Will Demolition of Williamsburg's Fart Cloud Building Make a Stink?

Demolition crews have shown up at the 5 Roebling Street in Williamsburg, the building that used to be a cabbage processing plant and gained the name the "Giant Fart Cloud Building" from advice blogger and writer Bad Advice. The story of what is to come there will be of interest for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the structure is across the street from the Roebling Oil field and is listed as having hazardous material/environmental issues in need of monitoring. We opined recently that the odds are fifty-fifty that contractors will strike oil when they start digging on the site. (This is strictly a guess.)

It becomes more interesting because Bad Advice--which provided the photo above--noted that the demolition contractor on the project, MMG Design, has a very interesting history. We were reading an item about them that ran on Brownstoner last year, when it dawned on us that we'd reported the same story too after getting emails from unhappy neighbors. In that case, workers were said to be engaging in a variety of unsafe practices, even putting a child in danger in the eyes of parents who said they were unconcerned about a toddler playing in a yard nearby. Mr. Brownstoner used the word "pillaging" to describe their activity on Clifton Place.

In any case, here's an excerpt from the email about the beginning of the end of the Giant Fart Cloud Building which is close to cutting its final cheese:

They're digging up the sidewalk in front of the cabbage factory/5 Roebling. I have a feeling this is the beginning of an EXTREMELY loud fall...It's now just a giant hole that some guy is working inside. I don't think it's a fence. I think there's something wrong down there. There had been a steady stream of water oozing out from under the gate, so maybe there's a main break or something. Who knows.

We have a feeling the work at 5 Roebling is going to provide the material many posts, for many, many reasons.