Summary(1:00) Greenpoint used to be beautiful and beachlike -- (2:50) Poor air quality from industrialized pollution -- (4:25) Sister Barbara Cress, one of the first environmentalists in Greenpoint -- (4:50) History of oil refining in Greenpoint -- (6:50) 1950 manhole cover explosion was first indication of underground oil spill -- (8:31) Community wasn’t aware of environmental issues, many cancer victims in neighborhood possible related to pollution -- (10:40) Hurricane Sandy in Greenpoint -- (13:00) Greenpoint in the early 1990s, post industrialization -- (15:20) Jane Jacobs reaching out to Mayor Bloomberg to prevent waterfront rezoning -- (16:20) Gentrification changing neighborhood -- (18:50) Transient nature of new residents prevents deep roots in the community, working class being pushed out -- (20:18) Three waves of Polish immigration -- (22:10) Puerto Rican immigration to Greenpoint -- (25:00) Greenpoint’s environment now -- (26:42) Need of comprehensive neighborhood health study -- (27:00) 1990s Polish immigrants removing asbestos
NoteAudio interview conducted on April 24, 2019, by Acacia Thompson on Box Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Collected through Our Streets, Our Stories, an oral history project of Brooklyn Public Library. This project is funded through the Greenpoint Community Environmental Fund.
SubjectNewtown Creek (Kings County-New York County, N.Y.) ; Pollution ; Sewage disposal plant ; Air--Pollution ; Oil refineries ; Cancer ; Immigrants--Polish ; Tidal estuary ; Landfill ; Hurricane Sandy ; Flooding ; Post industrialization ; Industry ; Gentrification ; Waterfronts ; Industrialization ; Asbestos
RightsThis work is covered by a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Users are free to share and adapt the work for non-commercial purposes as long as appropriate credit is given to the source and new material created with this work is shared under the same conditions.
TitleOral history interview with Geoff Cobb conducted on 24 April 2019.