GOWANUS — An abandoned offshoot of the Gowanus Canal that's been buried under 20 feet of dirt for decades will be excavated and filled with water again, and archeologists may uncover shipwrecks, Revolutionary War
GOWANUS — An abandoned offshoot of the Gowanus Canal that's been buried under 20 feet of dirt for decades will be excavated and filled with water again, and archeologists may uncover shipwrecks, Revolutionary War artifacts and human remains in the process, federal officials said Tuesday.
Representatives with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency revealed plans to restore the long dormant First Street Basin at a Tuesday night meeting of the Gowanus Canal community advisory group.
The site could yield a trove of artifacts such as turn-of-the-century machine parts, pieces of barges, and foreign currency from old seafaring vessels — and given the canal's more recent history as a dumping ground for criminals both alive and dead, it's possible the site could hold guns and bodies, archeologists and historians said.
“It is totally plausible that there’s some kind of body buried there, with all the stories about mob activity there," said Joseph Alexiou, author of "Gowanus: Brooklyn's Curious Canal." "There was a body found chopped up in a suitcase just sitting by the canal one year. Who knows what kind of crime-related things you might find there. Maybe Al Capone's secret buried treasure is there."
On the other hand, Alexiou said, "It could be nothing. It could be filled in with mud and old cars."
The restoration of the First Street Basin is part of the EPA's Superfund cleanup of the polluted canal. The basin was once a branch off the main canal that ran behind the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Powerhouse — today known as the Batcave — between Carroll and Third streets. Restoring it will add 475 feet of waterway to the canal.
Bringing the basin back to its former watery glory will require removing 1,000 truckloads of contaminated dirt and other fill that has clogged the site for decades, EPA representatives said Tuesday.
The contents of the fill is a mystery, said EPA archeologist John Vetter. He'll monitor the excavation along with two archeologists hired by the city, which is responsible for completing the First Street Basin restoration under EPA's oversight.
Vetter said it's likely excavators will uncover shipwrecks at the site. Other discoveries