The annual Court Street Fair, sponsored by the Gowanus Canal Community Development Corporation, was yesterday. It’s one of the more low-key ones with neighborhood flavor. Not a tube sock stand in sight.

[Read more →]

While we don’t note every piece of property that’s up for sale in Brooklyn, we’d been meaning to do a post about Parkside Auto Repair at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Third Street. We remember, back in 2002, when the owner of the auto shop asked us if we thought his corner would be […]

[Read more →]

[Photo courtesy of Michael Kuhle/flickr] If this photo doesn’t convey the essence of the building at Carroll Street and Bond Street that we call The Bunker, we’re not sure what will. This shot of workers atop The Bunker was posted on flickr and brought our attention by the photographer, Michael Kuhle, who’s a GL reader. […]

[Read more →]

The Brooklyn Artist’s Gym in Gowanus is opening a shared space for writers called Room 58. Here is some information from the email we got about it yesterday: In a corner of Brooklyn Artists Gym’s shared studio space for visual artists is Room 58, a new workspace designed specifically for journalists and other research-based writers. […]

[Read more →]

[Photo courtesy of Yanksfan v. Soxfan] The blog Yanksfan vs. Soxfan is an unexpected place to find a long and interesting post about Gowanus, nonetheless they posted one yesterday. It’s actually about “New York’s Oldest Extant Ballpark,” which is Washington Park, one of whose walls still exists on Third Avenue. We’ll let them explain: Extant […]

[Read more →]

What you’re looking at above is part of the Gowanus “Land Use Framework” map in which the neighborhood has been divided into “subareas.” Despite the civil tone of last week’s neighborhood planning session, there remains strong opposition in the community to allowing residential development along the canal. One of the battlegrounds is going to be […]

[Read more →]

There was another meeting last week about the future of the so-called Public Place site in Gowanus, the highly toxic parcel between Smith Street and the Gowanus Canal. It was once the site of a former Manufactured Gas Plant and is one of the more toxic parcels in Brooklyn, with contamination reaching as deep as […]

[Read more →]

Gowanus, Brooklyn

[Read more →]

[Photo courtesy Secret Agent Josephine/flickr]So, we’re mucking around looking for photos of our beloved Sludgie, the deceased Gowanus whale and what do we find? A Sludgie the Gallbladder Pillow. First, we find photos of said Sludgie on flickr. Then, we follow the trail o’ clickage over to the creators blog, Secret Agent Josephine. What we […]

[Read more →]

The crochet pattern creator writes on her blog, every word’s a purl: Maybe I just like wayward sea creatures. Maybe I’m partial to the Gowanus Canal. Or maybe I needed something to smile about. But for some reason, the tale of Sludgie the Whale — a minke whale who ended up in Brooklyn — really […]

[Read more →]

Ninth Street, Brooklyn[Photo courtesy of Mirabelle Studio]

[Read more →]

Anyone expecting fireworks at the Gowanus meeting last night held to lay the groundwork for an upcoming rezoning that will change the face of the neighborhood would have been disappointed. More than 200 people turned out for the session held at PS 32 on Hoyt Street held by the Land Use Committee of Community Board […]

[Read more →]

Sludgie, the Gowanus whale that delighted us all and broke our hearts with his/her death on Wednesday, was recovered from the waters of Gowanus Bay yesterday. The whale had been tied to a dock overnight, but slipped from a knot on a first attempt to life the body from the water. Divers were called in […]

[Read more →]

What you are looking at is the Hotel Le Bleu, as seen yesterday, now revealing itself in all its glory on the Gowanus side of Fourth Avenue. The hotel is slated for a July opening. It’s an eight-story boutique hotel with 48 rooms designed by Andres Escobar. There will be a restaurant, which the Brooklyn […]

[Read more →]

There has been no work done on the Whole Foods site in a long time, but it looks like the retailer has publicly claimed the site by putting up a sign proclaiming the land its domain. And, apparently, no one is shy about “Whole Foods” and “Hazmat” appearing in the same photo frame. On another […]

[Read more →]

If you’re wondering what’s going on in Gowanus, there are two key meetings coming up this week. The first is tonight (4/17). It’s a meeting of Community Board 6’s Economic/Waterfront Development, Housing/Human Services and Landmarks/Land Use Committees with representatives from the Departments of City Planning and Housing Preservation and Development about the toxic and empty […]

[Read more →]