LIC: Newtown Creek A Superfund Site

Wouldn't that be good news since superfund sites get a buttload of money and attention for cleanup? Sounds like a win for all NYCers to me, given that the creek is less than a 1000ft from Manhattan.

If the creek flowed. It's like the Gowanus - does nothing but sit there, the site of a 20-year long oil spill that "nobody noticed."

How awful must a place be if they don't even notice an oil spill?

"an oil spill"!!!!!!

an?

I love it - more on LIC, our favorite place:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/25/nyregion/25backyard.html?src=mv&ref=nyregion

Looks like they have lots more than a Duane Reade now.

Quotation of the decade: "all those raised lycheetinis and microbrews push the emotional thermostat higher."

Lycheetinis alone are enough, I think.

A thought: Bedbug-teenies, or teenie-bedbugs.

An LIC staple.

The signature cocktail, the LIC bedbugtini, replaces the bitters with a dash of polychlorinated biphenyls. Serve in a reagent bottle with an ambulance chaser.

ah, go see the movie waiting for superman...were you one of the peeps in costume diverting attention at the opening?

No, I'm waiting for the novelization to come out. Or at least the sugary tie-in breakfast cereal.

a good flick, highly recomended. even if it means plunking down a ten spot. feel the earth a shakin....

hit me up on spellcheck again.

Luv the "Ambulance Chaser"!

LICC - thoughts? Comments? Witty retards - I mean "reposts" - about my dumpy 52nd Street rental, nowhere near the Love Canal South?

ah, but steve, if only people knew your 'hood the way I knew it

Memories........ light the corners of

Okay, to begin with, steve, you have that monstrosity in your 'hood which may have a name, but I always just called "the rail cut," an eyesore of a trench cut parallel to Tenth Avenue running between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, and abutting the backyards of the tenements lining Tenth Avenue. It is so ugly that it can't even attract attention of dogooders to make it into a tourist attraction like High Line. It's also still in use, I think, running trains north from Penn. It is so ugly that I used to like to stand on 48th Street at the overpass, or at other scenic vantage points and marvel at its sheer disgustingness, like those dumping grounds behind slums in the hills of northwest Mexico where all the villagers who have no running water dump their garbage and siphon their human refuse, or just deposit it.

Then there are the rats, which, although not QUITE as bold an territorial as the rats down in Collect Pond Park and Canal/Walker Streets, who walk right between the ankles of tourists (who don't see them, since they don't look at their feet), and hold Saturday Night socials in front of the various oourt buildings, still, are brazen enough to barge their way right into buildings via the back doors, to say nothing of the extensive Metropolitan Ratportation Authority honeycomb of tunnels.

The hustlers hanging out at the bar on 56th and Ninth are gone, as well as that crowd at the dance club/bar that used to occupy the tourists' steak restaurant across the street from Worldwide Plaza, but I'm sure you can find sex for hire within a few blocks of your apartment tower without too much trouble.

And let's not forget those charming relics of bygone New York years called the horse stables, over on Eleventh Avenue, which now store mobile food carts and might just as well have horse manure for flooring, as cleanly as they are.

If you haven't had your fill of the underbelly of The Way We Were, you can take a charitable walk over to the shelter for wayward boys where I used to throw away my old clothes, because they screamed to the rooftops that they took runaway teenage homeless male prostitutes, gave them a shower and some stitched-up castaway clothes from local dogooders like me and sent them out on job interviews.

Don't ask yourself what job interviews they went on.

I agree the ole neighborhood looks nothing like those good old days of the '70s and '80s when people were mugged in broad daylight in front of their own tenement homes, or when the older 65-year-old Italian couple were knifed to death walking home to their walkup the night before they were moving to Florida for retirement. Or the numerous knifings on the street over petty squabbls over beer, girls and cigarettes. The sidewalks have fewer syringes and crack vials on them, the roofs aren't as blatant a shooting gallery as they were, and you can even rent an apartment without having to step over puke and drug deal negotiations.

But the oink oink oink oinkers are still around, lurking under their Maybelline makup.

Lowery, what are you talking about? I'm nowhere near 10th or 11th Avenues.

"I'm sure you can find sex for hire within a few blocks of your apartment tower without too much trouble."

When you do, let me know.

What's wrong with horse manure? Mankind has had a long term history with using manure for all manner of building materials. The British used it as filler for their walls.

And trains, my kid loves Thomas. Hookers, well like bedbugs they are all around you and sometimes they both give you those itchies.

When others say why, I say why not.
I think there's some water front property for sale at some attractive pricing.
I'm thinking senior assisted living.
Picture it...
Shady Newtown Creek Leisure community.
Water front views...
If I didn't have long to live this might be a good location. (especially since LIC is filling up fast)

steve, you're nowhere near 10th Avenue, and LICComment thinks he's nowhere near Newtown Creek
Happy Days or whatever that dive was called in the '80s was between Eighth and Ninth.

And Eighth Avenue was about the same as the description I gave of the old 10th Avenue as it was. And Ninth. There's plenty of ammo for people who want to slam your 'hood. And someone will always find something to say about any area in this city. East 93rd Street and Park Avenue? EEEuuuuwwww! It's near Spanish Harlem!

lowery, you can slam my "hood" all you want - you've done it before, you've stretched it from 11th Avenue and 41st Street all the way to the Grand Concourse.

My sister lived in on 9th and 54th or thereabouts in the 1980's - I know EXACTLY what it was like back then. Fortunately, that was 25 years ago. We're talking TODAY, lowery, TODAY. I'm much closer to Rockefeller Center than I am to 10th or 11th Avenue, so if you're going to slam something, slam something REAL.

Like - there's lots of polyester-clad tourists here for Wednesday-afternoon matinees. True. There's lots of tour buses on 8th Avenue on Saturday afternoons. True. There are lots of hotels around here. True. Sometimes the Central Park horses and buggies come riding down my street (from the stables far away on ... wherever they are) and it smells like horses. True. There's a guy across the street with a pretzel stand who sells soft pretzels for $1. True.

I've yet to see a rat around here, except the inflatable Union kind.

Sorry. No place is perfect, but the place you describe is nothing like the place where I live. Get real, dude, or find Dr. Who and travel back in time to the Howard Johnson's of 1979.

Flmaoz... why don't we see tour buses at LIC? E93 and Park, just walk a few blocks... much better...

If you find yourself in LIC and think EEEEuwwwwww... just walk the 30 minutes to, oh sh*t, that's right... MANHATTAN!

steve lives closer to the places lowery mentioned than I do to Newtown Creek.

steve, you are the established streeteasy clown. Everyone knows your comments are comical. I really don't have to respond much anymore. Thanks for a good chuckle.

"steve lives closer to the places lowery mentioned than I do to Newtown Creek."

I also live closer to California than you do.

Quick: name 3 things to do in Long Island City:

1) Leave
2) Kill yourself
3)

F*ck. I could only come up with 2.

now, now, now, steve - you asked for snotty riposts to your slam on LIC, and I've given you a few things that someone who wants to slam a hood could use. I'm well aware how "Clinton" has changed, and I'm also well aware of how LIC is changing. The Superfund site designation trumps other neighborhoods, but there are also warehouses in other areas of Queens and Brooklyn that have stored nuclear waste, etc., etc.

The person who just moved to the high W.180s near Cabrini will never admit that drug dealers made taking the staircase up from 181st to "Hudson Heights" a scarey experience. Oh, now that's all OVER WITH. And than that same person will slam Fredrick Douglass Blvd or Morningside Avenue and point out the drug dealers down there. The person infatuated with their happy new choice to live in Clinton will scream about how oh, there's just NO prostitution or drug dealing anywhere within MILES because that's all over with, and then they'll act as though Tompkins Square Park hasn't cleaned up since 1985. It's all pretty funny, really. You're forgetting that I congratulated you on your move and have flattered Ninth Avenue's attractions at other times. Lighten up a tad.

im feel my artistic urges coming on:

L I C
the place to be

it's kind of a simplistic existentialist piece

or maybe kind of mystic--be here now

Are you suggesting that Long Island City be renamed "Cystic Seaport" to attract tourists?

"Long Island City - Gateway to Bushwick, Ridgewood and Points Beyond!"

"Every condo comes with its own boat slip on Newtown Creek!"

"Cystic Seaport" - LMFAO!

I personally like Ptomaine Town, or the "Been Mugged Triangle."

lowery, once again, you're wrong. When I lived at Bleecker & Charles I was the first one to criticize the lowlife hanging on Christopher Street, the porn shops, the tranny hookers. All a block away from Marc Jacobs et al.

Everyplace has its ups and downs, good points and bad. If you choose well, the ups outweigh the downs. But let's face it: in LIC, the further you are away from the Newtown Creek the closer you are to the Queensbridge Houses. Where's the beauty in that?

Yup, it's official:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/nyregion/28newtown.html?_r=1&hp

Notice the lovely picture of the Empire State Building they show you (which is in Manhattan).

And here's the killer: the fools in Long Island City EAT THE FISH THEY CATCH THERE!

Water samples from Newtown Creek, a branch of the East River and part of the New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary, have revealed the presence of pesticides, metals, P.C.B.%u2019s, volatile organic compounds and other contaminants. Despite the ongoing pollution problems, the agency noted, residents continue to use the creek for recreation like kayaking and fishing, and some also eat the fish they catch.

The creek%u2019s polluted condition also reflects countless oil spills from the dozens of refineries and fuel storage facilities that have operated along its banks since the 19th century.

Those spills %u2014 estimated to total some 17 million to 30 million gallons, that is, perhaps nearly three times the amount dumped off the Alaskan coast by the Exxon Valdez in 1989 %u2014 have obliterated wildlife, polluted an aquifer and hindered economic development as they made their way into both the creek and surrounding neighborhoods.

The air quality is far worse and a far higher percentage of people have serious illnesses in Manhattan than in LIC. Fact.

steve loses another debate!

Actually, LICC, the air quality in Long Island City and Manhattan is about the same - though in Manhattan it's caused by CARS, that is by FOREIGNERS, you invaders from Long Island City who are just DYING to get out.

I don't know of any morbidity statistics that break down disease in general, though it is true that there are more hospitals in Manhattan so there will be more disease in general.

None of us, however, glow in the dark like you people.

LICC loses another debate!

It says the water in Newtown Creek is, like, ORGANIC! So it's, y'know, hand-crafted artesian water and stuff ... they should bottle it.

Air quality has to be at a minimum the same.
Whatever we breathe your breathing 60 seconds later.(Jet Stream west to east)
...to add to glow in the dark ingredients.

Have you never read the fine print on a Brita filter? Not for use in Chernobyl and Long Island City!

It depends on where you measure the air quality - if measured at ground level, there is a significant variance depending on traffic, and there's much more traffic in Manhattan because people want to come here. Unlike Long Island City, which isn't - shall we say? - a "tourist destination".

Say the Rockland County teenagers: "Hey Ma, can we spend the afternoon at Water Taxi Beach?"

HAHAHAHA!

Also, the prevailing winds being from the west, the east side of Manhattan has much worse pollution than the west: that's the way the wind blows. So the west side of Long Island has worse pollution than the east, as that's the first place the Manhattan pollution hits.

Of course above ground level - ozone and smog are heavier than air - there's not that much of a difference. LICC's 1st floor walk-up is much worse than my 21st floor luxury flat for that very reason.

Plus - I don't have an airshaft.

Newtown Creek by Big Gay Al

Fish are flying
People are dying
Children are crying
Politicians are lying too
Cancer is killing
BP's spilling
The whole world has gone to hell
And how are you?

We're superfunded, thanks for asking
All things considered I couldn't be better
I must say
I'm feeling super
No, nothing bugs me
Everything is super when you're...
don't you think I look cute in this neon shade

Oops, title should be I'm Super(funded) by Big Gay Al

steve, what am I wrong about?

I'm afraid I'm not following your thread here. You started by asking for people to please come up with some snotty things to say about your neighborhood, then seemed to have taken my comments as an insult to you, and now are saying something about Christopher Street and porn shops. I'm afraid I don't get it. I wonder what it would be like to divide the universe up into neat little categories of "right" and "wrong." Seems a pity.

Prestige and "value" is all in the head of the individual.

Truth - bravo, bravo!

lowery, the only person who used the word "snotty" is you. As I said, I don't have any problems with anybody saying anything that's true about my neighborhood, warts and all. However, my neighborhood is not 10th & 11th Avenue, and not 41st Street, and it's nowhere near the stables or the Grand Concourse. Pick something relevant - something that has existed within the last year, for instance, not 30 years ago - and then be witty like truth was. Just making stuff up is a waste of people's time. Make us laugh, goddamit. Laugh.