Everyone who has ever lived on Staten Island know the 2 big rusting gas tanks that dominate the skyline on the West shore of the island — in Rossville near the Arthur Kill and Bloomingdale Road.
They are actually abandoned liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage tanks built in the 1970s. They were part of a project by Distrigas to store LNG — a way to bring natural gas directly to consumers from U.S. domestic sources instead of importing it from the Middle East.
The plan was to fill the tanks with chilled LNG, which could be transported in refrigerated tank trucks.
Tank Project Was Halted After the 1973 LNG Tank Explosion
However, the project was abruptly halted after the famous Staten Island LNG tank explosion on February 10, 1973, when a Texas Eastern Transmission Pipeline LNG tank exploded nearby, killing 40 workers. That tank had been drained but still contained residual gas trapped in its lining, which ignited during maintenance. The concrete cap of the tank blew upward 20 to 30 feet and collapsed, crushing the workers.
The disaster led to a state-wide moratorium on LNG storage facilities.
The Texas Eastern LNG tank sat 3 miles to the north of the Rossville tanks, in the Bloomfield area of Staten Island, just south of the Goethals Bridge.
Tanks Were Completed After the Texas Eastern Tank Explosion
The Rossville tanks were structurally completed after the Texas Eastern tank explosion. However, Distrigas’ parent company — Cabot Corp. — stopped funding the project in the mid 1970’s and turned over the entire facility to Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G). PSE&G took out a $60 million mortgage on the site.
In 1979, PSE&G sought federal permission to use them for domestic gas storage. But the NY State moratorium was still in effect, regulations increased, there was a lot of local opposition to the tanks, the gas situation in the middle east changed, and the cost of retrofitting and certifying the tanks no longer made economic sense for PSE&G. In 1984, PSE&G formerly withdrew its application to the Federal government to utilize the tanks.
That left the tanks in limbo. They were never filled and have been empty for decades.
Tanks Have Become Part of Staten Island’s Personality
The tanks have been rusting away, but have become part of Staten Island’s southeastern shore personality. You can see them if you are playing golf at South Shore Golf course; you can see them off Route 44o; and you can see them clearly by Lowe’s on Arthur Kill Road.
The area they are in used to be known as ‘Smoking Point’, a name that dates to the 1600’s and the colonial era. The area was also called ‘Blazing Star’ at one point, due to a ferry of that name that used to run from there.
Current Plans = No Plans
As of this writing in 2026, the tanks are privately owned — possibly by PSE&G still as no public records exist that they have ever been sold to anyone else. There is no information publicly available on if the owners have any plans to dismantle them — which would cost a fortune.
There is a video on youtube that claims there is a plan to dismantle the tanks by 2024 to use the area for construction of off-shore windmills — but the windmill project was cancelled, and this is 2026 and the tanks are still there, standing strong.
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