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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, AUGUST 16, 2020
National park stewards closed Dead Horse Bay after discovering radioactive contamination at the southern Brooklyn park
and former landfi ll. Photo by National Parks Service
BY ROSE ADAMS
Authorities closed the southern
half of Dead Horse Bay after
fi nding radioactive material at the
park and former landfi ll, which
has become a destination for scavengers.
“The National Parks Service is
working to investigate Dead Horse
Bay to identify the contamination
and extent of the contamination,”
said spokeswoman Daphne Yun
in a statement. “For visitor safety,
NPS will close this portion of Dead
Horse Bay to the public.”
Dead Horse Bay, once a dumping
ground for horse carcasses
processed by nearby rendering
plants, has become a popular spot
for treasure hunters looking to
scavenge bottles, horse bones, or
the occasional porcelain fi gurine.
The grounds, located in southern
Brooklyn just west of Floyd Bennett
Field, served as a city landfi
ll until 1930, and even became a
trash-digging haven for early 20th
century jewelers searching for discarded
gems.
The park, however, also houses
radioactive matter, a 2019 preliminary
survey found. Offi cials detected
excessive gamma radiation
in 31 locations across the 178-acre
dump and removed two deck markers
— small disks used on Navy
ships to provide light at night. The
markers, which contained Radium
226, had broken and leaked, contaminating
the surrounding soil
and potentially the southern beach
area, authorities said.
In response to the survey’s recent
fi ndings, parks stewards shut
down 84 acres on the southern end
of the bay.
“Visitors to Dead Horse Bay use
the Park for passive recreation,
like walking on trails, but also
conduct unauthorized digging in
the soil or beach for old bottles and
other items,” the statement said.
The preliminary studies are
part of a longterm effort to clean up
the bay using the same procedure
Superfund sites receive, known as
the Comprehensive Environmental,
Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act (CERCLA) process.
The cleanup — and the park’s closure
— may last years, Yun said.
Feds say that the risk of radiation
exposure depends on how
much time and how close park visitors
came to the toxic soil.
“The greatest potential risk
from radiological contamination at
the Site is from coming into direct
contact with a man-made radiological
article,” the National Parks
Service said in a release. “A visitor
potentially could be exposed to radiological
contamination or manmade
radiological articles either
from unauthorized digging and
surfacing a deck marker or other
man-made radiological article
(with the aid of a metal detector)
and/or from an article that may
become exposed along the shoreline.”
Long periods exposure to high
levels of radiation can cause cataracts,
anemia, and cancer over the
course of many years, according
to the Environmental Protection
Agency. A National Parks spokesperson
did not elaborate on the
site’s level of radiation.
Parks authorities will conduct
the cleanup effort with the input of
the community, stewards said in a
statement.
“Information repositories will
be established at locations open
to members of the general public
where a collection of documents
(including the Administrative Record
fi le) relevant to the Site will
be made available for public viewing
and copying,” the statement
said. “NPS will also issue a Community
Involvement Plan that will
guide public involvement during
the CERCLA process.”
Former Angel Guardian
home residents push for
convent landmark status
The convent is located to the left of the Angel Guardian home’s main building
on 63rd Street. Photo by Caroline Ourso
BY ROSE ADAMS
Former Angel Guardian
home residents urged landmarks
offi cials to salvage what’s left of
the historic Sisters of Mercy complex
at a city hearing on Aug. 11,
arguing that the sprawling site
carries deep emotional value.
“The Angel Guardian home
was the only visual photo I had
of my childhood, along with a
three-and-a-half page history I
had of my foster life,” said Sylvia
Rivera, who lived in the former
orphanage from infancy to
18 months, but continued to visit
it frequently. “Overlooking these
tall iron gates was the safe haven
I always treasured … Please let it
be named a historic landmark,
and not let it be erased like a page
omitted from history books.”
The hearing, held by the
Landmarks Preservation Commission,
is the fi rst step towards
the proposed preservation of
the Angel Guardian home —
which, if approved, would make
the stately, 1899 building Dyker
Heights’ fi rst.
More than a dozen locals, former
staffers, and residents who
found families through the orphanage
celebrated the building’s
potential landmarking
— but urged the commission to
landmark the adjacent convent
building as well.
The convent building, which
sits to the left of the main orphanage
on 63rd Street, is the only
other remaining structure on the
block-long Angel Guardian campus
bordered by 12th and 13th avenues
and 63rd and 64th streets.
The walled-off property used to
feature multiple buildings and
a bucolic landscape of winding
pathways and large trees, but almost
all of it was demolished after
the Sisters of Mercy sold the
land to a developer in 2018.
The lot behind the two remaining
buildings on 12th Avenue
will house condos, and the lot
facing 13th Avenue will feature
a public school. Scott Barone,
whose management company
bought the property and divided
it up into three parcels, said that
he always planned to save the
main building.
“It was always part of our mission
from day one to preserve this
building,” he said at the hearing.
The structure will house “luxury”
assisted living for seniors,
he told Brooklyn Paper in 2018.
Local leaders say they lobbied
the LPC to save the entire lot just
after its hush-hush sale, but the
commission did not calendar a
hearing until after most of the
campus was demolished.
“We supported landmarking
from the position of the entire
lot, but unfortunately, since
then pieces of the lot have been
sold off and we’re left with two
buildings, the main building
and the convent building,” said
Dyker Heights Civic Association
head, Fran Vella-Marrone, at the
hearing. “The convent’s got architectural
value, it’s got historic
value, but more importantly, we
need to be recognized in our community.”
The agency will soon calendar
a vote regarding the Angel
Guardian home’s landmark status,
offi cials said at the hearing.
TOXIC DEVELOPMENT
Dead Horse Bay closed due to radioactive contamination