(Photo Credit: Lindsay Campbell)I recently found a very interesting historical time line of the Gowanus canal. It is part of a paper written by a Lindsay Campbell and is entitled Civil Society Strategies On The Gowanus Canal . It seems to have been an assignment from an M.I.T. class called "Urban Nature and City Design."
There are plenty of interesting facts about our Lavender lake like the fact that Gowanus Oysters were once exported to Europe . I thought you, dear readers, would enjoy these historical tidbits.
By Lindsay Campbell
Historical context Of The Gowanus Canal:
| Colonial times | Marshy inlet with game, fish, oysters; Gowanus oysters exported to Europe. |
| 1860 | Marsh filled in; canal is created by deepening, widening and walling a natural creek to make it navigable; it is “a passage to nowhere” ending 1.5 miles from the bay; first industry related to the building boom in Brooklyn, lots of bars, roominghouses, and sailors |
| 1888 | 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" |
| 1906 | 26,000 passages on the canal in that year |
| 1911 | Flushing tunnel built to Buttermilk Channel that refreshes canal with sea water |
| 1940 | Shipping moves to New Jersey |
| 1960 | 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 |
| 1962 | Flushing tunnel stops working |
| 1986 | New Red Hook Sewage Treatment Plant in Brooklyn Navy Yard improves water quality on the canal |
| Dec 1993 | City meets with prospective bidders on $5 million project to reactivate canal's flushing tunnel; city planning official thinks there is merit to Scotto's proposals |
| July 1996 | Barge traffic is very light especially in summer; just one remaining company at the north end: Bayside Fuel Oil and only 10 total industries on the whole thing |
| June 1997 | Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment offers first boat cruise on the canal (executive director John Muir); found dissolved oxygen at just 2.8 ppm (need 5ppm for fish life) and light can penetrate only 2 feet (need 6 for plant life) |
| 1998 | City dredges canal, extracting 2000 tons of contaminated mud |
To continue time line up to 2005, click here
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