Gowanus Canal
Encyclopedia
The Gowanus Canal, also known as the Gowanus Creek Canal, is a canal
in the New York City
borough
of Brooklyn
, geographically on the westernmost portion of Long Island
. Connected to Gowanus Bay in Upper New York Bay
, the canal borders the neighborhoods of Red Hook
and South Brooklyn
to the west and Park Slope to the east — as well as the neighborhoods of Red Hook to the north and Sunset Park
to the south. There are five east-west bridge crossings over the canal, located at Union Street, Carroll Street (a landmark), Third Street, Ninth Street, and Hamilton Avenue. The Gowanus Expressway (Interstate 278
) and the IND Culver Line
of the New York City Subway
, the only above-ground section of the original Independent Subway System
, pass over the canal.
Once a busy cargo transportation hub, the canal's history has paralled the decline of domestic shipping
via water. A legacy of serious environmental problems has beset the area from the time the canal arose from the local tidal wetland
s and fresh water
stream
s. In recent years, there has been a call once again for environmental cleanup
. In addition, development pressures have brought speculation that the wetlands of the Gowanus should serve waterfront economic development
needs which may not be compatible with environmental restoration.
of navigable creeks
in original saltwater marshland and meadows teeming with fish
and other wildlife
. Henry Hudson
and Giovanni da Verrazzano both navigated the inlet in their explorations of New York Harbor
. The first land patents within Breukelen
(Brooklyn), including the land of the Gowanus, were issued by the Dutch Government
from 1630 to 1664. In 1639, the leaders of New Netherland
made one of the earliest recorded real estate deals in New York City history
with the purchase of the area around the Gowanus Bay for construction of a tobacco
plantation
. The early settlers of the area named the waterway "Gowanes Creek" after Gouwane, sachem
of the local Lenape
tribe called the Canarsee, who lived and farmed on the shore
lines.
Adam Brouwer, who had been a soldier in the service of the Dutch West India Company
, built and operated the first gristmill
patented in New York at Gowanus (on land patented July 8, 1645, to Jan Evertse Bout). The tide-water gristmill on the Gowanus was the first in the town of Breukelen and was the first mill ever operated in New Netherland (located north of Union Street, west of Nevins Street, and next to Bond Street). A second mill (Denton's Mill, also called Yellow mill) was built on Denton's mill pond, after being granted permission to dredge
from the creek to the mill pond once located between Fifth Ave and the present day canal at Carroll and Third Street. On May 26, 1664, several Breuckelen residents, headed by Brouwer, petitioned director general
Peter Stuyvesant
and his Council for permission to dredge a canal at their own expense through the land of Frederick Lubbertsen in order to supply water to run the mill. The petition was presented to the council on May 29, 1664, and the motion was granted. Another mill, Cole's Mill, was located just about at present day 9th Street, between Smith Street and the Canal. Cole's Mill Pond, located north of 9th street, occupied the present location of Public Place. Slave labor
was used to excavate the marsh
land.
In 1700, a settler, Nicholas Vechte, built a farmhouse of brick and stone now known as the Old Stone House, which later played a critical role in the 1776 Battle of Long Island
, when American troops fought off the Redcoats
long enough to allow George Washington
to retreat. This house sat at the south eastern edge of the Denton's Mill pond. Brower's Mill (also known as Freeks Mill, located at the present day intersection of Union and Nevins streets) can be seen in drawings depicting the "Battle of Brooklyn
".
Throughout this period, a few Dutch farmers settled along the marshland and engaged in clamming
of large oyster
s that became a notable first export to Europe
. The six-foot (2 m) tides of the bay forced salt water up into the creek's meandering course, creating a brackish mix of water that was ideal for the bivalves, which often grew much larger than today but gradually shrank through a form of negative
artificial selection
. By the middle of the 19th century, the City of Brooklyn was the third most populous, and fastest growing, city in America and had incorporated the creek and farmland into a greater urban fabric with linear villages flourishing along the shore.
The mills on the Gowanus were also home to public landing sites, connecting the water route to the old Gowanus road. As the local population grew and 19th century industrial revolution reached Brooklyn, the need for larger navigational and docking facilities
grew. Colonel Daniel Richards, a successful local merchant, advocated the building of a canal to benefit existing inland industries and drain the surrounding marshes for land reclamation
that would raise property values. In 1849, the New York Legislature
authorized the construction of the Gowanus Canal by deepening Gowanus Creek, to transform it into a mile and a half long commercial waterway connected to Upper New York Bay
. The full dredging of Gowanus Creek could not begin until a further act of the legislature in 1867. After exploring numerous alternative (and some more environmentally sound) designs, the final was chosen for its low price tag. United States Army Corps of Engineers
(USACE) Major David Douglas was hired to design the canal, which was essentially complete by 1869. The cost of the construction came from assessments on the local residents of Brooklyn and State money.
Despite its relatively short length, the Gowanus Canal was a hub for Brooklyn's maritime and commercial shipping activity. Factories, warehouses, tanneries, coal stores, and manufactured gas refineries sprang up as a result of its construction. Much of the brownstone
quarried in New Jersey
and the upper Hudson
was placed on barges with lumber
and brick
and shipped through the canal to build the neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens
, Cobble Hill
, and Park Slope. In addition, the industrial sector around the canal grew substantially over time to include: stone
and coal
yards, flour mills
, cement
works, and manufactured gas plants
, tanneries
, factories for paint
, ink
, and soap
, machine shops
, chemical plant
s, and sulfur
producers, all of which emitted substantial water
and airborne pollutants
. The canal was the first site where chemical fertilizers were manufactured.
With as many as 700 new buildings a year constructed, the South Brooklyn region grew at a remarkable rate. Thriving industry brought many new people to the area but important questions about wastewater
sanitation
had not been properly addressed to handle such growth. All the sewage from the new buildings drained downhill, into the Gowanus. The building of new sewer connections only compounded the problem by discharging raw sewage
from neighborhoods even farther away into the Canal. By the turn of the century, the combination of industrial pollutants and runoff
from storm water, fortified with the products of the new sewage system, rendered the waterway a repository of rank odors, euphemistically called by wise-cracking locals "Lavender Lake". After World War I
, with six million annual tons of cargo
produced and trafficked though the waterway, the Gowanus Canal became the nation's busiest commercial canal, and arguably the most polluted. The heavy sewage flow into the canal required regular dredging to keep the waters navigable.
With much fanfare the US Army Corps of Engineers completed their last dredging of the canal in 1955 and soon afterward abandoned its regular dredging schedule, deeming it to be no longer cost effective. Brooklyn's fuel trade was already converting from coal and artificial gas to petroleum, which was served by the wider and deeper Newtown Creek
, and natural gas
, which arrived by pipeline
. With the early 1960s growth of containerisation, New York's loss of industrial waterfront jobs during this period was evident on the canal and, with the failure of the city sewage and pump station infrastructure along the canal, Gowanus was used as a derelict dumping place. Remaining barge traffic mostly carried fuel oil, sand, gravel and scrap metal. At this point, the issue of revitalizing of the Gowanus area was raised. In 1975 the City of New York
established a Gowanus Industrial Renewal Plan for the area, which remains in effect until the year 2011. Since 1975, the surrounding community has been calling for the city, state, and federal governments to bring the full power of the Clean Water Act
to bear on the environmental conditions left behind in this once thriving urban/industrial waterway.
At the time it was built, several designs for the canal were proposed, some with lock systems that would have allowed daily flushing of the whole waterway. But these designs were considered too expensive, and as a result the Gowanus Canal was constructed with significant design flaws, but within budget. There was no through-flow of water and the canal was open at only one end, in the hope that the tides would be enough to flush the waterway. But with the canal's wooden and concrete embankments, the strong tides of fresh diurnal doses of oxygenated water from New York Harbor
were barred from flowing into the 1.8 mile (3 km) channel. Water quality
studies have found the concentration of oxygen
in the canal to be just 1.5 parts per million, well below the minimum 4 parts per million needed to sustain life. With the high level of development in the Gowanus watershed area, excessive nitrate
s and pathogen
s are constantly flowing into the canal, further depleting the oxygen and creating breeding grounds for the pathogens responsible for the canal's odor.
The opaqueness of the Gowanus water obstructs sunlight to one third of the six feet needed for aquatic plant
growth. Rising gas bubbles betray the decomposition of sewage sludge that on a warm, sultry day produces the canal's notable ripe stench. The murky depths of the canal conceal the remnants of its industrial past: cement, oil, mercury
, lead
, PCB
s, coal tar
, and other contaminants. In 1951, with the opening of the elevated Gowanus Expressway over the waterway, easy access for trucks and cars catalyzed industry slightly, but with 150,000 vehicles passing overhead each day the expressway also deposits tons of toxic emissions into the air and water beneath.
There is an urban legend
that the canal served as a dumping ground for the Mafia
. In Jonathan Lethem
's Motherless Brooklyn
, a character refers to it as "the only body of water in the world that is 90 percent gun
s." In Lavender Lake, a 1998 documentary film
about the Gowanus Canal by Alison Prete, two cops
discuss the recent discovery by fishermen of a suitcase taken from the waterway that was full of human body parts. In Joseph O'Neill
's novel Netherland
, the remains of one of the protagonists are found in the Gowanus Canal.
The first step to ameliorate pollution in the canal was the construction of the Bond Street sewer pipe line in the 1890s that carried sewage out into the harbor, but this proved inadequate. In the first attempt to improve flow at the northern, closed end of the canal, the "Big Sewer" was constructed from Marcy Avenue in Prospect Heights, down Green Ave to 4th Avenue and into the canal at Butler Street. This sewer design was featured in Scientific American
for its innovative construction method and size. The area this sewer ran through was known as "The Flooded District," and it was believed that this new sewer would serve two purposes: to drain the flooded district, and to use the flow of that excessive water to move the water of the upper Gowanus Canal. Headlines in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper declared it an engineering blunder shortly after its construction. The Big Sewer still exists under the streets of Brooklyn today.
The existing method to control the pollution of the isolated Gowanus Canal was the installation of the Flushing Tunnel on June 21, 1911, which for a time supplied clean water to the upper reaches of the canal through the brick-lined 1.2 mile (1.9 km) tunnel via Butler Street to Buttermilk Channel between lower Brooklyn and Governor's Island. Unfortunately, this too failed. Aside from numerous operational glitches, a long series of problems and mistakes occurred throughout the 1960s, culminating when a city worker dropped a manhole cover
that severely damaged a pump system already suffering from the effect of the corrosive salt water. The Clean Water Act had not yet been passed, and the city, stretched for funds at the time, did nothing to address the issue. As a result of the unrepaired damage to the Flushing Tunnel, and the long stretch of economic recession, the waters of the canal lay stagnant and under-used for years.
According to the New York City Department of Environmental Protection
(DEP), plans to reactivate the Flushing Tunnel pump were proposed in 1982. But, due to bureaucratic delays, the DEP did not take up the project until 1994. The tunnel was finally reactivated in 1999. The new design employed a 600 horsepower
(450 kW) motor, that pumped an average rate of 200 million gallons a day (9 m³/s) of aerated water from Buttermilk Channel
of the East River
into the head end of the canal. Although water was circulating through the tunnel, it can only be pumped 11 hours a day, due to tidal forces. Water quality has now improved, or at least the quality of water samples taken while the Flushing Pump is operating. Another attempt to control pollution, the construction of the $230 million Red Hook Water Pollution Control Plant in 1987, had similar unsatisfactory results. The Red Hook Treatment plant collected waste from the existing Bond Street sewer that had been dumping into the harbor, but did not take up any additional waste that still spills into the canal from the sewer system's 14 combined sewer overflow
(CSO) points. The city has yet to modify the sewer system to reduce sewage overflows into the Gowanus.
in nearby central Brooklyn. The project would include a basketball
arena and 17 skyscraper
s. The resulting sewage would flow into antiquated combined sewers that can overflow when it rains. The Gowanus Canal has 14 combined sewer overflow points; the fear is that the additional wastewater from the arena would lead to more frequent overflows in the canal.
In 1999, Assemblywoman
Joan Millman
allocated $100,000 to the Gowanus Canal Community Development Corporation (GCCDC) to produce and distribute a bulkhead study and public access document. The following year, GCCDC received $270,000 from the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation
to construct three street-end public open spaces
along the Gowanus Canal through the city's Green Street program. An additional $270,000 was funded by Governor George E. Pataki to create a revitalization plan in 2001 and then allocated $100,000 in capital funds in 2002 to implement a pilot project on the shoreline. In 2003, Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez
allocated an additional $225,000 to create a comprehensive community development plan. Today this organization relies on community volunteers to maintain and clean these Green Street Projects. The community lacks a community centered redevelopment plan.
In 2002, the United States Army Corps of Engineers
entered into a cost-sharing agreement with the DEP to collaborate on a $5 million Ecosystem Restoration Feasibility Study of the Gowanus Canal area to be completed in 2005, studying possible alternatives for ecosystem restoration such as dredging, and wetland
and habitat
restoration
. Discussions turned to breaking down the hard edges of the canal in order to restore some of the natural processes to improve the overall environment of the Gowanus wetlands area. The DEP also initiated the Gowanus Canal Use and Standards Attainment project, to meet the City's obligations under the Clean Water Act
. As of the summer 2009, the joint NYC/Army Corps Feasibility study has not been completed.
As the industrial Brooklyn cityscape evolves, new development plans have been debated for the Gowanus Canal and the land abutting it. The adjacent neighborhood to the east (4th Avenue) was rezoned
for high density residential use with a strong commercial component. With brownfield
redevelopment incentives offered by the State of New York, developers look to this land as another place to build, with substantial help of public money.
With the popularity of the location, some community groups, led by a funeral director
in the area, have raised the dream of Brooklyn's own Grand Canal of Venice
tourism
.
Paving the way for recreational use of the canal has been the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club (founded in 1999), and The Urban Divers Estuary Conservancy (founded in 1998), two organizations that are dedicated to providing waterfront access and education related to the estuary
and bordering shoreline of the canal. During the 2003 season, over 1,000 individuals, including more than 200 youths, participated in Dredger Canoe Club programs, logging over 2,000 trips on the Gowanus Canal. The NY Harbor report for that same year showed the Gowanus to have the highest level of pathogen
s in the entire harbor.
A 9.4 acre (38,000 m²) U.S. Postal Service
site on the east side of the Ninth Street canal crossing became available for commercial development. Development groups have not taken their eye off a whole range of possible projects for the site. It has been proposed as the Brooklyn Commons, an entertainment and retail complex featuring a multiplex cinema
, a bowling alley, shops and restaurants. After controversy, a lawsuit, and a rival proposal for an IKEA
store, a large Lowe's
store was built and opened on April 30, 2004, with an adjacent public promenade overlooking the canal. The IKEA company, previously rejected from the Ninth Street location for traffic congestion
, opened on the south end of Red Hook on the harbor waterway. That project was objected to by community organizations in the Red Hook and Gowanus neighborhoods.
Another site at Smith and 4th street was taken by the city in 1975 and designated a Public Place, for use as "public recreation space". Despite this legal standing of the Public Place, developers have continually proposed using this site for other possibilities. National Grid is accountable for a cleanup of the pollution left behind on the site after years of coal gas manufacture. Upon completion of this cleanup the site was to be turned over to the parks department. Developers however believe it should be used for a large scale housing project. There is much concern in the community over the possible loss of this much need recreation space.
FROGG, Friends & Residents of Greater Gowanus, and a group of artists carved out a niche in the Gowanus area. The Gowanus Artists are a group of over 100 local visual artists
that hang out and paint in the Canal's parks, on its bridges, and in their nearby studios. On the last weekend of every October, they open up their studios for the Gowanus Open Studio Tour, expanding also into Park Slope's Brooklyn Lyceum (227 Fourth Avenue) and Southpaw (125 Fifth Avenue) venues.
In 2005, folk singer Steve Suffet released Down the Gowanus, a whimsical song about the Gowanus Canal and the characters who once populated its environs, on his Now the Wheel Has Turned CD.
In November 2006, HABITATS, a festival dedicated to "local action as global wisdom" celebrated the Gowanus Canal through environmental conferences, collaborative art, educational programs and interactive walks around the area. The canal has been the home to various arts organizations. The Issue Project Room once organized art events, and The Yard, an outdoor concert space, opened in the summer of 2007 near the Carroll Street bridge. In 2008, a local all-girl Brooklyn country band, The Havens, released the song 'Gowanus Canal' on their 'Devil Days' CD. An old-timey glorification of illicit activities around the Gowanus Canal.
In February 2009, the city of New York granted a zoning change to the developer, Toll Brothers Inc., allowing for a 480-unit, twelve-story, super-block residential project, the first permitted along the waterway.
In April 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed that the canal be listed as a Superfund
cleanup site. This action was supported by the state Department of Environmental Conservation
, which had requested help from EPA to address the canal's environmental problems. In May 2009, the city stepped forward to oppose the Superfund listing and offered, for the first time, to produce a Gowanus cleanup plan that would match the work of a Superfund cleanup, but with a promise to accomplish it faster. The city stated that it could now achieve a faster cleanup than EPA because the city would fund the cleanup through taxpayer dollars from the state and city levels, while the EPA would seek its funding from the polluters. On March 4, 2010, the EPA announced that it had placed the Gowanus Canal on its Superfund National Priorities List.
Canal
Canals are man-made channels for water. There are two types of canal:#Waterways: navigable transportation canals used for carrying ships and boats shipping goods and conveying people, further subdivided into two kinds:...
in the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
borough
Borough (New York City)
New York City, one of the largest cities in the world, is composed of five boroughs. Each borough now has the same boundaries as the county it is in. County governments were dissolved when the city consolidated in 1898, along with all city, town, and village governments within each county...
of Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, geographically on the westernmost portion of Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
. Connected to Gowanus Bay in Upper New York Bay
Upper New York Bay
Upper New York Bay, or Upper Bay, is the traditional heart of the Port of New York and New Jersey, and often called New York Harbor. It is enclosed by the New York City boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Staten Island and the Hudson County, New Jersey municipalities of Jersey City and Bayonne.It...
, the canal borders the neighborhoods of Red Hook
Red Hook, Brooklyn
Red Hook is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, USA. The neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community Board 6. It is also the location where the transatlantic liner, the , docks in New York City.- History :...
and South Brooklyn
South Brooklyn
South Brooklyn is a region or composite neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, encompassing areas of Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Gowanus, Park Slope, and Boerum Hill. Thus it is roughly encompassed by Brooklyn Community Board 6, which in turn approximates the southern half of the 18th...
to the west and Park Slope to the east — as well as the neighborhoods of Red Hook to the north and Sunset Park
Sunset Park, Brooklyn
Sunset Park is a neighborhood in the western section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, USA. It is bounded by Greenwood Heights to the north, Borough Park to the east, Bay Ridge to the south, and Upper New York Bay to the west...
to the south. There are five east-west bridge crossings over the canal, located at Union Street, Carroll Street (a landmark), Third Street, Ninth Street, and Hamilton Avenue. The Gowanus Expressway (Interstate 278
Interstate 278
Interstate 278 is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in New Jersey and New York, United States. The road runs from U.S. Route 1/9 in Linden, New Jersey to the Bruckner Interchange in the New York City borough of the Bronx...
) and the IND Culver Line
IND Culver Line
The IND Culver Line is a rapid transit line of the B Division of the New York City Subway, extending from Downtown Brooklyn south to Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City, United States...
of the New York City Subway
New York City Subway
The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the City of New York and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, a subsidiary agency of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and also known as MTA New York City Transit...
, the only above-ground section of the original Independent Subway System
Independent Subway System
The Independent Subway System , formerly known as the Independent City-Owned Subway System or the Independent City-Owned Rapid Transit Railroad, was a rapid transit rail system in New York City that is now part of the New York City Subway...
, pass over the canal.
Once a busy cargo transportation hub, the canal's history has paralled the decline of domestic shipping
Containerization
Containerization is a system of freight transport based on a range of steel intermodal containers...
via water. A legacy of serious environmental problems has beset the area from the time the canal arose from the local tidal wetland
Wetland
A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....
s and fresh water
Fresh Water
Fresh Water is the debut album by Australian rock and blues singer Alison McCallum, released in 1972. Rare for an Australian artist at the time, it came in a gatefold sleeve...
stream
Stream
A stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Depending on its locale or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as a branch, brook, beck, burn, creek, "crick", gill , kill, lick, rill, river, syke, bayou, rivulet, streamage, wash, run or...
s. In recent years, there has been a call once again for environmental cleanup
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
. In addition, development pressures have brought speculation that the wetlands of the Gowanus should serve waterfront economic development
Urban planning
Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....
needs which may not be compatible with environmental restoration.
Mill creek
The Gowanus neighborhood was originally a tidal inletInlet
An inlet is a narrow body of water between islands or leading inland from a larger body of water, often leading to an enclosed body of water, such as a sound, bay, lagoon or marsh. In sea coasts an inlet usually refers to the actual connection between a bay and the ocean and is often called an...
of navigable creeks
Stream
A stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Depending on its locale or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as a branch, brook, beck, burn, creek, "crick", gill , kill, lick, rill, river, syke, bayou, rivulet, streamage, wash, run or...
in original saltwater marshland and meadows teeming with fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
and other wildlife
Wildlife
Wildlife includes all non-domesticated plants, animals and other organisms. Domesticating wild plant and animal species for human benefit has occurred many times all over the planet, and has a major impact on the environment, both positive and negative....
. Henry Hudson
Henry Hudson
Henry Hudson was an English sea explorer and navigator in the early 17th century. Hudson made two attempts on behalf of English merchants to find a prospective Northeast Passage to Cathay via a route above the Arctic Circle...
and Giovanni da Verrazzano both navigated the inlet in their explorations of New York Harbor
New York Harbor
New York Harbor refers to the waterways of the estuary near the mouth of the Hudson River that empty into New York Bay. It is one of the largest natural harbors in the world. Although the U.S. Board of Geographic Names does not use the term, New York Harbor has important historical, governmental,...
. The first land patents within Breukelen
History of Brooklyn
The history of Brooklyn, a present-day borough of New York City, spans more than 350 years. The settlement began in the 17th century as the small Dutch-founded town of "Breuckelen" on the East River shore of Long Island, grew to be a sizable city in the 19th century, and was consolidated in 1898...
(Brooklyn), including the land of the Gowanus, were issued by the Dutch Government
Dutch colonization of the Americas
Dutch trading posts and plantations in the Americas precede the much wider known colonization activities of the Dutch in Asia. Whereas the first Dutch fort in Asia was built in 1600 , the first forts and settlements on the Essequibo river in Guyana and on the Amazon date from the 1590s...
from 1630 to 1664. In 1639, the leaders of New Netherland
New Netherland
New Netherland, or Nieuw-Nederland in Dutch, was the 17th-century colonial province of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on the East Coast of North America. The claimed territories were the lands from the Delmarva Peninsula to extreme southwestern Cape Cod...
made one of the earliest recorded real estate deals in New York City history
History of New York City
The history of New York, New York begins with the first European documentation of the area by Giovanni da Verrazzano, in command of the French ship, La Dauphine, when he visited the region in 1524. It is believed he sailed in Upper New York Bay where he encountered native Lenape, returned through...
with the purchase of the area around the Gowanus Bay for construction of a tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
. The early settlers of the area named the waterway "Gowanes Creek" after Gouwane, sachem
Sachem
A sachem[p] or sagamore is a paramount chief among the Algonquians or other northeast American tribes. The two words are anglicizations of cognate terms from different Eastern Algonquian languages...
of the local Lenape
Lenape
The Lenape are an Algonquian group of Native Americans of the Northeastern Woodlands. They are also called Delaware Indians. As a result of the American Revolutionary War and later Indian removals from the eastern United States, today the main groups live in Canada, where they are enrolled in the...
tribe called the Canarsee, who lived and farmed on the shore
Shore
A shore or shoreline is the fringe of land at the edge of a large body of water, such as an ocean, sea, or lake. In Physical Oceanography a shore is the wider fringe that is geologically modified by the action of the body of water past and present, while the beach is at the edge of the shore,...
lines.
Dutch West India Company
Dutch West India Company was a chartered company of Dutch merchants. Among its founding fathers was Willem Usselincx...
, built and operated the first gristmill
Gristmill
The terms gristmill or grist mill can refer either to a building in which grain is ground into flour, or to the grinding mechanism itself.- Early history :...
patented in New York at Gowanus (on land patented July 8, 1645, to Jan Evertse Bout). The tide-water gristmill on the Gowanus was the first in the town of Breukelen and was the first mill ever operated in New Netherland (located north of Union Street, west of Nevins Street, and next to Bond Street). A second mill (Denton's Mill, also called Yellow mill) was built on Denton's mill pond, after being granted permission to dredge
Dredge
Dredging is an excavation activity or operation usually carried out at least partly underwater, in shallow seas or fresh water areas with the purpose of gathering up bottom sediments and disposing of them at a different location...
from the creek to the mill pond once located between Fifth Ave and the present day canal at Carroll and Third Street. On May 26, 1664, several Breuckelen residents, headed by Brouwer, petitioned director general
Director-General of New Netherland
This is a list of Directors, appointed by the Dutch West India Company, of the 17th century Dutch province of New Netherland in North America...
Peter Stuyvesant
Peter Stuyvesant
Peter Stuyvesant , served as the last Dutch Director-General of the colony of New Netherland from 1647 until it was ceded provisionally to the English in 1664, after which it was renamed New York...
and his Council for permission to dredge a canal at their own expense through the land of Frederick Lubbertsen in order to supply water to run the mill. The petition was presented to the council on May 29, 1664, and the motion was granted. Another mill, Cole's Mill, was located just about at present day 9th Street, between Smith Street and the Canal. Cole's Mill Pond, located north of 9th street, occupied the present location of Public Place. Slave labor
History of slavery in the United States
Slavery in the United States was a form of slave labor which existed as a legal institution in North America for more than a century before the founding of the United States in 1776, and continued mostly in the South until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in...
was used to excavate the marsh
Marsh
In geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland that is subject to frequent or continuous flood. Typically the water is shallow and features grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, other herbaceous plants, and moss....
land.
Battle of Long Island
The Battle of Long Island, also known as the Battle of Brooklyn or the Battle of Brooklyn Heights, fought on August 27, 1776, was the first major battle in the American Revolutionary War following the United States Declaration of Independence, the largest battle of the entire conflict, and the...
, when American troops fought off the Redcoats
Red coat (British army)
Red coat or Redcoat is a historical term used to refer to soldiers of the British Army because of the red uniforms formerly worn by the majority of regiments. From the late 17th century to the early 20th century, the uniform of most British soldiers, , included a madder red coat or coatee...
long enough to allow George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
to retreat. This house sat at the south eastern edge of the Denton's Mill pond. Brower's Mill (also known as Freeks Mill, located at the present day intersection of Union and Nevins streets) can be seen in drawings depicting the "Battle of Brooklyn
Battle of Long Island
The Battle of Long Island, also known as the Battle of Brooklyn or the Battle of Brooklyn Heights, fought on August 27, 1776, was the first major battle in the American Revolutionary War following the United States Declaration of Independence, the largest battle of the entire conflict, and the...
".
Throughout this period, a few Dutch farmers settled along the marshland and engaged in clamming
Clam digging
Clam digging is a common means of harvesting clams from below the surface of the tidal mud flats where they live. It is done both recreationally and commercially...
of large oyster
Oyster
The word oyster is used as a common name for a number of distinct groups of bivalve molluscs which live in marine or brackish habitats. The valves are highly calcified....
s that became a notable first export to Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. The six-foot (2 m) tides of the bay forced salt water up into the creek's meandering course, creating a brackish mix of water that was ideal for the bivalves, which often grew much larger than today but gradually shrank through a form of negative
Negative selection (artificial selection)
In artificial selection, negative selection is where negative, rather than positive, traits of a species are selected for evolutionary continuance...
artificial selection
Artificial selection
Artificial selection describes intentional breeding for certain traits, or combination of traits. The term was utilized by Charles Darwin in contrast to natural selection, in which the differential reproduction of organisms with certain traits is attributed to improved survival or reproductive...
. By the middle of the 19th century, the City of Brooklyn was the third most populous, and fastest growing, city in America and had incorporated the creek and farmland into a greater urban fabric with linear villages flourishing along the shore.
Canal
Dock (maritime)
A dock is a human-made structure or group of structures involved in the handling of boats or ships, usually on or close to a shore.However, the exact meaning varies among different variants of the English language...
grew. Colonel Daniel Richards, a successful local merchant, advocated the building of a canal to benefit existing inland industries and drain the surrounding marshes for land reclamation
Land reclamation
Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, is the process to create new land from sea or riverbeds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamation ground or landfill.- Habitation :...
that would raise property values. In 1849, the New York Legislature
New York Legislature
The New York State Legislature is the term often used to refer to the two houses that act as the state legislature of the U.S. state of New York. The New York Constitution does not designate an official term for the two houses together...
authorized the construction of the Gowanus Canal by deepening Gowanus Creek, to transform it into a mile and a half long commercial waterway connected to Upper New York Bay
Upper New York Bay
Upper New York Bay, or Upper Bay, is the traditional heart of the Port of New York and New Jersey, and often called New York Harbor. It is enclosed by the New York City boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Staten Island and the Hudson County, New Jersey municipalities of Jersey City and Bayonne.It...
. The full dredging of Gowanus Creek could not begin until a further act of the legislature in 1867. After exploring numerous alternative (and some more environmentally sound) designs, the final was chosen for its low price tag. United States Army Corps of Engineers
United States Army Corps of Engineers
The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency and a major Army command made up of some 38,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world's largest public engineering, design and construction management agency...
(USACE) Major David Douglas was hired to design the canal, which was essentially complete by 1869. The cost of the construction came from assessments on the local residents of Brooklyn and State money.
Despite its relatively short length, the Gowanus Canal was a hub for Brooklyn's maritime and commercial shipping activity. Factories, warehouses, tanneries, coal stores, and manufactured gas refineries sprang up as a result of its construction. Much of the brownstone
Brownstone
Brownstone is a brown Triassic or Jurassic sandstone which was once a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States to refer to a terraced house clad in this material.-Types:-Apostle Island brownstone:...
quarried in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
and the upper Hudson
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
was placed on barges with lumber
Lumber
Lumber or timber is wood in any of its stages from felling through readiness for use as structural material for construction, or wood pulp for paper production....
and brick
Brick
A brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction, usually laid using various kinds of mortar. It has been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout history.-History:...
and shipped through the canal to build the neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens
Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn
Carroll Gardens is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, USA. The area is named for Charles Carroll, a revolutionary war veteran who was also the only Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence...
, Cobble Hill
Cobble Hill, Brooklyn
Cobble Hill is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, USA. Bordered by Atlantic Avenue on the north, Hicks Street to the west, Smith Street on the east and Degraw Street to the south, Cobble Hill sits adjacent to Boerum Hill and Brooklyn Heights with Carroll Gardens to the south...
, and Park Slope. In addition, the industrial sector around the canal grew substantially over time to include: stone
Rock (geology)
In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic...
and coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
yards, flour mills
Mill (grinding)
A grinding mill is a unit operation designed to break a solid material into smaller pieces. There are many different types of grinding mills and many types of materials processed in them. Historically mills were powered by hand , working animal , wind or water...
, cement
Cement
In the most general sense of the word, a cement is a binder, a substance that sets and hardens independently, and can bind other materials together. The word "cement" traces to the Romans, who used the term opus caementicium to describe masonry resembling modern concrete that was made from crushed...
works, and manufactured gas plants
Gasification
Gasification is a process that converts organic or fossil based carbonaceous materials into carbon monoxide, hydrogen, carbon dioxide and methane. This is achieved by reacting the material at high temperatures , without combustion, with a controlled amount of oxygen and/or steam...
, tanneries
Tanning
Tanning is the making of leather from the skins of animals which does not easily decompose. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name . Coloring may occur during tanning...
, factories for paint
Paint
Paint is any liquid, liquefiable, or mastic composition which after application to a substrate in a thin layer is converted to an opaque solid film. One may also consider the digital mimicry thereof...
, ink
Ink
Ink is a liquid or paste that contains pigments and/or dyes and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing and/or writing with a pen, brush, or quill...
, and soap
Soap
In chemistry, soap is a salt of a fatty acid.IUPAC. "" Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 2nd ed. . Compiled by A. D. McNaught and A. Wilkinson. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford . XML on-line corrected version: created by M. Nic, J. Jirat, B. Kosata; updates compiled by A. Jenkins. ISBN...
, machine shops
Machining
Conventional machining is a form of subtractive manufacturing, in which a collection of material-working processes utilizing power-driven machine tools, such as saws, lathes, milling machines, and drill presses, are used with a sharp cutting tool to physical remove material to achieve a desired...
, chemical plant
Chemical plant
A chemical plant is an industrial process plant that manufactures chemicals, usually on a large scale. The general objective of a chemical plant is to create new material wealth via the chemical or biological transformation and or separation of materials. Chemical plants use special equipment,...
s, and sulfur
Sulfur
Sulfur or sulphur is the chemical element with atomic number 16. In the periodic table it is represented by the symbol S. It is an abundant, multivalent non-metal. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with chemical formula S8. Elemental sulfur is a bright yellow...
producers, all of which emitted substantial water
Water pollution
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies . Water pollution occurs when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds....
and airborne pollutants
Air pollution
Air pollution is the introduction of chemicals, particulate matter, or biological materials that cause harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or cause damage to the natural environment or built environment, into the atmosphere....
. The canal was the first site where chemical fertilizers were manufactured.
With as many as 700 new buildings a year constructed, the South Brooklyn region grew at a remarkable rate. Thriving industry brought many new people to the area but important questions about wastewater
Wastewater
Wastewater is any water that has been adversely affected in quality by anthropogenic influence. It comprises liquid waste discharged by domestic residences, commercial properties, industry, and/or agriculture and can encompass a wide range of potential contaminants and concentrations...
sanitation
Sanitary sewer
A sanitary sewer is a separate underground carriage system specifically for transporting sewage from houses and commercial buildings to treatment or disposal. Sanitary sewers serving industrial areas also carry industrial wastewater...
had not been properly addressed to handle such growth. All the sewage from the new buildings drained downhill, into the Gowanus. The building of new sewer connections only compounded the problem by discharging raw sewage
Sewage
Sewage is water-carried waste, in solution or suspension, that is intended to be removed from a community. Also known as wastewater, it is more than 99% water and is characterized by volume or rate of flow, physical condition, chemical constituents and the bacteriological organisms that it contains...
from neighborhoods even farther away into the Canal. By the turn of the century, the combination of industrial pollutants and runoff
Urban runoff
Urban runoff is surface runoff of rainwater created by urbanization. This runoff is a major source of water pollution in many parts of the United States and other urban communities worldwide.-Overview:...
from storm water, fortified with the products of the new sewage system, rendered the waterway a repository of rank odors, euphemistically called by wise-cracking locals "Lavender Lake". After World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, with six million annual tons of cargo
Cargo
Cargo is goods or produce transported, generally for commercial gain, by ship, aircraft, train, van or truck. In modern times, containers are used in most intermodal long-haul cargo transport.-Marine:...
produced and trafficked though the waterway, the Gowanus Canal became the nation's busiest commercial canal, and arguably the most polluted. The heavy sewage flow into the canal required regular dredging to keep the waters navigable.
With much fanfare the US Army Corps of Engineers completed their last dredging of the canal in 1955 and soon afterward abandoned its regular dredging schedule, deeming it to be no longer cost effective. Brooklyn's fuel trade was already converting from coal and artificial gas to petroleum, which was served by the wider and deeper Newtown Creek
Newtown Creek
Newtown Creek is a estuary that forms part of the border between the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, in New York City, New York, United States. It derives its name from New Town , which was the name for the Dutch and British settlement in what is now Elmhurst, Queens...
, and natural gas
Natural gas
Natural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...
, which arrived by pipeline
Pipeline transport
Pipeline transport is the transportation of goods through a pipe. Most commonly, liquids and gases are sent, but pneumatic tubes that transport solid capsules using compressed air are also used....
. With the early 1960s growth of containerisation, New York's loss of industrial waterfront jobs during this period was evident on the canal and, with the failure of the city sewage and pump station infrastructure along the canal, Gowanus was used as a derelict dumping place. Remaining barge traffic mostly carried fuel oil, sand, gravel and scrap metal. At this point, the issue of revitalizing of the Gowanus area was raised. In 1975 the City of New York
Government of New York City
The government of New York City is organized under the City Charter and provides for a "strong" mayor-council system. The government of New York is more centralized than that of most other U.S...
established a Gowanus Industrial Renewal Plan for the area, which remains in effect until the year 2011. Since 1975, the surrounding community has been calling for the city, state, and federal governments to bring the full power of the Clean Water Act
Clean Water Act
The Clean Water Act is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Commonly abbreviated as the CWA, the act established the goals of eliminating releases of high amounts of toxic substances into water, eliminating additional water pollution by 1985, and ensuring that...
to bear on the environmental conditions left behind in this once thriving urban/industrial waterway.
Degeneration
New York Harbor
New York Harbor refers to the waterways of the estuary near the mouth of the Hudson River that empty into New York Bay. It is one of the largest natural harbors in the world. Although the U.S. Board of Geographic Names does not use the term, New York Harbor has important historical, governmental,...
were barred from flowing into the 1.8 mile (3 km) channel. Water quality
Water quality
Water quality is the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of water. It is a measure of the condition of water relative to the requirements of one or more biotic species and or to any human need or purpose. It is most frequently used by reference to a set of standards against which...
studies have found the concentration of oxygen
Oxygen
Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...
in the canal to be just 1.5 parts per million, well below the minimum 4 parts per million needed to sustain life. With the high level of development in the Gowanus watershed area, excessive nitrate
Nitrate
The nitrate ion is a polyatomic ion with the molecular formula NO and a molecular mass of 62.0049 g/mol. It is the conjugate base of nitric acid, consisting of one central nitrogen atom surrounded by three identically-bonded oxygen atoms in a trigonal planar arrangement. The nitrate ion carries a...
s and pathogen
Pathogen
A pathogen gignomai "I give birth to") or infectious agent — colloquially, a germ — is a microbe or microorganism such as a virus, bacterium, prion, or fungus that causes disease in its animal or plant host...
s are constantly flowing into the canal, further depleting the oxygen and creating breeding grounds for the pathogens responsible for the canal's odor.
The opaqueness of the Gowanus water obstructs sunlight to one third of the six feet needed for aquatic plant
Aquatic plant
Aquatic plants are plants that have adapted to living in aquatic environments. They are also referred to as hydrophytes or aquatic macrophytes. These plants require special adaptations for living submerged in water, or at the water's surface. Aquatic plants can only grow in water or in soil that is...
growth. Rising gas bubbles betray the decomposition of sewage sludge that on a warm, sultry day produces the canal's notable ripe stench. The murky depths of the canal conceal the remnants of its industrial past: cement, oil, mercury
Mercury (element)
Mercury is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80. It is also known as quicksilver or hydrargyrum...
, lead
Lead
Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...
, PCB
Polychlorinated biphenyl
Polychlorinated biphenyls are a class of organic compounds with 2 to 10 chlorine atoms attached to biphenyl, which is a molecule composed of two benzene rings. The chemical formula for PCBs is C12H10-xClx...
s, coal tar
Coal tar
Coal tar is a brown or black liquid of extremely high viscosity, which smells of naphthalene and aromatic hydrocarbons. Coal tar is among the by-products when coal iscarbonized to make coke or gasified to make coal gas...
, and other contaminants. In 1951, with the opening of the elevated Gowanus Expressway over the waterway, easy access for trucks and cars catalyzed industry slightly, but with 150,000 vehicles passing overhead each day the expressway also deposits tons of toxic emissions into the air and water beneath.
There is an urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
that the canal served as a dumping ground for the Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
. In Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Allen Lethem is an American novelist, essayist and short story writer. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. It was followed by three more science fiction novels...
's Motherless Brooklyn
Motherless Brooklyn
Motherless Brooklyn is a Jonathan Lethem detective story set in Brooklyn and published in 1999. Lethem's protagonist, Lionel Essrog, has Tourette syndrome, a disorder marked by involuntary tics...
, a character refers to it as "the only body of water in the world that is 90 percent gun
Gun
A gun is a muzzle or breech-loaded projectile-firing weapon. There are various definitions depending on the nation and branch of service. A "gun" may be distinguished from other firearms in being a crew-served weapon such as a howitzer or mortar, as opposed to a small arm like a rifle or pistol,...
s." In Lavender Lake, a 1998 documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
about the Gowanus Canal by Alison Prete, two cops
New York City Police Department
The New York City Police Department , established in 1845, is currently the largest municipal police force in the United States, with primary responsibilities in law enforcement and investigation within the five boroughs of New York City...
discuss the recent discovery by fishermen of a suitcase taken from the waterway that was full of human body parts. In Joseph O'Neill
Joseph O'Neill (born 1964)
Joseph O'Neill is a Irish novelist and non-fiction writer. O'Neill's novel Netherland was awarded the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.-Life:...
's novel Netherland
Netherland
Netherland is a critically acclaimed novel by Joseph O'Neill. It concerns the life of a Dutchman living in New York in the wake of the September 11 attacks who takes up cricket and starts playing at the Staten Island Cricket Club.-Plot summary:...
, the remains of one of the protagonists are found in the Gowanus Canal.
Flushing the canal
Scientific American
Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
for its innovative construction method and size. The area this sewer ran through was known as "The Flooded District," and it was believed that this new sewer would serve two purposes: to drain the flooded district, and to use the flow of that excessive water to move the water of the upper Gowanus Canal. Headlines in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper declared it an engineering blunder shortly after its construction. The Big Sewer still exists under the streets of Brooklyn today.
The existing method to control the pollution of the isolated Gowanus Canal was the installation of the Flushing Tunnel on June 21, 1911, which for a time supplied clean water to the upper reaches of the canal through the brick-lined 1.2 mile (1.9 km) tunnel via Butler Street to Buttermilk Channel between lower Brooklyn and Governor's Island. Unfortunately, this too failed. Aside from numerous operational glitches, a long series of problems and mistakes occurred throughout the 1960s, culminating when a city worker dropped a manhole cover
Manhole cover
A manhole cover is a removable plate forming the lid over the opening of a manhole, to prevent anyone from falling in and to keep unauthorized persons out....
that severely damaged a pump system already suffering from the effect of the corrosive salt water. The Clean Water Act had not yet been passed, and the city, stretched for funds at the time, did nothing to address the issue. As a result of the unrepaired damage to the Flushing Tunnel, and the long stretch of economic recession, the waters of the canal lay stagnant and under-used for years.
According to the New York City Department of Environmental Protection
New York City Department of Environmental Protection
The New York City Department of Environmental Protection is a City agency of nearly 6,000 employees that manages and conserves the City’s water supply; distributes more than one billion gallons of clean drinking water each day to nine million New Yorkers and collects wastewater through a vast...
(DEP), plans to reactivate the Flushing Tunnel pump were proposed in 1982. But, due to bureaucratic delays, the DEP did not take up the project until 1994. The tunnel was finally reactivated in 1999. The new design employed a 600 horsepower
Horsepower
Horsepower is the name of several units of measurement of power. The most common definitions equal between 735.5 and 750 watts.Horsepower was originally defined to compare the output of steam engines with the power of draft horses in continuous operation. The unit was widely adopted to measure the...
(450 kW) motor, that pumped an average rate of 200 million gallons a day (9 m³/s) of aerated water from Buttermilk Channel
Buttermilk Channel
In New York City, Buttermilk Channel is a small tidal strait in Upper New York Bay, approximately one mile long and one-fourth of a mile wide , separating Governors Island from Brooklyn....
of the East River
East River
The East River is a tidal strait in New York City. It connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates Long Island from the island of Manhattan and the Bronx on the North American mainland...
into the head end of the canal. Although water was circulating through the tunnel, it can only be pumped 11 hours a day, due to tidal forces. Water quality has now improved, or at least the quality of water samples taken while the Flushing Pump is operating. Another attempt to control pollution, the construction of the $230 million Red Hook Water Pollution Control Plant in 1987, had similar unsatisfactory results. The Red Hook Treatment plant collected waste from the existing Bond Street sewer that had been dumping into the harbor, but did not take up any additional waste that still spills into the canal from the sewer system's 14 combined sewer overflow
Combined sewer overflow
A combined sewer is a type of sewer system that collects sanitary sewage and stormwater runoff in a single pipe system. Combined sewers can cause serious water pollution problems due to combined sewer overflows, which are caused by large variations in flow between dry and wet weather...
(CSO) points. The city has yet to modify the sewer system to reduce sewage overflows into the Gowanus.
Environmental and economic developments
In early 2006, the problem of wastewater management arose during a controversy over a planned Brooklyn Nets ArenaBrooklyn Nets Arena
The Barclays Center is a sports arena currently under construction in Brooklyn, New York City. The arena is being built partly on a platform over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority-owned Vanderbilt Yards at Atlantic Avenue. It is part of a proposed $4.9 billion sports arena, business and...
in nearby central Brooklyn. The project would include a basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
arena and 17 skyscraper
Skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...
s. The resulting sewage would flow into antiquated combined sewers that can overflow when it rains. The Gowanus Canal has 14 combined sewer overflow points; the fear is that the additional wastewater from the arena would lead to more frequent overflows in the canal.
New York State Assembly
The New York State Assembly is the lower house of the New York State Legislature. The Assembly is composed of 150 members representing an equal number of districts, with each district having an average population of 128,652...
Joan Millman
Joan Millman
Joan Millman represents District 52 in the New York State Assembly, which consists of the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens, Vinegar Hill, Gowanus, DUMBO, Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights and Prospect Heights....
allocated $100,000 to the Gowanus Canal Community Development Corporation (GCCDC) to produce and distribute a bulkhead study and public access document. The following year, GCCDC received $270,000 from the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation
New York City Department of Parks and Recreation
The City of New York Department of Parks & Recreation is the department of government of the City of New York responsible for maintaining the city's parks system, preserving and maintaining the ecological diversity of the city's natural areas, and furnishing recreational opportunities for city's...
to construct three street-end public open spaces
Urban open space
In land use planning, urban open space is open space areas for “parks”, “green spaces”, and other open areas. The landscape of urban open spaces can range from playing fields to highly maintained environments to relatively natural landscapes. They are commonly open to public access, however, urban...
along the Gowanus Canal through the city's Green Street program. An additional $270,000 was funded by Governor George E. Pataki to create a revitalization plan in 2001 and then allocated $100,000 in capital funds in 2002 to implement a pilot project on the shoreline. In 2003, Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez
Nydia Velázquez
Nydia Margarita Velázquez is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1993. She is a member of the Democratic Party. The district includes residential areas of three boroughs...
allocated an additional $225,000 to create a comprehensive community development plan. Today this organization relies on community volunteers to maintain and clean these Green Street Projects. The community lacks a community centered redevelopment plan.
In 2002, the United States Army Corps of Engineers
United States Army Corps of Engineers
The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency and a major Army command made up of some 38,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world's largest public engineering, design and construction management agency...
entered into a cost-sharing agreement with the DEP to collaborate on a $5 million Ecosystem Restoration Feasibility Study of the Gowanus Canal area to be completed in 2005, studying possible alternatives for ecosystem restoration such as dredging, and wetland
Wetland
A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....
and habitat
Habitat (ecology)
A habitat is an ecological or environmental area that is inhabited by a particular species of animal, plant or other type of organism...
restoration
Land rehabilitation
Land rehabilitation is the process of returning the land in a given area to some degree of its former state, after some process has resulted in its damage...
. Discussions turned to breaking down the hard edges of the canal in order to restore some of the natural processes to improve the overall environment of the Gowanus wetlands area. The DEP also initiated the Gowanus Canal Use and Standards Attainment project, to meet the City's obligations under the Clean Water Act
Clean Water Act
The Clean Water Act is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Commonly abbreviated as the CWA, the act established the goals of eliminating releases of high amounts of toxic substances into water, eliminating additional water pollution by 1985, and ensuring that...
. As of the summer 2009, the joint NYC/Army Corps Feasibility study has not been completed.
As the industrial Brooklyn cityscape evolves, new development plans have been debated for the Gowanus Canal and the land abutting it. The adjacent neighborhood to the east (4th Avenue) was rezoned
Zoning in the United States
Zoning in the United States comprise land use state laws falling under the police power rights that State governments and local governments have the authority to exercise over privately owned real property.-Origins and history:...
for high density residential use with a strong commercial component. With brownfield
Brownfield land
Brownfield sites are abandoned or underused industrial and commercial facilities available for re-use. Expansion or redevelopment of such a facility may be complicated by real or perceived environmental contaminations. Cf. Waste...
redevelopment incentives offered by the State of New York, developers look to this land as another place to build, with substantial help of public money.
Funeral director
A funeral director , also known as a mortician or undertaker, is a professional involved in the business of funeral rites. These tasks often entail the embalming and burial or cremation of the dead, as well as the planning and arrangement of the actual funeral ceremony...
in the area, have raised the dream of Brooklyn's own Grand Canal of Venice
Grand Canal of Venice
The Grand Canal is a canal in Venice, Italy. It forms one of the major water-traffic corridors in the city...
tourism
Tourism
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...
.
Paving the way for recreational use of the canal has been the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club (founded in 1999), and The Urban Divers Estuary Conservancy (founded in 1998), two organizations that are dedicated to providing waterfront access and education related to the estuary
Estuary
An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....
and bordering shoreline of the canal. During the 2003 season, over 1,000 individuals, including more than 200 youths, participated in Dredger Canoe Club programs, logging over 2,000 trips on the Gowanus Canal. The NY Harbor report for that same year showed the Gowanus to have the highest level of pathogen
Pathogen
A pathogen gignomai "I give birth to") or infectious agent — colloquially, a germ — is a microbe or microorganism such as a virus, bacterium, prion, or fungus that causes disease in its animal or plant host...
s in the entire harbor.
A 9.4 acre (38,000 m²) U.S. Postal Service
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
site on the east side of the Ninth Street canal crossing became available for commercial development. Development groups have not taken their eye off a whole range of possible projects for the site. It has been proposed as the Brooklyn Commons, an entertainment and retail complex featuring a multiplex cinema
Movie theater
A movie theater, cinema, movie house, picture theater, film theater is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ....
, a bowling alley, shops and restaurants. After controversy, a lawsuit, and a rival proposal for an IKEA
IKEA
IKEA is a privately held, international home products company that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture such as beds and desks, appliances and home accessories. The company is the world's largest furniture retailer...
store, a large Lowe's
Lowe's
Lowe's Companies, Inc. is a U.S.-based chain of retail home improvement and appliance stores. Founded in 1946 in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, the chain now serves more than 14 million customers a week in its 1,710 stores in the United States and 20 in Canada. Expansion into Canada began in...
store was built and opened on April 30, 2004, with an adjacent public promenade overlooking the canal. The IKEA company, previously rejected from the Ninth Street location for traffic congestion
Traffic congestion
Traffic congestion is a condition on road networks that occurs as use increases, and is characterized by slower speeds, longer trip times, and increased vehicular queueing. The most common example is the physical use of roads by vehicles. When traffic demand is great enough that the interaction...
, opened on the south end of Red Hook on the harbor waterway. That project was objected to by community organizations in the Red Hook and Gowanus neighborhoods.
Another site at Smith and 4th street was taken by the city in 1975 and designated a Public Place, for use as "public recreation space". Despite this legal standing of the Public Place, developers have continually proposed using this site for other possibilities. National Grid is accountable for a cleanup of the pollution left behind on the site after years of coal gas manufacture. Upon completion of this cleanup the site was to be turned over to the parks department. Developers however believe it should be used for a large scale housing project. There is much concern in the community over the possible loss of this much need recreation space.
FROGG, Friends & Residents of Greater Gowanus, and a group of artists carved out a niche in the Gowanus area. The Gowanus Artists are a group of over 100 local visual artists
Visual arts
The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
that hang out and paint in the Canal's parks, on its bridges, and in their nearby studios. On the last weekend of every October, they open up their studios for the Gowanus Open Studio Tour, expanding also into Park Slope's Brooklyn Lyceum (227 Fourth Avenue) and Southpaw (125 Fifth Avenue) venues.
In 2005, folk singer Steve Suffet released Down the Gowanus, a whimsical song about the Gowanus Canal and the characters who once populated its environs, on his Now the Wheel Has Turned CD.
In November 2006, HABITATS, a festival dedicated to "local action as global wisdom" celebrated the Gowanus Canal through environmental conferences, collaborative art, educational programs and interactive walks around the area. The canal has been the home to various arts organizations. The Issue Project Room once organized art events, and The Yard, an outdoor concert space, opened in the summer of 2007 near the Carroll Street bridge. In 2008, a local all-girl Brooklyn country band, The Havens, released the song 'Gowanus Canal' on their 'Devil Days' CD. An old-timey glorification of illicit activities around the Gowanus Canal.
In February 2009, the city of New York granted a zoning change to the developer, Toll Brothers Inc., allowing for a 480-unit, twelve-story, super-block residential project, the first permitted along the waterway.
In April 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed that the canal be listed as a Superfund
Superfund
Superfund is the common name for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 , a United States federal law designed to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances...
cleanup site. This action was supported by the state Department of Environmental Conservation
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is responsible for the conservation, improvement, and protection of natural resources within the U.S. state of New York. It was founded in 1970, replacing the previous Conservation Department...
, which had requested help from EPA to address the canal's environmental problems. In May 2009, the city stepped forward to oppose the Superfund listing and offered, for the first time, to produce a Gowanus cleanup plan that would match the work of a Superfund cleanup, but with a promise to accomplish it faster. The city stated that it could now achieve a faster cleanup than EPA because the city would fund the cleanup through taxpayer dollars from the state and city levels, while the EPA would seek its funding from the polluters. On March 4, 2010, the EPA announced that it had placed the Gowanus Canal on its Superfund National Priorities List.
See also
- List of Superfund sites in New York
- History of New York City transportationHistory of New York City transportationThe History of the New York City Transportation System ranges from strong Dutch authority in the 17th century, expansionism during the industrial era in the 19th century and half of the 20th century, to outright cronyism during the failures of the Robert Moses era...
- The Gowanus Memorial Artyard
External links
- Army Corp of Engineers Press Release (PDFPortable Document FormatPortable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
) - Gowanus Canal Community Development Corporation
- Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club
- The Gowanus Canal at southbrooklyn.net
- The Urban Divers Estuary Conservancy
- Gowanus Canal Conservancy
- Gowanus Institute