WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES MARCH 29, 2018 33
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
This overhead photo taken in 2013 shows much of the Newtown Creek and the surrounding area. The original Kosciuszko Bridge and Brooklyn-
Queens Expressway run through the heart of the picture.
on the surface to know it was polluted;
you could smell it, too, sometimes from
many blocks away.
It was particularly bad in the summer.
The Old Timer can remember the
overpowering smell — what could be
best described as rotten eggs left to
sit in a heated bath of turpentine —
whenever taking a drive over the
Greenpoint Avenue or Metropolitan
Avenue bridges, which span the creek,
to visit relatives in Brooklyn.
Then, in 1978, a Coast Guard crew on
a helicopter fl yover spotted oil pouring
out of a bulkhead on the Brooklyn
side of the creek. An investigation of
that leak led to the discovery of the
Greenpoint Oil Spill. The result of an
underground explosion at a Standard
Oil refi nery in the 1950s, investigators
determined that more than 17 million
gallons of petroleum — more than
twice the amount of crude oil that
spilled from the Exxon Valdez in
Alaska in 1989 — formed a giant plume
beneath the streets of Greenpoint,
Brooklyn.
The discovery seemed to mark a
tipping point in the Newtown Creek’s
life. In a more environmentally conscious
era, residents in Brooklyn and
Queens — along with elected offi cials
in city, state and federal government
— decided that the time had some to do
something.
The environmental group Riverkeeper,
in conjunction with New York
State, fi led lawsuits against Exxon-
Mobil — the inheritors of the former
Standard Oil Company — seeking
restitution for efforts to clean the
massive oil spill and other pollution
in the creek.
In 2010, at the behest of local offi cials
including Congresswoman Nydia
Velazquez, the EPA declared the Newtown
Creek a Superfund site, making
it eligible for federal funds toward
cleanup eff orts. Plans for a full creek
cleanup are still in the development
stages, and the reality is that it may
take a few more decades before those
eff orts are fully realized.
Even so, the Newtown Creek Alliance
notes that the cleanup eff orts
already made in recent years have
helped turn the tide. It notes on its
website that “life is returning to the
creek. You can fi nd blue crabs at the
mouth, fi sh swim in its waters, and
waterfowl are prevalent. Wetland
plants are taking over the abandoned
bulkheads and sediment piles and
school children are growing oysters,
which serve as natural water fi lters.”
Sources: Newtown Creek Alliance,
Environmental Protection Agency, New
Photo via Wikimedia Commons
York magazine, Untapped Cities and
Forgotten New York.
* * *
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emailing editorial@ridgewoodtimes.
com (subject: Our Neighborhood: The
Way it Was) or write to The Old Timer,
℅ Ridgewood Times, 38-15 Bell Blvd.,
Bayside, NY 11361. Any mailed pictures
will be carefully returned to you upon
request.
Courtesy of the Queens Borough Public Library, Archives, Ralph S. Solecki Photographs
Ralph Solecki is pictured standing on the shore of Newtown Creek at Furman’s Island in Maspeth in 1937. The
tributaries separating the island from Maspeth were fi lled in.