Poor TQ came down with a bug, so our plans for tomorrow are off, but I ended up going to the walking tour of the Gowanus Canal anyways, and it was great!
I was very interested in going on the tour because Owen Foote, the co-founder of the Gowanus Dredgers who was our guide today, is an architect and urban planner who's been involved in water use and ecological awareness in the Gowanus area for years. He's incredibly knowledgeable and as I expected, he gave an amazingly informative talk about the history and present time of the area as he led us on a walk that wound through the neighborhood, starting at the Smith and 9th street subway station and finishing at the northern end of the canal, where the water swirls and foams as the pumping station pours in water from the East River.
It was such a good tour, and I took so many pictures that I'm not even sure where to start, so I decided to start with the same thing Owen started us off with - street art! There's an amazing variety in the area, and our first stop on the tour was at the GOWANUS street mural. I've put together a flickr album of the art that particularly caught my eye today -- click here to visit. I hope you enjoy it! BTW, if you liked this post and you live in the area, keep an eye on the Dredgers website, they're going to start offering monthly art walks led by a local artist as one of their things to do once the weather warms up a bit. I will definitely be joining in on one of those!
I was very interested in going on the tour because Owen Foote, the co-founder of the Gowanus Dredgers who was our guide today, is an architect and urban planner who's been involved in water use and ecological awareness in the Gowanus area for years. He's incredibly knowledgeable and as I expected, he gave an amazingly informative talk about the history and present time of the area as he led us on a walk that wound through the neighborhood, starting at the Smith and 9th street subway station and finishing at the northern end of the canal, where the water swirls and foams as the pumping station pours in water from the East River.
It was such a good tour, and I took so many pictures that I'm not even sure where to start, so I decided to start with the same thing Owen started us off with - street art! There's an amazing variety in the area, and our first stop on the tour was at the GOWANUS street mural. I've put together a flickr album of the art that particularly caught my eye today -- click here to visit. I hope you enjoy it! BTW, if you liked this post and you live in the area, keep an eye on the Dredgers website, they're going to start offering monthly art walks led by a local artist as one of their things to do once the weather warms up a bit. I will definitely be joining in on one of those!
3 comments:
My only experience in Gowanus is passing through the Smith 9th Street station while reading the F train. I would love to take this type of tour one day, though (which may be a distant "one day" but one never knows.)
I love the murals. I usually just think of SF for street murals. Changed that thinking now! Great pictures and the artists tours should be great.
It was interesting taking a walk through this neighborhood. I'm also usually just looking down from the F train; I've gone to a couple of the Gowanus Challenge races run by the Dredgers but that was a matter of just going to their boathouse at 2nd street and the 3rd street bridge, which is a great place to take pictures of the race. Definitely a neighborhood in transitions - as usual seems the artists came first and made it cool, hence the fun street art. Owen's tour was very interesting as with his urban planning and architecture background he was able to show us things that he thinks are being done both right and wrong. Lots of talk about both hopes and concerns for the area.
Post a Comment