Description
ISBRANDTSEN was the largest maritime shipping company from the United States to the Mediterranean from the 1950s to the 1970s. When the company filed for bankruptcy in the 1980s, they abandoned their main shipping pier in Gowanus Bay. I photographed the collapsed pier on my first canoe trip on the canal with Owen Foote, who would go on to found the Gowanus Dredgers, and saw this incredible site in Gowanus Bay. By the time I took my next trip into the bay, it was gone. ©Mark D Phillips
Framed 13″ x 19″ InkPress Metallic Paper, FREE SHIPPING! Other sizes available on request
Displaying Gowanus Canal ISBRANDTSEN print (30″ by 40″) on a living room wall
Movers, Not Shakers! pop up Green Gallery hosted “Lost and Found in Brooklyn” by Mark D Phillips in October 2019 during the Gowanus Open Studios weekend.
The exhibit featured Phillips’ photographic collection of images in and around Brooklyn, of scenes that no longer exist, including his haunting image of “Satan in the Smoke.”
Brooklyn’s neighborhoods have changed radically in the three decades of Phillips’ photographic career. Gentrification turned abandoned buildings in DUMBO and Red Hook into luxury condominiums and mega stores. The trolleys disappeared from Red Hook, the Gowanus Canal became a Superfund site, and many of the ethnic lifestyles vanished.
In one of Phillips’ first photographs shot after moving to Brooklyn in 1989, taken from the Third Street Bridge over the Gowanus Canal next to Movers, Not Shakers, the World Trade Center can be seen peeking above a lumber yard with reflections of the open sky on the water’s surface. Luxury condos and new developments now line the left bank of the canal.
“The photography that Mark has captured over the years of the Gowanus Canal and surrounding areas is captivating, filled with images that create that sense of deja vu of looking back to Brooklyn’s past, and allows one to reflect on how much has changed here over the last 30 years. Our team is excited to create a space within our warehouse that will be a unique way to view our friend Mark’s photographs in a quickly disappearing industrial setting,“ said Mark Ehrhardt, owner of Movers, Not Shakers!.
