” involve a lot of manual labor.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The NCA section of the sweep was at the Meeker Avenue street end, and the group there also removed hundreds of pounds of junk and debris which had either been illegally dumped or just ended up getting swept in by hydrological action during heavy rains. The kids from LaGuardia really pulled out the stops, I was told.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s a very, very cool thing – seeing the citizenry taking agency for our waterfront.
The government people who work for us should be doing this, of course, but they’re generally pretty busy finding new ways to either screw things up or completely ignore the problems they’ve created. Recent developments in this arena involve using tax dollars to fund places for junkies to shoot drugs, decking the Sunnyside Yards, and so on.
Upcoming Tours and Events
May 12th – Exploring Long Island City – with NY Adventure Club.
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?
Tickets and more details here.
May 17th – Port Newark Boat Tour – with Working Harbor Committee.
For an exciting adventure, go behind the scenes of the bustling Port of NY & NJ on our Hidden Harbor Tour® of Port Newark! Get an insider’s view of the 3rd largest port in the nation, where container ships dock and unload their goods from around the world. See how the working harbor really works and learn about what all those ships and tugs do. See giant container terminals, oil docks, dry dock repair, and more! Tickets and more details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
spent potential
Are those drums I hear?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Western Queens is under assault by the powers that be in Manhattan. Blissville gets a homeless shelter population which outnumbers actual residents by more than two to one? Check. The LIC Core rezoning is on the way, which will extend the residential towers of Hunters Point and Queens Plaza all the way up Northern Blvd. to Steinway Street? Check. Traffic on the highways – namely the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, Long Island Expressway, Grand Central Parkway – higher than ever? Check.
Did anyone in Queens ever ask for any of this, or is it just the dream of people who work in Lower Manhattan office buildings and at Columbia University?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Do we receive literal mountains of garbage and recyclables curbside collected by DSNY on a daily basis? Check. Do the truck fleets of both DSNY and private carters transverse our residential neighborhoods on a daily basis? Check. Do we host power plants, and sewage plants, and waste transfer stations? Check. Is our transit system failing? Check. Did the Manhattan people export Fed Ex Ground and other truck based businesses to Western Queens the last time they decided to deck over a rail yard at Hudson Yards in the City?
Check.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The NYC EDC is moving forward with their quixotic plan to deck over the Sunnyside Yards, lords and ladies.
EDC has told me in the past that bringing construction materials in by rail is not an option, to a rail yard, which means it will be trucked in. Is that through Manhattan via George Washington and then Triborough Bridges? Midtown Tunnel? They do not intend on building new hospital beds, nor expanding fire and police service, or new transit stops and lines while installing half the population of Boulder, Colorado into our neighborhoods.
Have I mentioned that Sunnyside Yards has been added to the list of “PRP’s” or Potentially Responsible Parties in the Newtown Creek Superfund? Check.
Upcoming Tours and Events
May 12th – Exploring Long Island City – with NY Adventure Club.
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?
Tickets and more details here.
May 17th – Port Newark Boat Tour – with Working Harbor Committee.
For an exciting adventure, go behind the scenes of the bustling Port of NY & NJ on our Hidden Harbor Tour® of Port Newark! Get an insider’s view of the 3rd largest port in the nation, where container ships dock and unload their goods from around the world. See how the working harbor really works and learn about what all those ships and tugs do. See giant container terminals, oil docks, dry dock repair, and more! Tickets and more details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
pandemoniac howling
A few more shots from high over LIC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned yesterday, an event found me in Hunters Point, and a friend invited me to get some shots from the roof deck of the tower building he lives in. Normally, I’m wallowing in the filth of the gutter and Newtown Creek, so whenever I have an opportunity to change the perspective, I take it.
The shot above looks down at the East River shoreline along the Hunters Point Park waterfront, and depicts the littoral gradation from dry land to river mud.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There’s a new section of the park opening fairly soon, and construction on it has been briskly occurring for a while now. That green fenceline in the middle of the shot depicts the currently public area (bottom) and the new section which will soon be available for recreation enthusiasts (top).
That curvy shape at the bottom right forms a roof for the home of a local restaurant called Coffeed, and the LIC Landing NYC Ferry stop.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s the mouth of Newtown Creek in the center of the shot above, which looks south along the Queens and Brooklyn waterfront towards the Williamsburg Bridge. The prominence on the Manhattan side is Corelars Hook, roughly the Lower East Side’s Cherry Street. Within the next decade, the entire left side of the view above will be filled in with residential tower development projects.
Upcoming Tours and Events
May 12th – Exploring Long Island City – with NY Adventure Club.
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?
Tickets and more details here.
May 17th – Port Newark Boat Tour – with Working Harbor Committee.
For an exciting adventure, go behind the scenes of the bustling Port of NY & NJ on our Hidden Harbor Tour® of Port Newark! Get an insider’s view of the 3rd largest port in the nation, where container ships dock and unload their goods from around the world. See how the working harbor really works and learn about what all those ships and tugs do. See giant container terminals, oil docks, dry dock repair, and more! Tickets and more details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
extent of
Getting high in Hunters Point.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Saturday last, a shoreline cleanup operation was scheduled by HarborLab and the Hunter Point Park Conservancy, and the Hunters Point Civic people were present to lend a hand as well. The goal was to gather up and dispose of the flotsam and jetsam that had gathered in the East River shoreline over the last couple of seasons. I helped out by offering a free walking tour of the area for some of the volunteers from HarborLab, and getting shots of the effort for usage by the various groups involved, and for one of my pals from Councilmember Van Bramer’s office – the irreplaceable Matt Wallace.
At one point, my friend Rodrigo announced he was going to go up to one of the roof decks at the Hunters Point South development and offered to take me along. The shot above looks eastward, along the spine of my beloved Newtown Creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are actually two parks on the LIC waterfront, one managed by the City and the other by the State. Hunters Point Park is the southern one, and Gantry Plaza State Park is the northern one. The actual dividing line between the two properties is about mid block between Center Blvd. and 51st Avenue, if you’re curious.
The shoreline cleanup focused in on two locations, the rocky area pictured above where you see the crowd of people gathered up on the concrete, and another one just south of the ferry stop at LIC Landing. The NYC Parks Dept. sent along a garbage truck to collect up the debris, and a few employees who were there to help out and supervise.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The shot above looks north west towards Roosevelt Island and the Queensboro Bridge, and over the grounds of the NYS Gantry Plaza State Park.
As a note, this was my first time shooting from one of the Hunters Point South towers. Normally, I’m staring up at them from the gutter, where one such as myself belongs.
Upcoming Tours and Events
May 12th – Exploring Long Island City – with NY Adventure Club.
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?
Tickets and more details here.
May 17th – Port Newark Boat Tour – with Working Harbor Committee.
For an exciting adventure, go behind the scenes of the bustling Port of NY & NJ on our Hidden Harbor Tour® of Port Newark! Get an insider’s view of the 3rd largest port in the nation, where container ships dock and unload their goods from around the world. See how the working harbor really works and learn about what all those ships and tugs do. See giant container terminals, oil docks, dry dock repair, and more! Tickets and more details here.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 