Pick up today’s New York Post and you will find Mary Huhn’s take on Gowanus: It’s hip. It’s now. It’s happening.
Huhn, calls Gowanus “the next hipster haunt,” and even quotes Gowanus Lounge a bit. Going to the copy and paste, Huhn writes:
Though it sounds ripe for a joke (and smells ripe, too), the Gowanus Canal is the next frontier of gentrification – a place where the displaced artists and musicians of Williamsburg and DUMBO already are taking refuge in the refuse…Big developers are poised to change the landscape from a foul-water wasteland into a sea of high-cost residential housing. “It’s not a question of what should or shouldn’t be developed. It will be,” says Robert Guskind, host of blog Gowanus Lounge and contributor to real estate blog Curbed. “The developers clearly think there is significant money to be made, and ultimately they’ll be proven right.”
Huhn offers the following roundup:
Developers Leviev Boymelgreen, who has ground-breaking plans for a 450-unit Gowanus Village, and the Toll Brothers, luxury home builders from Horsham, Pa., already have acquired blocks of property along the canal. Whole Foods is expanding to the neighborhood, although construction on its Third Avenue site has been delayed due to the area’s toxicity. It’s also started the classic New York neighborhood battle – with artists, preservationists, developers and longtime residents battling over the transformation.
The story ends with our own take on the future of Gowanus: “We’ll come back in 10 or 20 years and it will be hard to recognize,” says Guskind. “Will they do it right? That’s the $100 million question.”
The story makes an excellent read. Check it out.