Newtown Creek

Newtown Creek is a 3.5 mi (6 km) estuary that forms part of the border between the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. It derived its name from New Town (Nieuwe Stad), which was the name for the Dutch and British settlement in what is now Elmhurst, Queens. Neighborhoods bordering on the Creek are Hunters Point, Long Island City, Blissville, and Maspeth in Queens and Greenpoint and Williamsburg in Brooklyn.

Channelization made it one of the most heavily used bodies of water in the Port of New York and New Jersey and led to its being one of the most polluted industrial sites in America,[1] containing years of discarded toxins, an estimated 30 million gallons of spilled oil, and raw sewage from New York City’s sewer system.[1] Newtown Creek was proposed as a potential Superfund site in September 2009,[2] and received that designation on September 27, 2010.[3]

Course
The creek begins near the intersection of 47th Street and Grand Avenue on the Brooklyn-Queens border 40°43′06″N 73°55′27″W﻿ / ﻿40.718412°N 73.924127°W﻿ / 40.718412; -73.924127 at the intersection of the East Branch and English Kills.[4] It empties into the East River at 40°44′14″N 73°57′40″W﻿ / ﻿40.73734°N 73.96112°W﻿ / 40.73734; -73.96112 (2nd Street and 54th Avenue in Long Island City) opposite Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan at 26th Street. Its waterfront, and that of its tributaries Dutch Kills, Whale Creek, Maspeth Creek and English Kills, are heavily industrialized.

The creek has no natural waterflows. Its outgoing flow of 14,000 million gallons/year consists of combined sewer overflow, urban runoff, raw domestic sewage, and industrial wastewater. Being estuarine, the creek is largely stagnant. Since there is no current in the creek, sludge has congealed into a 15-foot-thick (4.6 m) layer of waht's been called “black mayonnaise” on the creek bed.[1]

Mouth of the Creek, seen from Pulaski Bridge. Manhattan Avenue Bridge formerly connected Manhattan Avenue on the left bank to Vernon Boulevard

Whale Creek fuel tanks Newtown Creek from the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge

History
Before the nineteenth century urbanization and industrialization of the surrounding neighborhoods, Newtown Creek was a longer and shallower tidal waterway, wide enough that it contained islands. It drained parts of what are now the neighborhoods of Bushwick, Williamsburg and Greenpoint in Brooklyn; and Maspeth, Ridgewood, Sunnyside and Long Island City in Queens. During the second half of the nineteenth century it became a major industrial waterway, bounded along most of its length by retaining walls, the shipping channel maintained by dredging. The Montauk Branch of the Long Island Rail Road, mainly a freight line, runs along its North bank. A liquid natural gas port is under construction on the South bank, between Kingsland and Greenpoint Avenues, Whale Creek, and the main stream of Newtown Creek.[citation needed][5]

In 2007, residents of Greenpoint, Brooklyn and the New York State Attorney General's Office filed lawsuits regarding the Greenpoint Oil Spill that contained more than twice the oil of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.[6]

On September 27, 2010, the United States Environmental Protection Agency designated Newtown Creek as a Superfund site, preparing the way for evaluation and environmental remediation of the stream. Environment advocacy groups supported the decision.[7]

Bridges
Newtown Creek is crossed by the Pulaski Bridge (replaced the Penny Bridge in the 1950's), the J. J. Byrne Memorial Bridge also known as the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge, and the Kosciuszko Bridge. There are several "No Name" bridges that cross its tributaries that take the name of the avenue that crosses the creek with such names like the Grand Street Bridge and the Metropolitan Avenue Bridge. . The Kosciuszko Bridge which is part of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (BQE) designated I-278, all the other bridges are drawbridges. (Note: The Grand Street Bridge is a "Long Swing Type" Bridge)

Tankers in the creek [edit] See also

* Gowanus Canal * Arthur Kill (Staten Island) * Greenpoint, Brooklyn * Hunters Point, Queens