1973 Photo Of The Gravesend Bay Dump Site

This photograph depicts the old incineration plant and landfill dump at Gravesend Bay. The site is currently at the center of a major Bensonhurst environmental debate.

For over 30 years, the dump burned NYC garbage without a permit. It was finally shut down in the mid-90’s. Now, the city wants to put a waste transfer station there.

While no garbage would be burned at the new site, in order to build it, the waters would have to be dredged. Assemblyman William Colton and several environmental groups state that this would allow for the toxins that are dormant in the water from the previous plant to be released into the atmosphere.

Further, because trucks would be driving from across the city to the transfer station, there would be “hundreds of garbage trucks…barreling down Cropsey Avenue and already-gridlocked Bay Parkway and Shore Parkway every day. Not only will this result in even greater traffic congestion and accidents, but the fumes from the vast increase in dirty diesel-burning tugboats and trucks will jeopardize our health, leading to higher rates of asthma and other diseases,” according to a petition put out several by local environmental groups like NoSpray and Wake Up and Smell the Garbage.

In this 1973 shot, the kids used the dump as a playground. Ignorance really is bliss.