Man Reading by the Gowanus Canal with the Williamsburg Savings Bank Tower - Gowanus, Brooklyn
Landscape photograph of a man reading by the Gowanus Canal at sunset. Brilliantly lit in the background, the Williamsburg Bank tower glows against a clear sky. Once one a great engines of Brooklyn’s industrial and commerce economy, the bank was taken over by Republic Bank and then HSBC.
In the last century, one of the most polluted waterways in the country, the Gowanus Canal has been much improved from the days where it was frequently Day-Glo colored from chemicals being dumped from the industries that lined its banks. On the right of the photograph, calmly reading in late afternoon by a significantly cleaner Gowanus, the man symbolizes a changed vision of the role that Brooklyn now plays in the life of New York City.