Greenpoint
Cafe Cito Bogota
Greenpoint Photo Du Jour: No Wading, Please
This public service announcement comes from the Newtown Creek Nature Walk. You can more snaps from my recent trip to Greenpoint’s most (in)famous park by clicking here.
Miss Heather
Citypoint Photos Du Jour: From Newtown Creek With Love
From north Brooklyn’s (or southwestern Queens’s) Seine.
When I look westward to Manhattan I do not see a pretty skyline. Rather, I envision an infinite number of bowel movements, vomit and detritus that will soon find their way two blocks from my home.
Stand up and be counted, Greenpoint, for the shit you are about to receive!
Nobel prize winners, diplomats— PRESIDENTS— and Joey Arak* have graced my neighborhood with the by-products of their respective genius. Maybe I’ll pick up a fraction of their gifts via schnozmosis? I can only hope so. It’s been especially stanktastic of late.
The bigger the stench = the bigger the brain?
Miss Heather
*This is not necessarily sarcasm.
The Waterpod Cometh
This item comes courtesy of Laura Hofmann of GWAPP. What is the Waterpod, you ask? Here’s a description from its brand-spanking new web site:
Waterpodâ„¢ is a floating sculptural living structure designed as a new habitat for the global warming epoch. It is currently scheduled to launch in New York in May, 2009, from the Newtown Creek between Brooklyn and Queens, navigate down the East River, explore the waters of New York Harbor, and stopping at each of the five boroughs it will dock at several Manhattan piers on the Hudson River, then beyond.
As a sustainable, navigable living space, Waterpodâ„¢ showcases the critical importance of the environment and serves as a model for new living technologies. It illustrates positive interactions between communities: private and corporate; artistic and social; aquatic and terrestrial. Built from recycled and found materials, Waterpodâ„¢ is structured as a triple-domed island for: (i) community and artistic activity; (ii) eco-initiatives including food grown with purified water from the Hudson River; and (iii) living space…
You can read the rest by clicking here. Those of you who have ever wanted to live on Newtown Creek* (and you know who you are) this might be your golden opportunity!
Miss Heather
*albeit briefly
Image Credit: thewaterpod.org
Greenpoint Photo Du Jour: Ice
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic
From the Greenpoint Manufacturing & Design Center.
Miss Heather
Best. Christmas. Card. Ever.
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic
As it would happen I bumped into my buddies Mike And Laura during last week’s snowstorm. Just like myself, once they saw the snow they immediately thought of our very own waste treatment facility. However, they were more adventurous (or impervious to hypothermia) than I. Upon noticing the first hint of the white stuff our power couple (or double trouble) proceeded to Greenpoint’s nature walk without delay to capture the wonderland that is our newest park.
I got a nice picture of some yellow snow for you.
Laura said. This choice morsel has yet to find its way to my inbox. But the following, what is perhaps the finest Christmas e-card I have ever seen, has. I loved it so much I simply had to share with you. Enjoy!
Is it me or does that reindeer bear more than a passing resemblance to Mr. Hankey the Christmas turd?
Miss Heather
From My Friend Crappy
One subject of conversation at the junk shop I am rapidly tiring of is the subject of female drivers. Larry da Junkman and Steve are of the impression north Brooklyn’s women drivers are among the worst to be found anywhere. I, being the good little feminist I am, emphatically disagree: all north Brooklyn drivers, regardless of gender, are pretty damned bad. On any given day —at the bat of an eyelash —a pedestrian’s or G train commuter’s life crossing a street can become an outtake from Death Race 2000. I myself have beheld the result of the Greenpoint driver. It isn’t pretty. But back to gender politics and an item my buddy over at Queens Crap recently brought to my attention.
If women drivers are so bad here why are both the motorists who have managed to drive into Newtown Creek male. Yes, I just said “both”. It happened again last month folks, but this time the driver was able to walked/swam away from the incident. Literally. On November 27, 2008 Times News Daily writes:
Police said that 21-year-old Brian Espinal of South Third Street in Williamsburg was taken into custody on reckless endangerment charges after he returned to the scene of the accident while emergency personnel scoured the creek for possible victims.
Authorities later determined that Espinal was alone inside his vehicle at the time of the accident.
Law enforcement sources said the accident occurred at around 6:40 a.m. Sunday morning along Metropolitan Avenue near Scott Avenue.
Reportedly, Espinal was behind the wheel of a 1997 Toyota Camry traveling eastbound along Metropolitan Avenue.
According to information obtained by police, the suspect was observed allegedly traveling at a high rate of speed, crossing over the double-yellow line and dodging oncoming traffic.
Moments later, law enforcement sources said, the suspect’s vehicle lost control and crashed into the guardrail before splashing into the Newtown Creek.
Following the crash, police noted, the suspect exited his vehicle, waded back to the shore and made his way back onto the avenue on foot. Reportedly, he hailed a livery cab traveling on Metropolitan Avenue and fled from the scene…
You can read the story in its entirely by clicking here. Otherwise I would like to close with a couple thoughts:
- Can you imagine how bad that livery cab must have smelled after having Mr. Espinal as a fare?
- Are there any daring women out there who would like to (wo)man a four-wheel U-boat on a one-way journey into Newtown Creek in the the interest of gender equality?* If so you better get cracking: there’s only three weeks left of 2008!
Miss Heather
*This is satire.
Photo Credit: Times News Daily.
Night Smelling Committee
Filed under: 11101, 11222, 11354, Blissville, Blissville Queens, Greenpoint, Greenpoint Brooklyn, Greenpoint Magic, Long Island City, Long Island City Queens, Maspeth, Maspeth Queens, Newtown Creek
A weekly feature I have inaugurated of late (albeit irregularly to date) is featuring an odd, provocative and/or strangely relevant chunk ‘o’ Greenpoint history for all to savor.
To steal a phrase from my buddy Judy McGuire, Man, oh Manishevitz do I have a fun tale of “Oy vey” before the l’oi ill’splay to share today. Oil spill or otherwise, Newtown Creek stinks… even back in 1892, when the Mayor of Brooklyn came down to inspect the stench personally. The following article is from the August 27th, 1892 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. I have taken the liberty of condensing this VERY VERBOSE article and bold-facing my favorite passages. Enjoy!
SMELLS FOR THE MAYOR
Two Newton Creek Samples Were Quite Enough
His Honor’s Brief Trip Upon the Slimy Stream With the Health Commissioner, the Corporation Counsel, Alderman Fitzgibbon and a Committee of Citizens— Relief Promised.Mayor Boody had cold and rainy weather for his visit of inspection yesterday to the much complained of factories on the shores of Newton Creek. The citizens from the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Wards who accompanied him would have been much better pleased over a heavy and sultry day. The smells would then have been at their worst, so far as the daytime is concerned, for after all it is at night that the vileness of Newton Creek odors is most apparent and oppressive. As it was Mayor Boody in a very few minutes yesterday got quite enough of creek smells and was more than satisfied long before the committee of citizens was.
The mayor, accompanied by Health Commissioner Griffin and Corporation Counsel Jenks, was driven in a carriage to Chapman’s docks at the head of Grand Street. He was met there by the committees of eastern district citizens. The only other representative of the city govenment was Alderman Fitzgibbon, who accompanied the Seventeenth Ward delegation and whose home is within the district invaded by the noxious smells…
Alderman Fitzgibbon and other members of the party welcomed the mayor, health commissioner and the corporation counsel and escorted them to the steam propeller Mascot. It was raining smartly then and a stiff breeze was blowing, but the heavy, sickening odor from the neighboring fertilizing factories and from the filthy creek itself saluted Mayor Boody’s nostrils even before he left his carriage. Health Commissioner Griffin bore the smell like a veteran, but Corporation Counsel Jenkins looked unfeignedly sick from the start. The smell seemed a little worse than he had prepared himself to meet.
Through the slimy waters the boat coursed, while members of the committee sitting in the wheelhouse with the mayor told him they were sorry the tide was not low, for then the smell would be many times worse. Mayor Boody, intimated, with a laugh, that the situation as it was seemed sufficiently atrocious. A stop was made at Cord Meyer’s bone boiling establishment on Furman’s Island, only a hasty and superficial examination was made, but the smell was such that Mr. Jenks turned away in disgust and gasped for fresh air. The mayor tried hard to conscientiously sniff all the odors that were to be caught, but began toshow signs of not relishing the task. When the party re-embarked the boat steamed to Andrew Wissel & Co’s place, also on Furman’s Island. Wissel has the contract to remove offal from King’s County, and out of his unsavory stock he manufactures fertilizing preparations. Wissel’s son in law, a young man of pleasing manners and speech, tried hard to convince Mayor Boody that the atmosphere was not polluted, but the mayor’s nostrils were as wide open as his ears, and with a significant sniff and a still more more significant look he started off towards the boat.
A whole creek full of stench producing establishments remained, but Mayor Boody asked to be taken back to the Grand Street dock, where his carriage awaited him, “I have had enough of this,” he said. “I realize that you have a grievance and I want to live to help you.” “It is a crying shame.” said Corporation Counsel Jenks. The he stopped suddenly and listened without comment to members of the committee who explained that the odors which had sickened him were nightly pervading miles of Brooklyn thoroughfares and ruining the comfort and the health of thousands of people. The health commissioner had little to say, but both the mayor and corporation counsel freely promised to do what they could to abate the nuisance. “We will use all the power possible,” the mayor said in substance, “but it is your duty also to exert yourselves. A nuisance exists here and it is for you to prove it a nuisance. Everybody who suffers from this nuisance should be prepared to come downtown and testify against it. The trouble has been that when two or three citizens came down to testify that these smells were a nuisance the other side invariably presented a greater number of witnesses who were willing to swear that no nuisance existed.”
The mayor and his party were cheered by the delegations as they re-entered their carriage. Afterward some of the delegated sailed the length of Newton Creek and paid a brief visit to Rosenberg’s fat rendering and bone boiling establishment near Calvary Cemetary Bridge. At no time during the afternoon, however, was anything like a thorough examination of the alleged nuisances on the creek shore made.
In the evening an executive meeting Seventeenth Ward citizens was held at 101 Monitor Street. Henry T. Steinhaner presented a report of the mayor’s visit to the creek and also reported, with much detail, the result of several night trips which have recently been made by Seventeenth Ward citizens to Newton Creek factories. This report is not to be made public… the intention being to use it in the courts as evidence. Members of the night smelling committee say, however, that their experiences have been quite stirring at times, and that some day they will make interesting reading.
And they have! It is interesting (and a little depressing) to learn that even in 2007 nothing has really changed. Same shit, different century.
Miss Heather
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