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Loading... Gowanus: Brooklyn's Curious Canal (2015)by Joseph Alexiou
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The surprising history of the Gowanus Canal and its role in the building of BrooklynFor 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. Now, New York writer and guide Joseph Alexiou explores how the Gowanus creek—a naturally-occurring tidal estuary that served as a conduit for transport and industry during the colonial era—came to play an outsized role in the story of America’s greatest city. From the earliest Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam, to nearby Revolutionary War skirmishes, or the opulence of the Gilded Age mansions that sprung up in its wake, historical changes to the Canal and the neighborhood that surround it have functioned as a microcosm of the story of Brooklyn’s rapid nineteenth-century growth. Highlighting the biographies of nineteenth-century real estate moguls like Daniel Richards and Edwin C. Litchfield, Alexiou recalls the forgotten movers and shakers that laid the foundation of modern-day Brooklyn. As he details, the pollution, crime, and industry associated with the Gowanus stretch back far earlier than the twentieth century, and helped define the culture and unique character of this celebrated borough. The story of the Gowanus, like Brooklyn itself, is a tale of ambition and neglect, bursts of creative energy, and an inimitable character that has captured the imaginations of city-lovers around the world. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)974.7History and Geography North America Northeastern U.S. New YorkLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.67)
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Wikipedia in English
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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. (