Greenpoint
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Culture on the Cheap
Reader Contribution Du Jour: Dispatch From The Shit Tits
Filed under: 11222, Greenpoint, Greenpoint Brooklyn, Greenpoint Magic
The cold which has been plaguing me for the last week, alas, precluded me from taking a tour of Greenpoint’s claim to fame: the digester eggs at the Newtown Creek Waste Treatment Plant. Staying home was not a decision I relished making (I really, REALLY wanted to go) but I had the presence of mind to know that what I needed today more than anything was rest. I was right: 15 hours of sleep (and plenty of hot soup) later I feel pretty good. But not as good as New York Shitty reader as frequent contributor, Tony. You see today he celebrated his birthday by taking a few of best buds to tour the tits.
He writes:
We had a great time. When we arrived at 10:20am this morning, there were already two groups of twenty that finished the tour, even though the first tour was supposed to be at 11am! They said over 300 people came on Saturday and although they anticipated doing 4 tours, they did 12. And by the time my tour ended, their were hundreds of people in line stretching back towards the gas station on Greenpoint Avenue. The tour itself was quite minimal.. first you walk closer to the digester eggs than you ever thought you would and their size is overwhelming. You go up 15 floors in an elevator and from there it’s all ooohs and ahhhs up top.
Our tour guy from the architects that built this place (Polshek Partners — Ed. Note) basically shows you all the parts of the plant and the processes, which I won’t reiterate, other than the digester eggs really are in no way a central process towards cleaning our waste, but their sheer awesome shape and scale steal the show, for now… when the entire plant is done, they plan to have an even purple night time glow over the entire plant, which is sure to be both awesome and super-creepy. The pictures I have attached that show what looks like a manhole (people looking into it) -that is a chance to see one hundred feet right into the middle of one of those sludgey digester eggs that each hold 3 million gallons of the good stuff. I’m definitely glad I chose this as my birthday celebration (!!! —Ed. Note) and appreciate those who could show up and see this shit up close and personal.
Being the generous chap Tony is he was kind enough to send me photographs (including the one gracing the beginning of this post) from his excursion. A lot of photographs. Naturally I want to share them with you, dear readers, and to this end I have assembled them into a slide slow for your delectation. Enjoy!
A big New York Shitty shout-out of gratitude goes out (again) to Tony for sharing his Digester Tank experience with us. Thanks!
Miss Heather
UPDATE, October 12, 2009: You can see some more great photographs taken by Victoria Belanger in my photo pool. Check ’em out!
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