Newtown Creek Navigation Analysis
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Kosciuszko Bridge Project Newtown Creek Navigation Analysis September 22, 2005 New York State Department of Transportation Chapter I Introduction A. OVERVIEW Newtown Creek is a tributary of the East River in the New York Harbor and the Port of New York/New Jersey. It is considered a narrow tidal arm of the East River and forms a portion of the boundary between the Boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. The mouth of the creek is located on the east bank of the East River about 3.6 miles above The Battery. The creek extends 3.3 miles eastward and southward and has several short tributaries and basins. Newtown Creek lies in a highly industrialized area of New York City. Almost the entire water frontage is developed for terminal and industrial purposes. Traffic is moderate and consists of petroleum products, sand, gravel and stone, scrap metal, and waste management material. Vessel drafts today seldom exceed 15 feet. The mean range of tide in the creek is 4.1 feet with generally weak and variable tidal currents. B. TRIBUTARIES The tributary basins formally identified by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Ocean Service (NOS) are as follows: x Dutch Kills – on the north side of Newtown Creek, 0.8 miles from the East River; x Whale Creek – on the south side, at Mile 0.85, approximately opposite Dutch Kills; x Unnamed Canal – on the south side, at Mile 0.95, adjacent to a New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY) facility; x Maspeth Creek – on the east side, at Mile 2.2; x East Branch – on the east side, at Mile 2.5; and x English Kills – extends eastward and southward from the East Branch entrance and forms the last 0.8 miles of Newtown Creek. C. NATURE OF SIGNIFICANT UNDERWATER OBSTRUCTIONS IN THE WATERWAY Approximately 15 pipelines, 15 submarine cables and 1 tunnel cross Newtown Creek at various locations. As stated in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Navigability Determination, these underwater structures limit the future deepening of the Federal Project Channel in those areas. Kosciuszko Bridge Project I-1 September 22, 2005 Newtown Creek Navigation Analysis Chapter I D. BRIDGES Today, Newtown Creek and its tributaries are crossed by 11 bridges, 9 movable and 2 fixed. Dutch Kills which is the first major tributary off Newtown Creek at mile 0.8, is approximately 3,120 feet long and has five bridges, four movable and one fixed bridge carrying the Long Island Expressway (LIE) with a 90 foot vertical clearance at Mean High Water (MHW). The Kosciuszko Bridge is the first fixed bridge across Newtown Creek and is 2.1 miles from the East River and, today, establishes, at 125’ above MHW, the governing vertical clearance for upstream facilities. Two movable bridges, the Pulaski Bridge and the J.J. Byrne Memorial (Greenpoint Avenue) Bridge cross Newtown Creek at mile 0.6 and 1.3, respectively. Both are located below the Kosciuszko Bridge and have horizontal clearances of 149’ and 150’, respectively, which establishes the controlling width for vessels transiting Newtown Creek below mile 3.1 for the East Branch and mile 3.4 on English Kills. (See Table 1 and Table 9 later in the report for additional bridge information.) E. NAVIGATIONAL NEEDS The following sections of this report will present the basis for past and present needs of the marine facilities that developed along the banks of Newtown Creek, how the nature of marine navigation has changed, and the anticipated future trends. These sections show how marine traffic has changed from sailing schooners and steamers to the tug and barge traffic used today, including an overall decrease in the number of vessel transits on Newtown Creek over the centuries. The report also evaluates the pilot house and mast heights of tugs used in the Tri- state area, a factor in determining an appropriate vertical clearance for any new fixed bridge. The existing 90-foot vertical clearance of the LIE fixed bridge over Dutch Kills and the proposed 90-foot vertical clearance for the Kosciuszko Bridge is shown to provide for present and future vessels with a margin of safety for weather, rough water, or vessel rolling and pitching that may occur. Kosciuszko Bridge Project I-2 September 22, 2005 Chapter II Newtown Creek History A. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY WATERWAY HISTORY Dutch explorers completed the first survey of the Newtown Creek in 1613-14, about ninety years after Giovanni de Verrazano sailed into New York Harbor. Shortly thereafter, the Dutch acquired the creek from the local Mespat tribe. The Dutch and English used the creek primarily for agriculture and fledgling industrial commerce. The creek was preserved in local lore nearly from the outset, as the infamous Captain Kidd was said to have buried treasure on a friend's waterfront property.1 Newtown Creek, and its tributaries, was a tidal estuary of the East River and fed extensive salt marshes. Native Americans used the marshes to hunt seasonal waterfowl and the tidal creeks as a link between the East River and a village site in present Maspeth. Tidal action minimized siltation in the creek, keeping the creek channels open. Dutch and English settlers continued these uses of the creek and also harvested salt hay from the marshes to feed cattle. On land adjacent to the marshes dispersed farmsteads and small agrarian villages appeared by the early 1640s. A gristmill, established around 1648, at the head of Dutch Kills above the present head of navigation, served the area into the early 19th century. Between 1645 and 1660, communities were established at Bushwick and Greenpoint in present-day Brooklyn, and Newtown and Maspeth in present-day Queens. Hunter's Point, an upland area at the mouth of Newtown Creek, remained a large undivided private landholding well into the 19th century. Upstream, the creek was a focus of border disputes among landowners and villages long after Kings and Queens counties were established in 1683, finally becoming part of the county boundary in 1768.2 During the Revolutionary War Newtown Creek and Maspeth Creek were used by the British fleet.3 After the Revolutionary War, when New York City's economy began to boom, commerce along Newtown Creek followed suit. Farms and mansions, such as John Jacob Astor's, found themselves alongside glue and tin factories, rope works, animal-carbon plants, chemical works, and the Sampson Oil Cloth factory, which was the largest of its kind at the time.4 1 Newtown Creek Alliance web page 2004 (http://www.newtowncreek.org/history) 2 Stiles 1869; W.W. Munsell & Co. 1882; Seyfried 1984; PB draft report Study and Analysis of Waterways in New York City (PB2000) 3 PB 2000 4 Newtown Creek Alliance web page 2004 Kosciuszko Bridge Project II-1 September 22, 2005 Newtown Creek Navigation Analysis Chapter II B. BRIDGES In the early to mid 19th century, virtually the only development along the channels of the Newtown Creek drainage were crossings for roads and turnpikes that linked nearby villages and led to East River ferries. A highway between Bushwick and Newtown was in place by 1670, including a wooden bridge that was most likely the first road crossing of the creek, at approximately the location of present Meeker Avenue. This crossing was replaced circa 1812- 14 by the Penny Bridge, a toll bridge on the Newtown and Bushwick Turnpike Road. The first crossing of English Kills along the present Metropolitan Avenue opened circa 1814-16 as part of the Williamsburg and Jamaica Turnpike. These remained the only bridges into the 1840s when nearby urban development stimulated more road construction across the marshy drainage. Mid- 19th century bridges included the Maspeth Avenue Plank Road to Newtown (1846), and the Greenpoint and Flushing Plank Road linking the Greenpoint ferry to the new Calvary Cemetery via present Greenpoint Avenue (1853-54). The 1848 establishment of the large Catholic cemetery (Calvary Cemetery), on an old estate north of the Penny Bridge, reflected the absence of any competing land use demands along most of the waterway. Water transport remained a better means of moving goods and people between the local villages and nearby urban areas; steamboats served the cemetery until around 1870.5 Local road development in the late 1860s included the first Vernon Avenue Bridge over Newtown Creek (removed and replaced by the Pulaski Bridge), and a bridge over Dutch Kills on present Borden Avenue. In part to secure public funding for street improvements in Hunter's Point, Henry Anable sought to incorporate the area in 1870 as part of Long Island City, which also absorbed the villages of Astoria, Ravenswood, and Dutch Kills.6 Table 1 below provides an overview of the bridges built across Newtown Creek as presented in USCG’s Bridges over Navigable Waters of the United States – Atlantic Coast. In 1927, the marine and land traffic conditions necessitated USACE to establish operating regulations for the Vernon Avenue and Grand Street Bridges. Both bridges required to open on signal except that they could remain closed for ten minutes each hour. 5 Stiles 1869; W.W. Munsell & Co. 1882; Armbruster 1942; Seyfried 1984; PB draft report 6 Seyfried 1984; PB 2000 Kosciuszko Bridge Project II-2 September 22, 2005 Newtown Creek Navigation Analysis Chapter II TABLE 1: BRIDGES OVER NEWTOWN CREEK AND ITS TRIBUTARIES Vertical Mile Above Horizontal MLW MHW Mouth Bridge [Owner] Type (feet) (feet) (feet) Use Permit Complete 0.4 Vernon Avenue (now Blvd) Removed 1860s 0.6 Pulaski Bridge [NYC] Bascule 150 43 39 Highway 7/2005 9/1954 0.85 Mouth Dutch Kills (DK) 1.1 Long Island