That's it! I have had it with these motherf**king sharks in this motherf**king canal!

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