Will Tree Pits Make Gowanus Smell Less Like Shit?

Photo via Gothamist

The Gowanus Canal smells like shit.  You know why?  Because whenever there's a light rain, it fills up with shit. And unless you can convince all of Park Slope to refrain from eating Indian food when it rains, this problem is not going away anytime soon.

The city has come up with a brilliant plan to make it smell better, though. They've constructed these drainage ditches along 4th Avenue that have been topped with a bunch of poo-eating plants or something, so that the raw sewage doesn't get dumped in the canal...

...or in the basement of a local dance studio.  The Brooklyn Paper talked to Diane Jacobowitz of Dancewave dance studio, which has flooded with canal water twice in the past year. She told them (I'm paraphrasing, here) that she doesn't really think that these plants are going to be able to suck up all that turd water. She might not be sold on the solution, but for her sake, I hope it works.  I can't bear the thought of a bunch of little girls dancing around in poop.  I've never been there, but Dancewave looks like a really cool dance studio -- much better than the studio they feature on Dance Moms. Do you guys watch that show?  Those women are fucking insane! Oh, man.  Now I've got my hopes up for a very special episode of Dance Moms where the Abby Miller Dance Studio fills up with diarrhea and piss and all of the moms get hepatitis. That would be awesome television. Am I right?

Anyway, whether it works or not, there will be trees and shrubs planted in the drainage ditches. So even if it still smells like shit, at least it'll look nice.