Our sympathies go out to Dan Silverstein and his fight against the ugly courtyard on First and Court. From the New York Post:
"Last December, Christmas tree salespeople left the place a mess of trees and wreath-filled garbage bags that lingered for two months, Silverstein recalled.
Today, there’s graffiti on a wall adjacent to the yard, and cars parking there day and night, a violation of city law.
“Small public spaces are extremely valuable,” Silverstein said. “They’re places we walk by every day, and they affect how people feel about their community.
Silverstein is hoping to convince the city, which technically owns the courtyard, to let him design the space to better serve the neighborhood. So far, he said, he’s had some encouraging words from Councilman Brad Lander (D–Park Slope), but no firm commitments."
While the site is an eyesore, I doubt that there is really very much that can be done. Unless the car parking continues...
Noted for sometime, but now out with their first episode is a short show by Robin Reed called "Carroll Gardens". Here's how it is described on it's landing page:
"Within this little suburbanesque community politely at odds with itself exists a group of 30 somethings politely at odds with the fact that everyone is running away from one thing....becoming their parents!"
Although I take bitter offense to the characterization of this area as "suburban" (I guess that dense, walkable areas with great access to public transit and few mega-chains equals suburban to Ms. Reed), the short is cute, well done, and has many local places and characters (mostly in the opening segment). Check it out.
"Sure, Baroque dance hasn't been popular since...oh, the reign of Louis XIV, but the performance troupe Company XIV is bringing this predecessor of classical ballet from the court of Versailles to Carroll Gardens. Only this time around the dance floor choreographer Austin McCormick is throwing in a few other things from the last four centuries of dance, theater and storytelling.
With music ranging from Vivaldi to Lady Gaga, McCormick's newest performance, Le Cirque Feerique, or the Fairy Circus, if you will, re-imagines classic fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen and The Brothers Grimm using a combination of flamenco, ballet, cabaret, and yes, baroque. The colorful costumery is elaborate enough for any of Louis' formal balls but also playful enough for, well, the circus."
I guess if it's your thing, go for it.
Company XIV is the resident company of 303 Bond St. a 3,800 square foot rehearsal/performance venue located in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. The space was converted from a tow truck warehouse with the addition of a state of the art dance floor, glass facade, and theatrical lighting.
"The Gowanus Canal Sponge Park™ is a multifunctional public open space system that slows, absorbs and filters surface water runoff to remediate contaminated water, activate the private canal waterfront, and revitalize the neighborhood. The proposal communicates a larger vision for environmental stewardship to a broad community through productive landscape strategies, collaboration among public and private constituencies, and an interactive design process that incorporates the input of residents, community groups, and city, state, and federal agencies."
The park itself is a great idea. The housing that is going to go along with it...eh. Not so much.
"Defonis caught one monstrous beast on tape, capturing it as it blithely sauntered through her backyard in broad daylight. She said that she’s also seen two or more of the creatures engaged in what scientists call social play behavior.
“They were playing like cats,” she recalled, adding that they show no fear of humans during their rambunctious rodent hijinks — or any other time.
Parking lot manager Mohamed Gamil said the problem has nothing to do with maintenance at the lot. “It’s not us — the canal is right there,” he said, stretching an arm towards the fetid Gowanus. “It’s the whole neighborhood. They come from everywhere.”"
Ehh. I've been watching that lot since they started parking carts there, and it's not exactly the bastion of health and cleanliness (also, plenty of street corner carts are there, it's not just the Red Hook Vendors). But Mr. Gamil has the better point: it's the canal!!! There are rats everywhere!
"A gun-wielding perp mugged two F-train commuters in separate brutal incidents on May 7 at the Carroll Street station.
The first victim, 56, told cops that she had just gotten off the Coney Island-bound train at around 8:45 am at the President Street end of the station when a man grabbed her purse, pulled a gun on her and said, “Shut up or I’ll kill you.”"
The recent wacky ideas for New York Harbor proposed by architects included Oysters in and around the Gowanus (and off of the Bay Ridge Flats). Oysters are like little livers, all around the world's near-shore waters. They clean, they scrub, no wonder they aren't kosher! Oysters do have a long history in Hew York Harbor, but recent results of efforts to reintroduce them have been mixed.
Still, the idea of oysters in the canal (once other cleanup efforts have commenced) has always been an interesting idea for me. That is, until I read John Waldman's Heartbeats in the Muck, page 155, where he relays his experience with oysters in the canal:
"Our expectations that young oysters would be seen are tempered by the generally poor results Longstretch has recorded elsewhere around the harbor with his project - none worse than in the Gowanus Canal. When he hung a sack of live oysters off a bulkhead there, not only were they dead upon his return two weeks later, by the shells had shrunk as well, perhaps because of acidity in the contaminated canal. Careful inspections of the large dead oyster shells now reveals many embryonic forms-apparent oyster spat-and we are excited until on closer examination all turn out to be slipper limpets. Oyster spat, once in place, are attached for life. But the shell of the limpet, a snail-like but highly flattened creature, slips sideways when pushed."
A recent article in the Metro contained a little quote that shocked me a little. Seems like I would have heard about this. "...the city is more attuned to nature than it was in the 1950s when a shark swam into Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal. Startled by the sudden appearance of the large fish, cops shot it."
In my time we've seen seals and Sludgy the whale in the canal, but no large sharks. Sure, a stray sand shark or two probably make their way in from time to time, but one large enough to be spotted and shot? Wow. This deserved a little more research. The New York Times also corroborates this assertion, stating:
"In 1952, a large shark was photographed swimming up the canal; the police shot it."
Well. Not much more information there than in the Metro article. In a variation on a theme, New York Magazine says that:
"In 1952, a shark made its way in. (The cops shot it.)"
Wow. Those par ens make all the difference. But where can we find more of an answer?
I turned to John Waldman's book "Heartbeats in the Muck", a book devoted to New York Harbor.
On page 50, he tells of the sharks that once abounded in New York Harbor: "...the regular presence until the middle of the ninteenth century of the sharks along Manhattan's commercial waterfront, particularly the East River. Not little sharks, but eight- and twelve-footers, drawn to the shallows by the raw refuse of the markets and common enough that one market worker, well known for overpowering sharks witht he customary tug-of-war gear of handheld rope tied to a chain, landed seven in one day."
Cool. So sharks were all over the harbor. But what about the Gowanus Canal? From Page 111:
"Without doubt the most noteworthy biological event within the canal's industrial history was the appearance of a large shark in 1950. Ali showed me a scrapbook about the canal that included a photograph of the shark from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Fittingly, it is a dismal scene - policemens bullets spray the water near the creature as hundreds of people watch along the bulkheads."
This is great for so many reasons. Could you imagine the hysteria that abounded in the 1950s at sharks? So misunderstood, as they continue to be to this day, that the police thought it would be a public hazard to keep the fish alive?
Just another piece of the Gowanus Canal's long and storied history!
Images from the South Street Seaport Museum, Seaport magazine, Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Heartbeats in the Muck
"Last December, Christmas tree salespeople left the place a mess of trees and wreath-filled garbage bags that lingered for two months, Silverstein recalled. 
