Posts Tagged ‘Smith 9th street station’
unsigned letter
It’s National Drive-Thru Day, in these United States.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ain’t nothing like a heat wave in NYC, huh? Regardless of tropical clime, nor distances involved, a humble narrator nevertheless surged forward into the wilds of Long Island’s western tip recently to gather photographs and experience the truculent realities of our time.
One left Point A in Astoria via the usual means, onboard the so called “R” or Broadway Local Line .
from wikipedia
The R Broadway Local is a rapid transit service in the B Division of the New York City Subway. Its route emblem, or “bullet”, is colored yellow since it uses the BMT Broadway Line in Manhattan.
The R operates local between 71st Avenue in Forest Hills, Queens and 95th Street in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn at all times except nights when it short turns at Whitehall Street–South Ferry in Lower Manhattan from Brooklyn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ultimately, one sought to gain access to the Crosstown or “G” line, which the MTA folks annoyingly force one to enact two transfers to get to from Point A, despite the platform’s location less than a mile and a half from my starting point (and the fact that the G used to run through the same station which I caught the R at). Accordingly, at the sweltering bunker of dripping masonry which the MTA designates as “Queens Plaza,” one debarked the R and vouchsafed a single station ride upon the “E” – or Eighth Avenue Local Line – to the Court Square station where yet another transfer was enacted to access the G.
Urine, it smelled deeply of urine, at the Court Square station.
from wikipedia
The E Eighth Avenue Local is a rapid transit service in the B Division of the New York City Subway. Its route emblem, or “bullet”, is blue since it uses the IND Eighth Avenue Line in Manhattan.
The E operates at all times between Jamaica Center–Parsons/Archer in Jamaica, Queens, and Chambers Street–World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, running express on the IND Queens Boulevard Line in Queens (except nights when it serves all stops) and local in Manhattan. E trains also serve two local stops in eastern Queens (75th Avenue and Briarwood) on evenings and weekends.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My penultimate destination, on this particularly warm evening, was Sunset Park – which adjoins the legend choked streets of the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. One does realize, of course, that the R could have taken me all the way to this area which is called “Sunset Park,” but that would have multiplied my travel time due to a circuitous route which transverses all of Manhattan and a good chunk of Brooklyn.
The G discharged a humble narrator, vomiting me forth onto the platforms at the sky flung Smith/9th street station, high over the loathsome and shadow haunted Gowanus Canal. The Gowanus Canal smells of urine (and other things) as well, of course.
from wikipedia
The G Crosstown Local is an 11.4-mile-long (18.3 km) rapid transit service in the B Division of the New York City Subway. Its route emblem, or “bullet”, is colored light green since it uses the IND Crosstown Line.
The G operates at all times between Court Square in Long Island City, Queens and Church Avenue in Kensington, Brooklyn via the IND Crosstown and Culver lines. In Queens, it only serves two stations – Court Square and 21st Street, both in Long Island City – but previously served all stations to and from 71st Avenue in Forest Hills on the IND Queens Boulevard Line.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My plan was to pass through the “House of Moses” and under the Gowanus Expressway section of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, exploiting the shaded path which is offered by this elevated roadway, and head south towards Sunset Park. It should be mentioned, incidentally, that this is perhaps the least pedestrian friendly area in all of Brooklyn. Brobigdagnian trucks whiz about at high speed, angry motorists lurch their vehicles to and fro in frustrated bursts, and the pavement is both shadowed by the expressway above and in a delitorious state of repair.
Also, there’s vampires hiding in the rafters of the Gowanus Expressway.
from nycroads.com
The Gowanus Expressway, which serves as the southern extension of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, also connects the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel approach, the Prospect Expressway (NY 27), the Belt Parkway and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Although guide signs and maps refer to this segment of I-278 as the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, it is known locally as the Gowanus Expressway.
Beginning in 1939, Robert Moses oversaw construction of the Gowanus Parkway, an elevated highway placed on top of the pillars of the old 3rd Avenue BMT Elevated Line through the Sunset Park and Gowanus sections of Brooklyn. It would eventually become part of a limited-access parkway loop encircling four of the five boroughs. Since the Gowanus Parkway was to be constructed atop a pre-existing elevated facility, Moses had little trouble getting his project approved by the New York City Council.
However, the Gowanus Parkway would require more land for a wide roadway and entrance-exit ramps. This required the demolition of many homes and businesses along Third Avenue, a tightly knit block of Northern and Western European immigrants.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
There are charming sights to be found along the Gowanus Canal, I should mention, lest you think I’m prejudiced against the “Superfund Sister to the South” of my beloved Newtown Creek. Abundant waste transfer and oil distribution facilities, endemic pollution, lakes of unknown chemical constitution lurking just below the streets, untreated sewage oozing out of unmarked pipes? These are all the things I love.
One has never understood the appeal of “going to the country” and vacationing amongst the rural yokels. Camping? Are you insane? I’ve got a dry bed and a door that locks here in NYC, where I get to witness a looming infrastructure crisis and unfolding environmental apocalypse whenever I want to.
from wikipedia
The Gowanus Canal is a canal in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, on the westernmost portion of Long Island. Connected to Gowanus Bay in Upper New York Bay, the canal borders the neighborhoods of Red Hook, Carroll Gardens, and Gowanus, all within South Brooklyn, to the west; Park Slope to the east; Boerum Hill and Cobble Hill to the north; and Sunset Park to the south. It is 1.8 miles (2.9 km) long. There are seven bridges over the canal, carrying Union Street, Carroll Street (a landmark), Third Street, Ninth Street, Hamilton Avenue, the Gowanus Expressway, and the IND Culver Line of the New York City Subway.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
That’s part of the Gowanus Canal, pictured above, as shot from the Hamilton Avenue Bridge and looking back north towards the Smith/9th street station which the G line disgorged me into. Used as I am to the wild expanses and geographic extent of Newtown Creek, my thoughts always turn to compactness when I’m at the Gowanus. Thing is, just like Newtown Creek and its tributaries – two of which the Gowanus would tuck neatly into – the canal interacts with ground water and flows beneath the streets via its connections with the sewer system. Just like Newtown Creek, many of the sewers connected to the Gowanus are in fact former tributary waterways which were converted and buried at the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries. Who can guess, all there is, that might be buried down there?
Additionally, both Gowanus Canal and Newtown Creek sport maritime industrial bulkheads along most of their length which are little more than artifacts of the Second Industrial Age, in our modern day NYC.
from nyc.gov
The Hamilton Avenue Bridge is a bascule bridge with two parallel leafs, one carrying the northbound roadway and the other carrying the southbound roadway. Most of the length of Hamilton Avenue runs below the elevated portion of the Gowanus Expressway, including the bridge. The bridge connects Smith Street and Second Avenue over the Gowanus Canal and is the first canal crossing north of the Gowanus Bay.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Regardless of musings about the wasted space, lack of public access, and utter degradation of the air, water, and soil – one had somewhere to be, and a little bit of walking was required to get there. A humble narrator put his head down, leaned into a southerly declination, and scuttled off into the clouds of auto exhaust mixing with the humid air.
The Gowanus Expressway dwelling Vampires be damned, I needed to get to Sunset Park.
from wikipedia
A vampire is a being from folklore that subsists by feeding on the life essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires were undead beings that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods they inhabited when they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today’s gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 19th century.
Vampiric entities have been recorded in most cultures; the term vampire, previously an arcane subject, was popularised in the West in the early 19th century, after an influx of vampire superstition into Western Europe from areas where vampire legends were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern Europe; local variants were also known by different names, such as shtriga in Albania, vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania. This increased level of vampire superstition in Europe led to mass hysteria and in some cases resulted in corpses being staked and people being accused of vampirism.
Upcoming Tours and events
The Insalubrious Valley of the Newtown Creek Walking Tour, with Newtown Creek Alliance – Saturday August 5th, 11 a.m. – 1;30 p.m.
Century old movable bridges, the remains of a 19th century highway between Brooklyn and Queens, and explore two of the lesser known tributaries of the troubled Newtown Creek watershed. For the vulgarly curious, Conrad Wissell’s Dead Animal and Night Soil wharf will be seen and described, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
Brooklyn Waterfront Boat Tour, with Working Harbor Committee – Saturday August 12th, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Explore the coastline of Brooklyn from Newtown Creek to Sunset Park, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman, Andrew Gustafson of Turnstile Tours, and Gordon Cooper of Working Harbor Committee on the narrating about Brooklyn’s industrial past and rapidly changing present. – details here.
The Poison Cauldron of the Newtown Creek Walking Tour, with Newtown Creek Alliance – Sunday August 13th, 11 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Explore the hellish waste transfer and petroleum districts of North Brooklyn on this daring walk towards the doomed Kosciuszko Bridge, with NCA Historian Mitch Waxman – details here.
Two Newtown Creek Boat Tours, with Newtown Creek Alliance and Open House NY – Wednesday August 16th, 5 p.m. and 7 p.m.
The neighborhoods surrounding Newtown Creek are home to the densest collection of these garbage facilities anywhere in the city and collectively, the waste transfer stations around and along Newtown Creek handle almost 40% of the waste that moves through New York. Join Newtown Creek Alliance’s Mitch Waxman and Willis Elkins to learn about the ongoing efforts to address the environmental burden that this “clustering” has caused. – details here.
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out into
The Ninth Street Bridge, over the Gowanus Canal, in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Yesterday, the Hamilton Avenue drawbridge which provides entry to and from the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn was described. Last Sunday, a humble narrator found his way on to an Open House NY boat trip to the troubled waterway, which penetrated as far back as the Fifth Street Basin.
from nyc.gov
This lift bridge replaced a bascule span that was in an advanced state of deterioration. The current structure provides an improved wider channel in the canal for unobstructed vessel passage. The bridge has state-of-the-art, electronically-controlled lifting machinery that should provide 50 years of reliable service. The bridge carries 3 lanes of traffic; 2 lanes westbound and 1 eastbound.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Special attention was paid to the opening and closing of the two drawbridges encountered. There are five movable bridges over the Gowanus, as well as two static ones.
There’s actually two bridges in these shots, as the Ninth Street Bridge is overflown by the Smith 9th Street Subway station viaduct.
from wikipedia
The opaqueness of the Gowanus water obstructs sunlight to one third of the six feet needed for aquatic plant growth. Rising gas bubbles betray the decomposition of sewage sludge that on a warm, sultry day produces the canal’s notable ripe stench. The murky depths of the canal conceal the remnants of its industrial past: cement, oil, mercury, lead, multiple volatile organic compounds,[10] PCBs, coal tar, and other contaminants. A 2007 Science Line report found gonorrhea and unidentified organisms in the canal. In 1951, with the opening of the elevated Gowanus Expressway over the waterway, easy access for trucks and cars catalyzed industry slightly, but with 150,000 vehicles passing overhead each day, the expressway also deposits tons of toxic emissions into the air and water beneath.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The Ninth Street span is a lift bridge, which replaced a failing drawbridge that occupied this spot for decades. The construction of all this gear was pretty recent.
from schiavoneconstruction.com
Reconstruction included demolition, removal and disposal of existing rolling leaf bascule bridge superstructure, machinery and controls, piers and abutments. Construction of new lift bridge included superstructure, machinery, control house, fender system, piers and abutments. Twenty stepped diameter caissons were installed to rock depths of up to 180 feet. All work had to be performed beneath existing NYCT elevated structure requiring temporary support of existing columns.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It was pretty exciting seeing the roadway just take off and start rising. The operation was nowhere near as noisy as I would have thought, but then again, I was on an idling ferry boat and the sounds of the nearby Gowanus Expressway really travel across this former floodplain.
from epa.gov
There are five east–west bridge crossings over the canal, at Union Street, Carroll Street, Third Street, Ninth Street, and Hamilton Avenue. The Gowanus Expressway and the Culver Line of the New York City Subway pass overhead. The canal is located in a mixed residential-commercial-industrial area, and it borders several residential neighborhoods, including Gowanus, Park Slope, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, and Red Hook. The waterfront properties abutting the canal are primarily commercial and industrial.
Environmental sampling performed before this RI revealed that the sediments throughout the Gowanus Canal are contaminated with a variety of pollutants, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and heavy metals (USACE, 2004, 2006; GEI, 2007). No environmental remediation activities have been performed to date.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Self confessed and avowed as an infrastructure freak, seeing the cable mechanisms climbing the towers was actually kind of thrilling. This is the sort of thing you normally observe from the landward side.
from wikipedia
A vertical-lift bridge or lift bridge is a type of movable bridge in which a span rises vertically while remaining parallel with the deck.
The vertical lift offers several benefits over other movable bridges such as the bascule and swing-span bridge. Generally speaking they cost less to build for longer moveable spans. The counterweights in a vertical lift are only required to be equal to the weight of the deck, whereas bascule bridge counterweights must weigh several times as much as the span being lifted. As a result, heavier materials can be used in the deck, and so this type of bridge is especially suited for heavy railroad use.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Brooklyn kid that I once was, one has imagined it would be great fun to ride the roadway of one of these lift bridges as it ascended. Turns out that would be foolhardy in the extreme, as the actual tonnages and pressures being levered around are positively cyclopean and could easily squish a man flat.
Last year, in East Boston, one of these lift bridges actually ate somebody.
from nydailynews.com
Police say the woman was crossing the Meridian Street Bridge, which spans East Boston and Chelsea, at about 12:21 p.m. Tuesday. As she started across, the lift operator opened the bridge so a boat could pass beneath the span, the Boston Globe reported.
The movement jolted the unidentified woman off her feet, leaving her hanging from one open end of the bridge, cops say. The woman began screaming for help and the operator, cops say, closed the span in response. Instead of helping, the woman was crushed to death between the massive steel plates.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For some reason, the NYC DOT is rather vague about certain things.
Once upon a time, they’d brag to anybody that would listen about how many thousands of times a drawbridge opened or closed, citing the smooth exchange of maritime and vehicular traffic streams as a proof of public monies being well invested. These days, they proudly proclaim automotive traffic numbers, as in this 2010 report which describes the Ninth Street Lift Bridge as having allowed some 13,362 toll free automotive crossings.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
May of 1910 saw a true conflagration right around here. A 4 alarm fire erupted at the Cranford Company, immolating oil and gasoline tanks, which drew the attentions of both terrestrial and maritime firefighter. Check out the NY Times piece below for all the sordid details. The losses are described as $150,000, which would be around $3,695,387.30 today.
from at nytimes.com
Firemen from engine companies responding to four alarms and the members of three fireboat companies last night fought a blaze which completely destroyed the building of the Cranford Company, contractors in asphalt and tar work, at Ninth Street and the Gowanus Canal, Brooklyn.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As far as I’ve been able to dope out, the spot that this Ninth Street Bridge occupies is in the vicinity of where the colonial era “Cole’s Mill” was located. A mill and mill pond supposedly built by John Rapelye and an army of slaves out of the aboriginal marshlands, it then came into the possession of a fellow named Jordan Cole – hence “Cole’s Mill.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
More recently, roughly a century ago, we’d be enjoying a nice view of the Tartar Chemical Company’s works.
Tartar is something that most modern people would associate with a sauce used on fried fish, but it was one of the wonder chemicals of the 19th century. Essentially, the Tartar Chemical works were an acid factory.
from 1909’s “Contributions From The Sanitary Research Laboratory And Sewage Experiment Station,” courtesy google books
The upper part of the canal is badly polluted by sewage. At the lower end the pollution is largely industrial wastes mixed with more or less sewage.
As a rule the amount of nitrogen present varies directly with the amount of sewage. The other constituents of sewage vary with the nitrogen. Therefore when the nitrogen is greatly increased without a corresponding increase in the other sewage substances it is an indication of industrial wastes. This is exactly what happens in that portion of the canal opposite the Tartar Chemical Company. On talking with one of their employees, we learned that crude argol is digested with sulphuric acid, and that the waste product is an acid sludge running high in sulphates and nitrogen.
In the first series below, Ninth Street the oxygen consumed curve went up rapidly. In the second series the curve had a downward tendency. The starch factory, not running on Sunday, had no waste to discharge at that time. The abnormal values for the oxygen consumed are probably due to gluten in the wastes discharged by the starch factory.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Three out of five down. Guess that we’re heading over to Third Street, on foot this time, in tomorrow’s post.
from wikipedia
Tartaric acid and its derivatives have a plethora of uses in the field of pharmaceuticals. For example, tartaric acid has been used in the production of effervescent salts, in combination with citric acid, in order to improve the taste of oral medications. The potassium antimonyl derivative of the acid known as tartar emetic is included, in small doses, in cough syrup as an expectorant.
Tartaric acid also has several applications for industrial use. The acid has been observed to chelate metal ions such as calcium and magnesium. Therefore, the acid has served in the farming and metal industries as a chelating agent for complexing micronutrients in soil fertilizer and for cleaning metal surfaces consisting of aluminum, copper, iron, and alloys of these metals, respectively.
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There’s a Newtown Creek walking tour, and a Magic Lantern show, coming up.
Saturday, June 7th, 13 Steps around Dutch Kills with Atlas Obscura.
Click here for tickets and more info.
Wednesday, June 11th, Newtown Creek Magic Lantern Show with Brooklyn Brainery.
Click here for tickets and more info.
The Newtown Pentacle 