About This Item

  • Call NumberGEHP_0121
  • Summary(0:24) Family came to Greenpoint after World War II Germany, born in DP camp -- (2:02) Feeling of community keeps him in Greenpoint -- (3:37) Family having lunch together from factory and school -- (5:16) Playing in factories and lumberyard as children when living on Freeman -- (7:20) Playing at Greenpoint Playground -- (8:10) Didn’t have access to waterfront growing up, climbed fence on Dupont street to get to water -- (9:23) Bad smells from factories -- (10:47) Idyllic growing up with ignorance of environmental issues -- (12:00) Waterfront industry abandoned -- (14:20) Idea about what could be done with abandoned waterfront -- (17:43) Imagined meeting between Park Tower group (George Klein) and Mayor Michael Bloomberg rezoning waterfront -- (21:00) In between jobs, depressed started working with community on fighting ConEd power plant -- (26:25) Mobilizing and strategies of community to prevent power plant -- (28:50) Candle light procession and rally of 900 people from the Warsaw on Driggs Avenue to Greenpoint Avenue and West Street at proposed ConEd power plant site -- (30:40) Talent of community helped perpetuate the grassroots activism -- (31:40) TransGas, Adam Victor power plant took 12 years -- (33:42) Turning Greenpoint/Williamsburg Against the Power Plant (GWAPP) to Greenpoint Williamsburg Association for Parks and Planning (GWAPP) -- (39:50) Greenpoint block associations and block captains -- (43:00) Street games played in the past
  • Date2018-02-06
  • Physical Description1 sound file (45 min.) : digital, MP3
  • CreatorMazur, Rich
  • Cite AsGreenpoint Environmental History Project, Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History
  • Digital Public Library of AmericaThis item is represented in the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA).
  • Formatsound recording-nonmusical
  • Genreinterviews
  • NoteAudio interview conducted on February 6, 2019, by Acacia Thompson on Huron Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Collected through Our Streets, Our Stories, an oral history project of Brooklyn Public Library. This project is funded through the Greenpoint Community Environmental Fund.
  • SubjectImmigrants--Germany ; Waterfronts ; Newtown Creek (Kings County-New York County, N.Y.) ; Factories ; New York (N.Y.). City Planning Commission ; Zoning ; Parks ; Electric power plants ; Bloomberg, Michael ; Waste disposal sites--New York (State)--New York ; Sewage disposal plant ; Consolidated Edison of New York, inc. ; Activism
  • PlaceGreenpoint (New York, N.Y.)
  • RightsThis work is covered by a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Users are free to share and adapt the work for non-commercial purposes as long as appropriate credit is given to the source and new material created with this work is shared under the same conditions.
  • TitleOral history interview with Rich Mazur conducted on 2019 February 6.