Like many industrial neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Gowanus has suffered as industry has declined over the past few decades. Unlike other areas that have given way to gentrification and have been “rediscovered” and adapted for residential and commercial uses, it has been a victim of urban neglect and left to decay. The neighborhood contains a series of contiguous vacant lots and deteriorating building stock where industry once thrived. The canal itself remains a highly contaminated and neglected wetland that is no longer in use as an industrial linkage, though several light industrial businesses still remain and occupy most of the properties along the waterfront.
The Gowanus Canal presents a number of problems in terms of inhabitability. The levels of toxic waste found in the sediment is measured in parts per hundred, whereas toxicity levels are often measured in parts per million. The Gowanus watershed includes many adjacent sites that have been contaminated with toxic pollutants, through which stormwater passes on its way into the water of the canal. It is also sprinkled with CSOs (combined sewage outfalls) and receives raw sewage during heavy rains. Furthermore, after more than 100 years as an industrial tract, the ground that abuts the canal is filled with known carcinogens, heavy metals, coal tar and other hazardous chemicals. Therefore, the Gowanus Canal can be seen as a hostile environment.
The Gowanus Canal, though unique in its potential for new urban public space, is part of a larger network of former industrial zones throughout New York City that have fallen victim to the post industrial decline, such as Long Island City, the South Bronx, Manhattan’s West Side. Williamsburg, English Kills, etc., though at a different stage in its evolution and inevitable revitalization. While some of these other sites have evolved and are completely unrecognizable as former neglected districts, Gowanus has only recently been reconsidered and has not undergone any transformations. The site exists in its present state due to the relocation and decline of industrial production in the second half of the 20th century. These factors have contributed to the neglect and abandonment by the former users of the site and have allowed fragmentation of the urban fabric to occur, resulting in the creation of urban remnant spaces that have been and are currently being reconditioned and adapted by a new set of users.
The Gowanus, for the most part, has resisted development pressures, though large scale residential and commercial projects have been proposed in the past few years and have been stalled or have failed for various environmental and economic reasons. For now, it has been able to maintain it’s character defining industrial context and small pockets of “found urban space” in the form of vacant or underused lots and abandoned access points to the canal’s edge. The canal and its adjacent lots form a series of pockets and remnants of urban, former industrial space and abandoned infrastructure that are in the process of being reclaimed and reactivated for a multitude of new adaptive uses by various constituencies. It is at once, a blighted and contaminated brownfield site with remnants of an industrial past, and an urban hub that is currently supporting craft based industries, a thriving underground art scene, community gardens, open air performance space and active aquatic recreation.
Various constituencies have a stake in the future direction of the neighborhood. Each of these constituencies have vested interests in the community, sometimes at odds or in conflict with the the interests of other parties involved. Outside development interests are an important set of actors that do not maintain a physical presence at the site, but their interests affect the aims and ability of the current users of the site to continue to operate. The remaining industrial entities are increasingly at risk of being eradicated due to the pressures of development and the lack of adequate remaining industrial space.
The local artist community, perhaps viewed as enabling gentrification and commercial interests by the industrial entities, interact within the remnant spaces and have reclaimed abandoned lots and neglected industrial buildings. These users have become stewards of an urban landscape that has been discarded by their predecessors. They have begun to reactivate the neighborhood with new craft based industries and have formed a community based on shared interests and In appropriating the remaining urban fabric for their purposes, they have adapted vacated sites as open space for performance art, community gardens, urban agriculture and open studios.
The area has become somewhat of an incubator for the production of art through artist residencies, open studios, galleries and artisan workshops. Local artists have created a destination where the creation and display of art happens simultaneously. These activities have brought an increased presence to an area that has been desolate for many years. This current use of the site is in contrast to the goals of the outside development interests, who would primrily preplace this production model with one of pure consumption.
Other users see the canal primarily as a resource for active recreation and have benefited from the reclaimed remnant spaces that provide access to the canal’s edge. Access to the canal for these users is currenlty limited due to the amount of private space at the majority of the canal’s banks.
