Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant — Local services in New York

Go to the Newtown Creek Digester Eggs at night. You don’t need to know much, just take the G train to Greenpoint Ave, walk north past the sewage smell that hits like a bad childhood memory, and keep going until the skyline looks like it’s holding its breath. Then you’ll see them. Eight silver domes rising out of the industrial sludge, lit in alien blue, like UFOs that missed their exit.

Stand under them. It’s dead quiet except for the hum of the plant and the occasional rumble from the Pulaski Bridge. You’ll smell the city’s leftovers. Banana peels, hangover pizza, wet dreams, rats, all reborn into methane. You think of how all that mess becomes light and heat, and you almost forgive New York for what it is.

If you want the real show, come around 10 p.m. That’s when the lights hit full glow, the water’s still, and the reflections turn it into some kind of holy place. Nobody’s here. Maybe a drunk, maybe a raccoon, maybe you. Bring a beer, sit on the guardrail, watch the Empire State blink in the distance while a poo factory looks more beautiful than half the galleries in Chelsea.

Obscure fact: each of those domes holds three million gallons of sludge. The heat inside can melt a man. They say it’s the biggest of its kind on the East Coast. The Newtown Creek plant handles 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater a day. That’s the poetry of the city, right there. Everything that goes in comes out, still glowing, still alive somehow.

Go late, go alone, and don’t tell anyone you found it. They wouldn’t...

The plant is among NYC's most romantic destinations, with ~220 visitors for their valentine's day tour in 2012. It's open for regular free tours on the second Tuesday of each month, and during Open House NY weekend. The tour includes a fascinating lecture from the guy who runs the plant, and a walk around the top of the digester eggs with stunning views over Greenpoint and the...

Saw this industrial 'stainless steel onions' site from the taxi on my first trip to NY - looked amazing so I got onto maps to find out what it was. And here it is. Looks like a great spot for a fashion shoot! Cheers. If I ever get back there would love to take the tour. Kent Johnson Photography; Travel /...