Thanks to Netgalley I was able to start an advanced reading copy (ARC) of “Gowanus: Brooklyn’s Curious Canal” by Joseph Alexiou before the book was in the stores. Unfortunately I am not a particularly fast reader and so the review is just coming out now, almost a month after the publication date. I grew up in the New York City (NYC) area and enjoy reading about New York City and surrounding areas. I’m also a history fan so this book seemed right up my alley.

I’ve read several books on the history of NYC and Brooklyn is usually mentioned but not in any great detail. This differs from others I have read in that the focus was on Brooklyn. The focus is the canal but there is much about Brooklyn in general but more on the area known as South Brooklyn.

The story is an interesting one. Gowanus Creek was a tidal estuary that allowed easy transport from the rich agricultural lands of Brooklyn. The Gowanus Creek itself teemed with fish, eels, oysters and other marine life. One of the stories related by the author tells of dinner-plate size oysters.

The book tells of those who saw the commercial possibilities of the area. They changed Gowanus Creek into Gowanus Canal in the mid-1800s. They also leveled hills, drained marshes, filled in ponds and generally transformed that part of Brooklyn from an agricultural to urban region. As thousands came to work in the various industries that located along the canal, land values increased and Brooklyn grew.

The story of this transformation is interesting and the author tells it well. I enjoyed the story and was often surprised. I had not realized the long history of the canal. I had known it was an industrial canal, filled with industrial waste. I did not know this was a problem even in the 1800s. I had no idea that this problem was compounded by human waste and sewage being dumped into the canal. The list of these surprises would be rather long.

I knew the Gowanus Canal was a terribly polluted body of water. I assumed it was a SuperFund site since shortly after we started designating these sites. I learned in the book that this did not happen until about 5 years ago. And there was much controversy about this and the book goes into this.

The book is also a discussion of other recent events. Several neighborhoods near the canal – Park Slope (formerly Gowanus Highlands), Carroll Gardens, Boreum Hill, Cobble Hill – as well as Gowanus itself are discussed. The ups and downs of the area and some of the people involved make for interesting reading.

So I think this is a very good book if you are at all interested in either the NYC area history or environmental pollution (or both). The book is informative as well as a good read.