Greenpoint Community Environmental Fund holds grand tour of North Brooklyn environmental remediation
Environmental Open House Displays Depth and Range of Fund’s Efforts
“So many aspects of New York City’s infrastructure are positively medieval,” Marni Majorelle, founder of Alive Structures, declared while standing on the roof of Greenpoint’s Broadway Stages building.
Dominating the nearby landscape, the eight Digester Eggs of the Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant gleamed in the autumn sun, suggesting a futuristic vision of a colony on Mars. The air all around was filled with the rumble of tanker trucks laden with natural gas and the crash of cranes crunching tons of recyclable metals. A faint miasma from the nearby Newtown Creek reminded visitors of the heavy bacterial load that fills the waterway, an EPA Superfund site since 2001.
This past Saturday, stage three of Greenpoint Community Environmental Fund’s (GCEF) Open House Tour had brought visitors to the Newtown Creek Wildflower Roof and Community Space. The 21,711-square-foot intensive green roof covers the multi-level Broadway Stages building with an oasis of green and flowers cut through with flat rock paths to enable visitors to take in the entire scene without trampling the carefully planted garden. “NYC Audobon is the nonprofit partner,” Kathryn Heintz, NYC Audubon executive director, said, describing the space’s financial evolution. “Marni’s the contractor, and Broadway Stages is the for-profit partner.”