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Newtown Creek, is a 3.5 mi (6 km) estuary that forms part of the border between the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, in New York City, New York, United States. It derives its name from New Town (Nieuwe Stad), which was the name for the Dutch and British settlement in what is now Elmhurst, Queens. It is one of the most polluted industrial sites in America,^[1] containing years of discarded toxins, an estimated 30 million gallons of spilled oil, and raw sewage from New York City’s sewer system.^[1]

The creek begins near the intersection of 47th Street and Grand Avenue on the Brooklyn-Queens border 40°43′06″N 73°55′27″W / 40.718412°N 73.924127°W / 40.718412; -73.924127 at the intersection of the East Branch and East Branch and English Kills.^[2] It empties into the East River at 40°44′14″N 73°57′40″W / 40.73734°N 73.96112°W / 40.73734; -73.96112 (2nd Street and 54th Avenue in Long Island City) opposite Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan at 26th Street. Its waterfront, and that of its tributaries Dutch Kills, Whale Creek, Maspeth Creek and English Kills, are heavily industrialized.

The creek has no natural waterflows. Its outgoing flow of 14,000 million gallons/year consists of sanitary sewer overflow, urban runoff, raw domestic sewage, and industrial wastewater. Being estuarine, the creek is largely stagnant. Since there is no current in the creek, sludge has congealed into a 15-foot thick layer of “black mayonnaise� on the creekbed.^[1]

Before the nineteenth century urbanization and industrialization of the surrounding neighborhoods, Newtown Creek was a longer and shallower tidal waterway, and wide enough that it contained islands. It drained a large part of Bushwick.^{[clarification needed]} During the second half of the nineteenth century it became a major industrial waterway, bounded along most of its length by retaining walls, the shipping channel maintained by dredging. The Montauk Branch of the Long Island Rail Road, mainly a freight line, runs along the right bank. A liquid natural gas port is under construction on the left bank, between Kingsland and Greenpoint Avenues, Whale Creek, and the main stream of Newtown Creek.^{[citation needed]}

Residents of Greenpoint, Brooklyn have filed lawsuits regarding the Greenpoint Oil Spill, the United States' largest oil spill, more than twice the size of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.^[3]

Newtown Creek is crossed by the Pulaski Bridge, the J. J. Byrne Memorial Bridge, and the Kosciuszko Bridge. Several smaller bridges take roads over its tributaries. All except the Kosciuszko (which replaced the Penny Bridge at the foot of Meeker Avenue) are drawbridges.