Here’s an excerpt from a new project “Gowanus Underworld” in collaboration with Amy Sohn, opening October 1st at Trestle Projects: For the project found objects along the waters are cast in concrete and displayed to conjure forgotten narratives of the neighborhood – going back 150 years – and audio recordings play monologues based on these tales.
And soon, off the drawbridge, we had our first glimpse of the Gowanus Canal, a filthy, dirty, turgid stream, clogged with scows and tugs and barges. The gray gates loomed just beyond: Simmons Dry-dock, 500 Hamilton Avenue. We entered the new world of the waterfront. Long slips with queer craft from the far corners of the earth: The Favorita from Siberian shores, the Santa Eulalia from the tropic south, the Dauntless from the reefs of the Caribbean, and the Iron King from the fishing banks of Newfoundland. Clustered at one end of a pier around the two cabin barges and the yacht were longshoremen, tug owners, and shipping masters. Some fifty of them swarmed over the decks and through the cabins on tours of inspection.We had our eye on a sixty-foot, forty-ton welding barge.
Dorothy Bennett, 26
518 Hamilton Avenue, Summer 1936
Impulsive