Street co-named for Greenpoint environmental activist
A year after her death at 94 years old, Irene Klementowicz was honored for her 63 years of advocacy that helped to make North Brooklyn a safer place to live. The corner of Freeman Street and Manhattan Avenue is now co-named, Irene Klementowicz Way.
“Yesterday, I celebrated the life and legacy of Irene Klementowicz with a street renaming in Greenpoint. From the fight to clean up the Mobil oil spill to recovery efforts at Newtown Creek, she helped lead the fight for environmental justice in North Brooklyn for much of her life. Greenpoint is a better place because of Irene’s activism. I am proud to have known and worked with her in the fight against environmental degradation. This street renaming is a testament to her life’s work and will help inspire future generations,” said U.S. Representative Nydia Velázquez.
During her life in Greenpoint, Irene Klementowicz led the way in calling attention to many of the neighborhood’s environmental dangers.
In 1958, Irene moved to Greenpoint with her husband and children. Two years later she noticed black soot on the laundry she had hung out to dry and on her windows; she connected the dots to the Greenpoint Incinerator being the cause. Out of these ashes one of the area’s most steadfast advocates was created. As part of The Concerned Citizens of Greenpoint, she fueled a determined force of united stamina to shut the incinerator down. This effort took community activists 35 years to accomplish; the Greenpoint Incinerator closed down in 1994.
As reported in Newton Creek Pentacle in April 26, 2013, then U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney said, “This early activism led to an appointment to Community Board 1, where she [continued] to champion the health and safety of her district. Among her accomplishments, she can be credited with a hard-fought and successful campaign to shut down the Greenpoint incinerator, long a source of pollution and nuisance.”
The subject of the piece was a presentation of a $50K check to the newly founded Friends of the Nature Walk at Newtown Creek. The funds were allocated to sponsor and oversee the upkeep and improvement of this public space. The author, Mitch Waxman, stated in the piece, “The Nature Walk happened, in no small part, because of Irene.”
The Newton Creek Nature Walk recently underwent an expansion and redesign, which was completed in 2021.
Speaking of Newton Creek, it was declared a superfund site in 2010. Yet in 2001, Irene received the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Environmental Quality Awards in the Individual Citizen category. “In her role as President of the Concerned Citizens of Greenpoint, Irene Klementowicz has worked tirelessly to improve the environment of her Greenpoint community. Among the projects to which she has dedicated herself and her organization are shutting down the Greenpoint Incinerator, advocating the upgrade to secondary treatment of the Newtown Water Pollution Control Plant, monitoring the consent order requiring Mobil Oil Company to pump out millions of gallons of petroleum contaminating the aquifer under Newtown Creek, increasing local access to the community’s waterfront and the pursuit of environmental justice for residents in the Greenpoint neighborhood,” stated the EPA’s press release.
Irene also went after the unfair amount of garbage intake that had been designated for the neighborhood. In Williamsburg/Greenpoint had the most intake stations, and when more were proposed for the area Irene was one of the advocates who fought against it. The 2018 Waste Equity Law, sponsored by then NYC Council Members Antonio Reynoso and Stephen Levin among others cut daily capacity of waste transfer stations in north Brooklyn and other overburdened neighborhoods.
In addition to Velázquez, this street naming brought out Irene’s family, community activists, and local leaders including NYS Assembly Member Emily Gallagher and NYC Council Member Lincoln Restler.
“This weekend, we honored Greenpoint environmental justice champion Irene Klementowicz by renaming Freeman and Manhattan Ave “The Irene Klementowicz Way. Since the 1960s, she took on incinerators and fossil fuel companies and won! Irene helped make our community cleaner, healthier, and safer,” said Restler.
Gallagher thanked Restler for his swift action in getting the street naming done in minimal time. She also read a resolution in Klementowicz’s honor she passed in the New York State Assembly. The resolution listed many of Klementowicz’s accomplishments from her activism and ended with, “RESOLVED, That this Legislative Body pause in its deliberations to mourn the death of Irene Klementowicz, and to express its deepest condolences to her family.”
Greenpoint continues to be a community of activists. May Irene Klementowicz Way serve as an inspiration to them.
The Greenline 