The NYT Discovers That Gowanus Is a Hotbed of Gentrification

In this week's installment of "The New York Times Discovers ... ," the venerable publication catches onto the gentrification of Gowanus. "It's wonderful to be able to walk down streets that you previously wouldn't have," the managing director of Ideal Properties Group told the Times, "But there is also this fear: Oh no, what does that mean? Am I going to get priced out of my own neighborhood?" The short answer for long-time dwellers: most likely, yes. Fingers can largely be pointed towards the neighborhood's new builds including Lightstone's 700-apartment rental compound on the Gowanus Canal at 363-365 Bond Street, Sterling Equities' 345 Carroll Street where available condos start at $1.645 million, and the renovated so-called Carroll Gardens Hell Building—actually in Gowanus—at 335 Carroll Street, which the New York Times reports will command rents from $3,350. The median rent in the neighborhood increased 17.4 percent to $3,134 in quarter two, twice as much as Brooklyn as a whole, which increased 8.6 percent to $2,802.

The neighborhood, wedged between "two darlings of brownstone Brooklyn," Carroll Gardens and Park Slope, and south of the Barclay's Center is still blighted by its namesake toxic canal, but efforts to clean up the waterway have attracted a different kind of attention to the neighborhood. In 2017, the Environmental Protection Agency will begin a six-year, $500 million remediation effort to clean up the waterway that was formerly used a toxic waste dump site. Other efforts to clean-up the canal have already begun, including the city's $190 million update of a wastewater pumping station and flushing tunnel which have purportedly helped to re-attract some wildlife to the area like cormorants, herons, and blue crabs (although fishing here is still probably most definitely a no-no.)

"People have been talking about Gowanus for years—saying Gowanus is going to be the next SoHo—and I would think they were out of their minds," a Citi Habitats broker told the Times, "But lately I've been starting to believe it." Maybe said broker should mull that statement over while sipping an artisanal latté and sitting on the terrace of the neighborhood's new, gleaming Whole Foods.
· Gowanus is Counting on a Cleanup [NYT]
· Visiting the Gowanus Canal's Under-Transformation 'Wild West' [Curbed]
· All Gowanus coverage [Curbed]