Posts Tagged ‘Long Island City’
LIC Millstones updates
To begin with, the so-called “LIC Millstones” are a pair of colonial era industrial artifacts, which have incontrovertibly survived into modernity- in Queens. Quite a controversy is afoot about them, which I’ve been actively involved in. Recent developments bear some attention, and the whole story needs a roundup:
First, an explanation of the importance of these items- from a Newtown Pentacle posting of 3/23/10
I’ve been helping out on the fledgling LIC Millstones blog, and have just uploaded a little history lesson from Bob Singleton of the Greater Astoria Historical Society that explains just what the heck a millstone is and why it matters that a significant and totemic piece of Queens from the colonial days is sitting in a construction zone in Queens Plaza. Here’s the vid:
Second, from an LIC Millstones Blog posting of 3/18/10, by your humble narrator:
– photo by Mitch Waxman
So, after all the noise and argumentative tumult of a public meeting- here’s where the LIC Millstones are being stored. Rephrase that as where they’re being left.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Are due diligence and respect being paid to these historic artifacts? What else, all around our community, is being treated so roughly?
Third, from an LIC Millstones Blog posting of 3/23/10. also by your humble narrator:
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Yes, the Millstones (actually one of them, the other is still embedded in the sidewalk) are in this crate, the one at the center of the shot.
No, there has been not a single move made by any of our elected officials to protect these colonial era artifacts.
Observation tonight (it was raining too hard to risk the camera) showed that a delivery of construction materials has been piled around the crate.
This is kind of a hard issue to evangelize our busy neighbors about, as we are all struggling to make our rent and find time for friends and family, let alone give two ****’s about a pair of 400 year old industrial artifacts. There is something wrong though, in our community, isn’t there?
You can smell it in the air, whether the breeze is coming off the Newtown Creek or Big Allis. A disconcerting sense of change, with long time residents being swept away by progress. What is being lost, and who is profiting from it?
Fourth, from an LIC Millstones Blog posting of 4/2/10, also by your humble narrator:
Ring-a-ring-a-roses – photo by Mitch Waxman
Windmills must be tilted at, I always say, or in this case millstones. Witness with me, if you would, the state of the LIC millstones on the 26th of march, 2010. It is my habit, when time permits, to walk across the Queensboro Bridge. Often, I find myself walking back to Astoria’s rolling hills through Queens Plaza.
A pocket full of posies – photo by Mitch Waxman
The LIC Millstones remain in the little triangle in Queens Plaza, and continue to be shielded from the non stop truck and automobile traffic by a flimsy chain link fence. The netting affixed to the fence had been torn away by a recent squall of stormy weather.
Hush! hush! hush! hush! – photo by Mitch Waxman
Survivors of the 17th century, the artifacts housed here are an artifact of the agrarian industries that populated Queens before, during, and after the Revolutionary War. It is very likely that some number of the 163 African American slaves known to have been held in Newtown in 1755 were employed in operating these millstones. We won’t know for certain, because scholarly access to them is being denied for unguessable reasons by those municipal authorities who hold tenancy over them.
Fifth, from a Queens Chronicle article of 4/15/10, for which I was interviewed
Hidden under a crate and surrounded by heavy construction material, the current condition of the already worn Colonial-era millstones in Queens Plaza has preservationists outraged. They say the lack of concern for these historic artifacts that have been part of the streetscape since the 1600s is shameful.
“The manner in which these historical artifacts are being handled and stored is ludicrous,” said Mitch Waxman, an Astoria resident and contributor to the Long Island City Millstones blog, which was formed by Dutch Kills community members.
In the past, millstones drove the economic wheel of Western Queens. In pairs, they were designed to be used in wind or watermills, to grind staple foods like corn or wheat into flour. According to the LIC blog, in the mid 1600s the millstones were part of the Jorrisen’s Mill. Some disagree and claim the stones arrived from Holland, acting as weight on a West Indies trading ship.
Now, the 400-year-old artifacts remain in the triangular intersection of Queens Plaza, behind fencing, trapped in the midst of the construction that is currently underway.
“Given the way they’re being stored and handled, they’ll either be crushed by a truck or just disappear,” Waxman said.“Ultimately, who will care? This seems to be the governing principle over their handling right now.”
According to Christina Wilkinson, president of the Newtown Historical Society, the millstones are believed to be the oldest man-made objects in the borough created by European settlers.
Wilkinson is one of the preservationists who have been actively seeking to have the millstones removed from the location at Queens Plaza and be placed in a museum gallery where they can be protected.
Sixth, from this STUNNING POST at Queenscrap, dated 4/19/10- in which the response from the Landmarks Preservation Commission is revealed:
Here was the response to an application for review from the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Note these are not colonial artifacts, but a “distinctive sidewalk” (even though they will not be in the sidewalk for much longer)- and the actual letter courtesy scribd.com
Update on the Calvary Knots
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The first thing I would say is that the name on the card does not match those on the monument. The second would be to ask you to read through this posting- Tales of Calvary 4- Triskadekaphobic Paranoia from November of 2009 which describes this odd arrangement in some detail. In the comments thread at that post, please take note of a former Calvary employee’s possible explanation of what is going on here. Third, here’s the latest addition to the knots, a mass card which has appeared just at the outset of spring.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Despite the intervening brutalities of a New York winter, the knotted cords and stick persisted in their intended places, as evinced above. Realize, of course, that the equinoxes mark special dates on the magickal calendar and cultic activity is ripe at the quarters of the solar and lunar cycle- both Passover and Easter fall near the equinox, for example. At these times of year, if you seek- ye shall find.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m not certain, however, what significance a mass card carries. Not being an adherent of the Roman Catholic religion, I’ve nevertheless purchased them when friends and associates have suffered a loss, and offered them up to grieving families. My assumption has always been that they represent some sort special devotion or ceremony which will be performed by the priestly caste, but I remain ignorant of their purpose. As mentioned above, however, the names on the monument do not match the one on the mass card.
I’m keeping an eye on this “tree fed by a morbid nutrition” here at the ossified heart of the Newtown Pentacle in Calvary Cemetery.
And don’t miss tomorrow’s post, which discusses additional weirdness found at St. Michael’s Cemetery just this past weekend.
Newtown Creek, and the Mountains of Madness
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A Friday, on March 19th the Hermetic Hungarian had left his laboratory workshop (a set of rooms on Manhattan’s decadent Upper West Side where he is exploring the deeper meanings and implications of esoteric 19th century clockworks) and ventured forth to Newtown.
The Hermetic Hungarian, referred to as HH from this point on, is a pale and sickly genius who has been intrigued by the presence of certain atavist religions and the persistence of modern adherents to these sects who remain extant along the poison shores surrounding an ancient industrial center called the Newtown Creek. HH had procured an automobile for the day’s exertions- as his fragile health precludes him from the long walks favored by your humble narrator which are so pedantically detailed at this- your Newtown Pentacle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Returning from a day of exploration, which first described the extensive branching of the transportation network referred to as “The Great Machine“, we proceeded to the currently undefended border of Maspeth and storied Greenpoint and crossed the Grand Avenue Bridge. HH was searching for evidences of a grandiose clockwork mechanism which long hours of research and supposition have led him to believe existed in the days of Trolley and Rail. Influenced by his metaphysical beliefs, which are both Hasidic and Buddhist in nature, the HH’s itinerary required his trip to be brief- and after spending an afternoon exploring the ancient climes of Newtown, Bushwyck, and Greenpoint- and we headed back toward a transportation artery that would allow him egress back to the Shining City and his hierophant isolations.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On our return, the bascule mechanisms of the Pulaski Bridge suddenly sprang to life, allowing egress to the Newtown Creek for shipping. The first watchtower on the Creek, the Pulaski is also the busiest of its bridges. While traffic on the Newtown Creek is a shadow of what it once was, there is still a significant industrial presence on the maritime highway that requires connection with the vast enterprises of New York Harbor- especially the petrochemical empires that line the shores of the Kill Van Kull in distant… Staten Island. Additionally the car shredders and other recycling facilities, which bless Newtown with their labor, utilize barges to move their wares to distant customers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In this case, it is the petrochemical shipping industry which commanded the opening of the Pulaski Bridge, as evidenced by the appearance of the DBL 28 fuel Barge, a 28,000 BBL double hull tank barge (which conforms to the Oil Pollution Act of 1990’s requirements- no mean feat) which was built in 2006 and weighs some 2,146 gross tons.
from allbusiness.com
The 28,000 bbl capacity DBL 28 measures 297.6-feet in length, with a 54-foot beam and 13-foot depth. The DBL 28 is the first of a series of eight units currently in production at BMF for K-Sea. DBL 28 is coupled with an existing K-Sea tug using the state-of-the-art Beacon JAK 200 tug/barge Push-Pin coupler system, which is designed to increase operating efficiency and enhance safety and reliability by operating as a dual mode ITB. The series of barges are manned, non self-propelled, double hulled with a raked shaped bow, with six cargo tanks. The barges are classed Lakes, Bays & Sound (Inland) Tank Barges, ABS +A1 Oil Tank Barge, and USCG certified. The barges are being constructed primarily for bunkering and harbor service in ports on the U.S. East Coast.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The fuel Barge was being guided by the K-Sea Davis Sea, a 2,000 HP 95 gross ton, 77 foot long tug whose mast spires nearly 57 feet over the water. Online sources describe the Davis Sea as possessing 6 foot diameter propeller screws, which are powered by twin engines, and as having been built in 1982.
from k-sea.com
K-Sea Transportation Partners L.P., headquartered in East Brunswick, New Jersey, is a leading provider of marine transportation, distribution and logistics services in the U.S. From locations in New York, Philadelphia, Norfolk, Seattle and Honolulu, K-Sea operates a large fleet of tugs and tank barges that serves a wide range of customers, including major oil companies, oil traders and refiners.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Davis Sea, of course, is named for the oceanic area along the coast of Eastern Antarctica which abutts the Shackleton and West ice shelfs. Lying along the Indian Ocean side of the polar wasteland, it is the coldest, windiest and driest section of the southern pole. Eastern Antarctica is still largely unknown to man, except by aerial and satellite observation- although the Soviet and American hegemonies established scientific research bases as early as the 1950’s in the relatively ice free coastal areas. Today, all of the great nations are represented in scientific exploration of this final frigid frontier.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Gamburtsev Mountain Range as well as the prominences of the Transantarctic Mountains, and the East Antarctica Ranges are amongst the oldest ranges on Earth, although some of these great structures are quite nearly buried beneath the glaciers they have formed. Hostile to normal terrestrial life, these mountains of madness are rumored to contain and house several obscure occult constructs including “The black pit,” “the carven rim,” “the protoShoggoths,” “the windowless solids with five dimensions,” “the nameless cylinder,” “the elder Pharos,” “Yog-Sothoth,” “the primal white jelly,” “the color out of space,” “the wings,” “the eyes in darkness,” “the moon-ladder,” “the original, the eternal, the undying,” and other queer occult concepts.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Of course, your humble narrator digresses, influenced by a day spent with the limitless intellect of the Hermetic Hungarian- and the Davis Sea pictured above is merely a tugboat making it’s way down an urban waterway, and is not the seat of some cosmic horror which would shatter our notion of civilization and man’s place in the universal order.
The HH began frantically gesturing at me as I stood on the roadway of the Pulaski Bridge just then, lost down the soda straw reality of a telephoto lens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Its purpose accomplished, the drawbridge had returned to its vehicular roadway duties, and traffic flow between Greenpoint and Long Island City was about to resume. Angry at the inconveniences offered by the delay, anxious drivers were about to rocket forth into Queens, and would have hardly afforded a specimen such as myself the luxury of not being ground to paste beneath their spinning wheels.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Davis Sea proceeded up the Creek, no paddles required or missed. She sauntered past FreshDirect and the Newtown Creek Waste Water Treatment Plant at Whale Creek, churning the languid gelatins which line the Newtown Creek as it went. This must be a difficult course, as there is so little room for error in piloting the narrow and tightly populated channel.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That is Calvary Cemetery on the horizon, with industrial Queens occupying the left side of the image. Just beyond is the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge and the significant petrochemical facilities- recently upgraded and enlarged and enjoyed by those on the Brooklyn shore – that adjoin it.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Forced to begin speeding up, the Hermetic Hungarian allowed me one or two last shots of the Davis Sea as it passed into that world of ancient mariners and atavist custom which typify Newtown, while angry motorists behind us employed their horns to display displeasure at our lack of enthusiasm for leaving the scene. Their horns formed a mocking chorus, an antiphonal response to our absent haste whose sound can be described only as…
“Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!” “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!” “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!”
Driven to madness by the sound, the Hermetic Hungarian began babbling madly, repeating the names of subway stops as we drove.
the hillside thickets
CREEK WEEK continues…
- For the first installment, from the mouth of the Newtown Creek at the East River to the Pulaski Bridge, click here. For more on just the Pulaski Bridge, click here.
- For the second installment, which turns off the main course of the Newtown Creek and follows the Dutch Kills tributary to Long Island City’s Degnon Terminal, click here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman (from the Queens Museum of Art’s “Panorama of the City of New York”)
As the Newtown Creek follows its atavist path across the (currently) undefended border of Brooklyn and Queens, the second drawbridge encountered along its length is the J.J. Byrne Memorial Bridge, aka the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge, which provides a connection between Queen’s Blissville and Brooklyn’s Greenpoint.
A detailed posting on this bridge and its immediate environs was presented in August of 2009, which can accessed by clicking here.
from the DOT website:
The Greenpoint Avenue Bridge is a double-leaf trunnion bascule, with 21.3m wide leaves. This bridge is a steel girder structure with a filled grid deck. The bridge provides a channel with a horizontal clearance of 45.4m and in the closed position a vertical clearance of 7.9m at MHW and 9.4m at MLW. The bridge structure carries a four-lane two-way vehicular roadway with a 1.2m striped median and sidewalks on either side. The roadway width is 8.6m and the sidewalks are 4.0m and 3.7m for the north and south sidewalk respectively. The approach roadways are narrower than the bridge roadway. The west approach and east approach roadways are 17.1m (including 1.4m center median) and 11.9m respectively.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A significant petrochemical industrial footprint is observed at the 1.3 mile mark of the Newtown Creek, and the bridge marks that point at which even the current generation of shambolic urban planners throw up their hands and surrender. This is where the heavy manufacturing stage of the industrial revolution was enacted and invented, and the story preserved in the anaerobic soils of this area will be the joy of future archaeologists. Nearby the Queens onramp, Silvercup studios maintains a large film and television production campus, but this is mainly a region defined by recycling yards, warehouses, truck depots, and a sewer plant interspersed with century old petrochemical franchises. There are a few homes nearby, in both Brooklyn and Queens, but this is not a residential area. This is where the “sweaty, smelly, and dirty work” is done.
the nytimes has an article available from 1919, describing a spectacular and auspicious conflagration at Standard Oil.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Brooklyn shore of the Creek hosts an enormous yard of fuel tanks, while the Queens side is lined with rail and light industrial buildings. Review and Railroad Avenue’s follow the Newtown Creek in Queens, which intersect with Laurel hill Blvd. less than a mile away. Appropriately high security along the volatile shoreline of Brooklyn renders exploration of it a somewhat futile endeavor, with high walls and armed guards securing and enclosing privatized corporate streets. A stroll down from Kingsland ave., through Grandparents ave., to Norman ave., Bridgewater St., and Stewart avenues will reveal visual egress to the Newtown Creek in only two places, both of which are well staffed and monitored by private security. A trucking center, the streets and sidewalks here are also quite degraded, and in this part of Brooklyn- Guard Dogs are deployed in great numbers. Go to Queens, instead.
There is more than 400 years of rich, if often troubled, history on Newtown Creek. Dutch explorers first surveyed the creek in 1613-14 and acquired it from the local Mespat tribe. The Dutch and English used the creek for agriculture and fledgling industrial commerce, making it the oldest continuous industrial area in the nation. The country’s first kerosene refinery (1854) and first modern oil refinery (1867) brought jobs and infrastructure. By the end of the 19th century, Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, which began as Astral Oil Co. in 1880, had over 100 distilleries on both sides of Newtown Creek, and each refinery’s average effluent of discharge per week was 30,000 gallons, most spewing into the creek. By the 1920s and 30s, the Creek was a major shipping hub and was widened, deepened, and bulkheaded to accommodate bigger barges, destroying all its fresh water sources. Newtown Creek became home to such businesses as sugar refineries, hide tanning plants, canneries, and copper wiring plants.
Up until the latter part of the 20th Century, industries along the creek had free reign over the disposal of unwanted byproducts. With little-to-no government regulation or knowledge of impacts on human health and the environment, it made business sense to pollute the creek. The legacy of this history today is a 17 million gallon underground oil spill caused by Standard Oil’s progeny companies—7 million gallons more than the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, copper contamination of the Phelps Dodge superfund site, bubbling from the creek bed in the English Kill reach due to increases of hydrogen sulfide and a lack of dissolved oxygen, and creekbeds coated with of old tires, car frames, seats and loose paper. Nearly the entire creek had the sheen and smell of petroleum, with the bed and banks slicked black.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Queens shoreline boasts a geologic feature called Laurel Hill. High ground, as it were. A lot of time is spent on the Queens side, scuttling around in a filthy black raincoat, by your humble narrator. Of late, I’ve been curtailing my presence in the area, for fear of environmental exposure’s cumulative effects. Breathing this air, while walking the blistered concrete of its lengths, cannot be beneficent for the mammalian constitution.
Beginning at Borden Avenue near the Dutch Kills, which is roughly a mile from where the ferry docks of 19th century Hunter Point could be found, Review Avenue only goes to one place. Literally, it was the avenue that funeral reviews- elaborate parades of mourners replete with musicians and baroque carriages- would use to travel to Calvary Cemetery. A posting from July of 2009, Walking Widdershins to Calvary, explored Review Avenue and the surrounding area in some small depth. Industrial footprints are observed on the Creek side, and very active rail tracks still carry freight along the shoreline.
here’s a link to city-data.com, which details the sort of businesses and structures, and their worth, which are found along Review Avenue
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Relict factories and abandoned lots for many years, the structures along the Queens side are either being torn down or renovated to modern usage. Dirty industries like recycling and septic tank maintenance firms are seen hard at work, and a thriving light industrial facility exists, however, these businesses are predicated on the use of Trucks and ignore the reason for their original construction- which is access to the water. Not that long ago, industrial shipping along Newtown Creek outstripped traffic on the Mississippi River.
from bklyn-genealogy-info.com’s History of Queens County
The boundary line of Long Island City, “beginning at a point formed by the intersection of the easterly boundary line of the city and county of New York with the centerline of Newtown Creek,” runs “thence easterly along the center line of said Newtown Creek to the westerly side of the Penny Bridge (so – called); thence northerly along the westerly side of the Bushwick and Newtown turnpike to the road on the southerly side of Calvary Cemetery, known as the road to Dutch Kills; thence along the center of said last named road to the southerly and westerly side of Calvary Cemetery as far as the boundaries of said cemetery extend; thence northerly along the said cemetery to the center of the road leading to Green Point along the northerly side of said cemetery; thence easterly along said last mentioned road to the intersection of the same with the road leading from Calvary Cemetery to Astoria; thence northerly and north- easterly along the center of said road, Dutch Kills road, Woodside avenue, Bowery Bay road, to the easterly boundary line of land formerly of Isaac Rapelye, on the northerly side of said Bowery Bay road; thence along the line of said Rapelye land to the Bowery Bay; thence along Bowery Bay and the sound to the northerly boundary line of the town of Newtown; thence northwesterly and southwesterly along said boundary line to the easterly boundary line of the city and county of New York; thence southwesterly along said last mentioned boundary line to the place of beginning.”
The new city was divided into five wards, described as follows:
- First Ward (Hunter’s Point)– “All that portion of the city lying between the center of Newtown Creek on the south, the westerly boundary line of Long Island City on the west, the center of Nott avenue and Boundary street on the north and the center of Dutch Kills Creek on the east.”
- Second Ward (Blissville).- “Beginning at the junction of Newtown and Dutch Kills Creek, running thence easterly along the center of said Dutch Kills Creek to Boundary street; thence along the center of Boundary street to Jackson avenue; thence easterly along the center of said Jackson avenue to the easterly line of Long Island City; thence southerly along said boundary line to the southerly boundary line of said city and at the center of Newtown Creek; thence westerly along the southerly boundary line of said city to the place of beginning.”
- Third Ward (Ravenswood).– “Beginning at a point on the westerly boundary of Long Island City, at its intersection with the center line of Nott avenue when extended on its present course to the said westerly boundary line of Long Island City; running thence northerly along said boundary line to its intersection with the center line of Sunswick Creek; running thence easterly and southerly along the center of said creek to the center of Pearce avenue; thence easterly along the center of said Pearce avenue to the center of First avenue; thence southerly along the center of said First avenue to the center of Webster avenue; thence easterly along the center of Webster avenue to the center of Jackson avenue; thence southwesterly along the center of Jackson avenue and Nott avenue to the point or place of beginning.”
- Fourth Ward (Astoria).– “Beginning at a point in the westerly boundary line of Long Island City, at its intersection with the center line of Sunswick Creek, running thence northerly along said westerly boundary line to its intersection with the center line of Franklin street, when extended on its present course to the said westerly boundary line; thence easterly along the center of Franklin Street to the intersection of Flushing avenue; thence easterly along the center of said Flushing avenue to the easterly boundary line of said city at the center line of the Bowery Bay road; thence southerly along the said easterly boundary line to the center of Jackson avenue; thence southwesterly along the center of said Jackson avenue to the center of Webster avenue; thence westerly along said Webster avenue to the center of First avenue; thence northerly along the center of First avenue to the center of Pearce avenue thence westerly along the center of Pearce avenue to the center of said Sunswick Creek; thence northerly and westerly along the center of said creek to the point of beginning.”
- Fifth Ward (Bowery Bay).– “All that portion of the city lying between the northerly boundary line of Long Island City on the north, the easterly boundary line of said city on the east, the westerly boundary line of the same on the west, and the Fourth ward on the south, together with all the islands opposite thereto and comprehended in the town of Newtown.”
- The islands belonging to Long Island City are known as North Brother, South Brother and Berrien’s.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The bulkheaded docks found here, this one in particular, once allowed funeral ferries from Manhattan to dock near the Penny Bridge (a structure which allowed egress from Brooklyn). A LIRR passenger station, also called Penny Bridge, was nearby. Mourners would gather on these docks and weave through the crowds entering the main gate of Calvary Cemetery, after having completed the journey from Manhattan. Nearby, in Maspeth, Hunters Point, and along Review and Greenpoint Avenue- hospitality industries sprang up in the form of inns, hotels, and saloons. Hunters Point also offered illegal gambling (and during prohibition in the 1920’s, booze), but that was for the trip home. When the Five Points gangsters held a funeral out here, extra police from Hunters Point would be on duty to prevent a drunken riot from breaking out, here- in Blissville.
from wikipedia
Blissville is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. It is part of Long Island City. It is bordered by Calvary Cemetery to the east; the Long Island Expressway to the North; Newtown Creek to the South and Dutch Kills (a tributary of Newtown Creek) to the West. Blissville was named after Neziah Bliss, who owned most of the land in the 1830s and 1840s. Bliss built the first version of what was known for many years as the Blissville Bridge, a drawbridge over Newtown Creek, connecting Greenpoint, Brooklyn and Blissville. It was replaced in the 20th century by the J. J. Byrne Memorial Bridge, also called the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge), located slightly upstream.
Blissville existed as a small village until 1870 when it was incorporated with the villages of Astoria, Ravenswood, Hunters Point, Dutch Kills, Middletown, Sunnyside and Bowery Bay into Long Island City.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Calvary Cemetery, of course, is not the only entity which has defined this area- just the largest and longest lasting. Nearby, the Phelps Dodge corporation maintained a copper refinery, and an early chemical factory was located here. Colorants and dyes were also a specialty of the locale. Review Avenue is remarkable for a cyclopean splendor at Calvary, the towering masonry structures which girdle and contain the borders of the necropolis.
from queenslibrary.org
A history of the Laurel Hill Chemical works from the beginning in 1852, from the Phelps Dodge Corporation Laurel Hill Plant Records, 1893-1983.
The following is a chronology of Phelps Dodge Corporation’s Laurel Hill Plant starting with William Henry Nichols, the man who co-founded the original chemical plant, G.H. Nichols and Company at the site in 1872; continuing to when it was purchased by Phelps Dodge Corporation in 1930; and ending in 2000 when all the structures were finally demolished.
Chronology
- 1852 William Henry Nichols was born to George Henry and Sara Elizabeth (Harris) Nichols in Brooklyn, New York, January 9, 1852.
- 1870 William Henry Nichols and his friend Charles W. Walter started making acids.
- 1872 To expand their acid production to sulfphurc acid and support their entrepreneurial needs William H. Nichols and Charles W. Walter, with the financial backing of William’s father George Henry Nichols, formed the G. H. Nichols and Company. The new company so named, because not only did George Henry provide the majority of the capital, but also the two men were too young to incorporate a company in New York State. During the year the company began purchasing land and building buildings in the Laurel Hill (now Maspeth) neighborhood of Queens, New York on Newtown Creek. Not only did the site offer good fishing, it afforded convenient water and rail transportation to move their raw and finished material.
- 1870s-1880s Their sulphuric acid, produced from brimstone, was stronger than the industry standard upsetting their competition but greatly increasing their market share.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Calvary Cemetery, as longtime readers of this Newtown Pentacle are all too aware, is a special place which I’ve spent a lot of time exploring. Past postings on Calvary include:
- Up and Through Calvary
- Calvary Mystery Box
- Calvary Cemetery Walk
- Tales of Calvary 1 – The O’Briens
- Tales of Calvary 2 – Veterans Day
- Tales of Calvary 3 – Rumors and stories
- Tales of Calvary 4 – Triskadekaphobic Paranoia
- Tales of Calvary 5 – Shade and Stillness
- Tales of Calvary 6 – The Empire State Building and the Newsboy Governor.
- Tales of Calvary 7
- Tales of Calvary 8– the Abbot
- Tales of Calvary 9– A Pale Enthusiast
- Tales of Calvary 10– The Hatch
- Tales of Calvary 11– Keegan and Locust Hill
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot is from one of those two vantage points in Brooklyn, mentioned above, showing the bend taken by the Newtown Creek and the Shining City of Manhattan beyond. The construction work observable on the right side of the image is the self same bulkhead where the ferries from Manhattan docked that was pictured above. Everything in Brooklyn and Queens looks toward Manhattan, but as always, I have to scuttle off in a different direction and to the beat of my own drummer. Turn widdershins on your heels, Lords and Ladies, and gaze eastward toward the besotted and behemoth corpse lands of the Kosciuszko Bridge.
from wikipedia
The Kosciuszko Bridge is a truss bridge that spans Newtown Creek between the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, connecting Greenpoint, Brooklyn and Penny Bridge, Queens. It is a part of Interstate 278, which is also locally known as the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The bridge opened in 1939, replacing the Penny Bridge from Meeker Avenue in Brooklyn to Review Avenue and Laurel Hill Boulevard, and is the only bridge over Newtown Creek that is not a drawbridge. It was named in honor of Tadeusz Kościuszko, a Polish volunteer who was a General in the American Revolutionary War. Two of the bridge towers are surmounted with eagles, one is the Polish eagle, and the other the American eagle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The heart of darkness, where the slime and filth that agglutinate along the bed of the Newtown Creek defeat navigable intentions of oarsman and sailor alike, begins beyond the Kosciuszko Bridge. Untrammeled and seldom travelled pathways, a moonscape of cement dissolution awaits…
…but that’s going to be in another installment of Creek Week, here at your Newtown Pentacle.
– photo by Mitch Waxman (from the Queens Museum of Art’s “Panorama of the City of New York”)
On a side note, a ripple of revulsion and shock greeted the antiquarian and environmentalist communities that operate along the Newtown Creek recently, when a Dolphin was spotted near the Pulaski Bridge by members of the Harbor School- as reported by Gothamist.com
strange and brooding apprehensions
CREEK WEEK continues… for the first installment, from the mouth at the East River to the Pulaski Bridge, click here. For more on just the Pulaski Bridge, click here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman (from the Queens Museum of Art’s “Panorama of the City of New York”)
Moving a quarter mile eastward along the Queens bulkheads of the Newtown Creek from the Pulaski Bridge, the first tributary encountered by the intrepid urban explorer and photographer is a canalized horror called the Dutch Kills.
This branch of the Newtown Creek watershed is about an hour’s walk from Newtown Pentacle HQ, and its locale is visited or transited rather regularly by your humble narrator, as I perform the penitential exertions ordered by my physicians as the curative for certain extant health issues. All ‘effed up, my version of such wholesome activity requires the presence of the macabre, and some element of existential danger. Luckily- the Newtown Creek offers, to those who seek it, succor and salvation for a variety of desires.
Detailed postings, in and around the immediate neighborhood of the Dutch Kills waterway, include:
- Dutch Kills, or let the Photos do the Walking
- Long Island City Zen 2 -The Empty Corridor
- Weird Synchronicity
- After the Fire
- affordable housing development on Borden Avenue
- cry fowl, and let slip…
from wikipedia
Dutch Kills is a sub-division of the larger neighborhood of Long Island City in the New York City borough of Queens. It was a hamlet, named for its navigable tributary of Newtown Creek, that occupied what today is centrally Queensboro Plaza. Dutch Kills was an important road hub during the American Revolutionary War, and the site of a British Army garrison from 1776 to 1783. The area supported farms during the 19th Century, and finally consolidated in 1870 with the villages of Astoria, Ravenswood, Hunters Point, Middletown, Sunnyside and Bowery Bay to form Long Island City.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Leaving the main course of the Newtown Creek, just .8 of a mile beyond its mouth, the first thing one encounters is a somewhat worse for wear railroad swing bridge- called the Long Island Railroad Bridge. Reports from “railfans” and “foamers” (and confirmed by the Coast Guard) state that the bridge hasn’t opened since 2002, which has orphaned the Dutch Kills from its parent waterway and cut the canal off from its intended usage. If my readings of old maps are correct (they often aren’t), these two tracks carry (or at least carried) rail traffic from either the Montauk Cutoff and Montauk Branch tracks, connecting the LIRR to the Sunnyside Yard and Wheelspur Yard with the tracks leading west to Hellsgate and east to Long Island. Notable former sights along this bank of the Newtown Creek would have been the City of New York’s Poultry Yard and the still extant Texas Oil Co.
For an extensive series of historical photos, discussion of the function and design of these tracks, and the industrial centers they once served- trainsarefun.com is the place to go. Special attention is called to this 1860 map of the area– which details the natural flow of the wetlands and shows the Dutch Kills as being a far larger body of water than it is today.
from Queens Borough, New York City, 1910-1920
During 1914 bulkhead lines were established by the United States Government for Dutch Kills Creek, a tributary of Newtown Creek, thus putting this stream under the jurisdiction of the War Department. The bulkhead lines as approved on October 29, 1914, give a width varying from 200 feet at its junction with Newtown Creek to 150 feet at the head of the stream, and include a large basin in the Degnon Terminal where car floats can be docked. The widths of the channel to be dredged under the appropriation of $510,000 mentioned previously, range from 160 feet at Newtown Creek to 75 feet at the turning basin. The Long Island Railroad plans to establish at this point a large wholesale public market, estimated to cost nearly $5,000,000.
Among the larger industrial plants in the Degnon Terminal served by this stream are : Loose Wiles Biscuit Company, American Ever Ready Works, White Motor Company, Sawyer Biscuit Company, Defender Manufacturing Company, Pittsburg Plate Glass Company, Marcus Ward, Brett Lithograph Company, Waldes, Inc., Norma Company of America, Manhattan-Rome Company, American Chicle Co. and The Palmolive Co.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
From Borden avenue, the second rail bridge is observed, which I believe to be the Montauk Cutoff track and a bascule type drawbridge. The canalized Dutch Kills, with its high bulkheads and rail connections, served as a water connection to NY Harbor for several heavy manufacturers in the area including F.A. Hunt, Holdtronics, New York Envelope, and American Chicle. The rail/dock complex, collectively, was known as the Degnon terminal. A short but sweet history of the Degnon Terminal can be accessed at members.trainweb.com. Michael Degnon was a master builder, one of the great men of the early 20th century in Queens, and is buried in Calvary Cemetery. Check out this nytimes.com article which discusses an expansion of his operations at the Dutch Kills in 1922 that brought floor space at his Degnon Terminal up to an astounding three million square feet.
from forgotten-ny.com
Michael Degnon was the contractor for the Steinway Tunnel, the first rail link to connect Manhattan and Queens, and also the contractor for the Sunnyside Yards. He decided to build his own railway, called Degnon Terminal, adjacent to the Sunnyside Yards and constructed large factories and warehouses complete with sidings facing the railroad tracks. This was attractive to his clients, since shipping goods via rail was now more accessible and less expensive for them. Some of the Terminal’s early clients were Sunshine Biscuit Company, Packard Automobile Company, American Ever Ready Company, and American Chicle Company. Of course, the rising cost of doing business in New York forced all of these companies to find other cities in which to manufacture. The sidings haven’t seen rail traffic since 1989, and the tracks are now either paved over or overgrown with weeds (some of which can be seen on FNY’s Disappearing Railroad Blues page). In its heyday, Degnon Terminal employed 16,000 workers.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The currently “under construction” Borden Avenue Bridge allows vehicle and pedestrian traffic to cross the Dutch Kills. This is the point at which the water quality declines seriously, as the only fresh water entering its stagnant depths are combined sewer outputs (CSO’s) and runoff from the concretized industrial landscape surrounding it (which carry a stream of road salt, engine and exhaust residue, and whatever else might be on the road or sidewalk into the water every time it rains). The bridge recently celebrated its centennial, incidentally.
from the army corps of engineers, discussing precautions for the collecting, handling, and testing of Dutch Kills underwater sediments:
All individuals involved in handling contaminated sediment are required to use protective equipment and to submit to blood and urine tests. The protective equipment consists of:
from nyc.gov
As part of the construction of Borden Avenue in 1868, a wooden bridge was built over Dutch Kills. This bridge was later replaced by an iron swing bridge, which was removed in 1906. The current bridge was opened on March 25, 1908 at a cost of $157,606. The deck’s original design consisted of creosote-treated wood blocks, with two trolley tracks in the roadway. Character-defining features of this bridge include the stucco-clad operator’s house, four pairs of rails, and a rock-faced stone retaining wall. The gable-on-hip roof of the operator’s house retains the original clay tile at the upper part. Although alterations have been made, the bridge is a rare survivor of its type and retains sufficient period integrity to convey its historic design significance.
The Department of Transportation has identified a pocket of contaminated soil which has been classified as “contaminated non-hazardous”. As such, it poses no significant health risk to workers or the surrounding community. However, precautionary measures will be taken and every effort is being made to remove and dispose of the contamination quickly, yet safely, within all New York City and State guidelines. A Corrective Action Plan (CAP) for the removal and disposal of the contamination has been submitted to the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) for review and approval.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Sewer construction projects along Hunters Point Avenue revealed that the swampy nature of western Queens is unchanged. These ground waters, as you might observe by the chalk markings on the pilings, would be some 13 feet beneath the streets. The vertical clearance of the nearby Hunters Point Avenue Bridge (and street grade) is approximately 15 feet over the water, so this would make sense.
Never forget, lords and ladies, that this Long Island City of ours is a swamp which was “reclaimed” by industrial means just within the last 150 years. The “ground” in most of the area is actually a sort of pier or dock, with timber pilings supporting cement clad fill. Just two stories down are the waters of the Newtown Creek and it’s tributaries, and this sort of subterrene terraforming is typical for most of the spongy land directly surrounding the Newtown Creek.
Who can guess, what poisons there are, laying in the mud waiting to hatch out?
from hydroqaul.com
Like a number of other local tributaries to New York Harbor, Newtown Creek is now simply a peripheral canal system fed by tides, CSO and stormwater discharges. None of its original freshwater creeks and extensive wetlands exist anymore, the whole area having been transformed into a series of canals by channelization, land reclamation (filling) and bulkheading. Biological abundance and diversity is impaired by reductions in the amount and variety of physical habitat, and by a vulnerability of the remaining habitat to retention and accumulation of pollutants. Although no scientific studies have been identified prior to 2001, it can be expected that biota of Newtown Creek reflect similar conditions in other highly impacted waterbodies around the harbor. Thus, a fouling community composed of epibenthic invertebrates such as barnacles and sea squirts should be present on pilings and bulkheads; a fairly homogenous community of benthic invertebrates dominated by tolerant forms of polychaete worms should be found in the sediments, and a typical assemblage of regionally indigenous fish such as striped bass, winter flounder, bay anchovy, Atlantic menhaden, snapper bluefish, sea robin and tautog may come and go as water levels and quality permit.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Hunter’s Point Avenue Bridge offers spectacular views of the Long Island Expressway with Brooklyn beyond, and from its walkway; the bulkheads marking the end of the Dutch Kills are visible. This is a dead zone, check out riverkeeper.org’s analysis of the waters here over a multiple year period. The foulness of these waters are part of the historical record, which an a New York Times article from March of 1871 proves, and the evidences of one’s own senses suggest.
from nyc.gov
The Hunters Point Bridge over Dutch Kills is situated between 27th Street and 30th Street in the Long Island City section of Queens, and is four blocks upstream of the Borden Avenue Bridge. It is a bascule bridge with a span of 21.8m. The general appearance of the bridge has been significantly changed since it was first opened in 1910. The bridge provides a channel with a horizontal clearance of 18.3m and a vertical clearance, in the closed position, of 2.4m at MHW and 4.0m at MLW. The bridge structure carries a two-lane, two-way vehicular roadway with sidewalks on either side. The roadway width is 11.0m, while the sidewalks are 1.8m wide. The width of the approach roadways vary from the width of the bridge roadway. The west approach and east approach roadways are 13.4m and 9.1m, respectively.
The first bridge at this site, a wooden structure, was replaced by an iron bridge in 1874. That bridge was permanently closed in 1907 due to movement of the west abutment, which prevented the draw from closing. It was replaced in 1910 by a double-leaf bascule bridge, designed by the Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridge Company. The bridge was rebuilt in the early 1980’s as a single-leaf bascule, incorporating the foundations of the previous bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the end of the Dutch Kills, one finds a concrete company, and the former Degnon Terminal home of Sunshine Biscuits, which today serves as the “C’ building of the LaGuardia Community College campus (found between 29th and 30th streets and between 47th avenue and the intersection of Skillman and Thompson avenues). Additionally, the greater astoria historical society has posted a photo at smugmug that shows the rest of the scene in the shot above dating from 1966.
speaking of gahs, they have a short history of Sunshine Biscuit’s “thousand window factory” which can be accessed by clicking here
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A quick glance down at the banks of Dutch Kills reveal the true nature of things here, it is not uncommon to half glance at dead things floating by, suspended by their internal gases. At high tide on the East River, aquatic life often finds its way into the Newtown Creek and become entrapped in the oxygen deprived water. This provides ample food for thriving colonies of carnivorous worms and shore line scavengers- mainly river rats, the cats that prey on them, and various birds.
Few if any dogs have I observed down here, even where you’d expect them to be. Guard dogs are unemployed around these parts, and I’ve never seen a feral dog roaming around in all the time I spend scuttling around the area- but that’s probably because of all the trucks. I do know a fat old dog who’s chained to a fish butcher on 51st avenue, but she’s mainly interested in her sunny sidewalk and sleeping.
from nytimes.com
Hunters Point South, for its part, will have 5,000 homes built on 30 acres on the edge of the East River, near Newtown Creek. Three thousand of the homes will be set aside for families whose annual income totals $126,000 or less, with 800 of them destined specifically to families who earn less than $61,400 a year. There will also be 300 units built for low-income senior citizens and at least 225 units devoted to a middle-class homeownership program.
“We’re creating a model,” said Councilman Eric N. Gioia, whose district includes the area where the project will be built. “We’re creating housing where all New Yorkers can live together, in the same neighborhood.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the end of Dutch Kills, near 47th avenue, illegal dumping seems to be a community passion. There is even a rusted out and derelict barge which seems to finally be sinking. As always, admonishment and advice for the urban explorer to ignore the temptation to climb out and take a look applies. The wet filth that lines the shore here stinks of sulphur compounds, and the smell of a sick aquarium permeates the breeze. This is also a HAZMAT zone, and nautical charts reveal that the water depth here is 13-15 feet, roughly a third deeper than it is in the channel. Don’t screw around back here, lords and ladies, you can get seriously hurt.
from nyc.gov, on the waterfront revitalization section of the Hunters Point South development plan
Policy 6.2: Direct public funding for flood prevention or erosion control measures to those locations where the investment will yield significant public benefit.
The proposed actions do not include public structural flood and erosion control projects. The central and eastern portion of Site A and much of Site B are within the 100-year floodplain.
The New York City Building Code (Title 27, Subchapter 4, Article 10) requires that residential buildings have a finished floor elevation (FFE) at or above the 100-year floodplain, while the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) requires the FFE to be one foot above the 100-year floodplain. In accordance with these regulations and as stated above, clean fill would be used to raise the development area, including the areas for new streets and buildings, as well as portions of the project sites designated for the waterfront park or other open space areas that would not be covered by impervious surface or structures. Raising the elevation of the project sites above the 100-year flood elevation would ensure protection of public health and safety, the new buildings and open space areas, public investment of city infrastructure, and enhancement of natural habitats. The proposed actions are consistent with this policy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the Brooklyn side of the Newtown Creek is another tributary called Whale Creek (don’t worry, we’ll be going there soon enough), alongside which the magnificent Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant hums and belches methane in storied Greenpoint. This spot on 29th street, at the end of the Dutch Kills, is just under a half mile from the main channel.
A Newtown Pentacle posting from October of 2009 explored this Temple of Cloacina, which is a 24 hours a day municipal workhorse. The plant processes a significant percentage of the 1.1 billion gallons of sewage New York produces every day, delivering it in a milled and concentrated form to a pumping tank and dock in Greenpoint directly across the Creek from the forthcoming Hunters Point South development which is just starting on the Queens shoreline. In still another posting, we followed some sludge boats- the M/V Newtown Creek, North River, and the Red Hook, as they traveled past Hallet’s Cove and Astoria up the East River.
from nyc.gov
Dewatering reduces the liquid volume of sludge by about 90%. New York City operates dewatering facilities at eight of its 14 treatment plants. At these facilities, digested sludge is sent through large centrifuges that operate like the spin cycle of a washing machine. The force from the very fast spinning of the centrifuges separates most of the water from the solids in the sludge, creating a substance knows as biosolids. The water drawn from the spinning process is then returned to the head of the plant for reprocessing. Adding a substance called organic polymer improves the consistency of the “cake”, resulting in a firmer, more manageable product. The biosolids cake is approximately 25 to 27 percent solid material.
Hunters Point to Dutch Kills with Whale Creek on the left – photo by Mitch Waxman (from the Queens Museum of Art’s “Panorama of the City of New York”)
Creek Week continues… at this, your Newtown Pentacle. Prepare to penetrate into the darkness of the tomb legions, lords and ladies… as we move eastward.
The Newtown Pentacle 