The Gowanus Canal Community Advisory Group adopted the following resolution at its May, 2012 General Meeting:
The Gowanus has a unique and complex history: as part of the New York harbor estuary, as a pre-industrial tidal mill pond site, as a Revolutionary War battlefield and burial grounds, and as an important transportation route in our nation’s early industrial history. It is a cultural landscape of local and national significance.
The CAG urges the consideration of the neighborhood’s entire history in making decisions concerning the Gowanus clean-up process and that steps be taken to actively commemorate the past. Specifically, attention should be given to the historic bridges, bulkheads, and buildings that remain. The CAG asks that the historic design width of the canal, 100 feet, be maintained as the minimum width, and that the historic design height of bulkheads be held as a maximum height for bulkhead or shore-line changes.