Disappearing Gowanus - A series of paintings inspired by the Gowanus Canal area

Soon I will look back with nostalgia on the last 20 years of painting scenes around the Gowanus Canal, where Commerce and Industry dominated for over a century. My paintings depict the unique attractions the Canal has had for me: low, old buildings giving way to big skies, often with dramatic cloud formations reflected in the fetid waters of the polluted Canal; old-school utilitarian architectural details that articulate structures; trees and shrubs sprouting where Nature has miraculously re-asserted itself; and an air of disarray and disuse; which result in wonderful, spontaneous arrangements of colors and shapes.

Gowanus Canal, 3rd Street Looking West, oil on canvas, 16” x 20”, 2021 (private collection)

The Disappearing Gowanus series has a “special” attribute: these paintings showcase views that already or in a few years will no longer exist due to the recent re-zoning of a large portion of Gowanus. It has been truly astonishing how rapidly buildings are disappearing.

Disappearing Gowanus series, oil on cradled maple panels, 12” x 12” each (in private collections, except top right, “Union Street Construction Site.”)

[Of the four views above, only one - the green building by the Canal, remains intact as of December 2022.]

Most of the neighborhood within a block or two of my studio will soon be filled with large, shiny, high-rise apartment buildings built by developers who envision a cleaned-up waterfront with orderly promenades. The skyline will bristle with towers and will shade any remaining low-rise buildings and the sidewalks. My Gowanus - the beauty of its expansive skies, rag-tag structures, random vegetation - will be gone.

Gowanus Canal Dredging, oil on canvas, 12” x 16”, 2022