[CPEO-BIF] Bear Brand Hosiery site, Gary, Indiana

[Lenny Siegel]

From stockings to trees, brownfield branching out

by Carole Carlson
Post-Tribune (Northwest Indiana)
September 14, 2017

During the 1930s, the expansive brick structure on a 6-acre midtown chunk of land just east of Broadway in Gary spelled a new beginning for hundreds of workers struggling to survive the Great Depression.

The building is gone now, but its toxic legacy remains.

Officials hope Mother Nature will help revive the plot of land that's been a brownfield site since the 2011 demolition of the Bear Brand Hosiery Co., at 205. E. 21st Ave.

Chicago-based Fresh Coast Capital LLC and its partner, Delta Institute, have planted poplar and cottonwood trees in a unique project they say will cleanse contaminants from the soil, improving the landscape of the blight-ravaged neighborhood.

…

For the entire article, see
http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/news/ct-ptb-gary-urban-forest-st-0912-20170915-story.html

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Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650/961-8918 
<lsiegel at cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org