Walk down Van Brunt Street, the main commercial drag of Red Hook’s waterfront, and the signs are unavoidable–in nearly every shop and restaurant window, a bright yellow poster imploring the Environmental Protection Agency to “Say no to a toxic Red Hook.” They’re advocating against a plan that would have EPA workers dredging toxic sludge from the bottom of the polluted Gowanus Canal and using it to literally build new land on the Red Hook waterfront.
The EPA assures that the sludge would be fully decontaminated, but residents have worries about the decontamination plant, and have set up an online petition to air their concerns before the final Gowanus cleanup plan is released this summer. “This is almost the worst thing I can imagine for this neighborhood,” said Carly Yates, one of the founders of the group, dubbed No Toxic Red Hook. “It’s disturbing — I don’t think that I can raise my daughter here if it were to be built.”
To call attention to the dismal state of the Gowanus Canal and the controversial federal effort to clean it up, a group of actors and activists will stage a century-old play near the mouth of the waterway. Why a play? An Enemy of the People, penned in 1882, concerns the citizens of…
The latest proposal to clean up and deal with the toxic waste that's plaguing Brooklyn's Gowanus canal involves building giant holding tanks underneath the nearby Douglass & DeGraw swimming pool, which would catch and store raw sewage before it hits the waterway. Ensuring that the canal isn't hit with excess…
Bob Diamond--the same guy who rediscovered an old rail tunnel under Atlantic Avenue in the '8os, then sued the city when they cut off his access to it in 2011--wants to make a more publicly accessible Red Hook. Diamond envisions a streetcar system that would connect the neighborhood to Downtown…
Walk down Van Brunt Street, the main commercial drag of Red Hook’s waterfront, and the signs are unavoidable–in nearly every shop and restaurant window, a bright yellow poster imploring the Environmental Protection Agency to “Say no to a toxic Red Hook.” They’re advocating against a plan that would have EPA workers dredging toxic sludge from the bottom of the polluted Gowanus Canal and using it to literally build new land on the Red Hook waterfront.
