February 18, 2008: Staten Island Rust
Sam, Nate, and I got into a long argument yesterday about what used to be inside this giant tank on Staten Island's north shore. Sam thought it was probably liquid fuel or heating oil. Nate agreed, because he felt like the tank was the wrong shape to hold water. My feeling was that it probably held natural gas, because it looks a lot like the old Maspeth tanks that used to live next to the BQE. Anyone know for sure?
I don't know the answer to your question, Staten Island once had the world's largest liquefied natural gas tank (look for the abandoned tank field just south of the Goethals Bridge). On February 10th, 1973 there was a gas leak in the empty tank and the tank exploded, killing ~40 workers making repairs inside.