Toxi City: Brooklyn Brownfields
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As we careen towards the greater impacts of climate change, brownfields remind us of the damage we are willing to inflict on the environment for the benefits of industrialism.To select the sites to photograph for the exhibit, the New York Sate Department of Environmental Conservation’s Environmental Site Remediation list was the starting point to determine what qualifies as a brownfield or toxic site. In addition, old maps at the Brooklyn Historical Society were consulted.
The dichotomy of pristine and polluted is no longer a useful way of thinking. The alphabet soup of DNAPLs, NAPLs, BTEXs, PAHs, SVOCs, VOCs, TCE, PCE, and PCBs that have been left behind at these sites can never be entirely removed. Their dangers can only be better managed.
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The exhibit will include photographs of sites in all phases of the clean-up process. Photographs of several completed remediation projects such as Pfizer and Lowe’s will be included as well as photographs of several sites undergoing remediation such as the Coney Island and Williamsburg Works manufactured gas plant sites.
In addition, the show will feature photographs of as-yet unremediated sites that once housed gas plants, electrical powerhouses, petroleum facilities and manufacturing operations or were tainted by landfill or dumping. Because Brooklyn is a dense, crowded, place, many of these sites are in use in some form today despite their toxicity.
This event is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by the Brooklyn Arts Council, Inc. (BAC), as well as by grants from The City University of New York PSC-CUNY Research Award Program and from the Puffin Foundation.
