Two philanthropies working to convert the old powerhouse on Brooklyn’s infamously polluted Gowanus Canal into an art center say they’ve spent $20 million cleaning the site of toxins — and claim in a lawsuit that the city and Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which contaminated the site, haven’t chipped in a penny.
BRT Powerhouse LLP and Gemini Arts Interactive plan to build a 170,000 square-♍foot arts hub at 322 Third Avenue, a site that served as a coal-operated electrical station to power Brooklyn’s train lines until 1972. The site also housed a coal yard.
But before the new facility can be built, the toxins the city and the MTA left behind must be cleaned up — and Powerhouse says it has dropped the eye-popping, eight-figure sum to do so while the city and the MTA haven’t chipped in a “single dollar of the cost.”
The site is heavily contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBS, and some 2,500 tons of soil have ha🐻d to be removed, the suit says🌱.
“Powerhouse is the ‘someone else’ now cleaning up the mess the city created and left to la🐠nguish in complete disregard of the environmeꩲnt, human health, and the citizens of New York,” the suit charges.
The city and the MTA did not i🐽mmediately respond to requests for comment.