Oil Field No More: It's the Roebling Oil Building Now

It seems like it was only yesterday that we were sticking our nose through gaps in the fence around the Williamsburg development site we named the Roebling Oil Field to shoot photos of the oily ooze coming out of the ground. It provided us with so much joy--not to mention a collapsing sidewalk that almost made us one with the oil field on New Year's Eve. Since then, we're proud to note that Roebling Oil Field has entered the vocabulary and been appropriated as a general reference to the site. We like naming things.

Well, given that the Roebling Oil Field is only a memory now--having been cleaned up to state standards according to the consultants doing the work and reporting back to the Department of Environmental Conservation--we think it's time to rename it the Roebling Oil Field Building or the Roebling Oil Building.

Documents indicate the finger of blame as to the source of the Black Gold is tilted in the direction of a building or buildings across N. 11th Street. An oil tank on the Robeling Oil Field property itself was dismissed as the source of the pollution. Not to worry, however, a water pump beneath the Roebling Oil Building will have an oil separator and the cleaned up water will be dumped into the city sewer system (pending city approval, of course). No result that we know of have been released from the half-dozen test wells drilled around the property. Work on nearby projects on N. 10th Street and Union Avenue should indicate whether the problem is very localized or a bit more widespread.

In the meantime, one would expect the marketing effort for the R.O.B. to begin soon. In case you're joining our broadcast in progress or are just waxing nostalgic for some oozing goodness, we bring you the photo below of what used to be under The R.O.B.