Posts Tagged ‘Long Island City’
pillars and niches
– photo by Mitch Waxman
You might recall, Lords and Ladies of Newtown, that back on December 11th of 2010 the 100th anniversary of the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge was commemorated by the New York City Bridge Centennial Commission and that I was one of the two Parade Marshalls for the celebration.
There were a few postings about the bridge found here, at your Newtown Pentacle, which detailed the storied history of the structure and it’s environs. Additionally, more than once has the Degnon Terminal been mentioned in prior posts, and appropriately so.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Also mentioned in prior postings (parts one and two), the Newtown Creek Alliance had tasked a small group of it’s members (myself included) with attempting a photographic catalogue of the bulkheads of Newtown Creek and it’s smaller tributaries. Noble in it’s aspirations and massive in capability and resources, Riverkeeper sent a vessel and captain from it’s vast fleet to shepherd us through these very murky waters. These shots were captured from a small launch boat capable of crossing both low ceilings and containment booms which was little more than rowboat with an outboard motor.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Beneath the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge, the waters of the long neglected industrial canal called Dutch Kills have been silting up with the worst sort of filth for decades, knowing not the presence of dredging or channel depth engineering. Here, the sediments pile up and erupt from the water.
The only flow of water here comes from rain and sewage, this is a stagnant and forbidding place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There is only a trickle of dry weather discharge dripping from this combined sewer outfall hidden away beneath the bridge. It hadn’t rained for a couple of days, but still, there was some flow. Though minor, this sort of discharge can add up to hundreds of gallons a day, carrying- for instance- the mop water that a Chinese restaurant on Broadway in Astoria might dump into the corner sewer drain nightly (yup, actual thing, observable every single day).
The reason I mention Astoria is that most of the drains on the Queens side resolve back to the Bowery Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In this posting, which led up to the Hunters Point Avenue bridge event mentioned above, some logic is offered as to how to decode the DEP “SPDES” signs which are required to be displayed above CSO discharge points. Like all things government, a bizarre nomenclature and specific system of numbering applies to the CSO’s.
It took your humble narrator a little bit to dope it out, so it is offered to save you from having to do so.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Vehicle traffic was rattling by overhead on Hunters Point Avenue, and we observed the surprisingly good condition of the bridge anchorages. Notice the extreme high tide line of encrusted sediment lining the structural elements of the bridge. It would interesting to know what sort of organisms exist in that slime and residue, and what they could tell us about the true nature of the water here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The bubbles of mephitic gas which had been been popping all around the boat since we entered Dutch Kills began to subside at this point, perhaps it is the permanent shadows beneath the LIE and the two rail bridges which allow the methane producers in the sediment to thrive. The Hunters Point Avenue Bridge’s roadway is a grate which allows quite a lot of light to filter down to the surface.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It must be admitted that long have I desired to see what might be hiding down here, and observe the understructure of this bridge. As it might be guessed, your humble narrator is a bit of an infrastructure geek, and the lesser bridges of New York City often surprise the observer.
This used to be a double leaf bascule, you see, whose mechanism was replaced in relative modernity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot is from the December 11th Centennial event and shows the other more easterly orientated shoreline, where the bascule hinge and bridge house are located, showing the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge in an open position. The spot I shot it from was the abutment seen in the prior shot.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The head of Dutch Kills is a straightaway and engineered canal with a widened terminus, and the term for it is a “turning basin”. Overall, it’s shaped like a giant letter “T”. Heavy industrial concerns all around Dutch Kills built and maintained docks with which they could transfer materials which came to them by barge to rail (and truck, but rail was the key), and then to factory floor for processing. The manufactured product of these industries not destined for the local market would also then be shipped out via these docks.
Today, nothing much happens on the waters of Dutch Kills, and nearly all of the rail infrastructure is relict and abandoned- or purposed solely for passenger service to and from Manhattan.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The benefits, costs, and upkeep of an intermodal transportation hub like this are massive. Unfortunately, most of the modern business in the area is oriented toward an automobile and truck culture rather than to the locomotive or maritime city, and thse docks are abandoned and rotted away. The once mighty rail lines are interrupted or orphaned, and the great factories which they once supplied are either empty, used for warehousing, or carved up into a hundred smaller spaces.
Where titans once thrived, ants now scratch by.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Tomorrow, the Dutch Kills turning basin at this… Your Newtown Pentacle.
ethereal character
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The launch we were in had been referred to as the “tin boat” by the Riverkeeper folks, but it was more a smallish rowboat with an outboard engine than anything else. This is the second post of this adventure, click here for the first one.
We had just passed beneath the two rail bridges which vouchsafe and isolate Dutch Kills from the main body of the Newtown Creek, and were heading in the general direction of Queens Plaza when we approached the Borden Avenue Bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Of course, this century old structure has recently undergone a radical schedule of repairs when it was discovered that one of its abutments had begun to shift, and no small amount of complaint arose at the inconvenience from the legions of truckers and ordinary drivers who mourned its unavailability.
Down on the water however, things were pretty intense, from a purely existential point of view.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Those bubbles of gas mentioned in yesterday’s post, which were erupting even when the water was unmolested by our passing, delivered a slightly petrochemical smell when they burst. Another member of the Newtown Creek Alliance who was sitting next to me in the boat began muttering “Oh my god” over and over at this point in time.
It wasn’t fear in his eyes, it was disbelief.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My companion was no virgin or first time visitor to the Creek, of course, in fact his experience of the place is broad and far reaching. When all of your senses get involved with the atmosphere of ruination here, however, one tends to become a bit overwhelmed as your brain attempts to interpret and process the impossible data it is presented with.
The canalized bulkheads of Dutch Kills also tower over you from the water level, creating a sense of forced perspective and inevitability.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The first thing you see when passing the Borden Avenue Bridge is an archaic sewer outfall, and were the brush not at it’s mid summer height, one would observe the shanty home of the Blue Crow above.
For those of you not familiar with this term, Crow is a name assigned in my little section of Astoria to the myriad metal and refuse collectors known to haunt the neighborhood on “Bulk Pickup Day”. Leave something shiny on the sidewalk, a crow will sweep in and grab it.
Metals are collected and sold by the pound in the scrap and recycling markets of Greenpoint and Long Island City, and these guys make their living from hunting and gathering. I assign them color names based on vehicle, or clothing choices.
There’s also a red crow out there.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Here is a winter shot from road grade level which shows the sewer and the ever expanding hut of this particular crow. There is a photo of him to be in this Newtown Pentacle posting from February of 2010. Don’t be mistaken, I am not insulting either his industriousness or tenacity, if I were in a similar situation things would go far worse for your humble narrator. This man has been surviving in what has to one of the world’s most extreme environments for years now, and rent free.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking back toward the Borden Avenue Bridge, the ominous humming which echoed along the bulkheads and emanated from above signaled that we had passed under another of the bridges of Dutch Kills. This bridge was built high, and called an expressway by Robert Moses himself.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Some 106 feet over road grade, the high flying Queens Midtown Expressway leg of the larger Long Island Expressway feeds into the yawning mouth of the Queens Midtown Tunnel less than a mile from here. I call this part of Dutch Kills DULIE, or Down Under the Long Island Expressway.
One of the common complaints heard by eastern bound commuters in the early days of the 20th century was about the horrible smells they encountered when crossing through Long Island City. Moses built his auto bridge as high as engineering and budgetary considerations allowed in response to the plume of industrial outgassing which distinguished a trip through the area in his time.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Dutch Kills is a particularly important tributary of the Newtown Creek, from an industrial history point of view. What is today a relict of brown fields, industrial spills, and toxic leave behinds was once the economic and manufacturing heartland of New York City. The heavy infrastructure here is no accident, and the waterway was a critical feature that drew one of the great (and largely forgotten) men of Queens to the Waste Meadows at the start of the early 20th century.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the end of the 19th century, none of this was here. Sure, there was a muddy road made of creosoted wood blocks and riprap bulkheads called Hunters Point Avenue which ran between isolated industrial sites, and a slightly more modern causeway called Borden Avenue which hosted a few large operations, but this was a swampy and pestilential bog. Brackish creeks wound along knolls of marsh grass and the stubby trees held together mud islands.
The place was lousy with all the junk floating down from Blissville and the sewers in Brooklyn and only Mosquitos and ticks found the place hospitable.
Dutch Kills needed to be fixed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Another sewer outfall is found directly after passing the LIE’s massive footing, which is the sort of improvement that benefited somewhere else rather than Dutch Kills. It was decided by the city fathers in the first years of the 20th century that something had to be done with these swampy wetlands, so close to Manhattan and the gold coast of the Newtown Creek.
Something was needed- a plan with vision, executed by someone who understood the byzantine politics of Tammany Hall and the recently consolidated City of Greater New York. Additionally, it would have to someone with proven “know how” who could “get it done”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
From the mid 1930’s on, that person would have been Robert Moses. The ultimate political fixer, Moses employed the greatest engineering minds of a generation to shape and design our modern City. While Moses was still in diapers, however, no shortage of great men existed in the City. A plan was presented, and approved, and in both Albany and Washington- strings were pulled by the Tammany men and budgets were approved.
The Army Corps of Engineers were assigned here to canalize, deepen, straighten and erect industrial bulkheads at Dutch Kills in 1914. Land was reclaimed by dumping the fill and spoils produced by the digging of the Belmont Subway Tunnels (leading to to Manhattan) amongst wooden pilings driven deeply into the mud.
The modern shoreline of Queens began to assume it’s current shape.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It is apparent what happened here, when you see the Hunters Point Avenue Bridge appear before you.
Progress had arrived in Queens, and his name was Michael Degnon.
ponderous and forbidding
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As mentioned in a post the other day, an opportunity arose for me to accompany a representative of Riverkeeper on a survey mission to Newtown Creek recently.
Demanded by the top leadership of the Newtown Creek Alliance itself, this was an expedition whose agenda would require the photographic documentation of bulkheads and shoreline conditions all along the Creek. Of special interest to those involved in the renewal and resuscitation of brownfield sites, the mission as put forward was to get a shot of everything possible. This survey would include observation of the lesser known tributaries of the Creek- Dutch and English Kills, as well as Maspeth Creek, and the East and West Branches which lie beyond the Grand Street Bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The barriers which guard the secrets of Dutch Kills, which branches from the main body of Newtown Creek just .8 of a mile from it’s locus point with the East River, are two rail bridges. As mentioned in the past, I am no expert on the intricacies of the trackways which snake around the Queens side of the Creek. The expert on this subject was Bernard Ente, who recently passed away, and I wouldn’t offend his memory by pretending to know more than the following:
Neither Bridge (both are moveable) has opened for some time, and it is my understanding that they are part of the “Montauk Cutoff”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The survey team was small, as we were in a tiny craft. Hardly more than a rowboat with an outboard motor, three of us sat less than a few inches above the water. There was a mist hanging in the air, as it was early morning, which was quite invisible to the eye but will occasionally become visible in these shots (when I fired off the flash).
Our plan was to take advantage of high and low tides to gain access to the various sections which we were mandated to record, and the low ceiling of the swing bridge at Dutch Kills demanded we make our attempt at ebb tide and exit the tributary before it again flooded.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I will admit to prayer that a train might pass overhead, for this would be a prize photo for your humble narrator, but alas- no such luck. I don’t know very much about the rails, but I do like taking pictures of trains from odd angles. There was a ghastly sensation afoot in me as well, as I knew that the very air which we were breathing was a hideous miasma of vapor emissions rising from the poison sediments which line the bed of Dutch Kills.
Everywhere, there were tiny bubbles erupting to the surface of the water, and as we disturbed them- mephitic smells swirled about and enveloped the boat.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Many times have I been down Newtown Creek on the water, but it has always been in nothing smaller than a NY Water Taxi. Additionally, Dutch Kills is “mine”, a branch of the Creek that has received extensive study and historical analysis here at Newtown Pentacle as well as having been thoroughly catalogued photographically. No surprises in store here thought I, English Kills is a bit more “unknown territory” and would likely yield something to hang my hat on.
That is what I thought at the start of this trip.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
To start, the first rail bridge seems to be in a deep state of corrosion, which would make sense given its century long existence. I am no engineer, of course, but this thing hasn’t seen a paint brush in a very long time.
Witnessing the rust and metal fatigue on this bridge actually made me glad that a train wasn’t passing by overhead. The works and motors which power this bridge’s swing action have been burnt out for some time I am told.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I have never seen it happen (as you would have seen a photo of it here by now) but word is that if the bridge needed to be opened, rail workers would utilize the sort of tow trucks known as “wreckers”, situated at both banks, to winch the thing open.
Sounds bizarre, but the aforementioned Bernard Ente told me that one, and “Bernie was always right” about this sort of thing. Can’t tell you how many crazy stories he would tell me about the history and lore of this place, which my own research would prove him to have been purposely understating.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
All across Dutch Kills, everything bore that unmistakable colour which typifies the lament and sickness of the Newtown Creek watershed. Iridescent, it is neither black nor white nor any normal color, rather it’s is like something alien coating everything in rotten decay. Metal corrodes, wood molders, stone and cement simply crumble away.
The swampy wetlands which existed here in aboriginal times were known as the Waste Meadows in the 19th century, and perhaps this is still the appropriate terminology for them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Pilings and structural elements squamously protrude from the water, whose surface seems thicker than expectation would predict. Normal fluid dynamics apply of course, but the turgid waves behaved in the manner of a broth or syrup as opposed to the more wholesome (but still polluted) water found on the nearby East River.
Additionally, high tide was not marked by invertebrate communities of barnacles or mussels here, but rather by tree ring like deposits of sediment.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Looking back toward the swing bridge, in the direction of infinite Brooklyn, a long walkway is attached to the pier which the bridge is anchored into.
One thing which I can categorically show in these “bulkhead survey” shots of the Newtown Creek, is that much of the so called land along the Queens bank of the Creek (and large parts of English Kills in Brooklyn) is actually an engineered surface of pilings intermixed with fill and capped with a cement slab- reclaimed land.
One of the scarier ramifications of this, and again– not an engineer- is witnessed in the deleterious condition of these century old wood pilings visible from the water’s edge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Next up on this trip is the truss rail bridge, which is built quite a bit higher in elevation than the initial structure and is found at the other side of the pier and walkway which connects to the Swing Bridge. It’s a drawbridge, and the elevated height must have been part of a plan to reduce the need to open the span for water traffic on the once busy Dutch Kills.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Apologies are offered for vagueness, lords and ladies, as I fear that I’ve spoiled you over the last several years with vulgar displays of “info-porn”. Normally, you’d be reading stats and figures, hearing the name of engineers and learning of long forgotten disasters. Unfortunately, as these two bridges are not publicly accessible, and to study them in any real detail would mean trespassing and demand mandatory jail time… these are the bridge structures which I can describe in the least detail anywhere along Newtown Creek.
Railfans of NYC, anonymous LIRR employees, please leave a comment below and share the wisdom.
As mentioned in the past- I never trespass- like a Vampire your humble narrator needs to be invited inside to do his best work and in the age of terror- no one is invited to look too closely at railroad infrastructure.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Others, however, are not as constrained as I.
A garish banner caught my eye as we passed beneath the truss bridge. My mind concocted that I was seeing just another windblown tarp or plastic container bag at first, but then as we approached… I realized that it was some kind of painting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hung at a level which allows it to interact with the high tide level, this painting seems to depict- to my eye- a middle eastern city withering in flame beneath the burning thermonuclear eye of god.
What’s more, for once, I can brag to Ms. Heather, over at ny-shitty.com, that I finally got something before she did.
Note: as always, clicking the photo will open a new window at Flickr. Clicking the view all sizes option under the “actions” tab will take you to ever larger incarnations of the shot for closer examination. If anyone knows who the artist is, or what this situation is about, I’d love to hear about it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It would seem that someone has set up camp under here, or perhaps it is just a studio space. The undocumented men and women who live in both these “Waste Meadows” -and the Newtown Creek watershed as a whole- are too numerous to count. Many are exactly where they belong, while others are trapped by circumstance and ill omen.
All need to be coaxed away from this place, before the Creek does to them what it has to so many others in Greenpoint and Long Island City.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
No human being should be living in this place, except as part of a penal sentence for an especially heinous offense. Trolls live under bridges, not Americans. Additionally, in the age of terror, how exactly does this go unnoticed by the gendarme?
I cannot stress how often I ask this question as I wander across the Creeklands.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Despite the fearful atmospherics and forbidding appearance of the water, we pressed on. Our steward from Riverkeeper kept a steady hand on the outboard motor and the tiny boat slid forward across Dutch Kills. This shot is looking back at the two rail bridges of the Montauk Cutoff which we had just passed beneath.
Still no trains.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Dead ahead was the Borden Avenue Bridge and the high flying Long Island Expressway, the experiencing of which which will be discussed tomorrow at this- your Newtown Pentacle.
blessed are the sleepy…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As opined in the past, illegal dumping is a bit of an art form here in Queens, and it is not uncommon to find largish domestic items binned out at the entrance to this industrial site or that rail yard. In this case, it’s a rather plush sofa which was left nearby one of the entrances to the Sunnyside Yard, which offered this fellow an opportunity to drop off for a quick nap.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The ability to sleep in public has always been denied to me, even as a child (much to the chagrin of Mr. and Mrs. Narrator). I marvel at the Asian folks who can catch a quick kip standing up on the R train every day, am jealous of the minute naps which others can surrender to, and can’t imagine leaving myself this vulnerable on the street for even a minute.
Back in the 80’s, if you fell asleep on the subway, someone would steal your shoes.
sinister exultation
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was a mid summer day in the city, July 24th to be exact, and the kind of weather which feels like one has been wrapped in hot barber shop towels was upon us. Occluded by a humid and occasionally precipitating mist, the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself was absent from the scene, but its influence was seen and felt by everyone here in this old section of Long Island City once known as the Degnon Terminal.
While marching down Skillman Avenue, your humble narrator could not help but notice a not so minor conflagration at the nearby Hunters Point rail station.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It seems that an Amtrak engine, part of a problematic series of units employed by the rail conglomerate which are known as being given to sudden and unexpected events of immolation (or so my rail fan contacts tell me) had caught fire.
It was no surprise that the only camera on the scene was my own, as there are few in the Greater City who care for Queens and it’s burdens. FDNY (which does care about Queens) was on scene in great numbers, including members of several units which the Manhattan Political Elites had recently attempted to close due to budget issues.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The engine seemed to be suffering from an electrical issue, which was anecdotally confirmed by one of the fire department commanders who was gracious enough to discuss the issue with me. Frustration was evinced by this veteran of New York’s never ending war on combustion that the spot which the engine had halted at was beyond the reach of his hose lines, and that they could only put band aids on the fire using hand held extinguishers.
There were literally dozens of fire team specialists in full tactical gear and several mobile command posts arrayed at strategic spots around the rail yard, but their ambitions were stymied by security fence and distance from hydrants.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The commander, a lanky Irishman of solid build whose height easily passed the six foot mark, next informed me that their plan was to bring a second engine in from the nearby Sunnyside Yard complex and hitch it to the back of the train.
This second unit would then tow the burning engine and it’s passenger cars back to the titan Sunnyside Yard where both equipment and resources to combat the blaze would be available and abundant.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Over the last few years, of course, your humble narrator has discovered or happened across every possible vantage point large enough to stick a camera lens through around the fenced off and often carefully obscured rail infrastructure which weaves through Western Queens and knowing FDNY’s plan, moved into a more propitious spot to record the event.
One must be careful when photographing trains and trackways, lest one accidentally step onto federal or state property and violate not just homeland security regulations but archaic laws which have persisted since the early days of the iron road, many of which carry mandatory sentences.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The irony of these so called regulations, of course, is that whether it is because of expedience or carelessness, many of the employee entrances to the rail yard are often left ajar and unguarded. Was this to occur in Manhattan, there would undoubtedly be a series of broadcast and print media articles and investigations, followed by political posturing and a spate of sham regulations.
Since this is Queens, where the Borough motto should be “welcome to Queens, now go fuck yourself”, nothing will happen and the issue will never be discussed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The smell of burning insulation and plastics mixed freely with the humid air, and a monstrous storm was building in the milky sky. Far off thunder to the south indicated that a storm was coming. Your humble narrator, not too far from home however, persevered and dared the weather to do it’s worst.
Besides, the reason I was on Skillman Avenue in the first place was that I had to meet some guy to talk about a thing down here, and I caught this whole event simply because Queens wanted me to witness her burdens again.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Perhaps it’s the impending anniversary of the September 11 attacks, or merely the normal late summer ennui which always darkens my mood, but the notion that the FDNY hasn’t got fire hose lines long enough to put out a train fire here- at so critical a spot in the infrastructure of the Megalopolis, and that an ordinary civilian like myself can so easily gain visual and physical access to all this- worries me.
In my travels across the concrete desolations of the river communities of North Brooklyn and Western Queens, there are so many of these unguarded and strategic points which have presented themselves that frankly- I don’t like taking the Train or Ferry anymore. When I point these vulnerabilities out to associates who are employed by government agencies or elected officials, they roll their eyes and tell me not to worry.
Same thing they used to do when I wondered out loud back in the 90’s about whether or not the United States had a system of air defenses protecting the defacto capitol city of North America.
The Newtown Pentacle 