Gowanus is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community Board 6. It is situated roughly between Red Hook and Carroll Gardens on the west and Park Slope on the east. Bounded by Butler Street to the north, the neighborhood runs alongside and surrounds the Gowanus Canal, ending with the Gowanus Expressway to the south where Hamilton Ave meets 17th street. Smith and Bond Street are generally considered the western boundaries, with Fourth Avenue as the eastern boundary.[citation needed] The neighborhood is marked by the elevated Smith-Ninth Street subway station.[citation needed]

The Gowanus area has been an active center of industrial and shipping activity since the 1860s. It is zoned for light to mid-level manufacturing (M1, M2, and M3).

Recently, residential developers have been hindered by the industrial zoning and the problems of the sewage overflow through the canal water, but there have been rumors of rezoning by the New York City Department of City Planning.

In 1636, Gowanus Bay was the site of the first settlement by Dutch farmers in what is now Brooklyn.

The water and much of the land along the banks of the Gowanus Canal have been severely polluted from a combination of CSO's (combined sewer outflows) along the canal designed to relieve sewage and storm water when the sewer treatment plant is overwhelmed as well as from decades of industrial use and extensive coal gas manufacturing during the late 19th century. The Gowanus Canal was also an alleged Mafia dumping ground.

The F, G, and R trains run through Gowanus. Bike routes cross the canal on the Union Street and 3rd Street bridges.

The Carrol Street bridge is the oldest of the four remaining retractable bridges in the country. It was built in 1889. In 2004 the US Army Corp recommended the Gowanus Canal and the land along the banks for the National Register of Historic Places. Several additional buildings are under consideration for landmarking. One already added to the NYC Landmarks registry is the New York and Long Island Coignet Stone Company building, one of the first precast concrete buildings, on the corner of 3rd Street and 3rd Avenue and the canal turning basin.[citation needed]

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