Posts Tagged ‘New York City’
latter saw
To and from the Shining City, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last week, I had an assignment to shoot some pics at a conference in Lower Manhattan. Nothing special, just the usual “kid gets award,” and “important people talking to crowded room” shots. Later in the day, actually the evening, I had to get to Greenpoint for a Newtown Creek Alliance event.
Knowing that the “A” in MTA stands for “adventure,” I gave myself a bit of extra time on the trip in, which involved the usual razzmatazz of getting on the R and transferring to the Lexington Avenue line at 59th street. Pictured above is the latter arriving at the station. For once, the commute was seamless and I was down at the Battery lickety split.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
After the conference gig was over, the last thing I wanted to do was chance fate by getting back on the Subway. To get to Greenpoint by Subway from Lower Manhattan would have been a dice throw involving connecting to the G in Brooklyn, so instead one shlepped over to Pier 11 and bought a ticket for the NYC Ferry.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One never misses a chance to travel by water rather than within the sweating concrete bunkers found below ground. During the winter months, my vulnerability to cold weather plays into avoiding this aquatic mode of transportation, but during the warmer months it’s hard to keep me off a boat.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The East River route offered by NYC Ferry goes to India Street in Greenpoint, so once onboard one was able to just relax and take a bunch of shots. A strange thing is that when I’m not doing the tour guide thing during the winter months it feels like alive forgotten everything.
Once I’m back on the boat, however, my eyes begin twitching and my head clocks back and forth as a well practiced narrative wells up behind the eyes and between my ears.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Normally, my “goal” on the Ferry is to get to LIC and walk back to Astoria. On this particular evening, NCA was screening a film by a fellow named Hank Linhart about the Blissville neighborhood. Mr. Linhart calls his Blissville film a “docu poem,” but I call it a film. One had to be at the Newtown Creek side of Greenpoint for the filming, but unlike the adventurous MTA, they know how to maintain a proper schedule.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was a particularly pretty night, last Thursday. Stark contrast to the stormy and snowy weather that had blown through the Shining City just 24 hours previously.
More tomorrow.
Upcoming Tours and Events
Newtown Creekathon – hold the date for me on April 15th.
That grueling 13 and change mile death march through the bowels of New York City known as the “Newtown Creekathon” will be held on that day, and I’ll be leading the charge as we hit every little corner and section of the waterway. This will be quite an undertaking, last year half the crowd tagged out before we hit the half way point. Have you got what it takes the walk the enitre Newtown Creek?
Keep an eye on the NCA events page for more information.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
small pit
I don’t actually do that much shooting in Astoria, for some reason.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Returning home to my section of Astoria (Broadway in the 40’s) on the southern extant of the neighborhood is easily accomplished. Steinway Street allows for a quick walk, although I could have easily hopped on the Q101 bus and gotten to HQ even quicker. Saying that, it’s only about ten fairly long blocks from 19th Avenue to Broadway, so why not walk?
Not going to see anything interesting from a vehicle, and I won’t be getting any photos if I’m on the bus, after all.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The northern end of Steinway Street is exactly the sort of desolate industrial zone which I normally inhabit. You’ll notice the RV and the sleeper van on the corner of 19th avenue, I imagine. In recent years, more and more of these sorts of vehicles have been turning up in my shots. The sleeper van actually had a generator on a hitch which was running. There’s folks living in them.
I know someone who lives in an RV which you might notice around the Newtown Creek. This person is saving for retirement by not paying rent, despite enjoying a high paying Union job at a major utility company. Not bad, as that’s some gordian knot style lateral thinking right there. Somewhat illegal, of course, but let’s face it – things are illegal in NYC only if there a cop around.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Residential Astoria is not my “cup of tea” to photograph, but I decided to break my rules for once and did a few tripod setups on my way home. In general, I don’t wave the camera around at residences unless they are something extraordinary or there’s some historical tale that revolves around the building.
Also, it makes the neighbors antsy and the last thing I want is to have to talk to anyone while I’m focused on shooting.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At Astoria Blvd., and the gateway to “Little Egypt.” The area is so called because of the huge concentration of middle eastern restaurants, peoples, and a large Mosque which can be found just south of the corner.
The shot is captured from one of vehicle/pedestrian bridges which spans the Grand Central Parkway which Robert Moses jammed through Astoria “back in the day.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Grand Central feeds to and from the Triborough Bridge in a trench which Moses’s engineers cut into Astoria, forever severing the north and south sides of the neighborhood. Lifers in the neighborhood will refer to the area north of the highway as “y’know, Ditmars” or “Astoria, Astoria Bro.” To the south, they’d say “tertieth avensues” or “Broadway” to describe the zone your domicile is found in. There is some debate about “terty fourt avensues” being Long Island City or Astoria , a status which might be debated fiercely by Mumbly Joe, Mattie the vampire, or Glazier Chris at the local saloon.
I prefer the neat borders offered by Woodside Avenue to the east, and Northern Blvd. to the south to define this particular edge of the neighborhood. Things get a bit wiggly along the border with the Dutch Kills section of LIC, but it’s generally agreed that their border with Astoria is defined by Crescent Street and 36th avenue. Don’t dare mention Ravenswood to Mumbly Joe.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My pal, Greenpoint historian Geoff Cobb, makes a joke when he speaks in public that he’s lived in Greenpoint for thirty years so he’s just now not being considered a newcomer by the lifers. Same logic applies to Astoria, and even though I’ve lived here for fifteen years, the lifers will tell me I’m “fresh off the boat.”
As a note to long time residents of Astoria, my aunt Yetta has recently passed on at 99 years of age. You will likely remember Yetta as the owner of the “Three R’s” card shop on 30th avenue nearby the train at 31st street, a storefront which was next door to the butcher. Her actual name was Ethel, but the Greeks hereabouts back in the 70’s had trouble with that and renamed her Yetta – which stuck.
Upcoming Tours and Events
Blissville Stories Film Screening –
with Newtown Creek Alliance. Thursday, March 22nd, 7:30pm – 520 Kingsland Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11222.
Click here for trailer.
Newtown Creekathon – hold the date for me on April 15th.
That grueling 13 and change mile death march through the bowels of New York City known as the “Newtown Creekathon” will be held on that day, and I’ll be leading the charge as we hit every little corner and section of the waterway. This will be quite an undertaking, last year half the crowd tagged out before we hit the half way point. Have you got what it takes the walk the enitre Newtown Creek?
Keep an eye on the NCA events page for more information.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
strange hills
Shots from high over Greenpoint today, and a few things to do!
– photo by Mitch Waxman
At the end of last week, which was a doozy incidentally (I actually had to wear a suit and tie one night), one had a chance to head over to Greenpoint and get high. High above the ground, that is. The shot above looks east over some oil industry infrastructure towards the new Kosciuszcko Bridge from the rooftop at 520 Kingsland Avenue. Newtown Creek Alliance, the Audubon Society, and Broadway Stages have created a green roof there that these shots were captured from.
We need a lot of green roofs around the Newtown Creek, lords and ladies. That’s one of the points made over and over in the recently released visioning plan which NCA and Riverkeeper have just released.
Check out the Riverkeeper/Newtown Creek Alliance Visioning Plan,
which can be accessed at this link.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Last week, your Newtown Pentacle focused in on the Blissville section of LIC, but I’m hardly the only person to have fallen in love with the people and place. A fellow named a Hank Linhart has been bitten by the Blissville bug too, and produced a fantastic short film documentary about the place. I met Hank at a screening he did for the movie at the Greater Astoria Historic Society last autumn, and promised him that I’d find a spot to showcase it along the Creek.
So, what are you doing this Thursday on the 22nd of March? Want to come see a movie for free?
Film Screening: Blissville Stories
Thursday, March 22nd, 7:30pm – 520 Kingsland Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11222
Please join NCA as we host a screening of “Blissville Stories,” a documentary film about the Queens neighborhood bounded by the Newtown Creek, the Long Island Expressway, and Calvary Cemetery. We will be joined by filmmaker Hank Linhart. More info about the Blissville Stories can be found here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot looks southwest, over the sewer plant towards Manhattan. The middle section of the shot isn’t out of focus, rather you’re looking through jets of methane which are produced by the plant which the NYC DEP burns off. I’ve called it Brooklyn’s invisible flame in the past.
Finally – hold the date for me on April 15th.
That grueling 13 and change mile death march through the bowels of New York City known as the “Newtown Creekathon” will be underway on that day, and I’ll be leading the charge as we hit every little corner and section of the waterway. Keep an eye on the NCA events page for more information.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
elusive quality
One last post in Blissville, Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Department of Homeless Services seems hell bent on sending NYC’s mot vulnerable citizens up the creek. The Newtown Creek, that is. They’ve sworn up and down that their program will be phasing out the usage of private hotels for housing people. Instead, they’re renewing contracts with hotels like the Pan Am over in Elmhurst and creating new concentrations of population all over Brooklyn and Queens, except for Park Slope and the Upper East Side for some reason or another. Those of us who live in neighborhoods like Maspeth, LIC, Astoria, or Blissville who stand up and complain about this policy will be branded racists or “NIMBY’s.” That last one stands for “Not in My Back Yard” and I’m just going to ask how the Mayor would feel if I was to start camping out in a certain somebody’s back yard on 11th street in Park Slope. I’d talk about equity and sharing the burden to him, but I’m pretty sure he’d tell me I couldn’t take up residence in his back yard. I’m positive that if I listed his back yard on Air BNB he’d be a NIMBY.
The shot above depicts the newly constructed Kosciuszcko Bridge, a mega project going on in Blissville’s back yard.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A Sunday night in early March, on Review Avenue looking up 37th street, with First Calvary Cemetery’s walls forming the eastern border of that street here in Blissville. That’s when and where the shot above was captured. I could barely find a thirty second interval that didn’t have traffic running through it to capture this shot, so I decided to just roll with it.
No wonder, as the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge which carries just over ten million vehicle trips a year is only a block away, and the Long Island Expressway with its 85,000 daily vehicle crossings is less than a half mile distant. A not insignificant proportion of these vehicles are semi and garbage trucks, heading to the waste transfer locations found along a Federal Superfund site called the Newtown Creek. At these waste transfer stations, barges and trains are required to vacate Blissville of the load carried by these trucks.
37th street is mixed use, there’s residential buildings sitting right next to factories and warehouses. The world’s largest Fortune Cookie factory is at the end of the street nearby Bradley Avenue.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The people of Blissville deal with lots of trouble and stress due to the astonishing levels of traffic, severe environmental issues which include two nearby oil spills, and the presence of a sewer plant just across the water in Greenpoint. To the west and north, in Hunters Point and Sunnsyide, the fires of gentrification burn fiercely, driving rents up all over Western Queens, and even here in Blissville. Blissville has no supermarkets, no hospitals or urgent care centers, and access to mass transit is problematic at best. The 108th pct. is in Hunters Point, about a mile and half to the west. They do have a firehouse, so at least the City does something for Blissville other than open homeless shelters in it.
The shot above looks towards the intersection of Greenpoint Avenue, Van Dam Street, and Review Avenue at the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge. That self storage joint used to be the home of the B&G Pickle factory, incidentally.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, equity, and a fair shake for all New Yorkers is the sort of contrived rhetoric offered by the political establishment of City Hall under the current Mayor. Their policy, however, always seems to indicate that the needs of Manhattan outweigh the needs of Queens. Most importantly, to me at least, remains the eventual disposition and fate of the people whom the Mayor intends to house in this already overburdened community named for Greenpoint’s Neziah Bliss.
Is Blissville an appropriate place to house the homeless?
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are already two homeless shelters within a half mile of the proposed facility which would double if not triple the current population of Blissville. That’s one of the converted hotels pictured above, the other one is on the Sunnyside section’s side of the Long Island Expressway, behind St. Raphael’s church. Do these two shelters mean Blissville is already carrying enough “equity” or has their “fair share of burden” for the rest of the City not yet been met?
That’s a former public school, in the shot above. It was built for the independent municipality of Long Island City by its last Mayor, Patrick “Battle-Ax” Gleason. Battle-Ax Gleason said that if you built palaces for working men to send their children to, you’d never get voted out of office and you’d be loved by the voters. When he died, 5,000 school kids lined the streets of Long Island City along the route of his funeral cortège. He’s buried in First Calvary cemetery, incidentally, here in Blissville.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m expecting my phone to start ringing from 212 numbers in lower Manhattan this week, by the way, telling me to “back off.” Sorry, but no.
I’ve said this before and fear I’ll say it again – there is no “homeless problem,” rather there’s a million individual problems. By branding a vulnerable population of people whose only commonality is poverty as “the Homeless,” a demonized and stereotyped population is created. The shelter system is a jail without bars.
We are a rich and ostensibly “christian” society, and so we are both morally and legally obligated to help these folks lift themselves up. One bad day stands between all New Yorkers and homelessness. What these folks need is no different than what everybody needs – jobs, a roof, food. Jobs let them pay rent, which allows them to create a credit history, which allows them to pass out of the “system” and suffer like the rest of us.
Saying all that, and I’ll repeat myself again here – sending these people into industrial zone hotels nearby a superfund site with nearly zero access to transit, healthcare, just about everything they’ll need… that’s a human rights violation.
Mr. Mayor, this isn’t a homeless shelter you’d be creating here in Blissville, it’s a penal colony. It’s also the sort of heavy handed and deaf eared policy choices that you spent the twelve years of the Bloomberg administration complaining about.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
odours occasionally
DUGABO, or Down Under the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge Onramp, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
In yesterday’s post, we explored the darkened streets of industrial Blissville along Railroad Avenue to the west of the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge. Today, we head eastwards along this seldom examined lane. That car with the headlights on was a private security guard that was vouchsafing the various industrial locations in DUGABO, but since I was wearing my construction worker high visibility vest of invisibility over the filthy black raincoat, he just waved at me and drove away.
Under normal daylight circumstance, wherein the vest is not worn, private security would normally hassle one such as myself. “What’s you takins pickchas of” and “whose youse workins for” are the usual queries.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The concrete block fenceline to the right of the shot guards a parcel currently occupied by the NY Paving Company, who maintain a large fleet of construction vehicles therein. It’s part of the former home of the Van Iderstine rendering company, mention of which usually sends a shudder up the spine of any longtime resident of Greenpoint or Blissville. The railroad tracks on the left side of the shot are the LIRR’s Lower Montauk branch.
Van Iderstine was, and is, a rendering company (they moved to Newark about 20 years ago). Van Iderstine boils down organic material (spoiled meat, rotten eggs, butchers blood, animal bones) in pursuit of manufacturing tallow and agricultural fertilizers. The way they do it nowadays is fairly innocuous compared to the manner which the historical record talks about here in Blissville.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A private waste carting company hosts a smallish facility next door to NY Paving, one of the several waste transfer stations found along Railroad Avenue here in Blissville. There are a few street lamps on this side of the bridge, unlike the western side detailed in yesterday’s post. The good news is that it’s the “old school” sodium lamps here, rather than the bluish hued LED ones. I miss the oranges.
Van Iderstine’s had a contract with the City stipulating that if any large animal (horses, oxen, even circus elephants) were to die in the city limits, it would be sent to them for processing. Their grinders had a special rig to handle the elephants.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Until recently, Railroad Avenue terminated a few hundred feet from the spot where this shot was captured, a somewhat private road and cul de sac. That all changed when the City’s Solid Waste Management plan came into effect. The Waste Management Corporation built a facility down here to handle putrescent or black bag garbage, and then cut a new and unnamed road through the former Van Iderstine properties which connects to Review Avenue opposite First Calvary Cemetery.
The industrial scene in this section of Blissville has always been somewhat macabre, and disgusting to modern tastes. Yeast distilleries, swill milk dairies, bone blackers, slaughterhouses, neet oil manufacturers – all part of the historic story around these parts. When the petroleum people began to arrive in the late 19th century, it was considered a godsend as they were displacing the former lessees who took their stinks with them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Also demanded by the Solid Waste Managment plan, a so called “Green Asphalt” plant was created here (as well as other places). When the City regrades or just digs out a street, the asphalt they scrape up might be brought to Blissville and recycled. They accomplish this by heating the stuff up and mixing it with fresh materials, and on humid days during the summer you can smell the scent of asphalt cooking all over Blissville, Laurel Hill, and the north side of Greenpoint.
Still better than Van Iderstine’s, longtime residents of both communities will tell you.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Waste Management has two waste transfer stations along Newtown Creek, the other is in East Williamsburg/Bushwick along the English Kills tributary of Newtown Creek. The one in Blissville is the smaller of the two, but they both accomplish the task of handling the black bag garbage collected by the Department of Sanitation. Waste Management packages the collections up in those green box cars you see in the shot above, which form up the garbage train.
Like Green Asphalt, on hot summer days, you can smell this facility from almost a mile away. I’m told that the Van Iderstine works, and the old Manhattan Adhesives company glue factory (in the Miller Building on the Brooklyn side), were worse. Lord only knows what sort of poison there is lurking in the ground.
So, Mr. Mayor, back to that homeless shelter you want to place less than a half mile from here…
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
The Newtown Pentacle 