The Gowanus Canal is a 1.8-mile-long waterway connecting Upper New York Bay (the bay in between Brooklyn, Manhattan, New Jersey, and Staten Island) with the formerly industrial interior of Brooklyn. Originally it was fed by the marshland and freshwater springs in Brooklyn and drained into the Atlantic Ocean in Upper New York Bay. Because of the way it was created, though, it has become stagnant and polluted by decades of runoff and dumping from local neighborhoods and businesses. In the summer, you can smell it from blocks away. It's not a good smell, but that doesn't deter photographer Steven Hirsch, who finds all kinds of beauty in what floats upon the surface. Steven Hirsch grew up in Brooklyn in the late 1940s and 50s when Brooklyn was filled with a new middle class. Brooklyn was a paradise and he knew practically the whole borough, except for the Gowanus Canal. It was not until 2010 when a friend took him Hirsch there for the first time that he witnessed the famously polluted and now EPA Superfund waterway. When one thinks of canals they usually picture tree-lined waterways bustling with commercial activity. Not so with the present-day Gowanus. Built in the middle-to-late 19th century, the canal was to benefit the ever-expanding industrial revolution that arose in Brooklyn and to drain the surrounding marshes for land reclamation. Its creation accomplished those goals, but once it was no longer helpful it was left to decay, and decay it did. Today, the Gowanus Canal is lined by fuel oil depots and bus and scrap metal yards and is recognized as one of the most polluted bodies of water in the United States. In 2010 it was declared a Superfund site. The day Hirsch first visited the acrid and vile smell made him nauseous. While standing on the bank he noticed a large eruption of oil start pulsating on the surface. He photographed it for about 15 minutes and it disappeared as quickly as it started. So was born a fascination with the way two centuries-worth of chemicals and detritus mixed with the water. Hirsch has shot the canal surface dozens of times since that unforgettable day and the result is a series of eerily beautiful abstract photos, telling the visual story of what pollution and indifference hath wrought. The combination of the inky blacks and varied specks and sheens all appear to be galaxy-like, but the viewer must not forget that they are looking at heavily polluted water here on Earth and nestled in one of the nations most populous and affluent cities. Today, efforts are being made to clean up the canal and will need to continue to for years to come, and it is important documentation like Hirsch's work which should help spur action.

The surprising history of the Gowanus Canal and its role in the building of Brooklyn For more than 150 years, Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal has been called a cesspool, an industrial dumping ground, and a blemish on the face of the populous borough—as well as one of the most important waterways in the history of New York harbor. Yet its true origins, man-made character, and importance to the city have been largely forgotten. Now, New York writer and guide Joseph Alexiou explores how the Gowanus creek—a naturally-occurring tidal estuary that served as a conduit for transport and industry during the colonial era—came to play an outsized role in the story of America’s greatest city. From the earliest Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam, to nearby Revolutionary War skirmishes, or the opulence of the Gilded Age mansions that sprung up in its wake, historical changes to the Canal and the neighborhood that surround it have functioned as a microcosm of the story of Brooklyn’s rapid nineteenth-century growth. Highlighting the biographies of nineteenth-century real estate moguls like Daniel Richards and Edwin C. Litchfield, Alexiou recalls the forgotten movers and shakers that laid the foundation of modern-day Brooklyn. As he details, the pollution, crime, and industry associated with the Gowanus stretch back far earlier than the twentieth century, and helped define the culture and unique character of this celebrated borough. The story of the Gowanus, like Brooklyn itself, is a tale of ambition and neglect, bursts of creative energy, and an inimitable character that has captured the imaginations of city-lovers around the world.

Introduces DLANDstudio's pioneering and award-winning Sponge Park concept for the regeneration of the notorious Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal is a hidden landmark, a valuable but latent asset to the local and broader community. Formerly a wetland creek, it is now severely polluted and bordered by industrial buildings. Although it is surrounded by residential neighborhoods, there is hardly any public access to the water's edge. The existing canal bulkhead and drainage is also a piece of hard engineered infrastructure that is seemingly easy to maintain but inadequate for managing extreme weather--when it fails the impacts are catastrophic. To facilitate greater access and ecological productivity of the Gowanus Canal, Brooklyn-based firm DLANDstudio has invented the Sponge ParkTM. It is designed as a series of public urban waterfront spaces that slow, absorb, and filter dirty surface water runoff to clean contaminated canal water, reduce combined sewer overflow, and activate the canal edge. Revealing the form, distribution, and size of natural ecological patterns in relation to the shape and patterns of infrastructure, neighborhoods, and political jurisdictions is another key component of the design. This book introduces the award-winning Sponge ParkTM in great detail with photos, illustrations, plans, and diagrams. It demonstrates the concept's potential as a component also of a larger vision for a new paradigm of coastal urbanism, upland adaptation, and right of way design in the twenty-first century that anticipates more frequent extreme weather impacts and affects American policymaking. It is a must-read for design students, architects, and academics as well as for elected officials, policymakers, and community activists.

"Water and Asphalt, the latest volume in the UFO series, investigates the metropolitan area of Venice with regard to the increasing separation of residential and industrial neighborhoods. It is based on an extensive research project at Venice's Università IUAV on urban density and sprawl. The densely populated metropolitan region around the world-famous 'Sernenissima', crisscrossed by networks of roads and waterways, provides the ideal test case for imagining the concept termed by this study as the Project of Isotropy. The researchers argue that conditions now exist for redevising the isotropic space in Venice with a focus on the water system, roads and public transportation, alternative mobility, forms of diffused welfare, innovative agriculture, and the decentralized production of energy.--Publisher's website.

A guide to the forgotten waterways hidden throughout the five boroughs Beneath the asphalt streets of Manhattan, creeks and streams once flowed freely. The remnants of these once-pristine waterways are all over the Big Apple, hidden in plain sight. Hidden Waters of New York City offers a glimpse at the big city’s forgotten past and ever-changing present, including: Minetta Brook, which ran through today's Greenwich Village Collect Pond in the Financial District, the city's first water source Newtown Creek, separating Brooklyn and Queens Bronx River, still a hotspot for urban canoeing and hiking Filled with eye-opening historical anecdotes and walking tours of all five boroughs, this is a side of New York City you’ve never seen.

From the proprietors of the renowned Brooklyn shop and cafe comes the ultimate pie-baking book for a new generation of bakers. Melissa and Emily Elsen, the twenty-something sisters who are proprietors of the wildly popular Brooklyn pie shop and cafe Four & Twenty Blackbirds, have put together a pie-baking book that's anything but humble. This stunning collection features more than 60 delectable pie recipes organized by season, with unique and mouthwatering creations such as Salted Caramel Apple, Green Chili Chocolate, Black Currant Lemon Chiffon, and Salty Honey. There is also a detailed and informative techniques section. Lavishly designed, Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book contains 90 full-color photographs by Gentl & Hyers, two of the most sought-after food photographers working today. With its new and creative recipes, this may not be you mother's cookbook, but it's sure to be one that every baker from novice to pro will turn to again and again.

Former member of the Vandal Squad - a New York police unit devised to protect the subway from hardcore crime and vandalism - Joseph Rivera recounts the days and nights spent in pursuit of the city's most notorious vandals. As the only book on graffiti told from the side of the law, it gives the reader new perspective on the fast-paced cat and mouse tales, presented alongside professional disregard within the department. Featuring unseen images and stories of graffiti's infamous Top 40, this is an unprecendented look at graffiti from the other side of the game.

New York's world-renowned Bowery in the early 70s as seen through the eyes of one of the great documentarians of the city's underbelly, Ed Grazda. Up until the late 20th century the Bowery was a notorious place of cheap hotels and bars-New York's infamous skid row, where the city's down-and-out found each other and made do the best they could. Inspired by Lionel Rogosin's classic 1956 filmOn the Bowery, Ed Grazda'sOn The Boweryshows the weathered life and times he encountered on the Bowery in 1971. Perhaps the grittiest part of the city in those years, Grazda captured all the sorrow, hardship, and general bad luck upon the faces of those who called the Bowery their home. The unfiltered and barrierless street view is where Grazda has always been most comfortable shooting, and once again we are the beneficiaries of his intrepid spirit. Captured before gentrification changed the stripand surrounding neighborhood into a tourist destination with museums, upscale retailers, clubs, and fancy restaurants, Grazda provides an important reminder to us all that it was only a few decades ago that the Bowery was a much different scene-and that New York never stops evolving.

New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Award "Nimbly splices together history, science, reporting and personal experiences into a taut and cautiously hopeful narrative.… Egan’s book is bursting with life (and yes, death)." —Robert Moor, New York Times Book Review The Great Lakes—Erie, Huron, Michigan, Ontario, and Superior—hold 20 percent of the world’s supply of surface fresh water and provide sustenance, work, and recreation for tens of millions of Americans. But they are under threat as never before, and their problems are spreading across the continent. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes is prize-winning reporter Dan Egan’s compulsively readable portrait of an ecological catastrophe happening right before our eyes, blending the epic story of the lakes with an examination of the perils they face and the ways we can restore and preserve them for generations to come.