We left East 96th Street at 10:10 AM on October 5 in the two East River Crew gigs, the 8+ and the St David. With a strong ebb running, we rowed north of Mill Rock Island to ensure an easy crossing to Queens and the East Channel of Roosevelt Island, which is generally mellower and less trafficked that the West Channel. It was a pleasant row/drift south past the southern tip of Roosevelt Island, where a field of canvas tents had been pitched as part of an art project, and on to Hunters Point, another fantastic and still undeveloped green space with beautiful high bluffs and a couple of landable coves.
By 11:30 we were at the mouth of Newtown Creek. It was a short pull up under the Pulaski Bridge to Whale Creek, a little bulkheaded inlet on the Brooklyn side that is home to the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, the city’s largest and the last to be upgraded to meet Federal standards. The scale of the structures is impressive—in particular, the six colossal ‘digesters’ that lord over Greenpoint like a crate of cosmic eggs. So far, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection has spent $3.7 billion on the facility, with ten years of construction still to go.
As we rowed up we were greeted by Laura and Mike Hoffman, two members of a citizen oversight group—the Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee—that’s stayed on the DEP’s case over the years. They were standing not on the bleak seawall we expected, but at the top of a 100-foot-wide set of granite slab steps that led up out of the creek like some sort of Roman water temple. The steps, and the willows and locusts planted behind them, are part of the recently-inaugurated Newtown Creek Nature Walk, a narrow corridor, half park and half sculpture garden, that wraps around and through the 53-acre treatment plant, and will eventually bisect it completely. The design is ingenious, but for me the crucial thing is that it offers the first and still the only public access point on Newtown Creek.
Over lunch, we watched a crane lower flattened cars into a barge on the Queens side of the creek. Two other Newtown Creek activists, Christine Holowacz and Bill Schuck, joined us and filled us in on the history of the area’s waterways, the creation of the Nature Walk—it was designed by environmental sculptor George Trakas and paid for by the city’s “one percent for art” program—and the prospects for a tour of the wastewater treatment plant itself (“No problem, if you’re willing to wait until 2017”).
If you haven’t yet checked out the Nature Walk, you should--preferably by small boat. Kayakers can land directly on the ‘grand staircase,’ while rowing gigs and larger craft can tie off to the bollards around the corner, then climb up the bulkhead on the many well-designed ladders (which should, by the way, be a standard feature of every new waterfront development in the city, public or private). About the only drawback is the lack of a bathroom or portable toilet—ironic, considering that the treatment plant a few feet away can handle 310 million gallons of sewage a day.
We departed Newtown Creek about 2:15 and had a swift trip back to Hell Gate, crossing from the northern tip of Roosevelt Island to Mill Rock Island in three or four minutes. There’s a little cove on the north side of Mill Rock Island that’s the perfect size for a couple of gigs to slip into. We did, and discovered among other things a dartboard, a Sponge Bob Square Pants ball, numerous piles of bird bones, a few Monarch butterflies, and a rat. We were back on the davit at 96th Street by 3:30, and had the boats cleaned and in the container on the other side of the FDR by 4.
newtown creek
96th Street davit, looking north
heading north of mill rock
in the back eddy off randall’s
south into the current
the gate, on a mellow day
rafted up south of halletts cove
hunters point: landable beach on the right
around the point
how about NOT covering this thing with condos?
entering newtown creek
unnamed city park, soon to be access point #2
under the pulaski bridge
at the water temple
flat cars: the view from the nature walk
glass
entering whale creek
bill shuck rowed there, too!
for now, the only shade
kate wins the fashion award
the slab steps: bring your crampons
laura, bill & christine, and view of the old watershed
picnic table on whale creek
good docking for the gigs
wastewater hq by gwathmey siegel
the fleet departs
back under the bridge...
...and out into the east river
queens west: it just keeps on comin’
northbound
racing stripe
indian summer
hell gate roilage (mild)
the cove on mill rock island
tossing oars
view southwest across hell gate
view northeast up the harlem
another tidal voyager
leaving mill rock
dayyan on the davit
samson living up to name
mary nell signs us out
