Closing Bell: Newtown Creek "Magic Lantern" Show at the Brooklyn Brainery

Learn about the polluted waterway that helped form the backbone of Brooklyn’s industrial economy next month at Brooklyn Brainery with a photographic journey and lecture on Newtown Creek. Brownstoner Queens blogger and Newtown Creek Alliance historian Mitch Waxman will present his slideshow and lecture on the history of the creek, which was named a federal Superfund site in 2010. Just after the feds declared it a Superfund site, Exxon Mobil agreed to a $25,000,000 settlement to clean up decades of oil spills, most of which went into a community fund to benefit Greenpoint and its surrounding environment.

“The presentation will photographically carry viewers from the Newtown Creek’s junction with the East River all the way back to the heart of darkness found at its end in East Williamsburg,” says the description on the Brainery website. The lecture will take place on Thursday, February 27 from 8 to 10 pm at Brooklyn Brainery’s Prospect Heights storefront, which is 190 Underhill Avenue. Tickets cost $12, and the sign-up page is here.

Photo by Mitch Waxman