Gowanus: "Meat" in "Awesome Neighborhood Sandwich"

The back part of today's Metro--well, an advertising section--has an amusing Q&A about Gowanus called "Canal Days, Gowanus, Brooklyn: The meat in an awesome neighborhood sandwich." Quite the headline, that.

In any case, it's an interview with Tammy B. Shaw who's the co-owner of Brenton Realty. We'll include a bit of it, because it's only in the print edition, not on the website (as far as we can tell), with big thanks to the wonderful DumboNYC blog for sending it along.

Q: The neighborhood’s boundaries are kind of hard to define. How do you?

A: How do I define Gowanus? Fourth Avenue on the Park Slope side, and Hoyt on the other side. It is kind of hard to define, but on the Park Slope side it’s Fourth Avenue.

Q: The neighborhood has gone through a fairly big explosion. Has it peaked yet?

A: I don’t think it’s peaked. I think it’s still growing. It varies block to block. On the mixed-use blocks, I’d say there is still room for growth. When you have a neighborhood that is surrounded on both sides by outstanding, established neighborhoods like Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, it reaps the benefits. Over the years, walking and riding a bike from Park Slope to Carroll Gardens have become common practice. It was not that way 10 years ago.

Q: Besides being bordered by two such attractive neighborhoods, has the neighborhood become so attractive itself?

A: I think you’re getting a lot of artists coming in who want to be near Park Slope and the cultural benefits there, but they probably can’t afford the high Park Slope prices.

Q: What kind of buildings, generally, are you selling?

A: One- to three-family homes and mixed-use — commercial space with two apartments. That
would be the most popular. They’re modest homes, but solid homes.

Q: What kind of price ranges are you talking about for those?

A: I’d say $750,000 to $1.1 million...The higher number would be for mixed-use. For a two-family home, I’d say $750,000 to $900,000. Although we just had one sell for $1 million. Are you going to ask me anything bout the canal? That’s my favorite part.

Q: Please, tell me about the canal.

A: The canal offers the potential for people in Park Slope and Carroll Gardens to anchor their boats, so they don’t have to drive to Long Island. They can walk to their boats. There are several boats right now that are parked in the Gowanus Canal. It’s wonderful. You’re out on open water in about two minutes.

We could poke fun at that last bit of hyperbole, but no way we're going to. We dig the boats in the Gowanus. We wish there were more. And, of course, we wish we had one and could walk to our dock in Meaty Gowanus.