Historic Context

A newspaper calls the canal “a blot on America's civilization”; barges used to boat through it to kill barnacles; For half a century was a “maritime superhighway for barges bearing coal, sand, oil, and brick"

26,000 passages on the canal in that year

Shipping moves to New Jersey

Verrazano Bridge built, goods can enter Brooklyn by truck

Pollution and smell are so bad (hydrogen sulfide), that city at one point dumped in truckloads of chlorine to neutralize the smell; hydrogen sulfide is from sewage overflow, sediment sinks to bottom and decomposes and creates bubbles of the smell

Gowanus Canal Community Development Corporation begins agitating for the Gowanus to continue for 25 years; VP Salvatore “Buddy” Scotto (also President of the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association and owner of Scotto Funeral Home) sees San Antonio's Riverwalk as its model

Flushing tunnel stops working

City dredges canal, extracting 2000 tons of contaminated mud

Real estate investor David Lefkowitz buys ½ acre plot off Carroll Street bridge, interested in redevelopment; area residents have “love-hate” relationship with canal, nervous about gentrification, like it as an icon, hate the smell

Schools of killifish have been sited; along with occasional shore birds, crabs, and ducks

Real estate agent says property values have risen more than 40% from 1994-1998 and is having no problem selling homes near the canal

Flushing Tunnel project now to cost $10 million; DEP says will improve water quality for animal life, also will reduce stench because sewage will dissolve; others say canal must be completely dredged and sewer runoff dealt with

Artist Dennis Lynch docks houseboat on the canal at Lefkowitz's property; Lefkowitz wants to open restaurant

Film “Lavender Lake: Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal” written, directed produced by Carroll Gardens resident Allison Prete

Flushing tunnel reactivated -MORE INFO-

Scotto wants to move onto dredging and repairing the bulkheads

Ninth street drawbridge reopened to traffic after 5 years of repairs ($35 million)

Brooklyn Commons entertainment complex plan goes bust after three years of talk and planning and even after $3 million invested in site cleanup, but developer Bruce Ratner filed suit in federal court because said Postal Service was already negotiating with Forest City Ratner (with an option to buy the site) when made millennium deal, after 2 years of litigation, Millenium pulls out; Buddy Scotto very disappointed

Forest City Ratner would be developing it for an Ikea; community groups like Community Consulting Services are opposed to the project because of traffic (adding on to that from Home Depot and Cotsco) also Care About the Slope is involved—developing vision for what they do want; also not sure if Forest City will honor the “good faith agreements” that were made with Millenium Partners; Forest City developed the multiplex on Court Street but is said to have worked with Brooklyn Heights Association

Owen Foote, creek activist, canoes on the creek; concrete is the only active industry on the Creek

Ratner cuts off negotiations with Ikea, in response partially to community upset and opposition—will talk to another potential tenant; Ben Meskin, president of Care About the Slope said it would still go forward with suit against Postal Service and Forest City saying that environmental review was inadequate

$270,000 in capital improvements of plants, trees, shrubs from the NYC Parks Department Commissioner Henry Stern are installed in 4 sites on the canal

Army Corps of Engineers and Department of Environmental Protection dedicate $5 million to do a feasibility study for environmental cleanup of the canal; Nydia Velasquez helped secure the money

Buddy Scotto notes “so far, the long-term investment in the canal has been mostly unseen. Now, it's about ready to bloom. We already have a kayak club and a canoe club.”

DEP upgrades equipment in the flushing tunnel (spending the equivalent of $500,000)

Gowanus Canal CDC and Borough President Marty Markowitz receive $100,000 in state funds to identify locations for habitat restoration and repair of bulkheads

Former post office (which once was a coal processing plant) site at 2nd Ave between 9th and 12th Streets being cleaned of environmental contaminants, including benzene; to be redeveloped by Forest City Ratner into a Lowes; Gowanus Canal CDC holds meeting to discuss the project at St. Mary's Star of the Sea Church

“Gowanus Canal has attracted hodgepodge use by kayakers”

Developers planning the first apartment building son the canal; filed requests to Board of Standards and Appeals to convert manufacturing buildings into rental apartments; GCCDC supports the conversion

Owner of warehouse on the canal says “at least six to seven times a week someone rings my bell asking if there are apartments available”

KeySpan makes Voluntary Cleanup Agreement with DEP to study contamination at their site at Smith and 5 th Streets (a former gas plant); GCCDC hopes the site will become affordable housing after it is cleaned up; current tenant Ferrara Brothers Building Materials hopes to remain

COE and DEP Gowanus Canal and Bay Ecosystem Restoration study underway; team found snails, glass eels, and juvenile shrimp; mentions that oysters have been introduced, jellyfish, bluefish, cormorants, ducks, and egrets have been spotted

Red Dive, an artist group, performs “Peripheral City: Rediscovering the Gowanus Canal”

Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation students doing plans for the whole canal including vertical hydroponic farm and floating walkways; Buddy Scotto likes the ideas but doesn't know how to implement or finance them

There are three new street-end parks on DeGraw and Douglass Streets

“The Gowanus Canal Conference: Perspectives on Environmental Restoration” at Brooklyn College organized by GCCDC, Corps of Engineers, and funded by a grant from Con Edison, features 200 researchers, community leaders, elected officials and environmental advocates

DEP finalizes plans for $40 million upgrade to the flushing tunnel, changing from a single to a triple propeller

Urban Divers begins making dives in the Gowanus Canal, including in a celebration of National Estuaries Day; and they team up with biologist and neuroscientist to analyze the effect of chemical pollutants on bio organisms in the canal

Hong and Li LLC secure permits for a five story hotel on Union Street between 3 rd and 4th Aves, near a stone crushing plant and a casket maker; Southwest Brooklyn Industrial Development Corporation says this is encroaching on the 400 industrial firms in the area

Gowanus Village development of 350 condominiums on three acres between Carroll and 3 rd Streets is advertised by Africa Israel Investments Ltd and Boymelgreen developers' website (in the very preliminary stages); developers applied for DEC brownfield cleanup program, but the development would require a zoning change

Alex Figliolia contacts Community Board 6 to find out about buying land behind his property and along the canal; triggering an investigation of the now-filled-in 1 st Street Turning Basin; both properties are purchased by Boymelgreen, which begins a debate over the history, ownership, and jurisdiction over the basin

GCCDC presents comprehensive community plan addressing restoration, development of residential and mixed-use zones, and canal access rights at public meeting at Carroll School; plan requires developers to use green technologies and is “very ambitious”; Department of City Planning is exploring the approach

Urban Divers and Gowanus Dredgers hold Fifth Annual Gowanus Spring Clean-Up