The early effects of Hurricane Sandy led to some flooding along the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, one of the most polluted waterways in the country. With the storm at its height, the canal has completely overflowed and is covering many of the streets in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood adjacent to its shores. Read More
With the combined effects of the surge from Hurricane Sandy and high tide, the Gowanus Canal broke its banks this morning in multiple locations and flooded over many of the streets in mandatory evacuation Zone A along its shores. The Observer was on hand to take pictures of the waters. It was far worse than anything we witnessed with the initial Sandy surge at high tide last night. Read More
Who would want to live on the shores of a Superfund site? Maybe the better question is, who would want to own a place on one?
Toll Brothers killed their plan to build a new housing complex on the Gowanus Canal two years ago when the U.S. Enviornmental Protection Agency decreed the canal was toxic, despite protests and counter-proposals from the Bloomberg administration. That is why the news earlier this month that the Lighthouse Group was going to develop the site was so surprising. But part of the developer’s secret appears to be hundreds more units and renting them rather than selling them. Read More
In 2004, just as Brooklyn was becoming a thing, McMansion developers Toll Brothers set their sites on an unusual location in the middle of the borough: the banks of the Gowanus Canal, one of the most heavily polluted corners of the city. After the public review process concluded, the plan was impeded by an unprecedented obstacle: the EPA announced it was adding the Gowanus canal to its Superfund list. And that’s when the Toll Brothers decided to scrap the plans.
But yesterday, Browstoner revealed a new development in the story, hearing that a rather unknown firm, The Lightstone Group, has intentions to take over the Toll Brothers site and build 700 new apartments there. Read More
There is something about big box stores that brings out irrational hatred. Especially in Brooklyn.
Now that plans for a 52,000-square foot Whole Foods store are hurtling toward groundbreaking, Brooklynites have been forced to confront their fears that without dogged opposition, the borough might come to resemble the kind of suburban hellhole found in the southern or central U.S. Or the Upper West Side, even. Read More
Love it or hate it, Whole Foods is coming to Brooklyn. Can the co-op survive? Read More
The seven-year roller coaster ride that has been Whole Foods’ Brooklyn saga may be taking another nose dive. The blissful ride started in 2005, long before Brian Williams had ever heard of Brooklyn. It slowed to a snail’s pace in 2007 and then completely halted in 2008 in the midst of the grotesque Gowanus Canal’s Superfunding. New York State was nice enough to clean up the property and set Whole Foods back on track in 2010.
The whole ordeal has left us twisted and nauseous from the bureaucratic and communal ups, downs, and loop-de-loops. (Or maybe the toxins are making us nauseous.) Regardless, Whole Foods might be one rubber stamp away from approval, but the Gowanus locals are not succumbing without one last fight. Read More
You’re welcome, Toll Brothers.
The big-time developers fumed, along with the mayor, when the Environmental Protection Agency decided to designate the Gowanus Canal a Superfund site last year. Playing a game of Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil, Toll threatened to pull out of a big 447-unit development on the Read More
On Saturday afternoon, a security guard sat in the back seat of an idling white jeep, watching over a 2.1-acre patch of dirt near the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. There was an overflowing can of garbage next to the car’s front bumper and a puddle of groundwater nearby. Just across the canal, against the backdrop Read More
Brownstone Brooklyn’s foodies (is that redundant?) can finally rejoice. No longer will they have to settle for the Trader Joe’s on Atlantic or trek all the way out to the Fairway in Red Hook for the finest produce and prepared foods. Lo, Whole Foods is finally coming to Brooklyn’s fair shores.
Those aren’t any Read More
