Newtown Creek Metro Biofuels 4

LIC's Taste of Brazil

I couldn't help but notice Long Island City's "mystery condo" (now known as "L Haus," pronounced "Hell House") from a mile away.  It shrieks for attention.

Nearly everything else -- including the Manhattan skyline featuring Donald Trump's Big Black Thing and Citibank HQ (flanking the building, below left) -- is a wallflower compared to this building.  Only the powerful accumulation of junk that is Newtown Creek (below right) can compete.

It looks like a fat parrot, and turns the LIC skyline (on top) into something straight out of Brazil -- in fact brighter than the Brazilian flag.  Let's hope the developer runs out of money before the parrot plumage is hidden under drab condo cladding and the building becomes just another "suit," another turkey.

Newtown Creek Wastewater Plant 1

I've put together a collection of my photos of new construction at Greenpoint's Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant over the past year.

One reason I like the plant is obvious: it's stunning, especially for something so useful.  I see it as an ideal example of public art, that turns urban plumbing into monumental sculpture.

These photos were taken at different stages of construction, which is still in progress.  I'm posting them in groups, by the side of the plant I took them from.

From the Pulaski Bridge, north of the plant:


From the Greenpoint Ave. Bridge, east of the plant:

Headwaters of Newtown Creek

Not quite a trek to the source of the Nile -- Newtown Creek has no real freshwater source (odious details at waterwire.net) -- but I did hike out near the creek's stagnant dead ends.

The area -- in between Williamsburg, Bushwick and Maspeth -- is a faded industrial Nowhere now home to yards full of buses, trucks and equipment.  The creek zigzags right through it and, in spite of some marine activity (tugs still push barges to a tanker truck depot far up the creek), compounds the impression of a torn landscape.


Above, a Google map and satellite image of the area; the photos below were taken near the spots marked 1 and 2.  (Note coffee tree also seen near 1.)

Near map mark 1: to the left, a mysterious, empty cage -- big enough for whatever Swamp Thing the creek produces -- and the stylish bridge house above it.  Just below, an oil depot across from a Waste Management plant; the creek continues past the barge toward its leftmost dead end on the map.




Near map mark 2: above left, the work crew let me walk across the closed Grand Street Bridge and, sure enough, offered to sell it to me; on the right, what Nowhere looks like.  Below left, the kind of cranes you see on this creek.  Note how the buses below right show up in the satellite photo up top.


Bonus multimedia below: note pained, resigned face in landscape I've outlined on the left, and that Google Maps Street View, pictured on the right, manages to make the area look even worse than I have.

I See Signs 1

Right: I'd like to ask the Rabbi: Was it just chance that landed your purple ad in the middle of all that yellow?

(Re complementary colors;  sign seen on Delancey.)



What's wrong with Tycoon Island (formerly NYC), above left: "Live like a Rockefeller, party like a rockstar." (2nd Ave near 2nd St)

On the bright side, that lifestyle will deliver them to the business across the street from the sign, above right.  Nothing like a dead clock, window plants, and lights left on to make a funeral parlor homey.  (Radio ad tagline: "At Provenzano Lanza, we leave the lights on!")

Above left: The Gaseteria sign, perfectly placed near the mouth of high octane Newtown Creek.  Above right, a star filled "night regulation" sign I found sleeping on the sidewalk in Greenpoint.

And finally, below, on 58th St. in Maspeth, the most "architecturally organic" sign I've seen in a while.  Leave it to "New York's Tidiest" to bring us the last word in clean, modern style.