New York Newsletter Dispatches from open studios events across town and the Tompkins Square Dog Halloween Parade.

October 20, 2026 — 7 min read

I generally spend a decent amount of time in Gowanus, but weaving through the neighborhood’s streets and buildings for Open Studios on Saturday really demonstrated how the stretch of water has shed its sardonic designation of “ Lavender Lake ” and turned into a bizarro landscape of glimmering apartment buildings. The canalside Whole Foods is one thing, but the “luxury” high-rises boasting an “iconic” view of the waterfront in its funky fluorescence are still a head-scratcher for me.

Now, I’m neither a chemist, an architect, nor a physician, but I’m willing to bet that everyone probably would have benefitted from waiting for water remediation and sewage overflow prevention efforts to be completed instead of developers speedrunning the area’s sublimation from a Superfund site with a petering industrial profile to a bunch of towers offering studio apartments starting…