The former vacant lot between N. 11 & N. 12 Streets in Williamsburg that was most recently a parking lot and was, for a time in its history, a paint factory, is now a construction site where a large Karl Fischer building (eight stories, 180 units) will be rising. The construction fencing went up last week and excavation work got underway. The site is sealed up pretty tightly in terms of getting photos, but we noticed mounds of excavated soil piling up. It is standard practice in such cases where soil may harbor toxins to cover it with tarps so that dust doesn’t blow around. (For instance, the dirt mountains at the Roebling Oil Field site a block away were covered in tarp as soil contaminated with heavy metals, oil and other toxins was being removed.) In this case, the site is across the street from homes, a new condo and from McCarren Park, not to mention fronting busy Bedford Avenue. Rumors about the property have reached the level of urban legend over the years. Here’s what one reader wrote Curbed just last week:

“There was some digging today at the site on the corner of Bedford and N12/N11. If neighborhood lore is even partially true, that is a very toxic site. It is also close to (among many things) where my community garden has been growing away for the past decade…The site was an ink factory for the treasury, and the ink products left serious contamination in the soil? Supposedly it was to be capped and left still for several years?

From the views we were able to get of the soil, it was only covered here and there by a tarp–which either indicates that there’s really no need to cover it or that, well, the contractor doesn’t have enough tarp. It could be that the surface soil being excavated now was “clean” stuff brought in to cap the site after the factory that was there was demolished, still it’s interesting to see piles that are partly covered and partly exposed in the middle of a high traffic area.