I watched this video recently.

It's from 1999 and it shows a man in Schwartz opening the trunk of his Dodge van and pulling

out a little homemade boat.

The man is George Tracas and he's an artist.

George hauls the boat to the water, a creek in Brooklyn that's among the most polluted

industrial waterways in the U.S. but as George pops his boat into the creek, he sees more

than just toxic water.

So this whole area that we're in was originally swamped and all these inlets in here are probably

all kinds of clams and oysters and seaheather and all kinds of stuff.

So I have a feeling that this area will be well used, people sitting, talking,

picnicking, fishing, kayaking, whatever.

We'll clean all this stuff up.

That day in the little boat, George was scouting out locations for what would be his biggest

art installation yet.

He would dedicate more than 20 years of his life to this project.

I'm Johanna Mayer and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange,

incredible and wondrous places.

Today we visit Newtown Creek where I'm sitting right now recording this episode.

We'll learn how one man armed with a homemade boat and an artistic vision

transformed this place and how he impacted the lives of artists and locals for years to come.

After this.

Here's the thing about Newtown Creek.

...