#292: Gowanus Mon Amour

Gowanus, Brooklyn

Gowanus gets a bad rap. A canal as well as a neighborhood, it's sandwiched between its more glamorous neighbors, places with Slope and Hill and Gardens in the names. Jonathan Ames, creator of the excellent show, "Bored to Death" wrote an episode called "The Gowanus Canal Has Gonorrhea!" Just in case you needed any more negative PR.

I used to be much more afraid of the Gowanus Canal than I am now, afraid each time that I'd cross the Union Street Bridge that down there in the rangy muck I would spy a three-headed carp, fearing that just by breathing in its bilious fumes I'd begin to develop a sort of biohazardous condition that would make me glow in the dark. Now, I play ice hockey on a sewage plant up on the Hudson, and my tolerance for gross bodies of water has declined substantially. :gingerly tucks flippers away, resumes writing blog post:

But there is beauty in Gowanus just as there's beauty anywhere else. These small, medieval-looking numbers stamped onto an address plate are a perfect example of the sort of thing you find when you're willing to slow down and look a little more closely.