Posts Tagged ‘newtown creek’
longings and welcome
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The first bit of business today is about our departed friend Bernie Ente, and a memorial moment we have planned for the Newtown Creek Cruise tomorrow.
As many of you know, Bernie was and remains an inspiration to those of us involved in the story of Newtown Creek, in many ways he was “the King of the Creek”. He was the founder and institutor of this annual exploration of the troubled waterway, and there won’t be anyone connected with the organization and execution of this trip who won’t acutely feel his absence.
Accordingly, there is going to be a memorial moment performed for our fallen King, and several people have contacted me saying they wish to be present, but cannot afford the price of the boat trip. I have been instructing all who wish to attend to gather at the Maspeth Avenue street end (click here for google maps location and pictured above) and be there by 11:30. You’ll see a gigantic boat coming up the Creek, that’ll be us. The whole shebang will be short and sweet, as Bernie would be embarrassed by such honorifics and would chide me to focus in on what’s truly important- the revelation of Newtown Creek’s often occluded past, and the stunning possibilities for our communities offered by it’s revitalization and renewal.
Erik Baard will be paddling up the Creek with Richard Melnick of the Greater Astoria Historic Society, should any of you wish to attend on the water, although I stress that this is not an official Long Island City Boathouse event. Erik can be contacted via this facebook link if you wish to join them.
(afterwards, you can then cross the Grand Avenue Bridge and head over to Rust Street, where a rally to save the St. Saviour’s site and turn it into a City Park is meant to be happening at 1pm, but you’ll have to hit Google for specifics on that- I’ve been too busy with my own business to pay much attention to this effort in the last month- but there’s meant to be quite a gathering of elected officials and the folks from COMET and other Maspeth based community groups)
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Secondly, when our vessel returns to South Street Seaport at 1pm, those of you onboard who wish to discuss what you’ve just seen with Working Harbor personnel and or your humble narrator should plan on joining us for our customary post game. We will be proceeding to a local cafe bar where the camaraderie and libation will flow, and a relaxed conversation will be offered. Your tab, of course, is your own. This is not a part of the tour, and is not offered as part of the ticket price, but if you buy old Mitch a drink or two- he might tell you about some of the unknowable things he’s seen dancing around in the Creek during thunderstorms or share the story of the “Blissville Banshee” with you.
Nothing loosens Mitch’s tongue like a flask of cheap hip pocket liquor.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lastly, and I promise- this is the last time you’ll see this string of text, there are still a few ticketed seats available but I can’t promise they’ll be there when you leave work tonight. If you’ve been prevaricating about whether or not to come, now is the time to “drop the hammer”.
And… did I mention we’ve got a speaker from Riverkeeper scheduled to be onboard?
Lastly:
It is critical for you to purchase tickets for the Newtown Creek Cruise soon. We’re filling up rapidly and seating is limited. Your humble narrator is acting as chairman for this journey, and spectacular guest speakers are enlisted to be onboard. Click here to order tickets. Something I can promise you, given the heavy rain we’re having at the beginning of this week, is that the Newtown Creek will be especially photogenic on Saturday. Current forecasts call for “Partly sunny. A slight chance of showers in the morning. Highs in the mid 70s. North winds around 5 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent” (we leave the dock at 10- late morning)! Photographers in Greenpoint, Long Island City, and beyond- this is going to be hyperfocal MAGIC.
From workingharbor.com
he May 21st, Newtown Creek Cruise:
Explore Newtown Creek by Boat
Saturday, 21 May, 2011
Pier 17, South Street Seaport.
Departs 10 am sharp
Returns 1 pm
Price: $60
Join us for a special water tour with expert narration from historical and environmental guest speakers.
There are limited tickets available on the MV American Princess for a very rare tour of Newtown Creek. Guest narrators will cover points of industrial and historical interest as well as environmental and conservation issues during your three-hour exploration. New York’s forgotten history will be revealed – as well as bright plans for the creeks future.
MV American Princess is a large, comfortable vessel with indoor and outdoor seating. Complimentary soft drinks and a tour brochure are included.
Cruise runs rain or shine
Queries? Contact Tour Chairman Mitch Waxman: waxmanstudio@gmail.com
Hosted by Hidden Harbor Tours ® in association with the Newtown Creek Alliance.
DEP events at Newtown Creek Waste Water Treatment Plant
Everybody’s friends at the DEP have asked if I could share these invites to upcoming public events with you, Lords and Ladies of the Pentacle.
I’ll be busy on the 21st of course, but will make sure that everyone onboard waves when we’re passing by on the boat.
Lastly:
It is critical for you to purchase tickets for the Newtown Creek Cruise soon. We’re filling up rapidly and seating is limited. Your humble narrator is acting as chairman for this journey, and spectacular guest speakers are enlisted to be onboard. Click here to order tickets. Something I can promise you, given the heavy rain we’re having at the beginning of this week, is that the Newtown Creek will be especially photogenic on Saturday. Current forecasts call for light fog, possible early morning showers (we leave the dock at 10- late morning) and clouds clearing around noon! Photographers in Greenpoint, Long Island City, and beyond- this is going to be hyperfocal MAGIC.
From workingharbor.com
May 21st, Newtown Creek Cruise:
Explore Newtown Creek by Boat
Saturday, 21 May, 2011
Pier 17, South Street Seaport.
Departs 10 am sharp
Returns 1 pm
Price: $60
Join us for a special water tour with expert narration from historical and environmental guest speakers.
There are limited tickets available on the MV American Princess for a very rare tour of Newtown Creek. Guest narrators will cover points of industrial and historical interest as well as environmental and conservation issues during your three-hour exploration. New York’s forgotten history will be revealed – as well as bright plans for the creeks future.
MV American Princess is a large, comfortable vessel with indoor and outdoor seating. Complimentary soft drinks and a tour brochure are included.
Cruise runs rain or shine
Queries? Contact Tour Chairman Mitch Waxman: waxmanstudio@gmail.com
Hosted by Hidden Harbor Tours ® in association with the Newtown Creek Alliance.
enigmatic fragments
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This blog post is not about Osama Bin Laden or LeBron James, has little or nothing to say about Charlie Sheen or Hosni Mubarek, and it’s production has not been influenced in any way by fluctuations in the Producer Price Index or any other leading financial indicators. Additionally, it is not sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trust nor a grant from the Koch foundation.
Instead, the focus of this post is about a silted over, non navigable, and relict tributary of the Newtown Creek found fairly close to the dead bang geographic center of New York City called Maspeth Creek.
It is apparently a good place to get rid of an unwanted automobile or two,
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Your humble narrator seems to end up here a lot, as until just recently, it was one of the few places in Queens where one might witness the terrible grandeur of the Newtown Creek up close and personal with a minimum of hassle from private security or curious inquiries from the local gendarme. A large lot, overgrown with thorny plants, all stained with that peculiar colour- which is like something out of space- allowed some access to the place. Alas, the owner of the febrile lot seems to have found some new usage for it, and the fences have gone up.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the great problems associated with Newtown Creek, and an obstacle to the efforts being made by Newtown Creek Alliance and other groups to reveal the history and significance of the place to the vast new populations being installed in Greenpoint and Long Island City by certain Real Estate interests is the fact that the Creek is hidden in most places by anonymous warehouses and industrial sites not friendly to casual visitors. The point of view of the property owners is one of liability for injury, and they have entirely appropriate concerns. The Newtown Creek can be a dangerous place, with multi ton trucks and gargantuan machinery whizzing around on streets where few pedestrians or bicyclists are normally seen. Not far from this spot, your humble narrator found himself falling into a hole in the roadway (at the end of the winter) which was nearly a yard deep.
Those of you out there who wander the rail tracks, however, are being foolhardy. The threat to your very existence is manifest, and should you be prosecuted for trespass, mandatory sentencing applies.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Other area bloggers and several urban explorers have taken me to task over the years for my admonitions reminding readers of this, your Newtown Pentacle, to remain cautious and alert of their surroundings when exploring the creek lands. There are forces here, sinister and hidden, which like the Creek just the way it is and don’t appreciate strangers with cameras wandering through their back yards. Additionally, the purely physical hazards of high speed traffic (the issue of trucks moving through Maspeth and other residential neighborhoods is a long standing and somewhat intractable issue, I would suggest a visit to the folks at COMET for more on the situation) and broken road surfaces must be factored in around these parts.
Recently, I almost got Kevin Walsh of forgotten-ny killed on Metropolitan Avenue- which goes to show that even those well versed in navigating these streets can end up in an emergency room after visiting the area. Kevin is fine by the way, his scalp is back in one piece, he just can’t say any word in which the second letter is a “c” for awhile- although his physicians swear this is only temporary.
Lastly, a safe way to experience the Newtown Creek:
It is critical for you to purchase tickets for the Newtown Creek Cruise soon. We’re filling up rapidly and seating is limited. Your humble narrator is acting as chairman for this journey, and spectacular guest speakers are enlisted to be onboard. Click here to order tickets.
From workingharbor.com
he May 21st, Newtown Creek Cruise:
Explore Newtown Creek by Boat
Saturday, 21 May, 2011
Pier 17, South Street Seaport.
Departs 10 am sharp
Returns 1 pm
Price: $60
Join us for a special water tour with expert narration from historical and environmental guest speakers.
There are limited tickets available on the MV American Princess for a very rare tour of Newtown Creek. Guest narrators will cover points of industrial and historical interest as well as environmental and conservation issues during your three-hour exploration. New York’s forgotten history will be revealed – as well as bright plans for the creeks future.
MV American Princess is a large, comfortable vessel with indoor and outdoor seating. Complimentary soft drinks and a tour brochure are included.
Cruise runs rain or shine
Queries? Contact Tour Chairman Mitch Waxman: waxmanstudio@gmail.com
Hosted by Hidden Harbor Tours ® in association with the Newtown Creek Alliance.
sweet forgetfulness
– photo by Mitch Waxman
While wandering about the Newtown Creek, it is easy to lose faith that wholesomeness exists anywhere, and one’s thoughts turn toward the apocalyptic. Floating sewage, volatile organic chemicals, and sometimes even oil envenomate the water. Languid waves lick at and nourish shorelines whose concretized holdings of mud and soil are deeply riven with heavy metals and certain ashy residues which hint at a faded industrial grandeur, and the very air you breath is a poisonous fume.
Yet, somehow, against every possible chance, nature endures in this place.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One of the mythologies about the Newtown Creek is that it is some sort of dead zone, destroyed and irrevocably altered by man.
While some of this is true, Dutch Kills for instance used to run all the way to Queens Plaza (ever notice the smell down in the subway station? That’s Dutch Kills, which still follows it’s ancient course through brick lined subterranean sewers, and oozes through the masonry walls of the subway. I know the specific smell of Dutch Kills, and the odor in the station is definitely it) and Maspeth Creek flowed halfway to Flushing when the Dutch found it.
The thing is, while the bird in these shots is beautiful, most of the life found in the Newtown Creek is not as esthetically pleasing.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just the other day, a stalwart member of the Long Island City Boathouse described observing oyster colonies, obviously rendered unfit for consumption by the endemic pollution of the waterway, growing wild in English Kills. I’ve personally observed Eel fry as far back as Maspeth Creek, several higher species of the icthyan order, jellyfish. The radical LaGuardia Community College biologist Dr. Sarah Durand is in the process of collecting evidences of zooplankton and other invertebrate populations in the water column. There’s also a Heron which is known to reveal it’s wisdom, close to the Grand Street Bridge, to those wise enough to ask it the right questions.
Who can guess all there is, that might be hidden down there?
certain forms of sleep
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Apologies are offered for the recent paucity of substantial postings offered, but there’s been a great deal of work to do of late, and seismic events are in the offing.
To begin with:
On Monday, members of the Newtown Creek Alliance (including that scuttling champion of the unadorned, your humble narrator) will be gathering at the titan LaGuardia Community College building M.
Scheduled to squirm beneath the hot lights and public attention, even a conservative gambler would accept a wager presaging that I won’t embarrass or somehow humiliate myself. Such foibles, of course, are intensely humorous to observers- but I’m distantly related to the Howard family of Three Stooges fame so that comes natural I guess.
from riverkeeper.org
Revitalizing the Waterways and Waterfronts 10:30 – 11:30 a.m. This panel will exam strategies to improve the city’s water quality and to reclaim the waterfront along Newtown Creek, which has historically been off limits to the community and its residents.
Panelists: Kate Zidar, SWIM coalition; Jim Pynn, DEP Newtwon Creek WPCP; Erik Baard, Founder, Long Island City Community Boathouse and Newtown Pippin Restoration and Celebration
Environmental Politics and Sustainability 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. This panel will discuss community-based struggles to address the unequal distribution of environmental burdens and benefits in and around Newtown Creek
Panelists: Mike Heimbinder, Founder and Executive Director of HabitatMap; Laura Hoffman, Greenpoint environment activist and Newtown Creek advocate; Phillip Musegaas, Hudson River Program Director, Riverkeeper
Newtown Creek Futures 1:00 – 2 p.m. This panel will address the process by which citizen activists, community groups, students and educators are working to transform this toxic waterway into an ecological treasure.
Panelists: Dr. Sarah Durand, Natural Science Department, LaGuardia Community College; Noah Kaufman, Long Island City Roots; Mitch Waxman, local historian and author of Newtown Creek for the Vulgarly Curious.
Monday, May 9th 10:30 a.m. – 2:00p.m. The Little Theater. The event is free and open to the public. Bring your classes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Secondly:
Conspiring with the fiendish intelligence that calls itself Kevin Walsh, certain documents have been and are being produced by your humble narrator which expound upon and support the ground breaking series of walking tours he has conducted in and around New York City since June of 1999. Walsh’s massed acolytes, of late, receive these printed missives within which he transmits and records his wisdom.
Years of Madison Avenue advertising industry drudgery, endless computer training, and a concurrent desktop publishing expertise all allow me the ability to assist that pale enthusiast by first photographing the far flung and esoteric locations specified, and then to quickly produce a quality travelogue. Necessity however, demands that one must travel the great city in the manor of a nipping dog, gathering photographs and lore at the master’s heels and attempting to keep step with his vital pace. Last Friday, for instance, I was in the Bronx.
The next Forgotten-NY “Second Saturday” tour is in Staten Island, on May 14th, 2001.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Lastly:
It is critical for you to purchase tickets for the Newtown Creek Cruise soon. We’re filling up rapidly and seating is limited. Your humble narrator is acting as chairman for this journey, and spectacular guest speakers are enlisted to be onboard. Click here to order tickets.
From workingharbor.com
he May 21st, Newtown Creek Cruise:
Explore Newtown Creek by Boat
Saturday, 21 May, 2011
Pier 17, South Street Seaport.
Departs 10 am sharp
Returns 1 pm
Price: $60
Join us for a special water tour with expert narration from historical and environmental guest speakers.
There are limited tickets available on the MV American Princess for a very rare tour of Newtown Creek. Guest narrators will cover points of industrial and historical interest as well as environmental and conservation issues during your three-hour exploration. New York’s forgotten history will be revealed – as well as bright plans for the creeks future.
MV American Princess is a large, comfortable vessel with indoor and outdoor seating. Complimentary soft drinks and a tour brochure are included.
Cruise runs rain or shine
Queries? Contact Tour Chairman Mitch Waxman: waxmanstudio@gmail.com
Hosted by Hidden Harbor Tours ® in association with the Newtown Creek Alliance.
The Newtown Pentacle 