The soil in North Brooklyn is toxic.

Almost all of it.

There are large plumes of chemicals that exist underground.

When I planted my garden here I had the soil tested to see just how bad it was.

One of the things I was told to watch for when I was purchasing land in Greenpoint was contaminated soils from all of the industrial properties that permeated the neighborhood. My plot, as far as I understood, had never been an industrial lot, nor any of the immediate adjacent lots. But there was heavy industry not far from the house, merely a block away from the Nuhart Chemical plant with its notorious toxic plume beneath the ground, the result of decades of slow leaks.

I had the land surveyed to ensure it sat on a slope away from this toxic site to ensure that the migrating chemicals would never come beneath my house. But that didn’t save the soil from the settling of air pollutants. The top foot of all soil here is contaminated with lead from car exhaust as well as the factories of that era.

The sudden rapid rise in property value in Greenpoint was fascinating. Values were rising so quickly in neighboring Williamsburg that despite all of the environmental and geotechnical issues in Greenpoint, it was still desirable enough that people with the means to purchase, would do so. Everyone who was getting squeezed out of Williamsburg. Anyone who intended on raising their families in the city sought affordable homes any where they could be close to their communities. It was the height of Brooklyn gentrification.

On the side of the neighborhood by the Exxon spill. It seemed like people didn’t care about any of it.

The land here really isn’t even all that accessible. There are a few gardens but most of those are behind fences or in rear yards that have no visibility from the sidewalk. Most of the tree holes have been paved over with bricks or are densely landscaped.

The value of this weird mixture of poison that we’re standing on was phenomenal. I used to spend my days in a geotechnical laboratory in Virginia testing, and classifying soils for construction, reading geotechnical maps, blueprints, preparing for construction … I was well versed in geology.

I began to take samples of the soil I could reach and samples of fruit from the trees and I delivered them to the Environmental Testing Laboratory at CUNY Brooklyn College for a full spectrum analysis. This tests for chromium, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, and lead. They also have the capability to further test for nitrate, ammonia, and phosphate levels to determine agricultural suitability. And a micronutrient test for boron, magnesium, aluminum, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, Iron, and manganese was also available but I was more concerned with contamination rather than nutritional value. They had no tests for PCBs, or phthalate available but I did find a laboratory located in Europe who could do the test but at a such a great expense it proved prohibitive. There were so many limitations to the available testsI knew that I would only be able to perform the tests my self by acquiring the proper reagents and developing my own methodology for a replaceable and verifiable test method.

I began to take test samples of soils everywhere I went. I was fascinated by the matrices produced by the city. Urban geology is such that natural soils are seldom accessible, paved by concrete, asphalt, or flagstones and replaced by imported engineered medium. Even the planting of new trees and conditioning of old garden soils replaces and changes the native matrix.

The New York City’s subgrade is a patchwork of river sediment, bedrock, engineered soils, and unconditioned garbage fill, varying greatly wherever one looks. This combines with erosion from buildings, sidewalks and roadways, tree and wildlife remains, and the detritus of humanity to create the native topsoil.

It was a desk job. My office at Creative Capital was on Maiden Lane in the Financial District. I had to wear a suit and tie. I would travel throughout the financial district on lower Manhattan to work on my acquisitions. The soil derivatives. Erosions from the institutions housing the finance sector. I needed the essence of the wealth built here, the real dirt.

The World Trade Center is still being reconstructed from 9/11. I was able to reach my arm through the construction fence to acquire a sample of the native sub-grade beneath the new erection. The rich brown soil was blushing grey from the new foundation’s concrete runoff.

I walked to Wall Street. I stand in line and touch the bull’s balls for good luck. The buildings here have no gardens that reveal the earth. The only natural soil here is composed of the erosion of the city and the buildings, hair and skin flakes from people and their pets, bird droppings, tire and brake particles, food scraps, garbage bits, shoe leather, dislodged sequins, earrings... I used the spoon to scrape soil from the places it accreates. On my hands and knees in my suit, I tuck my tie into my shirt to keep it out of my work area. It takes many micro-transactions to amass sufficient sediment to invest into portable real estate. I should have worn an orange vest for safety.

My weekend trip to Coney Island yielded white sands mixed with with microplastics. The sand here used to be so valuable. Using a large plastic cup from Nathan’s I scoop up plenty of beach. Fire Island was much more difficult to get a piece of.

I developed a way to bind the soil in a medium that would be flexible yet strong and produce a finish that is similar to the soil in nature. This I mount on pure cotton rag watercolor paper and the calligraphed with it’s sampling location.

I showed this body of work in 2018 at an art and fashion show in midtown for The Set which benefited victims of child trafficking.

Prices are derived from the average cost of land in the locality from which the soil was excavated.

One Square Foot of Manhattan Soil : $1851

One Square Foot of Financial District Soil $1158

One Square Foot of World Trade Center Soil $3194

One Square Foot of Williamsburg Soil $1107

(Prices as of 2018 :: subject to market conditions)