Washed Up Transforming a Trashed Landscape Alejandro Duran
2015-02-01 12:00 - 2015-02-28 17:00 (America/New_York) | Hunter College East Harlem Art Gallery, 2180 Third Avenue , New York, NY, 10035 , United States
Photo credit: Alejandro Duran
Washed Up is an ongoing project by Mexican-born, New York-based artist Alejandro Durán that addresses the issue of plastic pollution making its way across the ocean and onto the shores of Sian Ka’an, Mexico’s largest federally-protected reserve. With more than twenty pre-Colombian archaeological sites, this UNESCO World Heritage site is also home to a vast array of flora and fauna and the world’s second largest coastal barrier reef. Unfortunately, Sian Ka’an is also a repository for the world’s trash, which is carried there by ocean currents from many parts of the globe.
When: October 29, 2014 to February 28, 2015
Hours: Tuesday — Saturday, 12:00–5:00 P.M.
Where: Hunter College East Harlem Art Gallery, 2180 Third Avenue at 119th Street New York NY 10035
For more information, please visit: http://​www​.hunter​.cuny​.edu/​e​a​s​t​h​a​r​l​e​m​-​a​r​t​g​a​l​l​ery

Make Your Own Household Cleaner
2015-02-17 15:00 - 16:00 | Brooklyn Brainery, 190 Underhill Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 11238, United States
Photo credit: Collin Anderson
Tuesday, February 17, 3:00-4:00pm
Location: The Brainery in Prospect Heights
There are plenty of reasons why making your own surface cleaner is an excellent idea.
Whether you’re concerned about saving money, the environment, or your health, this simple DIY project will make a difference! In this class we’ll cover the various ingredients you can use to clean grimy kitchen surfaces and glass. We’ll talk about the possible components of a homemade cleaner and the ratios for mixing. We’ll also spend some time on what’s best to avoid in store-bought products. By the end of class, participants will make their own cleaner blend based on their needs with plenty of time for questions.
Keep an eye out for a weekend session soon!

Please register here: http://brooklynbrainery.com/courses/make-your-own-household-cleaner

Taught by Kris De la Torre
Working in food and agriculture helped Kris De la Torre develop a sensitivity to what we put in our bodies. A penchant for perfumes prompted her to ask the same questions about what we put on our bodies. Having taught classes about her favorite ferments (beer, wine and cheese) all over NYC, she looks forward to expanding her classroom to natural beauty and household cleaning products. Kris hopes that through sharing her funny failures and success stories, students will feel empowered to make these everyday products out of ingredients that are good for them and good for the environment.

Freshkills Park Series: Landfill Infrastructure
2015-02-17 18:30 - 19:30 | Brooklyn Brainery, 190 Underhill Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 11238, United States
Photo credit: NYC Parks
Tuesday, February 17, 6:30-7:30pm
Location: The Brainery in Prospect Heights
The ongoing development of Freshkills Park is one of the most ambitious public works projects in the history of New York City, using state of the art ecological restoration techniques in an extraordinary setting for recreation, public art, and environmental investigation.
The City of New York established the Fresh Kills Landfill in 1948, before there was any large–scale development on the west shore of Staten Island. By 1955, Fresh Kills was the largest landfill in the world, serving as the principal landfill for household garbage collected in New York City. The four landfill mounds on the site are made up of approximately 150 million tons of solid waste.
The park’s mounds are being capped with an impermeable plastic liner and eight additional layers of barrier material separate the ground we touch and the landfill beneath it, one of them two feet thick. There are several systems in place to manage the landfill gas and leachate (the technical term for garbage juice) byproducts –some are visible, like the white stacks of the Flare Stations, but most are invisible, like the 10,000 linear feet of piping and drainage channels.
Learn more about the infrastructure that makes the park possible from Laura Truettner, Manager for Park Development.

This is the first talk in a series detailing the development of Freshkills Park in Staten Island.
Taught by Laura Truettner
Laura Truettner is the Manager for Park Development for Freshkills Park. Before coming to the NYC Parks, she worked on community based redevelopment strategies for addressing brownfield sites and prior to that on investigating and remediating former petroleum, landfill and manufacturing sites. She is an urban planner and geologist by training.

The History of the Gowanus Canal
2015-02-17 20:30 - 22:00 | Brooklyn Brainery, 190 Underhill Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 11238, United States
Photo credit: Eymund Diegel

Tuesday, February 17, 8:30-10:00pm or Thursday, March 5, 6:30-8:00pm

Location: The Brainery in Prospect Heights
Nestled between the hip and hardly inexpensive neighborhoods Park Slope and Carroll Gardens is the Gowanus Canal: Brooklyn’s most infamous toxic waste site.
While many are aware that the canal is smelly or that bodies have been dumped there, the Gowanus is more than an open sewer: it is a dynamic part of New York history, stretching before the early days of the City of Brooklyn to colonization itself. And yes, raw sewage does flow into it; but that’s no accident, due to designs totally acceptable to 19th century urban planners.
In April 2010 the EPA elected the Gowanus to a list of federally regulated Superfund sites — polluting its depths are with industrial waste, like heavy metals, benzene and coal tar. It’s also polluted with e. coli, gonorrhea, and cholera.
But did you know that much of the building materials that made brownstone Brooklyn passed through its waters, or that it used to be home to delicious foot-long oysters? This class if for anyone who’s read about the Gowanus but wants to know more about how it got there, why its so polluted, and why people feel so compelled by it.
(Class size: 30, lecture style + q&a)
Please register here: http://brooklynbrainery.com/courses/the-history-of-the-gowanus-canal

Taught by Joseph Alexiou
A journalist and history nerd, Joseph A. is working on a book about the Gowanus Canal. He also likes France, looseleaf tea, old buildings, and vocal harmony. He misses living next to the 2nd street dock on the canal, but often goes to visit.
