For the series My Gowanus Souvenir, I traverse the Gowanus neighborhood near my home and revel in the diversity of the city be it elegant or decrepit. 

Like many parts of New York City, Gowanus has a dynamic history. It originated as a verdant landscape rich with marine life and home to the Lenape Native People. Later it became a strategic site during the Revolutionary War, a critical part of the city’s industrialization, a working class neighborhood, an enclave for artists, and recently, a home to affluent New Yorkers and upscale restaurants. Today, Gowanus appears weekly in the news, in articles focusing on environmental issues about the Gowanus Canal -- a notoriously polluted waterway and Superfund site -- and in reports about gentrification issues pitting long-time residents against real estate moguls over proposed new development plans. 

I’m captivated by the old signage, aging architecture and infrastructure, broken beer bottles, curtained windows, industrial tanks and wild plant life along the canal. These places and objects whisper stories to me of the individuals that make their lives here and those that came before them. Wedged between two of Brooklyn’s brownstone neighborhoods of Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, Gowanus is an anachronism. Its wide-open spaces dotted with low-scale residences and industrial warehouses give us a window into old New York that is fast disappearing. My goal is twofold: to create a record of a highly specific New York City neighborhood over a time of great change; and to celebrate the beauty that I see in the glittering of glass, the golden light over the canal, the patina of the peeling paint on the old industrial warehouses, and the unique character of this place and its environmental impact today.