The Gowanus Canal, ripe with gonohorrea, served as a very unlikely muse for artist David Eustace. He worked on his Gowanus-drenched art project for two years, so technically he started before the canal's STD was diagnosed (but really, who didn't think it a possibility at that point). So, in the market for some art? These pieces were, in fact, dipped in the canal -- and will be again!The exhibition revolves around four large works......

The Gowanus Canal Conservancy held a public meeting in Carroll Gardens this week to unveil renderings for a park and esplanade that would run along the Gowanus canal. The project’s dubbed Sponge Park because planners hope it will help absorb some of the raw sewage that currently contaminates the canal during heavy rainfall. (Brownstoner believes oily runoff from the nearby Gowanus Expressway is another big problem.) The idea is that when the canal is finally......

Rendering of proposed Public Place development by The Hudson Companies. Earlier in the week, the department of Housing Preservation and Development [HPD] revealed renderings for a proposed housing development and park on 5.8 acres of heavily polluted land by the toxic Gowanus canal. Located on the site of a former manufactured gas plant, the city has owned the land, which stretches from Smith Street to the canal, for two decades. National Grid, who took over......

Photograph by Joe Holmes on Flickr Documenting the city in the snow apparently has its limits. Gowanus Lounge noticed this photograph of the Gowanus Canal, taken yesterday, by photoblogger Joe Holmes. Holmes wrote on his Flickr page it was "taken seconds before I was told that photography is prohibited on the 9th Street bridge because of 9-11 concerns." Oh, man, that should be a problem for the Toll Bros. marketing department. And what if......

Last decade's decrepit property along a foully polluted industrial canal is just next decade's prime waterfront lots, ready for development by one the nation's premiere luxury homebuilders. The Gowanus Lounge uncovered a "scoping" document filed with the Department of City Housing by the Toll Brothers construction company. The early renderings portray a spread of mixed-use development between 2nd and Carroll Sts. and bounded by Bond St. and the Gowanus Canal itself. The project would......

To be a young harbor seal taking some time from swimming to sun! A young seal was seen hanging out at the 79th Street Boast Basin yesterday morning the Parks Department. Sergeant Rakeem Taylor told City Room, "He was moving around pretty fine, yawning and sunning himself," and estimated the seal to be "3 to 4 feet long and about 90 pounds." Taylor said that the seal's appearance means the Hudson is clean enough for......

As of 8 this morning the starting points for this year's Idiotarod had already been changed twice. As with every year, the effort to dodge police and the scramble to find the most updated starting line is still underway, but the carts should be off soon...and we'll keep you updated. In the meantime, check out Team Danger Zone's ride! Photo via lobster rocket's flickr. 12:35pm - Where are the carts? We just received this message:......

timely, by jakedobkin at flickr Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an unconscious baby on Ralph Ave. in Brooklyn, a construction accident on Bedford Ave. and Crown St. in Brooklyn, and a found grenade at 54th Ave. and Junction Blvd. in Queens. Dave Chappelle made an unannounced appearance at a comedy club, where Radar learned he "took the stage at approximately 12:30 a.m. and didn't leave until club management turned off the lights at 4:20......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a police officer was struck on Richmond and Wilson Aves. on Staten Island, there was a large fight on Franklin Ave. and Empire Blvd. in Brooklyn, and a double homicide on Furman Ave. and East 237th St. in the Bronx. The US Postal Service is expecting to process one billion individual pieces of mail today, three times the daily average. The busiest day of the year is expected to......

Riders hope that low grades for the G line will eventually lead to improvements, while plans are in place to make the G a more usable line. Despite being the two largest boroughs in New York City, there is only one train line dedicated to getting people from Brooklyn (2.5 million people) to Queens (2.3 million people). All other passages must make their way from one borough, through Manhattan (1.6 million people), and then on......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck in a hit and run at Knickerbocker and Gates Aves. in Brooklyn, a wall collapse at Cromwell Ave. in the Bronx, and an escaped prisoner at 107th Ave. and 131st St. in Queens. Firefighters had to rescue a Queens cemetery worker who was buried up to his waist after a cave-in occurred in a 20-foot-deep pit where he was working. The cave-in broke the man's leg......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a partial collapse on West 123rd St. in Manhattan, an unusual trauma at Dewitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, and a shooting at Bergen St. and Buffalo Ave. in Brooklyn. The 7 train line was shut down for about two hours this afternoon after power to a number of signals failed. Service was back up by 4 p.m. AMNewYork looks at Rudy Giuliani's tendency to take phone calls......

Green Brooklyn (via Brownstoner) has a not-surprising-as-it-should-be post on, well, the Gowanus Canal having a touch of the gonohorrea. According to a Scienceline article, "a biologist at the New York City College of Technology, has her students analyze water samples and observe the oily substance that coats the water’s surface each afternoon. 'One group of students found gonohorrea in a water drop,' said Haque. She’s particularly interested in fluorescent white gauze that lies near the......

TIP: Tomorrow morning enjoy some coffee and conversation with Likemind. EVENT: Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club cordially invites you to Bacchanal 2007 this evening! Enjoy some live music, all-u-can-eat BBQ from Schnack, canoe tours, kids' entertainment, silent art auction and raffle prizes from area shops and restaurants. 5 to 9pm // 2nd Street Boat Launch on the Gowanus Canal [165 2nd Street] // $25 PARTY: Did you hear it's National Singles Week? Well, it is --......

A no parking sign? A fire hydrant? Mere street dressing when it comes to drivers with a DOT-issued Department of City Planning placard. Streetsblog observes that a yellow Porsche convertible parked on Seventh Avenue belongs to City Planning Commissioner Dolly Williams. Hello, Dolly indeed. Streetsblog notes that Williams, Brooklyn's sole representative on the planning commission, "has been barred from participating in Kings County's most important recent land use processes." For instance, she can't attend Atlantic......

Sunday’s Times reported on the progress of an unusual marine biology project/art installation taking place in the East River: the Electric Oyster Experiment, designed to speed up the reintroduction of oysters to local waters with the help of solar electricity, and sculpture provided by Brooklyn-based artist Mara Haseltine. Here’s the premise: electrified, submerged helical sculptures provided by Haseltine spur the production of limestone rock, shown through research to be a protective environment for wayward oysters......

The most powerful suggestions in this week's NY Times Weddings & Celebrations? If you write about dating or a hapless love life, all is not lost! Actually, we got that idea from Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City, too, but not everyone can end up with Mr. Big or marry a hunky principal dancer at the NY City Ballet. Anyway... The most intriguing meet-cute is that of Kristina Grish and Scott Mebus, who were......

While we can't honestly imagine what kind of pleasure you'd get from sipping on that highly polluted stream, we did do a little bit of research about drinking establishments around Brooklyn’s favorite body of water. Gowanus Yacht Club is really in Carroll Gardens, and 4th Avenue (along with its new bars) are now being taken over by Park Slope. So, you'll have to get closer to the canal then you ever thought possible. The most......

If you were looking at the Gothamist Newsmap and noticed a "Water Search" in the Gowanus Canal around 22nd Street, brace yourself: Authorities were searching for a whale. According to WNBC 4, "Authorities were trying to rescue what appeared to be a whale that had wandered into Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal." Chopper 4 has footage, but it's not online yet here it is (it's kind of hilarious, the person in the chopper - perhaps Dan Rice......

A Sunday NY Times roundup of development and community planning process in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn contains this hidden threat: "Sometime in the next few months, the city plans to shut the flushing tunnel for 18 months of repairs, and that could bring back the smell of the bad old days." What is the "flushing tunnel?" It's a pipe stretching over one mile from the harbor (Buttermilk Channel between Red Hook and Governor's......

The Grasshopper Bar at Baked is the more portable version of the eponymous cake that the Red Hook bakery also sells, a 3x3 inch paean to the ultimate Betty Crocker housewife kitchen caveat, an old-fashioned, unholy marriage of Cool Whip, Crème De Menthe, and a little brownie mix. While most old school Grasshopper recipes are garish, Technicolor artery cloggers, Baked’s version is unflashy (and downright sexy) and cleaned up for legitimacy, joining the company of......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: victim down an elevator shaft on 59th Street, person struck by train at 33rd on the 6, and an "EDP in a vehicle" in LES. Attention terrorists: if you're using the internet at the Park Slope Tea Lounge, the cops may be on to you. F Trainer has a nice set of pix from the Greenpoint Terminal Market-- it's like the surface of the moon up in that piece.......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a finger amputation in Queens, a fall victim on West End Avenue, and a combination "jumper up / gas leak" (!) on Staten Island. Detestable: while announcing all sorts of government reforms at the State of the City address, NYC politicians managed to illegally block three lanes of traffic on Jay Street. The Paintsplasher has struck again-- this time in Williamsburg. Meditate on this: can the act of defacing......

Yah! Yesterday the NYC Landmarks Preservation Committee announced their official ruling on the Pippen Building. That's the cute little structure on the corner of Third Avenue and Third Street in Gowanus in Brooklyn-- the one that sits at the edge of the new Whole Foods site. The announcement is an interesting read, complete with some history on the building: The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission today unanimously voted to landmark the former New......

One of Gothamist's new favorite blogs is The Gowanus Lounge-- it's reporting on real estate and urban development around the city. Today it reports on the acquisition of the Jewish Press Building on Third Avenue and Second Street, one of the last obstacles blocking the progress of the proposed Leviev Boymelgreen "Gowanus Village" project. The company plans to develop the entire lot between Carroll Street and Third Street, from Third Avenue all the way......

This is so unfair! Londonist tells us that there's a whale in the Thames! Is the Thames that much cleaner than the East River or Hudson? Hmm, nevermind. We have seen harbor seals in the city (in the Gowanus Canal, stranded in another part of Brooklyn, or just hanging around downtown), but never before murky images of a whale. We imagine a shoe or body would clog up the whale's blowhole or that the toxicity......

The Gotham Gazette has a good article about the state of our city's waterways. The good news is that they are less polluted than they used to be: Swimming and fishing are all right in the Hudson and East Rivers, too. "The water is cleaner now than it was ten years ago -- and by some estimates 100 years ago. It is perfectly safe and sanitary to swim in it," says the Manhattan Island......

If you love the Gowanus Canal as much as we do, you'll definitely want to check out Leah Beeferman's hugely detailed hand-drawn map of the area (only a tiny detail is shown above). The map is also available as a 6MB PDF, which is good if you want to print it out. [And if you love maps, definitely check out NYC.gov's NYC map portal.]......

Temptations for culinary connoisseurs abound across the five boroughs, from Zabar's to Murray's Cheese Shop to the Sullivan Street Bakery. But, there is something to be said for the gourmand that wants to reflect their fashion sense along with their food sensibility. For this unique creature, for whom Cynthia Rowley is as important as Nebbiola d'Alba, Gothamist suggests a trip to one of the city's outposts of Fishs Eddy. For the fashonista, who needs a......

Dead bodies, oildrums, garbage from 1964, these are things that you'd expect to find in the Gowanus Canal. But not a harp seal. The Times reports on the 1 year-old harp seal who has defied the laws of science by living and apparently surviving in the Gowanus. The president of the Gowanus Industrial Park, John Quadrozzi Jr. (who calls the waters of the Gowanus "pretty disgusting") saw the seal when it emerged, hurt and......