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Grand Central Terminal. The Brooklyn Bridge. The Woolworth Building. The Gowanus Canal. Which of these does not belong? Yep, that’s right, it’s the Brooklyn Bridge. No, just kidding, it’s actually the Gowanus Canal, the only one that hasn’t been named a National Historic Landmarkyet. The Gowanus Canal Conservancy is currently spearheading a drive to get the canal named a national historic landmark district, a designation that could be a “useful tool” in terms of getting funding for the canal’s cleanup, according to Bob Zuckerman, the GCC’s executive director. “Right smack in the middle of brownstone Brooklyn, the canal has a history all its own,” says Zuckerman, noting that the transformation of the Gowanus from a series of creeks to its role in aiding industry make the waterway historically significant. Zuckerman says there’s precedent for a canal being designated a national historic landmark district: The Erie and Ohio Canal is one, for example. The proposed district will include the canal, the Gowanus pumping station and flushing tunnel, the Carroll Street Bridge (which is already a city landmark), as well as five buildings along the Gowanus. A Pratt student and former GCC intern is now preparing a report about the hoped-for landmark status, and Zuckerman says the conservancy will begin making moves to get the district recognized in the coming months.


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. With National Registry status, anyone (maybe even Whole Foods) who restord and reused the old Power House building off 3rd Ave and 2nd Street would get federial financial help in the restoration work. Seems like a good deal!

  2. National register status does not landmark the canal, freezing the landscape in time. Nor does it guarantee that it will be preserved AS IS. It’s a useful tool to allow funding for rehabilitation projects on the canal or alongside it. I think it’s a great idea! What’s not to like?

  3. Last month the City of NY gave Ratner 300 million MORE for his project that doesn’t look like it will ever contribute tax money back to the community at large. If you add all together, Ratner’s project is costing us a lot of public money, and for what? So that we can have public recreation watching ball games for a portion of each year?

    Now imagine what kind of public recreation many, many, more people might enjoy if we were to spent an equal amount of public funds cleaning up the Gowanus! Imagin the tax base that would develope around such public recreation here in the Carroll Garden’s area?

    Seems to me the most fullish notion, comes form those who believe that building housing along the water’s edge will leed to a place that will ever be “pleasent”, let alone clean!