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Gowanus: Brooklyn's Curious Canal
For more than 150 years, Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal has been called a cesspool, an industrial dumping ground, and a blemish on the face of the populous borough—as well as one of the most important waterways in the history of New York harbor. Yet its true origins, man-made character, and importance to the city have been largely forgotten.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published October 9, 2015
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September 3, 2015Here is our Gowanus Canal:
It is a beautiful awful toxic horrorshow; it's a Superfund site and a nightmarish breeding ground for a dense plethora of carcinogens and diseases both known and unknown to mankind. On its banks sits a shiny new Whole Foods, a slew of high-end restaurants, and some of the most expensive real estate in the country. It's been the site of immersive art projects and a scrappy boat club, a jumping-off point (sometimes literally) for citizen science projects, and the final resting place for a handful of confused and lost sea creatures. It's a deeply, deeply fascinating place.
Here are a few facts about the Canal:
* It was once among the most trafficked bodies of water in the entire country, back when Brooklyn's banks were all major shipping channels and the borough served as an industrial powerhouse on the world stage.
* Due to a century of illegal dumping and industrial slurry runoff, the bottom ten feet of the Canal is packed tight with what's called "black mayonnaise," which is every bit as repulsive as it sounds.
* New York City runs on a "combined sewer system," which loosely means that while much of our poop is sent to treatment plants or flushed into the ocean (sorry, world!), the system is built, in cases of extremely high levels of sewage or extremely heavy rainfall, to flush its excess into—you guessed it—our surrounding small bodies of water, such as the Gowanus. Here is a picture of that happening; I hope you're not eating breakfast.
To be clear: that's raw, untreated sewage flowing into a body of water surrounded by residences, food storage warehouses, eating establishments, and the like.
Having lived in Brooklyn for 15 years, a lot of this I know firsthand, but many of these fun facts came directly from Joseph Alexiou, whom I have seen doing fascinating lectures about the Canal at the Brooklyn Brainery and the Brooklyn Historical Society. He's a thorough historian and a very engaging speaker, and I absolutely cannot wait to get his book in my hot little hands.
Perhaps I'll even read it on the banks of the Canal—although I'll bring a facemask and noseplug, just in case.
It is a beautiful awful toxic horrorshow; it's a Superfund site and a nightmarish breeding ground for a dense plethora of carcinogens and diseases both known and unknown to mankind. On its banks sits a shiny new Whole Foods, a slew of high-end restaurants, and some of the most expensive real estate in the country. It's been the site of immersive art projects and a scrappy boat club, a jumping-off point (sometimes literally) for citizen science projects, and the final resting place for a handful of confused and lost sea creatures. It's a deeply, deeply fascinating place.
Here are a few facts about the Canal:
* It was once among the most trafficked bodies of water in the entire country, back when Brooklyn's banks were all major shipping channels and the borough served as an industrial powerhouse on the world stage.
* Due to a century of illegal dumping and industrial slurry runoff, the bottom ten feet of the Canal is packed tight with what's called "black mayonnaise," which is every bit as repulsive as it sounds.
* New York City runs on a "combined sewer system," which loosely means that while much of our poop is sent to treatment plants or flushed into the ocean (sorry, world!), the system is built, in cases of extremely high levels of sewage or extremely heavy rainfall, to flush its excess into—you guessed it—our surrounding small bodies of water, such as the Gowanus. Here is a picture of that happening; I hope you're not eating breakfast.
To be clear: that's raw, untreated sewage flowing into a body of water surrounded by residences, food storage warehouses, eating establishments, and the like.
Having lived in Brooklyn for 15 years, a lot of this I know firsthand, but many of these fun facts came directly from Joseph Alexiou, whom I have seen doing fascinating lectures about the Canal at the Brooklyn Brainery and the Brooklyn Historical Society. He's a thorough historian and a very engaging speaker, and I absolutely cannot wait to get his book in my hot little hands.
Perhaps I'll even read it on the banks of the Canal—although I'll bring a facemask and noseplug, just in case.
September 14, 2016
As historical debuts go, this is an epic one.
The SUPERFUND signs are still there, particularly if you cross the bridge just past the Brooklyn Whole Foods on the edge of the Gowanus/Park Slope border.
But a trendy, chic neighborhood with modern art galleries and off-the-beaten path foodie destination shoppes has an epic history: one that you didn't know deserved this book but ultimately did.
Read it. From the tale of Gowanus in the Dutch Colony and as an integral piece of why the US won the Revolutionary War to the clean-up of the toxic creek today, it is an easy read and a fun one.
The SUPERFUND signs are still there, particularly if you cross the bridge just past the Brooklyn Whole Foods on the edge of the Gowanus/Park Slope border.
But a trendy, chic neighborhood with modern art galleries and off-the-beaten path foodie destination shoppes has an epic history: one that you didn't know deserved this book but ultimately did.
Read it. From the tale of Gowanus in the Dutch Colony and as an integral piece of why the US won the Revolutionary War to the clean-up of the toxic creek today, it is an easy read and a fun one.
January 10, 2016
Incredibly detailed and beautifully written, I can't recommend this book enough if you have any interest in the Gowanus or the future of American cities in general. It's both intensely researched and light on its feet in terms of writing style that make it a great read.
At the same time it successfully parallels development surrounding the Gowanus Canal to the growth of cities across the country. It also prods each of us to assess where we stand and how we contribute to our own communities, whether born and raised in the same locale we currently reside or transplants to an adopted land as so many of us are in NYC and other cities across America.
At the same time it successfully parallels development surrounding the Gowanus Canal to the growth of cities across the country. It also prods each of us to assess where we stand and how we contribute to our own communities, whether born and raised in the same locale we currently reside or transplants to an adopted land as so many of us are in NYC and other cities across America.
July 9, 2015
Cunningly informative and (thanks to the author's wit) also a fun read! This is not only for those who hang out in Brooklyn's scented sidewalks but is something that should be considered internationally--especially since it is a super fund site. What the hell is that? You must read this book! More curious than the canal, is the price of rising rent in Gowanus. The author holds a degree in journalism and his keen research glows.
March 3, 2016
I'm obsessed with the ecological history of NYC so was very excited when this book came out. Incredibly informative survey of the entire history of the Gowanus Creek-cum-Canal. The entire time I was reading, I couldn't help but share facts with whoever was near me (boyfriend, coworkers, whoever was within earshot).
The only major problem was some glaringly bad edit/proofreading errors, which at times were distracting from the narrative.
The only major problem was some glaringly bad edit/proofreading errors, which at times were distracting from the narrative.
April 7, 2018
What is 9,504 feet long, 100 feet wide, and filled with 9,504,000 feet of pure toxic sludge (cumulatively speaking)? Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal, of course -- America's most polluted waterway, which just happens to snake through three of the hottest, hippest and most expensive neighborhoods in the country.
Now, I'm the type of person who is easily fascinated by oddball stuff, stuff like the story of Gowanus. Urban planning, transportation infrastructure, political intrigue, EPA Superfund projects, etc. But even I am a little taken aback by how endlessly fascinating the Gowanus Canal is. Case in point, I more-or-less forced my wife to walk with me from Prospect Park to the headwaters of the canal during a recent Brooklyn trip -- just so I could get a first-hand look at this famed body of water (and a first-hand smell). Gowanus is the poster child of what happens when poor engineering, haphazard city-planning, racism, rogue capitalism, political apathy and gentrification combine. If all or any of those issues interest you, you simply must grab a copy of Joseph Alexiou's masterwork, "Gowanus: Brooklyn's Curious Canal" from the NYU press.
Alexiou's book is now the definitive historical account of this tiny waterway, chronicling its creation, significance, exploitation and rise-fall-rise. Formerly a lazy creek and marshland, the Gowanus Canal was built in the 1840s. Just shy of two miles in length, it resembles a narrow, crooked finger slicing into South Brooklyn from the bay that separates Long Island and Staten Island. Gowanus is the line of demarcation, more or less, between Park Slope and Red Hook. It ends abruptly just south of downtown Brooklyn.
In 1858, Brooklyn (back when it was its own city) began using Gowanus for sewage outflow (first storm, then sanitary). The first odor complaints began in earnest in 1861 and have continued to...right this moment. Brooklynites have been fighting Gowanus since the Civil War.
The New York Times calls it "one of the dirtiest, one of the shortest and one of the most important waterways in the world." From a historical perspective, it is incredibly important. The Battle of Brooklyn -- the first Revolutionary War battle commanded by General George Washington -- was fought on its shores. Brooklyn, itself, owes the establishment of its early economy to the canal. Al Capone learned how to gangster from its grimy banks.
Alexiou recounts this history throughout the book -- bringing to life the stodgy, old industrialists of the 19th century and providing fascinating details about how this short waterway transformed South Brooklyn from an idyllic country landscape into a thriving metropolis. He also chronicles how the interests of those industrialists and the copious amounts of money the canal was making for them and for the city of Brooklyn far outweighed the environmental concerns that emerged after the canal was completed. (That very few powerful, wealthy and/or white people lived in proximity to the stinking canal probably didn't expedite finding solutions to those concerns, FYI.)
Alexiou leaves no stone unturned in telling the story of how the canal became an industrial powerhouse. In its heyday as a transportation artery, more than $1.5 billion (in today's dollars) of materials traversed it. Gowanus floated nearly double the tonnage of the state's largest canal (the Erie's successor) -- while barely costing New York City a dime in maintenance.
And that was the principle problem. Businessmen created the canal back when Brooklyn was still mostly farm country -- it was not a city-engineered project, originally. Grandfathered into the New York transportation network after Brooklyn was absorbed into the city proper, no New York City politicians felt particularly compelled to accept responsibility for Gowanus. And, since it was making bank for everyone involved -- no one wanted to interfere with the market forces exploiting the canal's business (even at the expense of the surrounding environment).
By the time anyone truly realized the environmental disaster they had created, the engineering that led to the canal becoming an open sewer was literally set in stone. To reverse the sewer drains that emptied into it would have been prohibitively expensive. Draining and eliminating the canal altogether was a non-starter for the moneyed interests in town (who also controlled the political interests).
So, what hath all that unregulated industrial capitalism wrought? What's actually in the waters of the Gowanus Canal?
How much time do you have?
Researchers have found carcinogens (PAHs, PCBs, coal tar), heavy metals, pesticides and literally tons of volatile organic compounds -- the latter being a fancy term for human excrement. When the state tested Gowanus's waters back in 1908, they assumed that they'd reach their standard for "heavy pollution" (more than 10,000 bacteria per cubic centimeter). They did reach and surpass that mark ... recording 625,000 bacteria per cubic centimeter.
It shouldn't have come as much of a surprise -- public health officials in 1877 had estimated that just shy of 10,000 pounds of human feces and nearly 11,000 gallons of human urine flowed into the canal DAILY. Without a reliable, fresh water source at the head of the canal, nor a strong tidal pull at its sea end, that waste goes nowhere. Do the math -- that's 510 million pounds of shit over the past 51,000 days, flowing into and through this cozy, 950,000 square-foot flume.
The neighborhood around Gowanus descended into despair and neglect during the middle of the 20th century (as did urban neighborhoods nationwide). Alexiou doesn't report much from this time period. However, those capricious market forces that took so much away from Gowanus finally began to give back. When out-of-control housing costs began pushing Manhattanites into the outer boroughs in the 1980s, some of the braver, more creative among them started to populate the empty structures around the infamous canal. As they educated themselves on the condition of the canal and how it became the cesspool that it is, they became politically active in trying to fix it. Petition after petition soon followed -- this time, with results.
Finally, after more than a century of effort, the citizens living in proximity to the fetid Gowanus secured a big win: the Environmental Protection Agency granted the canal Superfund status in 2009. The minimum toxic pollution score a site needs in order to qualify for the EPA's Superfund program is 28. Gowanus scored a 50.
Remediation is ongoing -- many more years will pass before the canal graduates out of the Superfund program. While we wait, we have Alexiou's extraordinary tome reminding us what happens when business and politics run roughshod over environmental interests. The effects can be long-lasting, costly and -- in an age of historic income and housing inequality -- particularly complicated.
Both Alexiou's research and storytelling are impeccable. "Gowanus" is a fun, fascinating read -- and anyone with even a vague interest in the forces that shaped this environmental disaster should make the time to read it. My only critique is that it is not particularly well-edited -- typos and grammatical errors mar an otherwise fine narrative, particularly in the later chapters.
Nevertheless, check it out and develop your own fascination with this curious spit of water that pushed Brooklyn into national relevance and continues to fuel the hip, creative spirit that the borough is known for today.
Now, I'm the type of person who is easily fascinated by oddball stuff, stuff like the story of Gowanus. Urban planning, transportation infrastructure, political intrigue, EPA Superfund projects, etc. But even I am a little taken aback by how endlessly fascinating the Gowanus Canal is. Case in point, I more-or-less forced my wife to walk with me from Prospect Park to the headwaters of the canal during a recent Brooklyn trip -- just so I could get a first-hand look at this famed body of water (and a first-hand smell). Gowanus is the poster child of what happens when poor engineering, haphazard city-planning, racism, rogue capitalism, political apathy and gentrification combine. If all or any of those issues interest you, you simply must grab a copy of Joseph Alexiou's masterwork, "Gowanus: Brooklyn's Curious Canal" from the NYU press.
Alexiou's book is now the definitive historical account of this tiny waterway, chronicling its creation, significance, exploitation and rise-fall-rise. Formerly a lazy creek and marshland, the Gowanus Canal was built in the 1840s. Just shy of two miles in length, it resembles a narrow, crooked finger slicing into South Brooklyn from the bay that separates Long Island and Staten Island. Gowanus is the line of demarcation, more or less, between Park Slope and Red Hook. It ends abruptly just south of downtown Brooklyn.
In 1858, Brooklyn (back when it was its own city) began using Gowanus for sewage outflow (first storm, then sanitary). The first odor complaints began in earnest in 1861 and have continued to...right this moment. Brooklynites have been fighting Gowanus since the Civil War.
The New York Times calls it "one of the dirtiest, one of the shortest and one of the most important waterways in the world." From a historical perspective, it is incredibly important. The Battle of Brooklyn -- the first Revolutionary War battle commanded by General George Washington -- was fought on its shores. Brooklyn, itself, owes the establishment of its early economy to the canal. Al Capone learned how to gangster from its grimy banks.
Alexiou recounts this history throughout the book -- bringing to life the stodgy, old industrialists of the 19th century and providing fascinating details about how this short waterway transformed South Brooklyn from an idyllic country landscape into a thriving metropolis. He also chronicles how the interests of those industrialists and the copious amounts of money the canal was making for them and for the city of Brooklyn far outweighed the environmental concerns that emerged after the canal was completed. (That very few powerful, wealthy and/or white people lived in proximity to the stinking canal probably didn't expedite finding solutions to those concerns, FYI.)
Alexiou leaves no stone unturned in telling the story of how the canal became an industrial powerhouse. In its heyday as a transportation artery, more than $1.5 billion (in today's dollars) of materials traversed it. Gowanus floated nearly double the tonnage of the state's largest canal (the Erie's successor) -- while barely costing New York City a dime in maintenance.
And that was the principle problem. Businessmen created the canal back when Brooklyn was still mostly farm country -- it was not a city-engineered project, originally. Grandfathered into the New York transportation network after Brooklyn was absorbed into the city proper, no New York City politicians felt particularly compelled to accept responsibility for Gowanus. And, since it was making bank for everyone involved -- no one wanted to interfere with the market forces exploiting the canal's business (even at the expense of the surrounding environment).
By the time anyone truly realized the environmental disaster they had created, the engineering that led to the canal becoming an open sewer was literally set in stone. To reverse the sewer drains that emptied into it would have been prohibitively expensive. Draining and eliminating the canal altogether was a non-starter for the moneyed interests in town (who also controlled the political interests).
So, what hath all that unregulated industrial capitalism wrought? What's actually in the waters of the Gowanus Canal?
How much time do you have?
Researchers have found carcinogens (PAHs, PCBs, coal tar), heavy metals, pesticides and literally tons of volatile organic compounds -- the latter being a fancy term for human excrement. When the state tested Gowanus's waters back in 1908, they assumed that they'd reach their standard for "heavy pollution" (more than 10,000 bacteria per cubic centimeter). They did reach and surpass that mark ... recording 625,000 bacteria per cubic centimeter.
It shouldn't have come as much of a surprise -- public health officials in 1877 had estimated that just shy of 10,000 pounds of human feces and nearly 11,000 gallons of human urine flowed into the canal DAILY. Without a reliable, fresh water source at the head of the canal, nor a strong tidal pull at its sea end, that waste goes nowhere. Do the math -- that's 510 million pounds of shit over the past 51,000 days, flowing into and through this cozy, 950,000 square-foot flume.
The neighborhood around Gowanus descended into despair and neglect during the middle of the 20th century (as did urban neighborhoods nationwide). Alexiou doesn't report much from this time period. However, those capricious market forces that took so much away from Gowanus finally began to give back. When out-of-control housing costs began pushing Manhattanites into the outer boroughs in the 1980s, some of the braver, more creative among them started to populate the empty structures around the infamous canal. As they educated themselves on the condition of the canal and how it became the cesspool that it is, they became politically active in trying to fix it. Petition after petition soon followed -- this time, with results.
Finally, after more than a century of effort, the citizens living in proximity to the fetid Gowanus secured a big win: the Environmental Protection Agency granted the canal Superfund status in 2009. The minimum toxic pollution score a site needs in order to qualify for the EPA's Superfund program is 28. Gowanus scored a 50.
Remediation is ongoing -- many more years will pass before the canal graduates out of the Superfund program. While we wait, we have Alexiou's extraordinary tome reminding us what happens when business and politics run roughshod over environmental interests. The effects can be long-lasting, costly and -- in an age of historic income and housing inequality -- particularly complicated.
Both Alexiou's research and storytelling are impeccable. "Gowanus" is a fun, fascinating read -- and anyone with even a vague interest in the forces that shaped this environmental disaster should make the time to read it. My only critique is that it is not particularly well-edited -- typos and grammatical errors mar an otherwise fine narrative, particularly in the later chapters.
Nevertheless, check it out and develop your own fascination with this curious spit of water that pushed Brooklyn into national relevance and continues to fuel the hip, creative spirit that the borough is known for today.
November 11, 2023
This was an interesting deep dive into the history of South Brooklyn, much more than just Gowanus. I learned a lot about the neighborhood; it’s wild to think it was pastoral farmland only a few centuries ago. If you are a history buff, you’ll probably enjoy this a lot since there are great stories about the Revolutionary War and the many characters contributing to Brooklyn’s growth over the past couple hundred years. The strong current running through this (no pun intended) is the sewage filled canal. Unsurprisingly, history has repeated itself and there has been little meaningful change to dredge it of the toxic sludge. Towards the end it touches on how crazy it is that developers are building on polluted land. A good read for anyone living in South Brooklyn, especially if you’re deciding whether to live in “luxury” on the banks of a Superfund site.
November 27, 2022
really enjoyed this book. I love to imagine what the "lavender lake" must have looked like in pre-European days, particularly the abundance of life.
October 8, 2020
Gowanus: Brooklyn's Curious Canal by Joseph Alexiou is the history of the role of the Gowanus Creek and later canal in the development of Brooklyn. Alexiou is the author of Paris for Dummies and a contributing author to Frommer’s Paris 2012 and has written for New York, the New York Press, New York Observer, Gothamist and Paper magazine. He is an associate editor at Out magazine and has a master’s degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University.
I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio in the 1960s and 1970s. Cleveland was the poster child for pollution. Lake Erie was mostly dead water and the Cuyahoga River caught on fire (Several times but one that gained national notoriety). The steel mills produced a dark cloud over the city and houses in the area were dusted in a brown particulate matter. How bad could the Gowanus Canal be in comparison? I asked writer and fellow Clevelander, now New Yorker, Kathryn Schulz on Twitter. She made a comment about preferring to swim in the Gowanus than work on the piece she was writing. I asked, "Can it be any worse than the Cuyahoga?" The answer was, "Yes. By a lot." That scared me.
Alexiou writes a history of Brooklyn from Dutch time to the present. I was expecting more of an environmental study. Instead, it is written like a biography where the subject of the biography is an anchor point for historical events surrounding him or her. The Gowanus Canal (or Creek) is the anchor point in a history of Brooklyn. A good portion of the book concerns the period between Revolutionary War and Civil War when the waterway was still a creek. Brooklyn wanted to be the shipping center of New York and converting the swampy land surrounding the creek into navigable canal surrounded by industry was the goal. The major problem was the cost of not only building a canal but the draining of the swamp lands.
The history takes the reader through several movers in the development of the land and the failed and uninitiated plans. The Gowanus was used as a sewer early on and as the population grew this became a problem. Engineers believed that the tidal currents would be enough to clear the creek of pollution, but things are not usually that simple. Chicago for example, reversed the flow of the Chicago River to clear pollution from its river. Things would not need to be as extreme for the Gowanus, but it cost more than the city was willing to pay.
The creek was the source for oysters, crabs, and fish but the pollution levels killed all life in the canal. The sheen of pollution on the surface only hid the sludge build up on the bottom. Today, although not a place to swim, crabs and fish have returned. I encountered only one pollution report of the canal and it was bad, worse than the Cuyahoga.
Gowanus provides a good history of Brooklyn for the non-New Yorker. The Canal takes a backseat to people and historical events at times, but it does provide a central point for the book. However, the book is a good history of the development in the price of development.
I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio in the 1960s and 1970s. Cleveland was the poster child for pollution. Lake Erie was mostly dead water and the Cuyahoga River caught on fire (Several times but one that gained national notoriety). The steel mills produced a dark cloud over the city and houses in the area were dusted in a brown particulate matter. How bad could the Gowanus Canal be in comparison? I asked writer and fellow Clevelander, now New Yorker, Kathryn Schulz on Twitter. She made a comment about preferring to swim in the Gowanus than work on the piece she was writing. I asked, "Can it be any worse than the Cuyahoga?" The answer was, "Yes. By a lot." That scared me.
Alexiou writes a history of Brooklyn from Dutch time to the present. I was expecting more of an environmental study. Instead, it is written like a biography where the subject of the biography is an anchor point for historical events surrounding him or her. The Gowanus Canal (or Creek) is the anchor point in a history of Brooklyn. A good portion of the book concerns the period between Revolutionary War and Civil War when the waterway was still a creek. Brooklyn wanted to be the shipping center of New York and converting the swampy land surrounding the creek into navigable canal surrounded by industry was the goal. The major problem was the cost of not only building a canal but the draining of the swamp lands.
The history takes the reader through several movers in the development of the land and the failed and uninitiated plans. The Gowanus was used as a sewer early on and as the population grew this became a problem. Engineers believed that the tidal currents would be enough to clear the creek of pollution, but things are not usually that simple. Chicago for example, reversed the flow of the Chicago River to clear pollution from its river. Things would not need to be as extreme for the Gowanus, but it cost more than the city was willing to pay.
The creek was the source for oysters, crabs, and fish but the pollution levels killed all life in the canal. The sheen of pollution on the surface only hid the sludge build up on the bottom. Today, although not a place to swim, crabs and fish have returned. I encountered only one pollution report of the canal and it was bad, worse than the Cuyahoga.
Gowanus provides a good history of Brooklyn for the non-New Yorker. The Canal takes a backseat to people and historical events at times, but it does provide a central point for the book. However, the book is a good history of the development in the price of development.
August 15, 2018
A surprisingly readable history of a place that will seem pretty obscure to most people in America, but is well known in Brooklyn -- the Gowanus Canal, which has been collecting the borough's rainwater and overflow sewage since (it turns out) the 18th century. Alexiou uses the canal as a pretext to cover some fascinating events in the neighborhood, including the Battle of Brooklyn in the Revolutionary War. But what you'll remember most is his opening story ... about Sludgie the Whale!
One quick note -- the cover art for this book is perfectly chosen, Randy Dudley's painting "Gowanus Canal from 2nd Street," a hauntingly beautiful urban landscape that hangs in the Brooklyn Museum (it's my favorite piece there). I've looked at the view from 2nd Street and compared it to Dudley's painting, and the artist takes some creative liberties, but the result is an image that tells a story in itself, of people working to clean and preserve a forgotten corner of the city that allows the rest of New York to thrive.
One quick note -- the cover art for this book is perfectly chosen, Randy Dudley's painting "Gowanus Canal from 2nd Street," a hauntingly beautiful urban landscape that hangs in the Brooklyn Museum (it's my favorite piece there). I've looked at the view from 2nd Street and compared it to Dudley's painting, and the artist takes some creative liberties, but the result is an image that tells a story in itself, of people working to clean and preserve a forgotten corner of the city that allows the rest of New York to thrive.
January 2, 2018
Since the 70s and 80s, artists and other newcomers in search of cheap rent put sweat equity and creativity into restoring and transforming decaying factories and warehouses in Gowanus, the neighborhood surrounding the heavily polluted canal in South Brooklyn. And then many of these same newcomers organized in favor of preserving abandoned buildings, in the interest of protecting the “character” that the formerly bustling industrial hub had accrued by virtue of being largely deserted. This story of the efforts to preserve the appearance of industrial decay is the section I found most interesting about Gowanus, Joseph Alexiou’s history of the neighborhood and canal.
For more see: http://www.alevin.com/?p=2954
For more see: http://www.alevin.com/?p=2954
August 18, 2024
Curious how only when you are about to leave a neighborhood, do you read their history.
Park Slope, South Slope, Gowanus story starts with a swamp, goes through the Battle Pass where the fiercest American Revolution Battle was fought, the brownstone and Park Slope real estate development by E.C. Lichfield with his Mansion still standing today, and fueled by the Coignet Stone Company - the first concrete manufacturer in the US - whose HQ sits next to WholeFoods, and of course the story of the Superfund Gowanus Canal from busy harbor of cereals and building materials, to a slum and Italian mafia.
Remarkable read.
Park Slope, South Slope, Gowanus story starts with a swamp, goes through the Battle Pass where the fiercest American Revolution Battle was fought, the brownstone and Park Slope real estate development by E.C. Lichfield with his Mansion still standing today, and fueled by the Coignet Stone Company - the first concrete manufacturer in the US - whose HQ sits next to WholeFoods, and of course the story of the Superfund Gowanus Canal from busy harbor of cereals and building materials, to a slum and Italian mafia.
Remarkable read.
December 28, 2019
Although I live in the area and walk over the Canal frequently - this was a hard book to finish. There is a lot of fascinating history, so much I didn't know about the area, the economics, the Revolutionary War history - but way too much detail and going off on irrelevant (to me) subjects. Still, worth a read if you want to learn more about how NOT to deal with pollution. Interesting to see that the current problems of the Canal (which is an - endless-superfund site) have been a problem since early local history.
May 2, 2024
The story was an interesting one, and came to this book after listening to the author on The Bowery Boys podcast. However, I cannot rate it higher because it is so POORLY edited. Page after page of missing words, such as this terrible sentence on page 324 “also an adept of knitting and textiles, Linda…” an adept what? An adept maker perhaps?
June 29, 2019
As always, I love NY history books. I think I'm better off purchasing these types of books and reading them over time as opposed to getting them from the library and reading them at once. All very good, interesting documentation. It just felt a little laborious to get through.
December 19, 2020
I love stories about New York City. History is deep here. This story starts with a lovely tidal stream in a bucolic countryside and ends in a superfund site. I’ll never see it the same way again. The book needed much better editing.
February 12, 2024
Great historical review and urban planning take of gowanus but I wish there was an epilogue as almost 10 yrs have gone by since the book was published. Also, with all the talk about Scotto as a neighborhood advocate — little mention of the legacy family he created.
July 18, 2018
Full of fascinating NYC history, but it sometimes gets bogged down in info that feels extraneous.
September 14, 2019
More of a history of the neighborhood than it is of the canal (understandably). It could get a little too in-depth in topics that weren’t entirely interesting at times. Nevertheless, an all around good read and recommended for anyone who lives in or around the area. You will start to notice and learn the history of everyday things around you.
Read
May 12, 2020This explains Brooklyn.
January 27, 2024
how do you make a book about the gowanus canal this interesting
May 11, 2024
I didnt think the Gowanus was this interesting but here we are. I find it amazing that the issues modern day developers faced in dealing with Gowanus were the same ones from the 19th century.
July 25, 2024
I dead lived here like my whole life
July 30, 2024
Love the canal, love the neighborhood. Fascinating history
September 7, 2022
I enjoyed reading this for sure. If you like books that send you to Wikipedia or elsewhere to see if something you're reading about could possibly be true or whether an artifact is still there (as I do), this is for you. There is a massive amount of history associated with what would otherwise be a seemingly insignificant minor waterway. The book is extensively researched, and filled with anecdotes about colorful historical characters and the often revolting sanitary history of the canal, with humor employed along the way. I think the book could have used some editing, as there were probably about 100 pages worth of stories that didn't seem important to the larger narrative of how the canal has been used throughout the history of the city. There were also a surprising number of typos in the edition I had, almost distractingly so.
April 4, 2025
It's late afternoon, and I'm a little bleary, but I loved this book. There were lots of typos, and I wish he'd included the year more often (I had to flip back semi-frequently to remember when an episode was taking place), plus he was weirdly harsh on Daniel Richards and Edwin Litchfield for not being better businessmen, which if you're going to criticize them doesn't seem like the issue, and maybe the pacing could have been better. But it feels amazing to read about a place you grew up in. Every week, I felt like I was inhabiting a new version of places I know so well — ex., imagining the corner of 3rd and 4th in the 1600s (marsh, tide mills), 1700s (house, soldiers about), 1800s (real streets, makeshift baseball field), 1900s (house unearthed and recreated again, cars), etc. — and I could see the people of decades past walking by if I squinted.
There's some great lore here: Prospect Park was supposed to be bisected by Flatbush Ave, but Frederick Law Olmstead was stubborn and overrode the local baron, Litchfield; Al Capone grew up mere blocks from the Gowanus; to call the first ferry from Brooklyn to Manhattan, you needed to blow a conch shell that hung from a dead tree in what's now DUMBO.
For all the nitpicks, it makes me happy that Alexiou put in the time to gather these stories (in most cases from old editions of the Brooklyn Eagle) — it seems like it was his way of expressing his love for the neighborhood. Will probably reread eventually!
APRIL 2025 UPDATE: By a total stroke of luck, I bumped into Joseph Alexiou at a screening of "Gowanus Current" (a movie about the 2021 rezoning that happened here.) He's a lovely person, and it was inspiring to see through the movie how involved he was in local activism. In one scene, he literally goes off when a DCP representative tries to argue that everyone wants luxury housing. Seen in that light, the book seems like an act of public service, giving more historical context at a time when the whole neighborhood was debating the rezoning.
There's some great lore here: Prospect Park was supposed to be bisected by Flatbush Ave, but Frederick Law Olmstead was stubborn and overrode the local baron, Litchfield; Al Capone grew up mere blocks from the Gowanus; to call the first ferry from Brooklyn to Manhattan, you needed to blow a conch shell that hung from a dead tree in what's now DUMBO.
For all the nitpicks, it makes me happy that Alexiou put in the time to gather these stories (in most cases from old editions of the Brooklyn Eagle) — it seems like it was his way of expressing his love for the neighborhood. Will probably reread eventually!
APRIL 2025 UPDATE: By a total stroke of luck, I bumped into Joseph Alexiou at a screening of "Gowanus Current" (a movie about the 2021 rezoning that happened here.) He's a lovely person, and it was inspiring to see through the movie how involved he was in local activism. In one scene, he literally goes off when a DCP representative tries to argue that everyone wants luxury housing. Seen in that light, the book seems like an act of public service, giving more historical context at a time when the whole neighborhood was debating the rezoning.
May 5, 2016
An excellent overview of the history of both the area in Brooklyn called the Gowanus as well as the Infamous canal. Alexiou does a marvelous job of retelling a complex nuanced story of the Canal and its environs.
The Canal began originally as a way to keep the neighboring houses from flooding. A few decades later sewers were built cheaply and inefficiently- The city of Brooklyn couldn't and wouldn't pay what seemed to be a prohibitively expensive amount of money needed to create "proper" sewers. Sadly this lack of civic will in the face of necessary but expensive design and repair of sewers repeats over and over for the next 150 years, dooming the Gowanus Canal to becoming a cesspool of contamination and waste.
His chapters on the very early history of the area as well as the last few decades are fantastic. The book occasionally suffers from regrettable proofreading errors- but these are not so prevalent as to distract the reader for too long.
Necessary for anyone who wants to know more about this curious canal as well as anyone willing to see the dark side of urban politics when it fails its constituents miserably.
The Canal began originally as a way to keep the neighboring houses from flooding. A few decades later sewers were built cheaply and inefficiently- The city of Brooklyn couldn't and wouldn't pay what seemed to be a prohibitively expensive amount of money needed to create "proper" sewers. Sadly this lack of civic will in the face of necessary but expensive design and repair of sewers repeats over and over for the next 150 years, dooming the Gowanus Canal to becoming a cesspool of contamination and waste.
His chapters on the very early history of the area as well as the last few decades are fantastic. The book occasionally suffers from regrettable proofreading errors- but these are not so prevalent as to distract the reader for too long.
Necessary for anyone who wants to know more about this curious canal as well as anyone willing to see the dark side of urban politics when it fails its constituents miserably.
May 20, 2016
This is a wonderful book for anyone that is interested in the history of Brooklyn. It is well written and covers from colonial time until the present when the Gowanus canal was declared a Superfund site and saved from the over-development that is currently occurring all along the length of the High Line in Manhattan. One review complained that it read like a textbook but I found the characters and stories in it very informative. It read like a well researched work of history and did not put one to sleep which seemed to be the chief function of most textbooks. The only faults I could find with this book was the lack of a bibliography and the poor editing reflected in numerous grammatical mistakes which was very surprising as it was published by New York University Press. I look forward to reading Mr. Alexiou's next effort.
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February 10, 2016This book was... fine. Interesting to those who can immediately picture all the locations mentioned; probably less so to anyone else. My real beef is not with the author, but the editor -- or lack thereof.
The more you read, the more obvious it becomes that *no one* looked at this manuscript after the author finished with it. Not his significant other, not his friends, not his editor, not a copy editor. There are dropped words, extra words, wrong words (palatable for palpable; invoke for evoke; gilded for minted) all over the freaking place. It's somebody's job -- not the author's, really -- to catch these things, and they did.not.do.it. Seriously shoddy, enough so that I shall, in future, be very wary of other NYUP books.
The more you read, the more obvious it becomes that *no one* looked at this manuscript after the author finished with it. Not his significant other, not his friends, not his editor, not a copy editor. There are dropped words, extra words, wrong words (palatable for palpable; invoke for evoke; gilded for minted) all over the freaking place. It's somebody's job -- not the author's, really -- to catch these things, and they did.not.do.it. Seriously shoddy, enough so that I shall, in future, be very wary of other NYUP books.
January 4, 2016
The history of the Gowanus is mostly that of failed sewage clean up. It's always been a mess and it's never been quite worth it for the city to clean it up. It's usually been surrounded by slums and occasionally, like now, the rich want to move it. We'll see if the continued sewage will keep them away even in today's crazy Brooklyn real-estate market. Mostly an enjoyable read but there was an odd section where apparently the copy editor skipped some pages. The egregious typos were pretty annoying.
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