Happy 100th birthday Captain Cousteau!

Visit the Cousteau Society today to make a donation and become a custodian of the sea!

http://www.cousteau.org/membership

Do not forget to pick up your Cousteau red watch cap!  I am wearing mine, today, all around New York City!

Look for me!  I should not be hard to find!

http://www.cousteau.org/shop



All posts are dated April and May 2009 due to chronological necessity, and yet, many posts are new!

Check out the research section for many of the most recent updates.

Much to our relief and dismay, Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s body was retrieved from an underground area near New York City Water Tunnel No. 3.  He attempted to do research on the sewergator, his most recent topic of investigation, alone and at night. He crawled through several tunnels until he found what he was looking for. We have included in this blog all of his research relating to this topic, as we are all certain that this would have been his wish.

His last writing on the sewergator is as follows:

“I have just recently interviewed a member of the machine crew from Tunnel No. 3. According to the website, the tunnel

‘is one of the most complex and intricate engineering projects in the world. Constructed by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, the tunnel will eventually span 60 miles and is expected to be complete by 2020.

The size and length of the tunnel, its sophisticated control system, the placement of its valves in special chambers, and the depth of excavation, represent state-of-the-art technology. While City Tunnel No. 3 will not replace City Tunnels No. 1 and No. 2, it will enhance and improve the adequacy and dependability of the water supply system and improve service and pressure to outlying areas of the city. It will also allow the DEP to inspect and repair City Tunnels Nos. 1 and 2 for the first time since they were activated.’ (http://www.water-technology.net/projects/new_york/)

There have apparently been some sightings by the crew working on the tunnel. I must see to it that the alligator doesn’t evade me this time.

In order to insure this, I will go alone with my recording equipment. It is impossible to move about unheard in the depths with a crew of three men swishing about. One man is much quieter. There will also be less light, as I will be the only one carrying a light source, as opposed to three men. I can crawl into smaller spaces because of this as well.

It is intuitive that I should want to find this gator, gators, or community of alligators that exist below detection. It would not only be the answer to a long-standing myth, but it would testify to the resilience of nature herself. Persecuted and demonized, alligators are often relegated to the outskirts. And here, this is literally the case. They are unacknowledged citizens of the urban center. I intend to find them.”

These were the last words written by Captain Cousteau. He carried his recording equipment with him, and we have here posted the outcome of Captain Cousteau’s tireless research into the natural world.

Please see the video (below) for the last footage taken by Cousteau prior to his death…

This blog is in memory of Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s work and his lifelong dedication to the investigation of our world.

The Crew

Incident Location: New York City Water Tunnel No. 3

“Hundreds of feet beneath the bumper-to-bumper traffic of New York City is one of the world’s most ambitious engineering projects. Though it goes by the prosaic name of City Water Tunnel No. 3, when work wraps up in 2020 the subterranean aqueduct will have taken five decades and at least $6 billion to complete. It will snake 60 miles from the Kensico Reservoir in Westchester County through the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn, supplying water to more than 8 million residents and thousands of factories and businesses.

City Water Tunnels No. 1 and No. 2, finished in 1917 and 1936, transport more than a billion gallons of water daily, but they leak badly in places. In 1954, engineers realized the only way to repair and maintain the older tunnels–and to increase capacity to meet growing demand–was to build a third, more sophisticated tunnel with valves to shut down and divert the flow of water. Plus, it would provide a fallback should any portion of the system be damaged by an event like an earthquake.”

Age: 34

Gender: Male

Occupation: Sandhog

Injury or Fatality: No

Other Witnesses: Yes – Refused Comment

BEGIN RECORDING

Captain Cousteau: Hello Mike! Thank you for meeting with me. Please recount your sewergator encounter with as much detail as possible…

Mike Warfield: I use a pneumatic drill that sinks 10-ft. holes into the rock. Dynamite is then tamped in with wooden poles. We use a massive machine to bore through the longest stretches of bedrock, and I love the sometimes dangerous, always labor-intensive drill-and-blast work. Planning for the tunnel began in the 1960s, and in 1970 the “sandhogs” began to dig. My dad was one of the first sandhogs.

The guys I work with are the closest friends I have on Earth. If all hell breaks loose and a hog is in danger, you go after him, no questions asked. I trust them with my life.

We’d brought in some piping to drain off excessive water. It had been a rainy spring and water in the tunnel was knee-high. We were all wearing waders. It was hard to move. Hard to work.

I don’t know if the beast was in the piping upon arrival, or if the gator had managed to find it’s way into the tunnel on its own. Regardless, it was enormous!

I waded into the deeper water to pound in the dynamite. I was halfway across the waterway when I came face to face with the hungry gator. I looked back and the gator surfaced and I looked him right in the face and stared at him for what seemed like an eternity.

He dragged me under the water five times. Though I wasn’t aware at the time, my arm was being ripped off. The gator hit me in my stomach and knocked the wind out of me and I dug and took my finger and gouged its eye. It spun and turned around and went away from me. I didn’t know I was missing an arm until I was wading back.

I got away from him, luckily. I mean, it was just a fight for survival. He was trying to eat and I was trying not to get eaten. The whole time I just felt myself bleeding to death. The whole time I was just screaming for help and asking God for forgiveness. I was shouting and then men were applying pressure to prevent me from bleeding out. I was praying and after that everything went dark. They called 911 and the ambulance picked me up.

A New York Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission captured the 15-foot-long alligator responsible for the attack and destroyed it. The photo below was taken after the incident. A necropsy was performed on the gator and examiners were able to recover my arm, but were unable to reattach it. Nine months later I received a bionic arm – a gift from Mayor Bloomberg.

The gator was incinerated and all media was kept away to prevent mass hysteria. People shouldn’t know that these animals are living beneath their city. People shouldn’t have to worry about these beasts. This is New York! Not the Everglades!

Picture taken when Alligator was Found:

Maps:

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My work tells stories.  I invent situations, cities and worlds.  These compositions include memories, associations of words, ideas, observations and thoughts that unfold in improbable juxtapositions.  These invented worlds have their own logic and patterns.  Images are conveyed through words, whether automatic writing or premeditated scenes.  My creative inspiration comes from a text, a poem, the news or from a philosophical concept that can be reduced to a mere title.  I research collective memories and myths, questioning the notions of identity and belonging.  For each theme, I explore various narratives: one story leads to the next, and the creation process weaves different layers of our relations to the world.

My silhouettes are a language I have developed over the years; my point of view is both detailed and monumental.  Cutting from a single piece of material, the profusion of individual stories creates a coherent universe.  In my artist books and public art, where I play with full and empty shapes, everything must fall in place: one’s place in the world, one’s place in the city, one’s place in his or her body.  In my graphic style, windows are used not to see out but in, placing the spectator in an outsider/insider situation.  Shadows, reminiscent of film noir and voyeurism, leaves room for multiple interpretations.

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Artist Website: http://beatricecoron.com/

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Béatrice Coron

Béatrice Coron

About Arts for Transit:

The Nest

The City Hall subway station was officially closed and abandoned on December 31, 1945. Tours were still offered until quite recently, and now the station has fallen into complete disrepair. Still, the occasional MTA Inspection worker is sent to investigate its conditions. Such is the character of my next interview and thus my next descent into the underground.

City Hall is close to the Canal Street/Chinatown area, and so it seemed a logical location for my next investigation. The street entrances to the station are now sealed, so we entered through a sewer shaft that actually led us to the station. As with the previous descent, I brought two crewmembers with me and left the rest inside the station, and above ground, to monitor our progress and standing.

Diving gear was unnecessary for this attempt because we were going to walk through the abandoned subway line. We did, however, wear long rubber suits, helmets, and the same monitoring and recording devices as before.

This line was not as warm as the sewers had been, but the air was still stagnant and smelled of the refuse floating immediately below and beside the old tracks. We trudged along in the dim light until we saw a large crack in the wall, from which rats were openly and unabashedly scurrying. We decided to go in.Clutching to the wall for guidance, we eventually were led into a larger corridor that seemed to be an abandoned construction site. Water was everywhere, and it floated above our ankles. I later found out that this was an integral portion of the station’s history:

“City Hall Station opened along with the rest of the Interborough’s first subway line on October 27, 1904. It was immediately clear that expansion of the subway system would be necessary and additional lines were built. But ever-increasing ridership eventually required the Interborough’s five-car local stations to be lengthened to accommodate longer trains, and so the IRT underwent an extensive program of station lengthening in the 1940s and early 1950s.

City Hall, due to its architecture and its being situated on a tight curve, was deemed impractical for lengthening. The new longer trains had center doors on each car, and at City Hall’s tight curve, it was dangerous to open them. It was decided to abandon the station in favor of the nearby Brooklyn Bridge station…” (http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/stations?5:979)

Clearly an attempt had been made to expand the station into the surrounding strata. After this had been deemed impossible the site was abandoned altogether, and is now almost completely forgotten by its human progenitors. Because there are only small cracks for air to flow, this site was quite warmer and gave me a distinct feeling of suffocation. Despite this, the plants and animals had not forgotten, nor had they hesitated to take advantage of such a fortuitous situation. They had formed their homes in the rubble, and had appreciated its protected nature.  They flourished in this environment. If we were to find an alligator nest or even an alligator themselves, this would have been an ideal location.

And so we did. Tucked in a small corner of the rock lay an alligator’s nest devoid of eggs. Had this been the former home of the egg we found in the sewer? We took some samples and, after searching for a bit more and finding nothing, ascended back to the surface.

I was becoming restless. How could these alligators evade detection so well? Obviously, there were alligators living below the streets of New York. I had only found bare traces of this, though, and was eager to find the alligators themselves. Perhaps the means to avoid detection had been one of their urban adaptations?

BEGIN RECORDING

Captain Cousteau: Hello! Thank you for meeting with me. Please recount your sewergator encounter with as much detail as possible…

MTA Employee: Located under City Hall Park is the world’s most beautiful subway station! It is located at the south edge of the loop that turns Lexington Avenue Interborough Rapid Transit subway (#6) around to the south of the Brooklyn Bridge station. It can be seen, if your conductor allows, by staying on the #6 local after the end of the line riding southbound, and looping around to enter the Brooklyn Bridge station northbound.

At the 1900 groundbreaking, this station was designed to be the showpiece of the new subway. Unusually elegant in architectural style, it is unique among the original New York subway stations. The platform and mezzanine feature Guastavino arches and skylights, colored glass tilework, and brass chandeliers. The curved platform is about 400 feet long (the length of a five car train minus the front and rear doors as was the IRT’s standard design for a local station when it was constructed). In the center of the platform is an archway over stairs leading to the mezzanine. On each side of the stairway, there is a glass tile “City Hall” sign, and a third is on the archway above the stairs. No other signs like these were used in the other IRT stations of the era. The lettering is quite unique in deep blue and tan glass tiling.

Twice a month, I am assigned to a brief City Hall station inspection. I always disregard the brevity, preferring to linger in this unused, but beautiful space for as long as possible.

I had arrived on time and began my inspection as I always had. I quickly picked up any garbage that had blown down the tracks or been carried in by pests. I checked the rodenticide delivery system, to ensure that the station was fighting the constant threat of rat overpopulation. Next, I check the light fixtures to ensure that everything was in proper working order.

I saw him as I moved my stepladder to the next fixture. His body was between the side rail and the platform, piled in a heap like dirty laundry. He was unrecognizable. Hardly human. Most of his skin and muscle tissue had been removed. I couldn’t tell you what color hair he’d had. A black tee-shirt and a pair of jeans were wrapped in the remains. The body was approximately 6 feet tall. I immediately called the police and my dispatcher. They both asked me to stay and supervise the body until they arrived.

I placed my step ladder at the edge of the platform within view of the body. He appeared to be a white male. I couldn’t tell you how old he was. I spotted his footwear and hypothesized that he’d broken in and was electrocuted by the active third rail. People were always breaking into the City Hall station. Either that-or he was homeless and sought shelter here. We occasionally find the bodies of “mole” people who are not actually related to moles in anyway, but are given that name because live in a secret society in the subway infrastructure and rarely come up for air. Sometimes these “mole” people drink too much and fall asleep on the tracks only to be run over when the next train rolls through. We’ve found “mole” people who have been rejected by their underground society and accordingly murdered.

I didn’t know this man’s story, but I knew there was something odd about this body. In my ten years with the MTA, I’d seen three bodies on the tracks. This body seemed damaged in a way that passing trains and rodents could not have caused. Large chunks of the body were missing. They were ripped from his body and could not be located.

That’s when I saw it. A small white tooth, located in the shoulder. I leaned closer, peering over the platform for a closer view. Without thinking, I reached down and pulled the tooth from the man’s shoulder.

After realizing that I might have impeded the investigation and incriminated myself by leaving fingerprints on the tooth, I quickly shuffled the item into my pocket. I gave my statement to the NYPD (casually leaving out the part about a tooth).

At first, I wasn’t sure the tooth belonged to an alligator. I completed research online and after doing a Google image search felt certain that this item had been in the mouth of a gator. Samples of alligator teeth could be found as lucky charms and jewelry, available for purchase online.

After that day I asked to be removed from the City Hall shift. The body was never identified.

END OF INTERVIEW

Photos of Incident Location:

Collect Pond and the Modern City

I have conducted several more interviews, but only one seems to lead in any constructive direction—a father and daughter who lost a beloved pet to the Chinatown sewer system. This area has an incredibly rich history which is both forever forgotten and forever memorialized by the modern sewer system of New York:

“Before the Five Points, there was a little part of Manhattan called the Collect Pond. This underground spring-fed lake was a major source of fresh water for the people of New York, but by the late 1700s, it grew too polluted for use due to the many tanneries, breweries clustered near it, and the use of the pond as a dumping ground by others. The city began draining the Collect starting around 1802 by backfilling it with construction debris, and whatever garbage they could find.

There was a problem though…. people soon realized all that water had nowhere to go as the surrounding low-lying area was already marshland, and occasionally flooded. Because of health concerns (malaria), the city drafted a plan in 1807 to build a canal to drain all the water from the surrounding area, and whatever remained of the pond. The Collect Pond was finally drained by 1811. The recovered waterlogged land, was used to build a massive prison called the Tombs in 1838. The canal itself remained until 1821 when it was covered over, and used as an underground sewer.

Yes, there really was a canal at Canal Street. It was built in 1808 to drain the collect pond and the surrounding area of water. In 1821, the canal had gotten to the point of smelling so bad that the city covered it up and turned it into an underground sewer” (http://www.nychinatown.org/history/1800s.html)

Today, a portion of the original Collect Pond is a park (entitled appropriately Collect Park). Canal street is still the location of a major sewer line running through Chinatown. This is where I had to continue my search.

The Aqua Lung

Due to the unusual conditions of this expedition, I did not want to have a full crew at hand. The Canal street tunnel is large, but entering into smaller tunnels it would be difficult to stay together. Because of this, I chose two other men to accompany me below the surface, and the rest of my crew stayed above ground monitoring our breathing, heart rate, and other vitals. We did not know how much liquid would be below and if we would be completely submerged, so we suited up in Aqua Lungs to begin this journey. Essentially, the Aqua Lung allows us to breathe without connecting to an air source above water, though we still remained connected to each other and the outside world via our radio system (which was inside of our headpieces), and our video equipment, which we attached to the outside of our suits.

We entered the sewers at midnight on a warm summers’ evening at the intersection of Canal Street and Broadway. Alligators are most active at night, as I mentioned before, and they are also most active between 82 and 92 degrees Fahrenheit. I want to see these amazing creatures in movement, in life. I have no desire to remove them, as they have become just as integral to the city wildlife as any other, including the common sewer rat.

The two crewmen and I made were lowered into the bowels of the city by those who would stay above. The burst of stale, gaseous air hit us immediately. It was warmer than one would think—the heat from the drifting liquid and from the enclosure itself was incredible. The interior of the sewer was dark but light could be seen emitting from far off in the distance, and we immediately turned on the few lights that we had brought for the occasion. We waded in the waist-deep refuse seeing little rats scuttle by in the crevices of the tunnel. Of course, we were extremely cautious and quiet, making sure to view all around us. We did not want to have any hungry alligator sneaking up on us.

Unlike the deep ocean, the deep sewer is a reminder of the human life above. The garbage ran around our bodies and little bits of the city’s life seemed to come to light: what people had ate, what they read, where they had gone to the cinema. It became clear that an alligator would have absolutely no trouble surviving in these conditions. It was humid and balmy, there was plenty of food both from humans and from the rats and other creatures, and the water was, polluted, yes, but also shallow and warm.

After a few hours, we prepared to ascend to our fellows.

We did not find an alligator.

But we did find something even more precious—an alligator egg. It was completely in tact, though apparently had abandoned at some point before we found it as we could find no other eggs and no visible nest. It could have fallen or been knocked out of the nest and drifted in the sewage to the location where it was found by us.

We were getting very close to a major breakthrough.

The Sewergator Egg

BEGIN RECORDING

Captain Cousteau: Hello Richard and Madison! Thank you for meeting with me. Please recount your sewergator encounter with as much detail as possible…

Richard Wake: Madison should begin. The alligator was her pet.

Turning and addressing Madison, an 8 year old girl with pigtails.

Madison, honey, could you tell Mr. Cousteau about your pet?

Madison is distracted by the recording equipment and does not answer.

Madison, this man would like to talk to you.

Madison Wake: Yes daddy?

Madison shyly agrees to discuss her pet. She refuses to make eye contact with Captain Cousteau and climbs onto her father’s lap.

Madison pats her father on the face. She retracts her hand, surprised by the feeling of his whiskers against her palm. She frowns.

You want to talk about Albert?

Richard Wake: Yes, Maddy, tell Mr. Cousteau about Albert, your alligator.

Madison Wake: Albert was my pet. I kept him in a terrr-air-e-um on the desk in my room next to my bed. Daddy built him a water pool. And I found sticks and bark and rocks and dirt in the park for him to live on. Then we went to the pet store and purchased a heating lamp.

Richard Wake: Tell the Captain where the alligator came from.

Madison Wake: Madison looks to her father for direction and then looks away.

Suddenly her eyes light up and she leans closer to the recording device.

Grandpa Wake! I got him with Grandpa Wake.

Richard Wake: Let me explain. Madison went to Florida last summer to visit her grandfather. They went fishing on the boardwalk and Madison caught Albert!

Madison Wake: I reeled him in!

Richard Wake: My father purchased a terrarium that mimicked the natural environment the animal would live in. The cage had a jungle motif. The alligator and terrarium arrived by mail just after Madison returned from vacation.

Madison crawls off her father’s lap and walks to the door.

Go see mommy. She’s in the lobby.

Madison nodded okay and ran out the door. She made heavy footsteps that the recording device picked up.

Richard Wake: Sighs and brings his hand to his forehead.

I’m sorry… now I can tell you what really happened…

The city warden service took possession of the alligator because we did not have a permit to possess the reptile. We were issued a summons for keeping wildlife in captivity and importing and receiving wildlife without a permit. I appeared before the Supreme Court on March 4th of last year and receive a fine of $300. The warden received a tip about the alligator from a “confidential informant” who saw pictures of it on the Internet. We posted photos of Maddy and Albert on Flickr for my father to view. The photos were of Albert, with tape around his mouth, sitting at the table for Madison’s birthday celebration. We were all gathered around the table singing and the gator looked happy enough. He was part of the family then.

A zoologist accompanied the warden. When they took the gator out to their truck, they cut the tape that secured the Albert’s mouth and the gator began to thrash wildly. The zoologist wanted to check the integrity of the gator’s teeth. The beast bucked wildly and the zoologist lost the gator down a storm drain next to the curb.

The police arrived and removed the drain cover. City workers crawled into the drain after the alligator, but Albert was gone. They never found him.

Had the alligator been safely transported to the animal rescue facility in Brooklyn that has a permit to possess exotic animals, we could have visited and Madison could have said goodbye. As it is, it seemed best to tell Maddy that God had taken Albert to heaven.

END OF INTERVIEW

Photos of Incident Location:

Permit Information:

An importation permit is $27, and a possession permit for propagators and general wildlife or fish also is $27. An exhibitor permit is $147.

An individual seeking a permit would call the department about their interest to import and possess an exotic, non-native animal. A discussion would take place as to what the intended use is of the animal. Once a prospective classification is determined, the applicant would need to submit all of the required information asked on the application as well as a veterinarian inspection. If an animal is going to be possessed, the caging facilities also would need to be inspected.

Photo of Albert:

Photo of Richard and Madison Wake: