Posts Tagged ‘Long Island City’
jouncing descent
The situations which I find myself in…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Long story short, my pals at HarborLab ended up building a floating dock which will be used by LaGuardia community college’s biology people to study wetlands restoration techniques and theories on Newtown Creek’s LIC tributary – Dutch Kills. Problem is that a 19th century railroad bridge at the mouth of Dutch Kills has been non functional for about twenty years, so towing the dock into the canal in the manner that any normal person would accomplish the task – y’know, like using a boat with an engine to tow something heavy – is a non starter.
That’s how I found myself in a freaking canoe on Newtown Creek a few weeks ago.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
HarborLab is based on the Queens side of Newtown Creek, at the Vernon Avenue Street end, which is where we launched from. I was in a boat with Lynn Serpe, long time environmental and community activist and the former Green Party candidate for City Council in Astoria, and one of the folks behind the Two Coves Community garden over in Old Astoria. Pictured above are Patricia Menje Erickson, HarborLab’s Facilities Manager, Erik Baard, and volunteer Phillip Borbon – who had the unenviable duty of rowing the dock itself roughly a mile back from the Vernon Avenue street end to the turning basin of Dutch Kills.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The next few days will bring you an image saturated series of posts detailing the excursion. Dutch Kills leaves the main body of Newtown Creek a little over three quarters of a mile from the Creek’s intersection with the East River and heads northish in the direction of the Sunnyside Yards and Queens Plaza for about a mile. Long time readers of this – your Newtown Pentacle – will tell you that Dutch Kills is far and away my favorite part of the troubled Newtown Creek watershed. Thing is, because of that decrepit rail bridge blocking the channel, you can’t get in there using a motorized vessel except at extreme low tide.
Low tide was part of the calculations made by the HarborLab team, and we timed our trip to coincide with it lest we be barred from entry or end up stuck in there waiting for the water to slack out again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One generally discourages the aspirations of people who want to do this sort of thing, given the horrendous state of water quality in Dutch Kills, but the HarborLab folks (along with my pals at North Brooklyn Boat Club) are well versed in the “rules of the road” in the maritime industrial waters of New York Harbor so I agreed to come along and record the journey.
After all, this was the first time something on Dutch Kills was going to change in nearly fifty years, with the exception of the Borden Avenue Bridge repairs from a few years ago. Sometimes, “Newtown Creek Historian” means you have to be there when something is happening in the name of preserving it for posterity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, that’s how I ended up in a canoe on Newtown Creek photographing HarborLab delivering a floating dock to the Turning Basin of Dutch Kills. There were times when I had to actually row the boat, but luckily Lynn Serpe did most of the work, allowing me to wave the camera around. A couple of times, the radio crackled out instructions to get shots of them doing this or that or reminding me to shoot them with the skyline behind them.
Their radio crackled back with me saying “NO ART DIRECTION NEEDED.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
What you’re looking at is part of the LIRR Montauk Branch, a swing bridge called DB Cabin. It’s not long for this world, as the LIRR and MTA are rekajiggering a bunch of their operations in LIC at the moment. The Wheelspur Yard actually has freight rail running through it again, for instance, and there’s been a lot of chatter about plans for the relict Montauk Cutoff tracks which has reached me recently.
Anyway – what DB Cabin mainly functions as these days is as an obstacle to navigation.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the situation as we encountered it, at low tide mind you. There’s about four to five feet of clearance between the rusting deck of the bridge and the surface of that gelatinous analogue for water that distinguishes Dutch Kills.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The dock sits up out of the water, of course, as did its pilots.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
First step was getting their own canoe into the water and hitching it up to the floating dock.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Then a bit of “paddle fu” was enacted, and they slipped under DB Cabin.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As Lynne Serpe and I approached the bridge, we noticed an amused gaggle watching the progress.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In tomorrow’s post – we leave the geese behind and move inexorably towards the loathsome Turning Basin of a cautionary tale known as the Dutch Kills tributary of the Newtown Creek – at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
June 11th, 2015
BROOKLYN Waterfront Hidden Harbor Boat Tour
with Working Harbor Committee, click here for details and tickets.
June 13th, 2015
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek Walking Tour
with Atlas Obscura, click here for details and tickets.
June 20th, 2015
Kill Van Kull Walking Tour
with Brooklyn Brainery, click here for details and tickets.
ought to be
Photo enforced indeed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A point is made to document the demolition/construction process at the former 5ptz/Neptune Meter site along Jackson Avenue in LIC. Whenever one is scuttling past, the camera ends up getting stuck into some gap in the construction fencing and progress on the site is recorded.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One feels a certain responsibility to do so, as everyone else stopped paying attention when the graffiti art museum was torn down, but since a buried tributary of Newtown Creek flows throughout the ground here, I consider it to be part of my turf. There’s a good amount of poison in the ground, I’m told, but don’t worry – it’s been designated a “Brownfield Reclamation Site” by the State and City so obviously the soil here will be returned to natural splendor by the cleanup process. Either that or they’ll just pile a bunch of clean dirt onto the surface to achieve the sixty inches of clean fill required by the State environmental people.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One would point out that in other Brownfield Reclamation Sites, you’d notice monitoring wells and pumping equipment at work. You might observe a temporary structure that looks like a giant tent being erected to protect the surrounding neighborhood from the process. There would be fellows wearing protective gear. At 5ptz, they seem to just be digging holes and placing steel.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Jobs, jobs, jobs, I guess. Progress on the March and all that.
On a historical note – did you know that the Title 1 slum clearance projects of the 1950’s and 60’s actually expanded the slums? That more people lost their homes than gained new ones? That the rent for the apartment complexes which would eventually become NYCHA housing were more expensive than the so called slum tenements which they replaced? That shattering the communities and neighborhoods of pre war NYC actually contributed mightily to the conditions of crime and poverty which bedeviled the City throughout the late 20th century and continue to this day?
“Progress,” and the ghost of Robert Moses, are still with us. When you hear the Mayor say “affordable housing” – think “slum clearance” instead.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
June 11th, 2015
BROOKLYN Waterfront Hidden Harbor Boat Tour
with Working Harbor Committee, click here for details and tickets.
June 13th, 2015
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek Walking Tour
with Atlas Obscura, click here for details and tickets.
June 20th, 2015
Kill Van Kull Walking Tour
with Brooklyn Brainery, click here for details and tickets.
supercilious and sneering
Sunset at my beloved Creek, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Around a week ago, my pal Gil Lopez was conducting a meeting of Newtown Creek Alliance’s Green Infrastructure Work Group over at the HarborLab location at the Vernon street end in LIC. Green Infrastructure, for those of you not in the loop, is a concept which seeks to use natural processes rather than mechanical ones (known as gray infrastructure) to handle issues such as flooding around waterways. Sometimes this “G.I.” manifests as bioswales, which are elaborately constructed tree pits that function as storm water retention tanks, in other cases it might mean using petroleum eating fungus organisms to clean up a brown field.
Pretty exciting stuff, actually, and the government types REALLY like it as it’s much cheaper to implement than gray infrastructure – which usually takes the form of sewer plants and expensive cut and cover projects like bending weirs.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The event was well attended, I saw Jan Mun and Jason Sinopoli, whose NCA project involving fungal or mycoremediation at the ExxonMobil 400 Kingsland Avenue site in Greenpoint I had photographed a while back. Dorothy Morehead from CB2 was there as well, and Gil Lopez is one of the founders of the Smiling Hogshead Ranch – a community garden recently opened on MTA property over on Skillman Avenue. Lynne Serpe from the Green Party, and Erik Baard from HarborLab, as well as a bunch of people I had never met before.
We discussed a few things, and since I had brought my tripod – decided to squeeze out a few sunset exposures.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One is really going to miss the view from Newtown Creek, when the real estate industrial complex achieves their goal of stealing the sky and a shield wall of luxury condos is completed. The Green Infrastructure stuff is going to be increasingly important in coming decades, as we stack as many people as possible into LIC and North Brooklyn. Imagine what’s going to my beloved Creek every morning when all of these multitudes flush their toilets and bathe. Hopefully, we can imagine a solution, using nature to combat our ill conceived nurture.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
June 7th, 2015
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills Walking Tour
with Newtown Creek Alliance, click here for details and tickets.
June 11th, 2015
MADE IN BROOKLYN Hidden Harbor Boat Tour
with Working Harbor Committee, click here for details and tickets.
June 13th, 2015
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek Walking Tour
with Atlas Obscura, click here for details and tickets.
June 20th, 2015
Kill Van Kull Walking Tour
with Brooklyn Brainery, click here for details and tickets.
perpendicular height
All around the town, in Today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To start, a somewhat long standing freelance job writing a bi weekly column about Western Queens at Brownstoner Queens has ended. The parting is amicable, and it was a great experience working with the talented group that produce that website. One has felt a bit overwhelmed producing seven posts a week (5 pentacle + 2 BsQ), and I’m feeling a bit “written out” accordingly. There is some VERY cool stuff in the pipe which I’m working on and a bit of breathing room is required to adequately prepare and present it, which includes quite a bit of “boots on the ground” time out in the field. The 7 posts a week thing has kept me spinning my wheels to service deadlines rather than discovery for a while now, and a desire to return to “long form” and “deep research” posts has been burning in me.
My focus will remain fixed upon Western Queens, and a certain body of water that forms its currently undefended border with Brooklyn, but it’s time for me to take a short break. Next week will be one of those “single shot” series of posts, which are designed to give me a bit of breathing room so as to actually get out there and experience the world rather than just writing about it. I’ve got a few irons in the fire as far as future opportunities, which will be described in the future as they develop.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Newtown Creek, obviously, will continue to be my titular focus. A largish project I’m working on, under my official nom de plume as Newtown Creek Alliance historian, will be unveiled in July and August. A full schedule of summer Newtown Creek walking and boat tours is already underway (if you want to get on that boat tour on May 31, buy your tix right now – we are practically full and nearly sold out). There will also be a new industrial East River boat tour which I’ll be one of the narrators for with Working Harbor Committee, and a summer walking tour along the Kill Van Kull on… Staten Island… is also in the works. Just last weekend, I walked members of the Sunnyside Chamber of Commerce around Calvary Cemetery, and we visited with everyone from Governor Al Smith to Joe Masseria and Esther Ennis.
This weekend, on Saturday, we will be examining Dutch Kills in LIC with Atlas Obscura. Links to ticketing are found below.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The big project next week, which necessitates the need for a bit of breathing room, is compliling and condensing all of the information into my notebooks needed for “The Skillman Corridor” walk. This is a brand new walking tour, which will explore the southern boundary of the Sunnyside Yards as it descends from the heights of Sunnyside to the flood plains of Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kills tributary. Long time readers know that this area is “one of my spots” and is particularly dear.
Come with?
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
May 16, 2015 –
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills with Atlas Obscura
with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for details and tickets.
May 30, 2015 –
The Skillman Corridor with Atlas Obscura
with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for details and tickets.
May 31, 2015 –
Newtown Creek Boat Tour
with Working Harbor Committee and Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for tickets.
slumber, watcher
What would Superman do?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in the past, the supernatural ideation at whose altar one such as myself leaves the burnt offerings is Superman. No offense meant to those of you who worship more traditional deities, but my god has heat vision and the Romans would have had a darned difficult time driving nails through his hands (except under a Red Sun, of course). My particular exemplar of morality, of course, routinely puts me in particularly thorny ethical territory. When I see the strong preying upon the weak, I am compelled to interfere – despite the fact that no matter how practiced my accusing stare may be, nothing seems to be bursting into flame. Additionally, the whole invulnerability thing would be nice, but your humble narrator is unfortunately on the other side of the scale when it comes to that. Sometimes it seems that a mild breeze is all that it takes to overcome my defenses.
Still, when confronted with moral quanries, I always ask myself “What would Superman do?“.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One discussed a recent event with friends on Facebook just the other day, wherein having accomplished that set of tasks normally set aside for the early morning, I was sitting on the porch here in Astoria with my little dog Zuzu and finishing a second cup of coffee. Suddenly, a tumult arose from the sidewalk. An older couple was arguing, and the male – an excitable Spaniard – was swinging his arms and legs around at the female. From the way that she flinched and assumed defensive postures, it was obvious that the fellow’s pantomine blows often connected, and I began to yell and scream at him to let her be. My tactic was successful, as he turned his rage towards me – inviting me down to join him in the gutter. Since they were seperated, I then instructed the woman to call the Police. She instead started waving her arms around while saying “let it go, let it go.”
What would Superman do?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One strives to be the best version of myself that is possible, which was not always the case. Lazy and selfish pretty much typifies the manner in which I operated until falling ill roughly ten years ago. Lying in a hospital bed for nearly a week, I promised myself, and that fictional deity of mine, that were I to survive the experience that I would be a different man than I was formerly. Every action since has been in pursuance of some sort of redemption. This often forces me to confront the forces of chaos here in Astoria, and in the Metropolis which cradles the ancient village. Where one runs into moral shades of gray, however, is in the reaction of that woman saying “let it go, let it go.” Could I have beaten the tar out of her abusive mate? Yes. Would that have accomplished anything at all? Would it have just made things worse for her? People ask why I refer to the population hereabouts as “the human infestation,” and why I seem so puzzled about their actions. Why not try to rise above, and be the best possible version of yourself? Why give in to your base instincts towards violence and selfishness? I don’t understand.
What would Superman do?
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Upcoming Tours –
May 16, 2015 –
13 Steps Around Dutch Kills with Atlas Obscura
with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for details and tickets.
May 30, 2015 –
The Skillman Corridor with Atlas Obscura
with Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for details and tickets.
May 31, 2015 –
Newtown Creek Boat Tour
with Working Harbor Committee and Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman, click here for tickets.
The Newtown Pentacle 