Gowanus

May 10, 2016

The Elegantly Designed Interiors at This Carroll Gardens Brownstone Can Be Yours For $3M

The location of this lovely Brooklyn townhouse at 357 Hoyt Street is a dream combination of breezy, funky Gowanus and quaint, historic and classic Carroll Gardens. Everything surrounding it is either pretty or cool (or both), and on top of being subway adjacent, the borough's flagship Whole Foods market is within just a few blocks. This enviable home is about as perfect as you can get if you’re a brownstone buff and you're not looking for four stories or a big yard. At three stories and 2,360 square feet, it's not huge, but space is used efficiently and it's still more spacious than many apartments at its asking price of $2.9 million. Renovated to perfection, the home’s interiors - designed by mother-daughter design team McGrath II - have been featured in both the New York Times home and garden section (according to the listing) and recently on 6sqft.
READ MORE

Distinctive Homes

April 7, 2016

You Can Now Investigate the Unseen Microbiology of the Gowanus Canal With the BK BioReactor

By Dana Schulz

After all these years of jokes about catching syphilis or turning into a green mutant alien, it's hard to imagine the Gowanus Canal as a pollutant-free place, but beginning this year it will undergo dredging and sub-aquatic capping as part of the USEPA Superfund Cleanup plan. This also includes the Gowanus Canal Sponge Park, "an 18,000-square-foot public space that will be built with engineered soil to absorb (hence “sponge”) stormwater that would otherwise pollute the canal, as well as plants to break down toxins and floating wetlands," as 6sqft previously reported. But before the notoriously toxic canal turns into the Venice of Brooklyn, a group of microbiologists want to catalogue and draw attention to exactly what type of unseen organisms have accumulated over the past 150 years, as they feel it's important for work at other polluted urban environments. To do this, they've created the BK BioReactor, a roving watercraft that takes samples from 14 specific points along the canal. This data has been turned into a "mobile library," complete with an interactive map that shows which microorganisms are located where and how heavily distributed they are. For example, Atrazine, a herbicide affecting the hormonal system, is present in most of the sites, as is Epsilonproteobacteria, which inhabit the digestive tracks of animals.
See what else is lurking in the Gowanus Canal

Uncategorized

March 22, 2016

‘Drinking Birds’ Artist Lists Gowanus Loft Building Filled With Hand-Crafted Interiors for $3.5M

By Michelle Cohen

Sometimes what you see is more than first meets the eye. That was definitely the case in the early '90s when internationally exhibited artist Daniel Reynolds, known for his utterly mesmerizing life-sized "Drinking Birds" installation, purchased this 30-foot-by-90-foot mixed-use building on the south side of Union Street in Gowanus. This listing, priced at $3.5 million, is unique in that its beautiful live and work spaces were designed with an artist's vision, as well as in its creative pedigree and many possibilities for use. Included are three market-rate lofts, a roof deck and an artist's workspace–an excellent investment on a prime Brooklyn block. Each loft offers unique hand-crafted marble baths, restored working fireplaces with stone mantles, stainless steel kitchens, and restored 19th-century tin detailing put to use in an unconventional yet breathtaking way.
Tour this fascinating custom-built creative space

Distinctive Homes

Lightstone’s Paris-on-the-Gowanus Rental Building at 365 Bond Street Opens

363-365 Bond Street, via Lightstone Group

March 1, 2016

Lightstone’s Paris-on-the-Gowanus Rental Building at 365 Bond Street Opens

By Michelle Cohen

One of the Lightstone Group's two new rental buildings in Brooklyn's Gowanus neighborhood is set to open Tuesday. The new residence at 365 Bond Street, along with its neighbor at 363 Bond (a year from completion) represent a $350 million effort by the developer to build 700 luxury rental apartments on the left bank of the Gowanus Canal. Designed to look like an historic brick-walled warehouse, market-rate apartments at 365 Bond start at over $2,000 a month for a studio and over $3,000 for a one-bedroom unit, according to the Wall Street Journal. Lightstone President Mitchell Hochberg says the project was inspired by the Canal Saint-Martin neighborhood in Paris, known for a residential project near a similarly polluted waterway which helped create a "newly hip atmosphere."
Find out more

December 3, 2015

15 Hip Holiday Markets and Indie Pop-Up Shops in NYC

By Michelle Cohen

December's first days bring dozens of holiday gift markets whose aim is to find new homes for a wealth of shiny goodies and crafty gifts. We're all familiar with the big NYC markets, but some of the best scores–and the most fun–can be found at smaller, cooler pop-ups and local markets throughout the city. Some are only around for a weekend, others for the whole month or longer. In addition to locally-made jewelry and crafts, vintage finds, artfully curated fashions, home items and other things we didn't know we needed, these hip retail outposts offer up DJs, drinks, food, tarot readings, nail art, music, and family fun to keep shoppers' spirits bright.
Find out where to get the goods, this way

October 15, 2015

Pollution Cleanup Park Taking Shape at Gowanus Canal

By Dana Schulz

The Gowanus Canal isn't the first place that comes to mind when one thinks about lush waterfront parks, but that's exactly the vision behind the long-planned Gowanus Canal Sponge Park, an 18,000-square-foot public space that will be built with engineered soil to absorb (hence "sponge") stormwater that would otherwise pollute the canal, as well as plants to break down toxins and floating wetlands. It was first conceived back in 2008 by the Gowanus Canal Conservancy and Susannah Drake, principal at the landscape architecture firm DLANDstudio (who's also responsible for the Queensway). Now, seven years later, DNAinfo reports that state officials announced on Tuesday that construction has officially commenced on the $1.5 million project at the notorious Superfund site. The park will sit on city-owned land at the point where Second Street dead-ends at the canal. Workers are on site, digging out five feet of contaminated soil that will be sent to a special facility that handles toxic materials; during the next 90 days, the metal walkway will be installed; and plants will arrive in the spring.
More on the park and the Gowanus Canal cleanup

Architecture And Design

August 10, 2015

Permits Filed for New Faux-Loft Building at the Intersection of Boerum Hill and Gowanus

By Ondel Hylton

Avery Hall Investments filed permits last week for an eight-story, 20-unit residential building at the corner of Third Avenue and St. Marks Place. The site is situated in the area where bucolic Boerum Hill meets the utilitarian factory lofts of Gowanus. The development at 125 Third Avenue will replace a one-story commercial building that Avery picked up earlier this year for $5.65 million according to city records. The team also recently broke ground on another Boerum Hill condominium at 472 Atlantic Avenue designed by the context-sensitive Morris Adjmi Architects.
More details on the project

May 6, 2015

Gowanus Brownstone Has an Inhabitable Blob in Its Living Room

By Diane Pham

During the mid-'90s and early 2000s, blobitecture was all the rage. But it didn't take very long for the trend to fall out of favor—because at the end of the day you can't really build a city full of blobby buildings. But it looks like the movement just might be seeing a second life within residential design. In this 2014 renovation by RAAD Studio, the architects transformed the innards of a historic brownstone on the border of Gowanus and Carroll Gardens into an ultra-modern space with clean lines, sleek surfaces, and most notably, an amoeba-like sculpture growing out of the living room wall.
Have a closer look inside the home here

April 8, 2015

Adorable Wood House Renovated with Reclaimed Materials Asks $1.2M in Gowanus

By Aisha Carter

If you’re one for Brooklyn’s more hidden gems, travel with us to Gowanus, where a fixer-upper at 162 10th Street was rescued by an architect who redesigned it for her family. The end result is a sophisticated interior with treasures at every turn. We’re talking tons of reclaimed materials and details that give this $1.195 million townhouse a built-in story hour.
More pics inside

Distinctive Homes

April 8, 2015

You Can Now Tour the Gowanus Canal Without Catching Syphilis or Other Ailments

By Diane Pham

Conversations about the Gowanus Canal are usually accompanied with a quip about STDs or mutant dolphins, but all joking aside, there's no denying its murky waters also carry quite a bit of mystery and allure. The infrastructure, the architecture, and of course what's floating within, is nothing short of intriguing, because really, what's actually down there? Researchers at the Brooklyn Atlantis Project are just as curious as we are and they've constructed an unmanned water vehicle to go where no sane man dare go.
Find out more here

Uncategorized

March 27, 2015

REVEALED: ODA Architects Design Cantilevering Ziggurats for Gowanus Site

By Ondel Hylton

Another eye- and volume-popping mega-project by ODA Architects may be coming to Brooklyn, and this week's chosen neighborhood is Gowanus. A recently posted video by ODA delves into the thought process of Eran Chen's burgeoning firm and provides some shots of their recent work, including the provocative rendering shown here. We recognized the location only by the "Stop & Frisk Hands Off the Kids" text scrawled across the defunct Brooklyn Rapid Transit Powerhouse building (the "Bat Cave") and pinpointed the project for the full-block parcel at 175-225 Third Street purchased by Kushner Companies and LIVWRK last year. Update via LIVWRK/Kushner’s reps: "The developers are not working with ODA on this project and these designs do not represent our vision for this site or the Gowanus. We are committed to putting forth an outstanding plan that respects the context of the neighborhood and responds to the voices of local stakeholders.” As it turns out, ODA is one of many firms that pitched, and the design was ultimately turned down because it was out of touch with the direction of the neighborhood. Though it won't come to fruition, it does give some scale of what's to come—which will indeed be transformative for the area.
More information here

February 16, 2015

Darling Tin-Ceilinged One-Bedroom in the Heart of Gowanus Asks $2,550/Month

By Aisha Carter

There’s a new rental available in up-and-coming Gowanus, and it’s asking $2,550 per month. This one-bedroom has a shared garden and laundry facilities along with a dizzying black-and-white checkered bathroom that will either make you fall in love or just get really disoriented. But even if that's not your thing, charming original details like tin ceilings and wide-plank hardwood floors more than make up for it.
Check out the rest of the rental

Distinctive Homes

February 11, 2015

Snøhetta Transforms a Gowanus Warehouse into a Mural Studio for Cuban Artist José Parlá

By Dana Schulz

You've probably seen the murals of Cuban-American artist José Parlá in the lobbies of One World Trade Center and the Barclays Center. With such high-profile clients, it's no wonder he worked with starchitecture firm Snøhetta, who completed the 9/11 Memorial Museum Pavilion, to create his personal artist's studio. Collaborating together, Parlá and Snøhetta transformed a Gowanus warehouse into a double-height workspace that retains industrial characteristics of the building like beamed ceilings, exposed piping and electrical fixtures, and concrete floors. To tailor the studio to their client's needs, the firm re-opened old skylights to let natural light in to the middle of the work space, and they painted all the walls neutral grey tones so Parlá's bright paintings really stand out.
More on the project

Living Breakwaters: An Award-Winning Project Brings ‘Oyster-tecture’ to the Shores of Staten Island

Image courtesy of SCAPE / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE PLLC

January 28, 2015

Living Breakwaters: An Award-Winning Project Brings ‘Oyster-tecture’ to the Shores of Staten Island

By Michelle Cohen

We know what you're thinking: what is oyster-tecture, anyway? Just ask Kate Orff, landscape architect and the founding principal of SCAPE Studio. SCAPE is a landscape architecture and urban design office based in Manhattan and specializing in urban ecology, site design, and strategic planning. Kate is also an associate professor of architecture and urban design at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, where she founded the Urban Landscape Lab, which is dedicated to affecting positive social and ecological change in the joint built-natural environment. But the Living Breakwaters project may be the SCAPE team’s most impactful yet. The “Oyster-tecture” concept was developed as part of the MoMA Rising Currents Exhibition in 2010, with the idea of an oyster hatchery/eco-park in the Gowanus interior that would eventually generate a wave-attenuating reef in the Gowanus Bay. Describing the project as, “a process for generating new cultural and environmental narratives,” Kate envisioned a new “reef culture” functioning both as ecological sanctuary and public recreation space.
Find out more about what oysters and other creatures can do for NYC

September 23, 2014

Artists Who Converted Ink & Brush Factory into Their Own Masterpiece List it for $4.4M

By Stephanie Hoina

By their very nature artists are visionaries blessed with an innate ability to create something out of nothing. Time and time again some of New York City’s most industrialized areas have seen rebirth as residential enclaves courtesy of these imaginative souls. Examples of such artist-led gentrification abound - think SoHo, Chelsea, and Williamsburg, to name a few. So it should come as no surprise that it was two artists who came to the rescue of this former ink and brush factory located at 459 Carroll Street in Carroll Gardens and gave it new life as a practical-yet-cutting-edge home. Stripped to its core in 2006, the four-story manufacturing building built in 1888 was completely renovated into two distinct condominium residences, one of which is now on the market for $4.4 million.
From manufacturing-to-masterpiece right this way

Distinctive Homes

June 18, 2014

Jared Kushner and LIVWRK Make Plans to Buy a Gowanus Property, Possibly for Luxury Condos

By Diane Pham

Jared Kushner and LIVWRK could soon be making their way to Gowanus. According to The Real Deal, the pair are in contract to buy a 133,000-square-foot development site at 175-225 3rd Street, located right across the new 3rd and 3rd Whole Foods market and just around the corner from Lightstone Group’s 700-unit rental project at 363 Bond Street. Currently, the land has 600 feet of frontage and allows for commercial development of up to 300,000-square-feet, but sources say that one-million square feet of residential could be constructed if rezoned.
More details here

New Developments

June 4, 2014

A Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On: Is the City’s Development Leading to Its Destruction?

By Andrew Cotto

I sat under a canopy of blue sky on the elevated platform of the Sutter Avenue stop in Brownsville, Brooklyn. I like elevated subway stations because they’re, you know, elevated as opposed to that subterranean scene that transpires underground. What I wasn’t liking so much that particular day, high above the busy avenue, was the way the platform slightly vibrated with each passing vehicle below. It was somewhat unsettling. And then the ground really started to shake, so much so that I looked to the distance to see if Godzilla bore down on Brooklyn, smashing cars and pounding through buildings, breathing fire and squawking that awful squawk. But it was only the 3 Train rattling in from East New York. The platform continued to shake more and more until the train, thankfully, came to a stop. I got on board, but I wasn’t all that happy about it. And then I started to think about my dog.
Andrew, on cue from his dog, questions the physical stability of NYC

10 New York Neighborhoods for Artists Now

Update: Check out our 2017 edition for the latest!

May 20, 2014

10 New York Neighborhoods for Artists Now

By Dana Schulz

It’s become all too common in New York City — artists move into a neighborhood, make it trendy and culturally vibrant, and then are forced out by rising rents. It happened in Greenwich Village, Soho, the East Village, DUMBO, and Williamsburg. Do not be disheartened, though, there are still plenty of artist enclaves with thriving creative communities. Ahead are our ten current frontrunners — some may surprise you!
Where the artists are flocking