Word: gowanus
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Perhaps this is why the possibility of a new, Venice-like waterway in the heart of Brooklyn held such appeal. Against all odds, for the past several years Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration has lobbied to turn the borough's Gowanus Canal - a foul, PCB-laden channel that winds for nearly two miles (about 3 km) - into a destination spot for condo dwellers and upscale retail developers. On March 2, however, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) offered the city a reality check when it designated the Gowanus a Superfund site. The distinction is reserved for the country's most hazardous...
...decision and the stigma that comes with it have deferred dreams of a Gowanus renaissance, if not quashed them altogether. During the past decade, as the real estate boom drove New York housing prices higher and higher, there seemed to be no land in the city that couldn't somehow be salvaged. The city joined local activists to zero in on the Gowanus Canal, hoping it could become the anchor for a neighborhood renewal. Several developers announced plans to construct new apartments; Whole Foods, a harbinger of upward mobility, purchased a nearby parcel. In recent years, sightings of jellyfish, cormorants...
After the waterway was carved out of wetlands in the 1860s, oil refineries, tanneries and chemical plants moved in and spewed noxious waste into the canal, where it mixed with raw sewage. Before long, Gowanus was a cesspool. Today the surface can appear brown, green, black and sometimes purple, earning the canal the moniker Lavender Lake. Neighborhood residents whisper that the bottom is littered with bodies dumped there by the Mafia. (See pictures of New York City...
...artist community has settled into the decrepit industrial landscape around the canal, and some of its members are breathing a sigh of relief in the wake of the EPA decision. High-end-condo development "presents a danger of a different sort," says Tamara Pittman, who works at the Proteus Gowanus art gallery. Pittman says she knows the canal needs to be cleaned up but still can't help admiring its "beautiful neglect." The artists who have been attracted to the area's preserved detritus (and low rents) hope the EPA's ruling means they have at least a decade more...
Peter Reich, an artist and father of three, has lived and worked right next to the Gowanus since 1983. Charged with maintaining his apartment building's basement boiler, he sometimes wades through the water that rushes in during rainstorms. "It's nice to have an enclave to hang out in that no one wants to develop," says Reich. "We're still pioneers...