The title scene of of the new documentary “Gowanus Current,” which debuted at Cobble Hill Cinemas last week.
By JACK DELANEY | jdelaney@queensledger.com
It was 2013 — the word “selfie” was freshly added to the dictionary, a new pope was being named, and gay marriage had yet to be legalized — when Jamie Courville and Chris Reynolds first realized something unsettling.
“We lived in Gowanus, and we were both film people by profession,” Courville recalled. “We [were] at Douglas and Third, and there was a residential building at the end of the block that was demolished, and we couldn’t remember what it was. And then you notice that you can’t remember a lot.”
So that year, the couple began capturing footage of a neighborhood in flux. The force driving many of the changes — evidenced by the constant clang of construction — was the proposed rezoning of Gowanus, which spawned a frenzy of real estate speculation while pitching residents into a heated battle over plans to add roughly 9,000 units of housing across an unprecedented 82 blocks, 20 more than at Hudson Yards. They were there, cameras in hand, when remediation began on the notoriously polluted Gowanus Canal, and watched as the industrial wasteland, once billed as a scrappy haven for artists, gradually transformed.
A decade later, Courville and Reynolds were ready to release the product of those observations: a documentary called “Gowanus Current,” which premiered at Cobble Hill Cinemas on April 2 to a sold-out crowd.
Sitting down for coffee two weeks before the grand debut, the duo said they were excited yet also anxious about the screening — in part because the seats would largely be filled by the movie’s own characters, locals with strong opinions about the rezoning and how events unfolded. In making the film, they had chosen to eschew interviews, letting the footage speak for itself rather than advancing an overarching argument. How would that choice go over?
In short: very well. For this reporter, who grew up two blocks from the canal, part of the movie’s draw was the opportunity to revisit the contentious history of the 2021 rezoning, at a time when similar dynamics are shaping the proposed redevelopment of the Brooklyn Marine Terminal in Red Hook.
But as the lights dimmed and the screen filled with long, slow shots of places now gone or unrecognizable, the power of simply bearing witness became clear. Based on post-screening conversations with fellow theatergoers, many Carroll Gardens and Gowanus locals felt similarly: the opening scenes — a clump of people protesting to save the now-dismantled Kentile Floors sign, or construction workers going about their jobs — could potentially seem mundane to residents of other neighborhoods. For this crowd, however, they were magical.
After the screening, Xochitl Gonzalez led a Q&A with “Gowanus Current” co-creators Jamie Courville and Chris Reynolds.
“I lived at Evans and Wyckoff for about four years while all this was happening,” one attendee said later. “I’d completely forgotten that entire stretch of Nevins between Butler and Union, basically. I didn’t realize how emotionally it would affect me just to see all that again. It was like I’d gone into a memory box.”
After the credits rolled, Courville and Reynolds were joined by Xochitl Gonzalez, a staff writer at the Atlantic, for a Q&A. In answering one of Gonzalez’s questions, Reynolds also highlighted the subjective aspect of rezonings. “One thing that’s left out of the discussion, whether you’re in favor of building more or you’re opposed to it, is the emotional effect of seeing your neighborhood go away,” he said. “You can be in favor of all this building and still be sorry at what has to go away to make room for it.”
Accordingly, while “Gowanus Current” does serve as a good primer for viewers who aren’t familiar with the neighborhood’s political history, the filmmakers prioritized immersion. “It’s not important to know the title of this person, or what this meeting is exactly about,” argued Reynolds. “The important thing is, where’s the power? What are the community’s options, and how does it feel to participate?”
After Gonzalez delved into the techniques employed by Courville and Reynolds in filming the documentary, she broached the broader context of the Gowanus rezoning. “Which of the promises that were given to the neighborhood have come to pass?” she asked. “And what are people still waiting on?”
At that point, Pandora’s Box flew open. “Public Place is, I hear, behind schedule,” started Reynolds, referring to the only fully affordable housing development that was included in the rezoning, before a voice from the back of the theater rang out: “Not happening!” That prompted a response from Andrea Parker, executive director of the Gowanus Canal Conservancy and one of the key brokers of the plan, who said that remediation of the site — which sits atop a 150-foot-deep pocket of coal tar — is underway.
One woman spoke about the continuing pollution in the canal, and lamented the size of the nearby condos: “Last night, there was a reflection in the 24-story building across the street of the moon,” she said. “It was the first time in two years that I had seen the moon over the canal, and it was just a reflection.”
“Every day we look out and see cranes for the development that’s going up,” a man echoed. “That’s the second new [building] that’s going to block out all of the sunlight, kill all my plants completely.”
Tensions flared when Parker then defended the decision-making that led to market-rate residential towers being green-lit in exchange for systemic repairs of NYCHA’s Gowanus Houses. “When filming started, the neighborhood was not yet gentrified,” she said. “Gentrification happened along the way. It was not a result of the rezoning. It was a result of being sandwiched between Carroll Gardens and Park Slope, well connected with transit.”
A view of the Gowanus Canal from the Third Street Bridge, circa 2025.
“There was never a right answer to what should happen in Gowanus,” continued Parker. “There are very strong feelings and opinions and different ways of living, and we try to work together to figure out compromises.”
Parker’s assurances triggered a rebuttal from poet and Gowanus Dredgers veteran Brad Vogel, in turn, who shot back that the repairs should never have been tied to the rezoning, but should have been carried out by the city years ago. “You forced people to think that if they were against the rezoning, they were against public housing,” he said, to a smattering of applause.
Michael Higgins Jr., a former member of Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice (GNCJ), backed Parker. “On the one hand, you could say that it wasn’t bad to connect funding for public housing to this rezoning,” he replied. But he noted that “there wasn’t much effort to do that before this process.”
“It’s fine to be cynical and unhappy with the way this [rezoning] is,” he added. “I don’t think it’s okay to fight for the perfect, push away the good, and get nothing, because that’s what happened in Gowanus for many years.”
Ultimately, these debates may be forgotten, as locals age or move away. In its own way — through languid shots of the churning water, brief glimpses of community meeting skirmishes, and a visual record of the built environment — “Gowanus Current” is an attempt to resist that entropy, stirring memories and fostering discussions. For Gonzalez, that effect was especially potent in a good, old-fashioned movie theater.
“It’s not just the scale. It’s being with people, and feeling what people are feeling around you,” Gonzalez said. “I found it beautiful at home, but what I felt in the theater was [that] I was given contemplative space.”
If you missed the last screening, you can watch “Gowanus Current” when it shows again at Cobble Hill Cinemas at 7:30 pm on Wednesday, April 23rd.
