Oh hey, Gowanus Canal and Newtown Creek? You're not alone in your SUPER FUN(d) status. Today, the Ridgewood neighborhood of Queensor, at least, three-fourths of an acre of itjoined your ranks, with the Environmental Protection Agency making the official announcement today. As if sensing this was the case, the New Yorker posted a nifty, if rather depressing, video and interactive timeline of the area yesterday, dubbing it the most radioactive place in all of New York City. We have the former Wolff-Alport Chemical Company to thanks blame for this, which operated on Irving Avenue from 1924 till 1950 and stayed in the black selling thorium to the government, a radioactive element that naturally then seeped throughout the property and into sidewalks and sewers. The parcel is currently home to an auto body shop, an ice-making facility, a construction company and a deli. Ew. But will the icky pronouncement stop the tide of gentrification to Ridgewood? Probably not, if precedent is anything to go by.
· The Most Radioactive Place in New York City [New Yorker via Gothamist]
· The Former Home of the Wolff-Alport Chemical Company Is Designated a Federal Superfund Site [Q'Stoner]
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