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Fountain Avenue (Brooklyn, New York)
Encyclopedia
The south end is a site off the Belt Parkway
Belt Parkway
The Belt System is a series of connected limited-access highways that form a belt-like circle around the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. The system comprises four officially separate parkways; however, three of the four are signed as the Belt Parkway...
, specifically named "Exit 15 Erskine Street". The area is mostly composed of landfill
Landfill
A landfill site , is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment...
and has areas of swampland-like forest
Forest
A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...
growth. Various nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
groups, city groups, etc. are concerned with the development
Urban planning
Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....
of this area.
History, ecological concerns and other writings
Various tests of the Fountain Avenue area and landfills were conducted in 1985 and 1986.A December 4, 1998 press announcement by Congressman Vito Fossella
Vito Fossella
Vito John Fossella, Jr. is a U.S. Republican politician from the state of New York who formerly represented the state's 13th Congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives for six terms, from 1997 to 2009 serving as the lone Republican from New York City. Fossella, a Staten Island...
stated that Fossella "laid out a compelling argument for deauthorizing the property as part of Gateway National Recreation Area
Gateway National Recreation Area
Gateway National Recreation Area is a National Recreation Area in the Port of New York and New Jersey. Scattered over Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, New York and Monmouth County, New Jersey, it provides recreational opportunities that are rare for a dense urban environment, including ocean...
and restoring it as a temporary waste disposal site only for trash generated in Brooklyn".
Bill Farrell, writing for the New York Daily News
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
, summarized the condition of the area during a 2003 article: "The malodorous, toxic and visual nightmare reviled by drivers along the Belt Parkway will soon be transformed into 400 acres (1.6 km²) of parkland along Jamaica Bay."
On February 12, 2004, New York City Sanitation filed a request to operate a yard waste composting facility. The application was completed on March 2006.
BergerWorld reported in its 2nd Quarter 2006 report: "Berger, teamed with URS, is assisting the New York City Department of Environmental Protection in the $160 million, 297 acres (1.2 km²) Pennsylvania & Fountain Avenue Landfills (PAFAL) closure project in Brooklyn, NY, one of the largest closures ever undertaken in the state of New York"
The landfill was mentioned on July 10, 2007 as undergoing a $20 million ecological restoration with the Pennsylvania landfill. The area is also under discussion by local government
Local government
Local government refers collectively to administrative authorities over areas that are smaller than a state.The term is used to contrast with offices at nation-state level, which are referred to as the central government, national government, or federal government...
to be considered for more development
Urban planning
Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....
. City Line Park was mentioned as being redesigned and transformed under a $1.5 million renovation launched this day.
Ecological concerns were later expressed for the area on a "New York Habitat Restoration" webpage.
Reputation
Fountain Avenue has been infamously usesd as a dumping ground for bodies of the MobOrganized crime
Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...
. In the 1930s a group known as Murder Incorporated used the area as a dumping ground for bodies. Later the DeMeo crew disposed of many victims there. The most recent find of a body was that of Imette St. Guillen
Imette St. Guillen
Imette Carmella St. Guillen was an American graduate student of Venezuelan and French Canadian descent who was brutally raped and murdered. She was studying criminal justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City at the time of her death...
, who was murdered on February 25, 2006.