The Gowanus Lowlands: From Industrial Canal to New Civic Landscape

Building on decades of city, state, and federal planning efforts, the Gowanus Lowlands is a community-based vision for a restored public realm centered around Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal—a federal Superfund site and former marshland in a neighborhood recently rezoned for over 8,500 new housing units.

Anticipating a neighborhood in transition, the Gowanus Lowlands is an action plan for positive change. The plan guides the design of an ecologically resilient and socially robust park network along the canal, coordinating the actions of separate landowners into a cohesive waterfront park. Join team members from landscape architecture firm SCAPE, the Gowanus Canal Conservancy, and NYC Department of City Planning on a tour of recently completed public landscapes, and learn about the ecological future of the canal.