Posts Tagged ‘ny harbor’
mournful mist
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few days before the storm, your humble narrator found himself bobbing around on the Newtown Creek onboard the Riverkeeper boat. While Captain John Lipscomb and his crew performed their function and fulfilled their patrol mission objectives, I was casting my lens around the waterway when I spotted this tug and barge. A fitting subject for another Maritime Sunday at this, your Newtown Pentacle, thought I.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The barge which the tug is handling is a “clean oil barge” which contains some 10,000 gallons of refined fuel. The tug is the Hubert Bays, an independent tug operated by Marine Environmental Transportation LLC.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Likely, the tug was headed for the Bayside depot on English Kills, which is the facility landlubbers will recognize as located on Metropolitan Avenue nearby its intersection with Grand Street at the crux or angle between Williamsburg and Bushwick.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Oddly, there wasn’t too much to be found detailing the specifics about Hubert Bays, which is kind of anomalous for a vessel operating in NY Harbor. It seems to be flagged in Austria, which is also kind of odd.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’m sure that the operators or crew of the tug will find this post when they google themselves. To these parties, I would ask, please fill us in on yourselves. That’s one fine looking tug and barge combination you’ve got, and a certain humble narrator hates mysteries.
shallow mud
Notice: the November 9th Magic Lantern Show with Atlas Obscura is cancelled for now. We hope to reschedule for sometime during the winter. Observatory, where the event is scheduled to take place, has been damaged by Hurricane Sandy and flooding.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hank the Elevator Guy and I next proceeded to the Grand Street Bridge in our survey of the Newtown Creek watershed, post Hurricane Sandy. Reports during the storm itself described the area as impassible, and knowing that the low lying areas around Metropolitan and Flushing Avenues are normally prone to flooding, it was with no small amount of trepidation that we approached DUGSBO.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On the Brooklyn side of the Grand Street Bridge, there was evidence of washouts and sedimentation from the banks, and a pile of rubble and even a wooden staircase was piled up against the fence which separates the street from the bulkheads of Newtown Creek’s East Branch.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Additionally, the fire hydrant at the foot of the bridge was painted with muck and mire, indicating that the water overflowing the banks rose to at least its height. This is startling, as it is close to 15 feet over the normal waterline. However, given the presence of the enormous CSO back on Metropolitan Avenue, it would reasonable to assume that the surge rose from two directions here, one traveling eastward along the Creek from the East River, and another rising from the multiple vaults underlying Metropolitan.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Clearly affected by the flooding, this low lying yard which houses a school bus company was hard at work. Most of the buses had their engine hoods open, and mechanics were seen tinkering with the machinery therein. Additionally, there were people inside the buses working with cloths and mops. Another one of the subjects which I’ll likely be called to task for in the future by political wonks and area wags, one only hopes that an enormous amount of bleach will be expended by these laborers, before children are allowed onto these buses when schools open next week.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It should be noted, and admitted to you lords and ladies, that your humble narrator is embroiled by controversy and derision these days. Unsought but uncomfortably accepted notoriety has brought no small amount of joy to me, but there is a dark side to this as well. My notably unpleasant personality and aberrant disobedience to social norms, it would seem, is best taken in small doses. Fair enough, one must always remain and function as an outsider, for this is where I belong.
dark moor
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As part of the survey of places around Newtown Creek impacted by Hurricane Sandy which your humble narrator knows that no one else cares about, mainly because they’re in Queens, and after leaving the Borden Avenue Bridge Hank the Elevator Guy and I drove over to the Dutch Kills turning Basin at 29th street. The smell here, a mix of raw sewage and petroleum, was overpowering. There was some street flooding, but this is fairly normal for 29th street. As mentioned, nobody cares as it’s Queens.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I wasn’t expecting to see much destruction back here, as the sea walls and bulkheads were set up in an earlier time of maritime industrial dominance and weren’t “built short” to accommodate kayaks or enhance the experience of park attendees. This is the end of Dutch Kills, by the way, and is a somewhat relict waterway with no maritime customers extant in the modern day. The terrestrial based industries all along Dutch Kills were busy pumping water and dragging soaked inventory out to dumpsters while I was there.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Accordingly, the large CSO’s at the end of the canal deposited a noticeably higher amount of flotsam and jetsam than normal, and the water was particularly foul. Again, this is a normal occurrence after any storm event. When Queens flushes a toilet during a thunderstorm, it’s contents end up here.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One wishes that it could be said that all of this garbage was deposited by the actions of flooding, but again- this is normal. The dumped materials definitely seemed to have been moved around a bit by high water, but in Queens illegal dumping is an art form and Dutch Kills is its Guggenheim.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The water was in horrible shape, that’s raw sewage you’re looking at, collecting at the bullheaded shore and behind the two sunken fuel barges which have been decaying back here as long as anyone can remember. From my vantage, I couldn’t see any of the petroleum slicks seen a few blocks away at Borden Avenue, but I could smell them.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Hank the Elevator Guy and I returned to his trusty truck, and we headed off for other spots to survey. Next up was Calvary and then Maspeth Creek, and finally English Kills. All three spots will be discussed and revealed over the next few days at this, your Newtown Pentacle.
Post Sandy
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My little dog and I sheltered in place during Sandy, and from the sound of what was going on, I’m more than glad we did. Our little section of Astoria seems to have survived the night- power, internet etc. still up and running. Checking in on the web this morning, one discovered that surrounding neighborhoods weren’t quite so lucky.
Mr. Jimmy Van Bramer, our City Councilman, has been running around the district and updating everyone on the situation via facebook and twitter as well as his own site- http://jimmyvanbramer.com. There seems to be a high number of fallen trees in Sunnyside.
Kate Zidar, who heads up Newtown Creek Alliance, has also been very active on twitter. She has been posting shots of the severe flooding which affected Greenpoint as the Newtown Creek breached its bulkheads. https://twitter.com/newtownCreek
The North Brooklyn Boat Club posted shots of the flooding which affected their outfit, check them out at this facebook album.
Newtown Creek Alliance’s Laura Hoffman also posted shots of the aftermath in Greenpoint, at this facebook album.
Finally, the folks at gothamist posted an album this morning, depicting the flooding along the creek.
I’ll be going out tomorrow morning, doing a long walk around the Creek and seeing what I can see. If anyone has anything in particular that they think I should check out, email me here.
Haven’t heard too much from the harbor people yet, but word has reached me that both the John J Harvey and Tug Pegasus survived the night. I don’t think that it is too early to say that life has changed for all of us, and that it’s a good idea to take extra precautions regarding what washed out of the rivers and the Creek in particular.
omnipresent slime
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This post is being written on Sunday the 28th of October, as a storm bears down upon the Megalopolis. Dire warnings and predictions of a somewhat Assyrian Apocalypse (water) are filling the airwaves, and here in Astoria a palpable sense of foreboding fills the air. My thoughts, of course, involve how my beloved Newtown Creek will fare. Zone A, the mandatory evacuation area as defined by the “powers that be”, includes a broad swath of the Creek. Mainly west of the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge, but points eastward can expect some disruption of normal tidal patterns as well. This is based on what I’ve read at NYC.gov though, I am holding no special “inside knowledge”.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s a question I often wonder about, would a storm surge actually manage to make it through the various right angle turns and engineered courses of the Creek? I suspect that part of the reason for these obstructions to “flow” were engineered into the bulkheads in the first place might have had something to do with such circumstance, but this is merely speculation. The unfortunate truth is that our friends in Greenpoint and Long Island City are likely going to have an unpleasant few days- at least. Let’s all hope that they make it through the storm with as little stress and trouble as possible.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A few emails reached me today asking what to do, listing the locations of the senders and inquiring as to whether the sender would be “safe” sheltering in place. Honestly, I am not the person to ask, and if the Mayor of New York City is telling you to get out of Dodge- you should take him at his word. Whatever you might have to say about Michael Bloomberg, no one can accuse him of being an alarmist given to wild flights of panic. Regarding North Brooklyn, one thing I can tell you categorically is that the reason that the Newtown Creek Waste Water Treatment Plant is located here is because it is located in the “bottom of the soup bowl”. This soup bowl is formed by the terminal Morraine of Long Island, the Palisades, and Staten Island. A significant amount of the water dumped on NY in the next 24 hours is headed here, regardless of any storm surge.
Everyone take care, batten down the hatches, and if anything crazy happens- react calmly and freak out afterwards. Presuming that power and Internet access are still available, I’ll be posting tomorrow at the usual time. If you still see this post on Tuesday, you’ll know that Astoria is off the grid. Don’t worry about me or my little dog, as we live on a hill.
Also- Upcoming Newtown Creek tours and events:
for more information on the November 9th Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show, click here
for an expanded description of the November 11th Newtown Creek tour, please click here
The Newtown Pentacle 