538 4th Avenue #2

Once a bustling place of industry, Gowanus has become a haven for artists of all kinds. Surrounded by Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, and Red Hook, Gowanus is an eclectic mix of trendy, posh, and grunge that's hard to find anywhere else in the city.

Gowanus, both the neighborhood and the canal that cuts through it, gets its name from a Carnarsee leader named Gauwane. Gowanus was the first settlement of the Dutch colony of New Netherlands, and was used as farmland as well as gristmills powered by the canal.

By the mid 1800's, Gowanus was a place of industry, sporting many factories and shipping services. This heavily polluted the canal, and gave Gowanus a less than desirable reputation for decades. After World War II, many of the factories and businesses left the neighborhood, and Gowanus fell into ruin.

Around the 1980's, the EPA allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up the canal, which has gone rather well. This clean up project made…

Gowanus Apartments, 11215 Apartments