Carroll Gardens Diary reports on sharks in the Gowanus Canal back in the day as told in John Waldman’s Heartbeats in the Muck:
Cool. So sharks were all over the harbor. But what about the Gowanus Canal?:
“Without doubt the most noteworthy biological event within the canal’s industrial history was the appearance of a large shark in 1950. Ali showed me a scrapbook about the canal that included a photograph of the shark from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Fittingly, it is a dismal scene – policemens bullets spray the water near the creature as hundreds of people watch along the bulkheads.”
This is great for so many reasons. Could you imagine the hysteria that abounded in the 1950s at sharks? So misunderstood, as they continue to be to this day, that the police thought it would be a public hazard to keep the fish alive?
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