New York City is a super city. We have it all. But sometimes, having it all means warts-and-all, as is the case with the city’s three Federal Superfund sites. Superfund sites are areas designated by the federal government as hazardous toxic waste disposal sites. The Superfund program holds polluting manufactures liable for the waste their businesses leave behind, and provides compensation, cleanup and emergency response services for the environment and communities surrounding the sites. New York’s Federal Superfund sites — The Gowanus Canal, our very own Newtown Creek, and the Wolff-Alport chemical site in Ridgewood — are a potent reminder of the city’s industrial past, and, perhaps, a new cause celebre in Washington. Continue reading →
If the reality of all this transit stuff is too much to grapple with, try escaping into a fantasy Sim City land of sorts where you can design the perfect subway system.
Last night Cityfox, mega-party organizers behind Bushwick’s smash-hit Brooklyn Mirage, selected Greenpoint’s NuHart Plastics facility to host the ghouls and gals as they danced into the pale Halloween moonlight.
To the horror of the 4,500-plus ticket holders, the dancing was dead on arrival; the party organizers didn’t secure proper permits, and the Fire Department intervened, shutting the party down while people lined up to enter the Superfund Site around midnight. Continue reading →
It’s been a busy couple of weeks in the world of toxic chemicals, specifically as they pertain to Greenpoint. First, Neighbors Allied For Good Growth (NAG) released the ToxiCity Map to bring confusing, widely scattered publicly available data together into one cohesive document. Now, we’re bringing you the long-lost 1980s factory-to-factory survey of Greenpoint and Williamsburg by Hunter College, a study that many lifetime Greenpoint residents say they couldn’t find or easily access until now.
It reveals the former locations and quantities of reactive chemicals — the kind that explode when they make contact with water, such as cyanide. In many cases, they’re shockingly close to residential buildings in Brooklyn’s priciest real estate drag. From speaking with a NAG member at the map release event, I also found that the “Hazardous Neighbors” study contains information that’s not available in the ToxiCity Map. Continue reading →
Did you know that North Brooklyn’s industrial legacy left behind an alphabet soup of toxins – TCE, PCBs, phthalates, benzene, and many other chemicals – that’s lingering beneath the surface in many sections of our hood?
On October 20, a beta release of the ToxiCity Map will be hosted at Sunview Luncheonette, located at 221 Nassau Ave., starting at 7 p.m.
