"Long After We Are Gone": A Gowanus Canal Soundscape Piece By Nerina Penzhorn

Long After We're Gone from Nerina Penzhorn on Vimeo.

Video Producer and Editor Nerina Penzhorn was kind enough to send me her incredibly beautiful video entitled "Long After We Are Gone" which she shot on the Gowanus Canal.

Her beautiful images coupled with the eerie sounds emanating from the waterway are just stunning.

Narina writes:

Long After We’re Gone is a soundscape piece that I made comprising video and audio field recordings in and around the Gowanus Canal. The title comes from a conversation I had with Eymund Diegel, who took me out on the canal by canoe. Eymund is an Urban Planner with an encyclopedic knowledge of the Gowanus Canal. He talked about the natural streams that have been flowing into the canal for centuries and that will still be around long after we’re gone.

For best effect, Nerina suggests the use of headphones.

Thank you, Nerina, for making me and my readers aware of your impressive work.

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Who Needs Developers? A Muskrat Builds Its Very Own Gowanus Canal Condo

Photos of muskrat courtesy of Adam Katzman

Proving that the Gowanus Canal is still prime real estate even after the Environmental Protection Agency declared the dangerously polluted waterway a Superfund site in March 2010, a muskrat has recently build its own home on the canal's shore. The rather cute aquatic rodent was first spotted by Adam Katzman from the Jerko, his houseboat moored near First Street and Bond.

Eymund Diegel , a local resident and an urban planner, believes that the critter's appearance means that there are enough mussels and fish in the canal for its survival. Diegel also thinks that this particular animal may be part of a family of muskrats that has made Brooklyn Bridge Park its home.
How he found his way to the shores of our canal is unclear.

Matthew Wills of the blog Backyard and Beyond commented that muskrats "are not unknown in contemporary Brooklyn (see Four Sparrow Marsh), for they are reputed to be a hardy and adaptable species, like Brooklynites in general."

This particular Gowanus Canal muskrat may just be a bit more adaptable than all of us.

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