Gowanus Canal Initiative
In 1998, Place in History launched
a two-year, four-part initiative to explore the history
and future of the Gowanus Canal, an industrial waterway in
the heart of central Brooklyn, and the neighborhoods that
surround it.
Between September and December 1998,
Place in History installed ten steel viewing boxes along the
railings of the Union Street Bridge in Gowanus, Brooklyn.
The viewing boxes contained acrylic slides
illustrating aspects of the canal's industrial heyday, ranging
from the original Union Street Bridge to a portrait of a well-known
local beat cop from the 1950's.
To kick off the installation, Place in
History sponsored an opening event featuring local historians,
community members, elected officials and activists. The installation
and opening ceremonies celebrated the reopening of the Gowanus
Canal Pumping Station, a water-flushing facility that now
works to clean the canal, after 37 years of inactivity.
In October 1998, Place in History assembled
a group of neighborhood residents to rebuild a historic garden
once located on the banks of the Gowanus Canal
The restoration of the garden was a
public project designed to celebrate the reopening of the
Gowanus Pumping Station, which now flushes the Canal with
clean water from New York Harbor.
As a follow-up to the Gowanus
Canal Viewing Boxes installation, Place in History co-director
Paul Parkhill and environmental educator Abu Bakr Moulta Ali
developed a year-long high school educational program exploring
the canal's past, present and future development.
Working with over 220 local public high
school students at the Cobble Hill School of American Studies,
the project involved in-class education, canal-side exploration,
the reinstallation of five viewing boxes featuring student
ideas for the canal's future, and the distribution of a 16-session
curriculum to over 20 local schools.
In the summer of 2000, Place in History
installed ten steel viewing boxes along the railings of the
Union Street Bridge, which spans the Canal.
Each box contained a map illustrating
a vision of the future of the Gowanus Canal and the neighborhood
around it. These maps were drawn up by participants
in Place in History's Community Education Initiative at the
nearby Cobble Hill School of American Studies.
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