Car crashes into Newtown Creek, driver not found

Revealed: Waterway Has History of Fatal Accidents

January 19, 2018 By Scott Enman Brooklyn Daily Eagle

A car was discovered partially submerged in the Brooklyn side of Newtown Creek on Friday morning. At press time, the driver had not been identified. Eagle file photo by Cody Brooks

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From condoms and corpses to trash and tires, residents of North Brooklyn are accustomed to seeing unusual objects floating in Newtown Creek.

But what one person discovered in the toxic waterway on Friday morning was one of the more extraordinary findings.

A vacant car was seen partially submerged in the Brooklyn side of the creek around 6:30 a.m., according to FDNY.

The black vehicle appeared to have crashed through a barrier at the end of Maspeth Avenue in East Williamsburg near Empire Transit Mix Inc.

At press time, the driver’s whereabouts and identification had not been determined.

The 3.5-mile estuary runs through the border of Brooklyn and Queens and along the edges of Greenpoint and East Williamsburg.

Program Manager of Newtown Creek Alliance (NCA) Willis Elkins said there have been a handful of similar accidents in the past.

“It’s not surprising that there are instances of cars driving into the creek…” Elkins told the Brooklyn Eagle. “Historically, the creek has been a water body that has been neglected and surrounded by a lot of industrial areas.

“Some of those cars were instances of drunk driving and people going really fast along streets that terminate at the creek, and maybe they didn’t realize there was a dead end there. In general, in terms of dumping stuff, the creek has been a target for activity like that.”

NCA is a “community-based organization dedicated to restoring, revealing and revitalizing Newtown Creek,” according to its website.

Elkins said his group is working to create better connections to the creek. He hopes to convert more street-end sites into pocket parks for local workers and residents.

Elkins told the Eagle that in Maspeth Creek, a tributary of Newtown Creek, there are two cars fully submerged in the water.

In June 2013, a car crashed into a guardrail at the end of Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint. The vehicle, though it did not make it into the water, hung precariously over the creek.

In April 2008, a two-door black Mercedes-Benz drove into the waterway off of Apollo Street in Greenpoint, according to The New York Times.

Derek Winefsky, 27, a passenger in the car, was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the vehicle was rescued by NYPD and brought to Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center.

Going further back, the Eagle reported of another crash in the creek on Jan. 29, 1934.

“George Stuke, 27, a bookkeeper at the Chase National Bank’s Harlem Branch, was drowned early yesterday when the car driven by his father, Adolph Stuke, proprietor of the Nassau Tavern, Nassau Avenue and Leonard Street, and in which the younger man was riding, plunged into Newtown Creek through an open draw of the Penny Bridge between Long Island City and Greenpoint,” the article read.

In January 2016, an Audi sedan plunged into Newtown Creek’s cross-town neighbor the Gowanus Canal. Matthew Murphy, 36, drove his car into the canal’s icy waters while fleeing the scene of a hit-and-run.

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