April 18, 2007
Whale watching from the Home Depot parking lot
 Just got back from watching the baby whale swimming in the Gowanus. The best public viewing spot (at least for the past two hours,) has been from the upstairs parking lot at Home Depot at 550 Hamilton Ave, map.
The baleen whale possibly got lost as a result of the record-breaking Nor'easter that hit the region on Sunday. Even on Tuesday the waters were still disrupted to the point they contributed to a Staten Island Ferry accident that hurt six passengers.
This morning, the whale surfaced every few minutes along a stretch lined with a city asphalt plant, the back of Home Depot and a Hess oil storage facility. Workers on the nearby Hamilton Avenue Bridge said they'd glimpsed the whale throughout the morning, but it got no closer than 200 yards to the bridge itself (whether the water turns much muckier.)
"This is the worst of the worst of the worst of New York," city bridge inspector Willie Cabezas said of the water in the Gowanus. "You don't want a whale swimming in that," he said, pointing to the oil-slicked water under the Hamilton bridge.
A NYPD helicopter briefly circled the area this morning and later, two NYPD boats showed up (but didn't appear to do anything other than observe) as the whale surfaced in different spots, sometimes hugging the shore, or circling in the middle of the basin, and making a few passes very close to the Vintage Food Corp. Cash & Carry & Halal - much to the delight of the workers who gathered near the water.
More pictures after the jump.
Here, the dark spot in the very center is the little whale. Way off in the distance is Staten Island and if you can make out the orange dots, they're Staten Island ferries docked at the St. George terminal.
No whale in the image below, but it shows how dirty the Gowanus gets. This is looking down into the water from the Hamilton Bridge, (with a reflection.)
A tugboat pushed this trash barge out of the mouth of the canal just a few minutes after the whale came up for air nearby. (The buildings in the distance are in Lower Manhattan.)
Here's the view from the bridge, looking out on the stretch where the whale was swimming this morning. On the left is the Hamilton asphalt plant, which not surprisingly stinks of asphalt.
This way, Sludgie.
More background on the Gowanus whale in Newsday and at the Gowanus Lounge blog.
Earlier: Baby whale 'Sludgie' swims into Brooklyn canal
April 18, 2007 11:24 AM in Cheap Stuff, Kids, Out of Manhattan, Sightsology
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