Buiso, Gary. “Dirty Lowe’s Down! Toxin Hunters Go to Work Near Giant Hardware Store.” The Brooklyn Paper. 23 March 2010. Web. 13 Oct. 2012. http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/33/13/33_13_sb_gowanus_lowes_site.html
The author, a writer for the The Brooklyn Paper (a local NYC paper that prints articles regarding neighborhood new in Brooklyn), delves into the clean up surrounding a specific property along the Gowanus – a Lowe’s and a Pathmark that still have pollutants on their land, under the soil. Lowe’s had already remediated their sites and opened in 2004, but are now being held to re-testing and doing a second clean-up. National Grid will pay the price tag because they are the “corporate parent” of Brooklyn Union Gas, which operated on the site in the early 1900s and contributed to the contamination.
As we are changing our Gowanus tour to walk along more of the water, we might want to include some information about the different properties being developed along the canal and the financial situations behind them – facts and figures that don’t present themselves just by looking at the site. It also points the controversial direction the Gowanus development could take – more big corporations instead of green spaces.
It makes sense to include a “Lowe’s stop” since there are many issues around that site, too.