E M P T Y | V E S S E L | P R O J E C T | N E W S # 1 8 | N O V . 28 . 05
A great elephant moves, imminently
We will need all hands on deck to move EV from one side of the Carroll Street bridge to her new home on the other (much greener!) side. We have no engines and no tiller. We will get the lovely wooden Carroll Street Bridge opened for us and pull her through with ropes. We will certainly need your help and plenty of moral support. We might even need musical accompaniment. Bring gloves, your marching band, a flask, kites, streamers, balloons, a fiddle, pulleys, levers and line.
Watch this space to find out when. We will send a message through the newsletter mailing list when a time is set.
T H I S W E E K
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1 ::: THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS
Visual Resistance and the Empty Vessel Project present a Film Night on the Canal
The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1965)
8p, $2-10 sliding scale
***at the boat
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3
Work Day
1-9p
***at the boat
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4
Work Day
12-6p
***at the boat
C O N T E N T S
UPCOMING
Chef-made dinner
Knot-tying class
Tour Gowanus by Pedicab
WHERE IS THE BOAT
HISTORY
Oil spilled under our feet
SHIP'S LOG
Slowly getting warmer
WISHLIST
Got tin?
FUNDRAISING
Taking donations via
PayPal?
HEROES
WHAT IS THIS?
Justifying our existance well
U P C O M I N G
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6 ::: Sort-of-Fancy Dinner
8pm, $15-30 sliding scale
Delicious meal prepared by a pro chef.
This is a fundraiser. Volunteer to cook and you will eat for free.
***at a lovely Brooklyn home, address TBA
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10 ::: Knot Just for Pirates:::An On-Board Knot-Tying Class
Taught by the lovely and twisted Maureen Flaureghty. Find out how to identify which knot is the one for you in any situation. Learn all the knots you will ever need on our vessel or elsewhere(...). This class will culminate in a knot tying competition and other party games. A shot of rum is included with registration (for adults!).
2-4p, $1-25 sliding scale, maximum class size is 16
This class will be held on board EV, our salvaged WWII rescue boat docked along side the Carroll Street Bridge. All proceeds go to fund construction on the boat.
email
pz@emptyvesselprojectREMOVEANTISPAMMEASURE.org to register.
***at the boat
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11 ::: Proteus Gowanus Chamber of Culture Open House
Stop by the Proteus Gowanus interdisciplinary gallery and reading room for a cup of hot chocolate, learn about seven fantastic organizations in our neighborhood, appreciated the old bridges and take a Pedicab ride down to visit EV.
FREE, 12-6pm
***Proteus Gowanus, 345 Nevins @ Union
& at the boat
A DAY IN JANUARY ::: Midnight, The First Snow Storm
W H E R E I S T H E B O A T ?
We are at the Carroll Street Bridge over the Gowanus Canal.
To take a look at a bird’s eye view of the boat’s location, check out the
http://maps.google.com satellite image at
http://tinyurl.com/7eu5q.
For directions by train:
http://www.hopstop.com.
H I S T O R Y
OIL SPILLED UNDER OUR FEET
Five minutes past noon on October 5, 1950, Greenpoint shook with the blast of a huge underground explosion. The blast ripped out a 10-foot section of pavement, shot 25 manhole covers into the air, and shattered the windowpanes on more than 500 buildings. It also ripped through an oil tank at the Mobil Oil refinery site on Newtown Creek, sending 17 million gallons of oil into the water beneath its surface.
Newtown Creek is one of New York City's busiest short industrial waterways. Just like the Gowanus Canal, it is an estuary, providing the brackish water crucial to the development of many marine species. It is spanned by the Polaski Bridge and divides Hunters Point, Queens from Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It is also the site of the nation's largest ever urban oil spill. At 17 million gallons, the Newtowne Creek spill is at least 6 million gallons larger than the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989.
The underwater spill, seeping oil over 55 acres of residential and commercial land and settling beneath approximately 238 North Brooklyn homes, went unnoticed until 1978 when a Coast Guard helicopter patrol noticed the oil plume embedded in the water.
Exxon Mobil (Mobil Oil's modern day incarnation) does not openly take responsibility for the spill. Their spokespeople insist that the Paragon Oil Company (known as Chevron today) is the culprit.
Residents of the area desribe the oil bubbling up from the silt at the bottom of the Creek and crating slicks on its surface daily. Benzane creeps through the soil beneath the properties that sit atop the spill, stinking up the area and potentially causing leukemia and other cancers. There is enough methane in the ground beneath those homes and businesses to explode if it is ever ignated. The spilled product is likely to also contain such hazardous constituents as sulphur, anthracine, ethylbenzene, fluoranthene, fluorine, n-hexane, naphthalene, toluene, m-xylene, p-xylene, xylenes, l-methyl naphthalene, cumene, benzo(a)pyrene, benz(a)anthracene, indeno( 1,2,3-cd)pyrene, dibenz(a,h)anthracene, chrysene, benzo(b)fluoranthene, and benzo(k)fluoranthene, lead, MTBE, TBA, and other detergents, dyes, antioxidants, metal deactivators, corrosion inhibitors, and octane enhancers.
The spill affects the communities of Maspeth, Bushwick, Greenpoint and Long Island City. These areas have the highest asthma, emphysema and bronchitis rates in the city.
These conditions have persisted for 55 years with little outside interest or involvement. In the wake of the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989, Exxon signed an agreement to clean up the Newtown Creek using oil sinks. This agreement, although a stronger concession than any Exxon had made prior, contained neither a timeline nor any system for external control of the clean up effort. Exxon claims that it has removed approximately 8 million gallons of oil from the site since 1990. This figure has not been verified.
With talk of lucrative waterfront development and reclaimation comes a new interest in removing the toxins that have plagued communities along the Newtown Creek for 55 years. Area residents, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and group of City Council members have joined a lawsuit filed by the Riverkeepers to force Exxon to clean up Newtown Creek.
For more information, look here
http://www.greenpointvexxon.com/
S H I P ’ S L O G
Insulation is in!
Heat on EV: In our utopia, we will create a pod that runs on garbage. A figurative cultural machine that is fed exclusively on our culture's literal debris. We would like to heat the vessel with waste oil. Our initial experiments have been with appropriating a small oil-buring, water-circulating home heat boiler. We are not sure that we have considered all our options. We are investigating diesel stoves and other oil-compatible solutins. We need your (or your neighbor's, your uncle's, that strange guy's who lived in the trailer down the street from your grandpa's farm) stories of waste-oil-burning success or failure. Email
pz@emptyvesselprojectREMOVEANTISPAMMEASURE.org. We are hungry for advice.
Bathroom on EV: At the moment, it's a bucket masquerading as a toilet. But the sink works. We would love help setting up a greywater filtration system that will deposit refuse into the canal in an ecologically friendly manner. Got any advice or suggestions? Email
pz@emptyvesselprojectREMOVEANTISPAMMEASURE.org.
For updates on ongoing projects, check out our TWiki at
http://log.emptyvesselproject.org. Advice is always appreciated. Don’t be shy. Please post.
W I S H L I S T
MATERIALS: We are creating a practice of re-use and salvage. We would like to give your old materials new life. Specifically, we are looking for:
**fire extinguisher
**10 gallon plastic buckets with lids
**toaster oven
**vegetable steamer
**wet/dry vac
**50,000 –100,000 BTU oil-burning
boiler OR a diesel stove
**a Franklin stove
**solar panels
**12V batteries
**a transformer 120V to 12/24V
**another small boat (canoe, kayak, motor)
**life rings
**marine paint
**small fans
**beautiful material in bulk to face ceiling (about 12' x 42') - tin would be fantastic
**plywood for skinning the ceiling (about 12'x 42') - 1/2" or 3/4"
**pretty old single-pane windows
**handles, hooks, small cleats
**steel
**aluminum for constructing a gangplank
**railings
**water hose
**plastic 50 gallon barrels
We will haul away any material contributions. Please forward widely. Contact
tk@emptyvesselprojectREMOVEANTISPAMMEASURE.org to donate.
MATERIAL DONATIONS: We are partnering with companies that have ecologically friendly materials and getting material contributions to the Empty Vessel Project.
Johns Manville (www.specjm.com) has donated formaldehyde-free insulation.
BuildItGreen? (www.bignyc.org), a salvaged building materials warehouse in Astoria, has contributed some great slotted floorboards to face the cabin walls.
Mojo Fine Art Moving has been very generous with their trucks.
Do you know a company that might be interested in showcasing their products on EV? Contact
pz@emptyvesselprojectREMOVEANTISPAMMEASURE.org.
F U N D R A I S I N G
Let us lay this on you again:
50 people x $10. = HEAT ON THE BAOT
25 people x $20. = COZY MOVIE NIGHTS THROUGH THE BLIZZARDS OF 06
20 people x $25. = FACING THE INTERIOR WITHOUT FREEZING YOUR FINGERS OFF
10 people x $50. = A SAFE HAVEN IN THE STORM
We need to riase $500 to make the warm water run through our lovely heating loop and radiate warm air through the vessel.
Thanks to the Madagascar Institute, we have a 501c(3) Non-Profit number we can provide you for your contribution. Give to the Empty Vessel Project = save on your taxes.
You can make a financial contribution to the EVP on our website at
http://log.emptyvesselproject.org or by clicking here:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_xclick&business=info%40emptyvesselproject%2eorg&item_name=Empty%20Vessel%20Project&no_shipping=0&no_note=1&tax=0¤cy_code=USD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF&charset=UTF%2d8
We are also looking for sources of official money that will fund the Empty Vessel Project in the longer term as either (a) an arts project (b) an environmental project or (c) a social experiment and decentralized environment for skill shares. We need money for both infrastructure and specific projects. Are you a grant writer? In development? Know someone that is? We need to raise $10-20,000 to get through the winter. Contact
pz@emptyvesselprojectREMOVEANTISPAMMEASURE.org.
FANCY DINNER has been post-poned until we find a suitably FANCY location.
Do you know anyone who works LOCATIONS for a film or photo shoots? EV is a great location and available for rentals. Do you know how we can get on a database to share/rent our wonderful resource? Contact
pz@emptyvesselprojectREMOVEANTISPAMMEASURE.org.
H E R O E S
Justin Green and the Build It Green salvaged materials warehouse (Thanks for the fantastic old floor boards and the staircase!), Porkchop and Mojo Fine Art Moving (A great blue truck!), Dave Sharps and the Redhook Waterfront Museum (Thanks for all the advice and stories!)
A history of heroes:
Danny, GDM, Captain Jim, Fictional Company, Ed, Michael, Madagascar Institute, Cindy Vanden Bosch, Dirty Fingers, Porkchop, northguineahills, Front Room Gallery, DJ Olive, Steven, Ed and Brooke, Paris 1968, Corey and the Free Store, Christian, Mike Topper, Alisa Blanter, Jesse Green, Leo Raphaely, Peter Field, Jeff Stark, Stephen, Lee Azzarello, Nathan,
ToddP?, Dan and Elizabeth, Trevor, Brian Spinks, Andy Baker, Shellshag (Jen and Shell), Urban Stitch (Alessandro and William), Paul Ford, Bez, Brian, Alex Lucas, Leqah Beeferman, Brent Arnould, The Dave Carter Quartet, Estee Pierce, Alison Prete, Jason Enghert, Rosie Weinberg, Johns Manville, Black Label Bike Club, New York Harbor School, Eric Forman, Gregory Zaslavsky, Leslie Stem, Andres Colapinto, Anney Fresh
W H A T I S T H I S ?
The Empty Vessel Project is an action, art, and sustainability experiment. We salvaged EV, a WWII rescue boat, to create a space for re-imagining the post-industrial urban environment. We
are a non-profit, volunteer-run organization and encourage participation on all levels.
EV is moored on Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal. The boat is our first project. We invite you to come join us on board to work and play.
We host work parties, movie nights, seminars, concerts, dinners, and workshops. The Empty Vessel is available to realize your dreams and schemes.
This newsletter is your guide. It appears in your in box at the beginning of each week, listing events and tracking changes. Can it be better? Contact
pz@emptyvesselprojectREMOVEANTISPAMMEASURE.org with suggestions.
Please forward to all potential co-conspirators.
--
PaulaZ - 28 Nov 2005
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