With climate change at the forefront of the national conversation and April 2020 marking the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, it's high time to take a dive into Brooklyn's environmental history. This City Story explores the impact of industrialization along Brooklyn's waterways, sites of notorious pollution, sustainability challenges, the effects of increased temperatures on our coastlines, and the changing ecology of our urban landscape.

Sometimes deciphering a neighborhood name can be pretty simple. It doesn't take a genius to puzzle out how Brooklyn Heights or the Navy Yard got their names, but other 'hoods have a little history behind their monikers. This story examines the background of some of Brooklyn's neighborhoods.

Often thought of as a "concrete jungle," New York City also has a rich history of environmental activism--from the creation of green spaces to confronting climate change. In the decades following the first Earth Day in 1970 and the birth of the environmental movement, New Yorkers sought to make their city greener with recycling centers, community gardens, and bike lanes. Activist groups also called for improved environmental conditions and air quality that disproportionately affected people of color. Though the city is less polluted today, climate change has posed large challenges that have ignited a new generation of environmental activists. Explore key sites of eco-advocacy in the city from the 1960s to today.

View of termination of Gowanus Canal taken from Degraw Street, west of the canal, 1960. The light-colored building beyond the canal’s end is the 1914 R.G. Dun & Co. building, a commercial reporting publisher. Further in the distance at right is the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower at 1 Hanson Place. Completed around 1869, the Gowanus Canal was an important transportation link for Brooklyn’s booming industrial economy — and a catch point for the sewage overflow and toxic runoff produced in its watershed. After decades of unsuccessful remediation projects, the Environmental Protection Agency added the Gowanus to its list of Superfund sites in 2010, making cleanup efforts eligible for federal funding.

Look at any view of New York’s waterfront before the mid-20th century and you’re likely to see a barge. Barges linked Manhattan and Long Island with the rest of the country’s rail network, which had no direct freight link across the lower Hudson or the harbor. Even today, freight trains must take a 300-mile detour across a bridge at Selkirk, near Albany, to get from Brooklyn to New Jersey. Instead, 2-3 times every weekday, freight cars roll-aboard barges called car floats (built for the Pennsylvania Railroad) to cross the harbor between Owls Head, Brooklyn, and Greenville, Jersey City, just as they have for more than 150 years. In addition to barges carrying entire train cars, this lighterage system had a whole set of barge cognates for rail cars. Every railroad that served New York had its own fleet. Written by Stefan D-W, Associate Archivist, the Seamen’s Church Institute & Museum Assistant, the Waterfront Museum.