Gowanus Apartments, Condos and Real Estate

Gowanus was home to many Italian dockworkers during the height of the shipping industry. The canal initially had a pump to flush dirty shipping water out; however, the pump broke in 1969. For three decades soil, sewage and pollution backed up into the canal, making it one of the country's most contaminated bodies of water and eventually earning it the moniker "Lavender Lake." The toxic canal, which used to be a prime clam-digging spot before the industrial age, was also rumored to be the mafia's dumping grounds.