Friends of Greater Gownanus is pushing forward to nominate the Gowanus Canal Corridor to the National Register of Historic Places. They are trying to designate sections of the neighborhood as an Urban Industrial District, which will preserve the buildings, structures and open spaces for adaptive reuse. According to FROGG, “The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation is being ‘generous’ for the Gowanus Project and has decided to expand the historic district, by proposing 50 additional sites. This means that these 50 properties must be surveyed by a certified architectural historian. More research must be done in order to complete the proposed survey with the previously submitted report and integrate them into Section 7 of the nomination with the other properties.” FROGG is now fundraising for the extended study because the extra work will cost approximately $5,780. If you are interested in contributing, you can get in touch with FROGG.
Photo by Jose Gaytan


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. This is obviously a ploy by this community group to stop any and all redevelopment in the area. Some development is bad, some is good, but to try to condemn all of Gowanus to an eternity of squalor so a few people can have cheap studios is as selfish and wrong as a developer creating new buildings too large for infrastructure.

    There is not a single structure in Gowanus worth keeping, and the idea of creating a historic district out of a uniformly ugly and rundown industrial slum has absolutely no merit.

    Gowanus should be responsibly developed, and forcing developers to reuse decrepit and and ugly buildings is a really bad idea. Just because something is old does not mean it must be preserved.

    I hope that their self serving nomination is thrown out!