Celebrating Community
At the beginning of October, National Grid, the energy company primarily responsible for cleaning up the Gowanus Canal and the former Citizens Manufactured Gas Plant site (also known as Public Place), filed a lawsuit against 40 defendants, claiming they’re not doing their part to clean up the canal. Following the news of the lawsuit, concerns arose among community members that […]
It smells like harbor, I thought as I walked out to the end of the pier to which the barge now known as the Waterfront Museum was docked. Unmistakable were they, even for someone like me maybe particularly for someone like me, who’s always lived far enough from the ocean to never get used to its sensory impressions, but always […]
In early August, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection announced they had finished the first phase of the construction of the combined sewer overflow (CSO) tank that will sit between the Gowanus Canal and Nevins Street. This phase, which included building a deep underground concrete perimeter around the site, has been a source of concern for neighbors for […]
New York City is remaking the Brooklyn Marine Terminal into a waterfront fit for the 21st century. One plan the city has for the marine terminal is to act as a hub for its “blue highways” initiative, an effort to move some freight from the streets to the city’s waterways. 120,000 trucks pass through the city each day, with many […]
Parents, community members and state officials gathered in the gymnasium of P.S. 372 — the Children’s School — in Gowanus on Thursday, Sept. 19, for a presentation from the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation and Department of Health on the agencies’ soil vapor intrusion investigation, which began last year. In September 2023, the state launched a Gowanus-wide investigation to uncover […]
After years of talk and several failed attempts, it seems that the Brooklyn Marine Terminal (BMT) will finally get a long-overdue facelift. In May this year, the city traded a container terminal on Staten Island to the Port Authority for 122 acres along the Red Hook waterfront. The plan is to transform the Brooklyn Marine Terminal into “an asset for […]
Sunny’s Bar is a community staple in Red Hook. It has served local patrons and out-of-towners alike for over a hundred years, first as a lunch spot for dockworkers, and since the 1990’s as a archetypal Red Hook watering hole. Now, it is also the subject of a play, titled The Wind and the Rain: A story about Sunny’s Bar. […]
Late Friday afternoon, Aug. 30, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) released the results of the first phase of its Gowanus-wide soil vapor intrusion investigation, conducted during the 2023-2024 heating season. The investigation, which tested 113 buildings, found 15 buildings requiring mitigation due to elevated levels of one or multiple contaminants. Five buildings had elevated levels of […]
The How Many Stops Act, which includes a bill that requires New York Police Department officers to record the race, age and gender of the civilians they approach during investigative encounters, officially took effect on the first day of July. (The second bill requires the NYPD to report when a person denies consent to be searched.) Previously, officers were only […]
Gowanus is a changing neighborhood. From once being an area with mostly light and heavy industries, the Gowanus Canal is now slowly becoming surrounded by residential and mixed-use buildings, a process which has significantly sped up since the rezoning of the area was approved in 2021. But the changing scenery has not come without difficulties. In the past decade-and-a-half, environmental […]