The Gowanus Transforms, Again

Four Centuries Wrestling with Mother Nature

Gowanus Pumping Station, 1911.

Before the Gowanus was a canal, it was a creek. When the Dutch showed up they named it Gowanus after a local chief whose name sounded something like Gowanus. He was a chief in a tribe whose name sounded something like Canarsie. 

The Dutch first arrived in New York Harbor in 1609. (The expedition was commanded by an Englishman named Henry Hudson.)   They started settling in Brooklyn in the 1630s. They called it Breuckelen, after a town back home. (The written records of the time provide numerous variants in the spelling of Brooklyn's name, but, it seems, fewer than occurred with the rendering of poor Mr. Shakespeare's name. It was not an age of standardization in spelling.) 

Gowanus Creek was one of the big attractions in Breuckelen. The creek itself was surrounded by large tidal marshes, and, as it went inland, it splintered into a complex network of small tributary creeks. The Indians had enjoyed the creek in its natural state, but the industrious Dutch had other ideas.

The Dutch were, and are, known for their windmills, but it turns out that they did watermills as well. The first watermill on the Gowanus was a tidal mill constructed sometime between 1645 and 1661. It was called Brouwer's Mill or Freeke's Mill, and it needed a millpond. "This mill-pond was formed by damming off the head of Gowanus Kil;" the mill was located just north of Union, between Nevins and Bond. (See Henry R. Stiles, A History of the City of Brooklyn, v. 1, 1867, Pp. 98-100. Stiles helpfully describes where these places were in terms of the modern, or at least 1867, street grid. The Stiles history is available online. To see it, click here.) 

In 1709, another mill came into being. It was called Denton's Mill or The Yellow Mill, and it was located on First Street, between Second and Third Avenues. "The mill-pond was formed by the damming off a branch of the Gowanus Kil." (Stiles, p. 100.) 

This picture of Brouwer's and Denton's mills is from 1868; I think it tells a story of a relatively bucolic past that was in the process of disappearing. I wouldn't rely on it as an accurate depiction of the mills in, say, 1776, when they were burned during the Battle of Brooklyn. 

The American Revolution

In July of 1776, the American colonists declared their independence from Great Britain (which had scooped up New Amsterdam and the surrounding Dutch settlements in 1664). Hostilities had been going on for a while - Bunker Hill and all that - but the first major battle after independence took place in Brooklyn on August 27 of 1776, and the Gowanus played a major role in what turned out to be the largest battle of the entire war. 

Have a look at the above map from 1766, ten years before the Declaration of Independence. For orientation, you can see Manhattan at the top and Governor's Island to the left. Below Governor's Island, you can see Red Hook pointing out into the water, and below that is Gowanus Bay. Inland from the bay is Gowanus Creek, surrounded by marshes. You can see how far inland it extends, forming a significant natural barrier to a hostile force trying to get downtown from the south. If you follow the map up the line of the  coast, you can see a little bump of land trying to cozy up to Manhattan, and you may be able to make out a legend that says "Brookland Ferry." Further up the East River you come to an indentation of water known as Wallabout Bay. You'll notice that the bay itself is surrounded by extensive marshes. 

Wallabout Bay is the current home of the Navy Yard. The etymology of the name Wallabout is disputed, but clearly has nothing to do with walls. It may have something to do with the Walloons, French-speakers who were the original European settlers around the bay. 

One of the hills marked on the map south of Wallabout Bay is the current home of Ft. Greene Park. (I'm not sure which of the hills it is.) It's a steep hill all around. Those who have visited can attest to the fact that it would have made a very strong defensive position in a war. 

The Americans laid out two lines of defense and started digging. The inner line, anchored in the marshes of Wallabout Bay, included Ft. Greene Park's hill and then ran down to anchor in the marshes of the Gowanus. 

From the top of the Gowanus Canal to Fort Greene Park is a leisurely half-hour walk. Properly manned, this inner line would have been a very tough nut to crack.

The outer line took advantage of a heavily wooded ridge located further inland, and readily passable at only a few points. The modern Prospect Park and Green-Wood Cemetery are located on this ridge.  

The British arrived at New York on June 29, landed on Staten Island, and awaited reinforcements. On August 22 they jumped to Brooklyn, landing in Gravesend, a bit south of the present-day Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.  They then proceeded to send a substantial force up the shore road toward the Gowanus. What the Americans did not notice was that nearly half the British force was executing an end run around the American left flank. In the night of August 26-27 the Brits reached Jamaica Pass, the easternmost path through the ridgeline, and found it defended by five officers on horseback, all of whom were promptly captured. Having turned the American flank, the English proceeded to roll up the American outer line. 

Meanwhile, over by the Gowanus, there was intense and basically pointless fighting centered on what is now called the Old Stone House, a sturdy farmhouse dating from 1699. Private Joseph Plumb Martin of the Connecticut militia was at the Gowanus that day. Here is what he saw as his unit marched down a road toward the fighting: 

"We overtook a small party of the artillery here, dragging a heavy twelve pounder upon a field carriage, sinking half way to the naves in the sandy soil. They plead hard for some of us to assist them to get on their piece; our officers, however, paid no attention to their entreaties, but pressed forward towards a creek, where a large party of Americans and British were engaged. By the time we arrived, the enemy had driven our men into the creek, or rather the mill-pond, (the tide being up,) where such as could swim got across; those that could not swim, and could not procure any thing to buoy them up, sunk. The British having several fieldpieces stationed by a brick house, were pouring the cannister and grape upon the Americans like a shower of hail; they would doubtless have done them much more damage than they did, but for the twelve pounder mentioned above; the men having gotten it within sufficient distance to reach them, and opening a fire upon them, soon obliged them to shift their quarters. There was in this action a regiment of Maryland troops, (volunteers,) all young gentlemen. When they came out of the water and mud to us, looking like water rats, it was a truly pitiful sight. Many of them were killed in the pond, and more were drowned. Some of us went into the water after the fall of the tide, and took out a number of corpses and a great many arms that were sunk in the pond and creek." (Joseph Plumb Martin, A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier, 2010, pp. 24-25. This memoir had previously been published under other titles, including Private Yankee Doodle. Martin was fifteen years old when he fought in the Battle of Brooklyn.) 

The Americans had already lost the battle; the remnants of their forces outside the inner line eventually retreated as best they could to the inner fortifications, and, a few nights later, Washington managed to get the entire force across the river to Manhattan, a spectacular success - it's right up there with Dunkirk - that has tended to overshadow just how bad the performance of the American army was in this battle.  (The evacuation of Dunkirk involved a lot more soldiers, but the American Revolution could easily have ended in Brooklyn in 1776. It didn't.) 

The Gowanus today, with downtown
Brooklyn quite close.

Washington's Mistakes

The historian Charles Francis Adams Jr. is not, I think, as well known as his historian brother Henry Adams, who wrote Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres and The Education of Henry Adams. But he wrote a very interesting article entitled "The Battle of Long Island" for The American Historical Review (1:4, 1896, pp. 650-670) in which he discusses George Washington's performance at the Battle of Brooklyn. (This article is available with open access at JSTOR. To see it, click here.) 

These two brothers had some illustrious forebears, most notably the second and sixth presidents of the United States, John Adams and John Quincy Adams. The Adams family came from a group known as the Boston Brahmins, upper-crust folks with a strong sense of noblesse oblige. 

Charles Francis served as a cavalry officer during the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, and left the service as a colonel. I think it highly likely that his wartime experiences may have informed his judgments about the Battle of Brooklyn (which he and many others refer to as the Battle of Long Island). In his article, Adams catalogs a number of serious command errors that the Americans committed during the battle. 

Mistake #1 was attempting to defend New York in the first place. There were good reasons for wanting to defend New York. As Adams notes, it was the obvious strategic center of the emerging American nation, and it would be logical for the British to try to occupy it. Early in 1776, even before the British abandoned Boston, Washington sent General Charles Lee to New York to assess the situation. Lee observed to Washington that the city was "so encircled with deep navigable water, that whoever commands the sea must command the town." The Brits had a navy. The Americans did not have anything comparable. (Adams, pp. 650-651.) 

This insight basically explains what happened over the next several months of the war, with the Americans being thrown out of Brooklyn, and then being chased up the island of Manhattan, and eventually withdrawing both north of Manhattan and across the river to New Jersey. 

Mistake # 2 was dividing his forces in the presence of a superior enemy. Despite Lee's advice, Washington chose to defend New York. However, in order to defend the city located at the foot of Manhattan, it was necessary to control Brooklyn Heights across the river. An enemy army located on Brooklyn Heights could easily destroy the city across the river with artillery. (Adams, p, 652.) [ALL OK]

So he chose to defend both Brooklyn and Manhattan, splitting his forces between the two. And with a river between the two. 

Mistake # 3. Occupying too much real estate. An army wins by defeating the opposing army. It does not win by holding on to real estate. Washington had a good inner defensive line protecting Brooklyn Heights, anchored in the Gowanus and Wallabout Bay. He could have used all his men to defend this ad hoc fortress. Instead, he expanded his defenses to the ridge line now occupied by Prospect Park and Green-Wood Cemetery. (Adams, p. 652.) 

Mistake # 4. Failure to secure a flank. This was not a problem on the American right flank, which was secured by the Gowanus. The left flank of the outer line was at Jamaica Pass. (Adams, p. 655.) David McCullough, in his 2005 book 1776 (pp. 163, 170), reports that the pass was defended by five officers on horseback; it appears they did not know how to conduct surveillance and did not have a plan to relay warnings back to headquarters. (Adams appears to be incorrect when he says on page 655 that Jamaica Pass was "not only unprotected but not even watched." McCullough may have information that was not available to Adams.)

Mistake # 5. Going forth to meet the enemy in the open, instead of waiting for him to attack you in your fortifications. The Americans could have stayed inside their defensive lines, anchored by the Gowanus, but they got tired of waiting for the enemy to come up the coast road from Gravesend, and they went forward to look for them. And that's how brave Americans found themselves fighting with their backs to the Gowanus, instead of being in a good defensive position behind that watery barrier, along with Private Joseph Plumb Martin. [Adams, pp. 652, 655, 667.) 

Timeless deli flanking a subway viaduct.

The Other Revolution - the Industrial One

Time to switch from the military revolution to the industrial one. James Watt's introduction of an improved steam engine in 1776, freeing factories from their dependence on water power, is a good marker for the beginning of the industrial revolution. And, of course, increased factory production required an improved transportation system - getting materials to the factories and the manufactured goods to market. Robert Fulton introduced a steamship on the Hudson River in 1807.  Before this time, you sailed and prayed for a good wind. Or you rowed. Or you built a canal with a towpath. 

New York's sixth governor, DeWitt Clinton, led the construction of the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825, allowing goods to move freely between New York City and the Midwest. The Delaware and Hudson Canal is not as well known as the Erie Canal, but it was very significant for the development of New York, transporting anthracite coal from northeastern Pennsylvania to the city during the years 1828-1898. The Delaware and Raritan Canal also transported anthracite to New York. It was opened in 1834 and continued in operation until 1932. 

The Gowanus Creek was canalized between 1849 and 1869, and industry flocked to the banks of the canal. There was a strong presence of coal handling and processing for various products, including manufactured gas, used most memorably for lighting streetlights. The process for manufacturing gas from coal produces byproducts, including coal tar, that are now known to contain a variety of suspected carcinogens. Coal tar was routinely dumped into the Gowanus, where it sank to the bottom. 

After World War II, the Gowanus entered a long-term decline for a variety of reasons, including the progressive replacement of coal with petroleum and manufactured gas with natural gas that arrived by pipeline. 

While the Gowanus declined, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962, patiently explaining how we were killing the planet, and people took notice. Carson died of cancer in 1964, so she didn't see the full flowering of the movement she inspired. The Environmental Defense Fund was formed in 1967; the Environmental Protection Agency was established in 1970, the same year that 20 million Americans celebrated the first Earth Day. The Clean Air Act, originally passed in 1963, was greatly expanded in 1970; and the Clean Water Act came along in 1972. One more: CERCLA, or the tongue-tying Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, became law in 1980. This is the law that established the Superfund, under which the Gowanus is being cleaned. It became a Superfund site in 2010. 

Looking downstream from 9th street bridge.

Three Big Things

So what's going on in the Gowanus today, in 2024? There are three big things, and each one is complicated. And they're all enmeshed with one another because they all live in one relatively small space. For simplicity, I will discuss them separately.

The three things are the Superfund cleanup of the canal, managing the area's watershed, and building a residential community on an industrial brownfield. (If you're interested in a more detailed overview, I highly recommend Samantha Maldonado, "The Scramble to Cleanup the Gowanus Canal, as Housing Boom Looms," February 17, 2024, in The City. To see the article, click here.) 

Cleaning the Canal

The sediment at the bottom of the canal is often referred to as "black mayonnaise." The Environmental Protection Agency has a plan to remove a lot of the polluted sediment and put a fairly amazing, multilayered cap over the rest, sprinkling the top of the cap with a layer of sand that, it is hoped, will help attract more living creatures back to the waters of the Gowanus. Work is ongoing. (For more, click here.)

Managing the Watershed

When it rains, the Gowanus frequently gets what the locals call a "poonami." The City's Department of Environmental Protection explains why that happens: 

"The present character of Gowanus Canal and its drainage area is considerably different than the character of its pre-urbanized condition. Originally a tidal creek winding through marshland, the waterbody was dredged, straightened and bulkheaded as the surrounding area was drained, urbanized and industrialized during the development of New York City. By 1870, the waterbody had been transformed to very near its present configuration, and Gowanus Canal was serving as a major industrial waterway through which materials were brought to and from the area industries. The surrounding area had been fully urbanized and industrialized, with sewage and industrial wastes discharging directly to the Canal without treatment, and the natural marshlands and freshwater streams had been replaced with combined sewers and storm drains. The urbanization of the surrounding drainage area resulted in an estimated three-fold increase in the annual runoff volume and a six-fold increase in the peak runoff rate to the waterbody. Stripped of the surrounding buffers of marshland and its natural freshwater flow, the waterbody was deprived of any natural response mechanisms that might have helped absorb the increased hydraulic and pollutant loads. The Canal’s limited circulation and exchange with New York Harbor waters allowed pollutants to build up within the Canal, and water quality deteriorated to such an extent that Gowanus Canal was notorious as a polluted waterway." 

A few words of explanation. Sewers basically do two things: they carry off stormwater that does not penetrate into the ground, and they carry off sewage. These two activities can be conducted in separate sewers, but in this area they all go together in combined sewers. (Rome's Cloaca Maxima, or Great Big Sewer, was built around 600 B.C. and was originally intended as a storm sewer, but people were soon dumping the contents of their chamberpots and miscellaneous junk into the sewer, making it a de facto combined sewer.)

Normally, the sewage and storm runoff in the Gowanus neighborhood goes to the wastewater treatment plant in Red Hook or to the one in Owls Head. When it's raining hard, the system is unable to handle all the water, and overflow goes into the Gowanus through a series of outfalls - pipes that can be analogized to the tailpipe in a car. And that's where the poonamis come from.

The alternative to outfalls, by the way, is having raw sewage back up into your basement. 

Again, just to expand on something that DEP said above: Back when there were no wastewater treatment plants, sewage and industrial waste were all just dumped into a sewer, which carried them to an outfall, which dumped them into a waterway. (And, yes, that's how the black mayonnaise got to the bottom of the Gowanus.)

I used to live on the West Side of Manhattan; all the West Side's raw sewage was dumped into the Hudson River until completion of the North River plant in 1986. Remember: the Clean Water Act was only passed in 1972. (Mariners call this part of the Hudson River the North River because it takes you north to Albany and the Erie Canal. The East River takes you to Long Island Sound, which takes you east to places like Boston and London.) 

With the sewage treatment plants, you still had the problem of sewage outflow in a heavy storm. The answer was to say it was okay. And after all, it was much better than what had gone before.

I remember, as a junior press officer, sitting in meetings of the New York City Planning Commission half a century ago, listening to discussions of the environmental impact of new subdivisions in Staten Island. Part of the background work was to analyze current sewage flows. The standard question from a commissioner was, "How bad is the outflow in a storm?" The city planner on the project would look at the stack of paper in front of him and give the standard summary answer: "It's pretty dirty for a while, and then it clears." And so a new subdivision would be added to the sewer system. 

Back to the Gowanus: To borrow a line from V.I. Lenin, What Is to Be Done? 

Well, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection has a Big Idea: retaining tanks. Really, really big retaining tanks. DEP is building two of them directly adjacent to the Gowanus Canal. Construction began in 2023, and the tanks should be complete by 2030.

The tanks will capture excess water during a heavy storm and, as the runoff from the storm subsides, they can begin to release the water they are holding, sending it to a wastewater treatment plant that will then be able to accept the flow. The retaining tanks will not eliminate all the sewage outflows that the canal is currently experiencing, but they will significantly reduce them.

Digging a retention tank.

Building Anew Around a Tidal Estuary

In 2021, Mayor deBlasio's administration rezoned much of the land around the canal to encourage construction of housing. Developers envision adding 8,500 dwelling units to the city's housing stock. 

The rezoning was not without controversy. (See this article in the New York Times.) Major issues included the extent of soil remediation in the sites that would contain housing, and also the amount of affordable housing that would be built. 

The sites of the former manufactured gas plants contributed generous amounts of coal tar to the black mayonnaise that lies at the bottom of the Gowanus Canal, and they also heavily polluted the ground on which they operated. New construction provides an opportunity to address this pollution of the ground.

In addition, a new city rule requires holding tanks in large new buildings. There are also plans for providing more green space where rainwater can actually soak into the soil instead of running off. Together, these measures will join the city's two large holding tanks to create a layered defense in depth.

Will it be enough? I hope so. But the Gowanus is located in a flood zone - Mother Nature designed it to be a flood zone - and global warming has arrived. Sea levels will rise, and so will groundwater levels.

My own thought - just a guess - is that the wild card is probably the groundwater. Water has a mind of its own.

Solar panels cover the parking lot
at Whole Foods. World Trade Center
in background.

Parting Thoughts

From a tidal creek known mainly for its oysters, to a prosperous mill creek, to a major role in the largest battle of the American Revolution, to one of the country's major industrial canals, to a polluted ghost town (or at least ghostly), and now to a home for the gentry (and yes, some affordable housing). It's been an interesting journey. 

As for the future, don't expect perfection. Let's have a look at the journey through time of another interesting waterway, the Bievre (or Beaver) river, which arises in the country southwest of Paris and then wends through the western part of the city, where it finds its way into the Seine not far from the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. 

For many years, the Bievre was notorious for its pollution, to which the tapestry makers of Gobelins contributed liberally. Things got so bad that the waterway was completely capped over within the city limits by 1912. 

More recently, remedial efforts have dramatically reduced pollution, and the city is now daylighting sections of the river. People do want to be near water. (For two relatively recent stories, click here and here.) 

Still, the beaver aren't coming back to the Bievre, and you're not going to be eating oysters from the Gowanus any time soon.

But many people want the Gowanus to succeed. And the people directly involved look like they have the necessary skills and the all-important persistence. And it seems like they have enough money. Along the way, they'll probably need a little luck. I hope they get it.

Head of the Gowanus, looking downstream.

My daughter, Alicia West, suggested that I write this story, and in February of this year she took me on a walking tour of the Gowanus, turning a chore into a pleasure. Thank you, Alicia.

For a detailed but highly readable account of the Battle of Brooklyn, see chapters 4 and 5 of David McCullough's 1776 (2005).

On the ground, the Old Stone House seems to have taken the battle under its wing. Among other things, it has put together a comprehensive guide to the battle and the battlefield, complete with suggested walking tours. There are even directions for getting to key points by bus or subway. To see the guide, click here.

Joseph Plumb Martin uses the word "nave" to describe part of the 12-pounder's field carriage. This is the central part of the carriage's wheel, which attaches the wheel to the axle. I'd be tempted to call it a hub, but apparently that would be anachronistic.

For more on Rome's Cloaca Maxima and the Bievre River in Paris, see Scavengers and Scow Trimmers.

See also Up in the Air and Down on the Ground; South Portland Avenue, Brooklyn; Willoughby Avenue, Fort Greene, Brooklyn; Coney Island 2022; By the Market Street Bridge.