[Photo courtesy of Jack Szwergold/GL Flickr Pool] Devoted reader and contributor Jack Szwergold writes: “This is in front of a church that is right across the street from the sweatshop my mom worked in. My parents never really talked in detail about their workdays, but my dad mentioned a few times how my mom would […]

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There’s an important meeting tonight at 6:00 PM about the proposed rezoning of Gowanus that could seriously change the face of about 25 blocks of the neighborhood. The Community Board 6 Landmarks and Land Use Commmittee will be reviewing the city’s proposal. The meeting takes place at Long Island College Hospital, 339 Hicks Street (Conference […]

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This opinion about the Big Guy Upstairs comes from Fourth Avenue. Does anyone want to guess whether it’s from the Gowanus or Park Slope side? If you said “Gowanus,” you win. There was a church van parked about 20 feet away.

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[Photo courtesy of Jack Szwergold/GL Flickr Pool] Sometimes we’re guilty of seeing buidings and not thinking about once took place in them. How people were worked to the bone. Abused. Underpaid. Denied unions. Or exposed to things that cut short their lives. This is the remains of a sweatshop in Gowanus on a street that […]

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[Photo courtesy of Donkey Attack/Gl Flickr Pool] From Nevins and President Streets. We don’t even want to know what led to this.

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[Photo for GL by Steven Skollar] WTF? First, Hotel Le Bleu was lit up in blue like a nighmare vision of a Latvian bordello designed by a Karl Fischer protege where they decided that the red and pink of Amsterdam is too gauche. And now? That is the m*therf*cking Holiday Inn Express on Union Street. […]

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[All photos for GL courtesy of Nathan Kensinger Photgraphy] Boy, we’ve been writing a lot about the warehouse on the Public Place site in the last week. But the hell with writing, GL Contributing photographer Nathan Kensinger, along with a couple of other famed Brooklyn photographic adventurers, got into the site over the weekend. Mr. […]

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This is a watercolor of the Gowanus painted in 1938. It was up for sale on eBay until last night for the sum of $449.99, which was chopped from $499. (This is the seller, he may still have it if you need this in your living room.) Here’s the description: “For sale here is an […]

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We loved this graffiti near the Carroll Street Bridge and were sad when it was painted over recently. Fortunately, it lives on through the miracle of photography. We have two versions of the scene. Pick you favorite. Ours is the bottom one.

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“Four years after rejecting the advances of Shaya Boymelgreen and Isaac Katan who were in the process of buying three adjacent properties, the owners of the Jewish Press building have put their headquarters on the market with a $10 million price tag. A lot has changed since then: Boymelgreen and Katan split up and the […]

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When we screw up, it’s always nice to do so in a big way. So, we were pretty bummed to learn that we’d put some bad information out there the other day regarding the fact that the Gowanus Green project had doubled in size to 1,500 units with the addition of the warehouse that is […]

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[Click to enlarge and read more easily] The case of the controversial Toll Brothers Gowanus development, which was approved by Commmunity Board 6, has just gotten a bit curiouser. The firm had promised 130 affordable units, or about 30 percent of the housing to be built on the banks of Brooklyn’s Grand Canal. Only, CB6 […]

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[Click to enlarge to all its glory.] In theory, Gowanus could get very big and very crowded, if the parcels of land the city is planning to rezone for residential use are built upon. It’s a big if–given the credit meltdown and the hideousy polluted nature of some of the sites–but that’s what could happen […]

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We walked by the Crooked Tail Cafe in Gowanus the other day and finally found it open for business. We don’t know how long it’s been open, but it still had the little “grand opening” type banners out front. It’s next to the Canal Bar and occupies the space of what had been a landmark […]

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The Center of Light Building, the horrendous Henry Radusky building at the edge of the former Notary District at Smith and Ninth Street will be getting a new tenant. Another Uncle Louie G ice cream place. And not just any Uncle Louie G, but what looks like a sit down one. A GL reader tipped […]

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The warehouse occupying a huge portion of the Public Place site between Smith Street and the Gowanus Canal, which was quietly added to the project after a developer was chosen, doubling the size of the development on the toxic site, has been approved for demolition. Word came via an emai from Council Member Bill de […]

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[Click to enlarge] Back in December, we wrote on Curbed that “This beauty, just a block from New York City’s most famous canal, is the ultimate Fizzbow. And it comes with art on the exterior. We’re unclear if the surrounding lot comes with the trailer. Get moving on this one. It won’t last.” When we […]

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This is Second Avenue and 13th Street, roughly in the area where the big Lowe’s is located today. What’s of interest are the big structures in the background, which are the remnants of the Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP) that was on the site and left a toxic soup deep underground. The toxins, which are left […]

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It’s always interesting to have confirmation that a huge planned project is indeed alive. So it is with big building designed by Ismael Leyva at 150 Fourth Avenue on the Gowanus side of dividing line. For a time the building next store had been vacated because construction work had undermined it, but that too, is […]

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For all the talk of a hotel bust and how people like Sam Chang are no longer building hotels in Brooklyn, the ones that are already financed are coming along just fine. They may end up charging $58 a night or renting by the hour, but the cranes are on site and the steel is […]

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Who needs the big new ice center in Prospect Park? There’s a makeshift one in Thomas Greene Park in Gowanus that doesn’t cost a penny. During the summer this part of the park floods. During the winter, it floods, but it turns into an ice rink. We call the park toxic, by the way, because […]

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[Photo courtesy of K. Lapp/GL Flickr Pool] The photographer writes: “I think this device measures neighborhood-appropriate real estate development. Found on a fence in Gowanus.”

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[Photo courtesy of Atomische.com/GL Flickr Pool] We love this space between buildings on Nevins Street in Gowanus near Union Street.

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[Photo courtesy of donkey attack/GL Flickr Pool] Ha. Ha. ha. Ha. Gentrificatiion caution tape. It comes from the site of the (possible/unlikely) Whole Foods site in Gowanus. Ha. Ha. Ha. Utter genius by both the person who put it up and the photographer that captured it.

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