Living Then and Now with Gold and Mercury.

Abstract

250 Water Street in New York City marks the location of a former 48,000-squarefoot parking lot in Lower Manhattan currently under construction by the Howard Hughes Corporation, a Texas real estate development agency. Since its purchase in 2018, however, the Howard Hughes Corporation’s massive redevelopment scheme for this lot has experienced continuous setbacks. One problem stems from the construction zone itself. It encompasses the site of the thermometer factory that Giuseppe Tagliabue (1812–1878), an Italian-born, London-trained scientific instrument maker established in 1834. Tagliabue’s first place of business was 240 Water Street. By 1848, he had relocated to nearby 298 Pearl Street where he continued to manufacture thermometers, barometers, and hydrometers on a large scale, and in 1868 Tagliabue purchased and “fitted up” a five-story building at 302 Pearl Street. These addresses lie within a quarter mile of each other. Not only is the ground beneath the Howard Hughes Corporation’s construction site contaminated with mercury, but mercury pollutes the ground beneath and the air above the surrounding neighbourhood as well.