How much do you really know about Gowanus?both the canal and the neighborhood? Everyone and their dog knows that the canal is polluted, but did you know that dozens of the flowering trees alongside the waterway grew from seeds that were used as packaging hundreds of years ago? Or that the Carroll Street bridge is one of four retractile bridges left in the country? We recently took a walking tour with Joseph Alexiou, a licensed Gowanus tour guide who is writing a book about the canal's history, and he opened our eyes to the watery neighborhood's most interesting buildings and locales, from the eccentric to the historic. Here now, we have a mapped out video tour of the 17 spots we hit.

· Summer on the Gowanus archives [Curbed]
· Gowanus Canal coverage [Curbed]