She had to ask directions from a police officer to get to Gowanus in the summer of 1936, but once she arrived, Dorothy A. Bennett settled right in.
Bennett, then a 20-something assistant curator at the Hayden Planetarium, bought a barge at a public auction for $160 and spent the next few months on the noxious canal restoring the 60-foot vessel with the help of two friends.
Also pitching in on the fix-it project were the "junkies, drunks, and captains they met on the canal," according to a recent profile of the multi-talented Bennett in JSTOR Daily by Park Slope novelist Amy Sohn.
"On the Gowanus, the women were outsiders in what was then a dangerous neighborhood," Sohn writes. "As Bennett wrote in her 1940 book, ‘Sold to the Ladies! or The Incredible but True Adventures of Three Girls on a Barge,’ ‘Gowanus Canal … is the most notorious section of the New York harbor … a favorite hangout of longshoremen, prisoners on parole, and pirates.'"
A photo of the Gowanus Canal from approximately 1930, looking north from the Hamilton Avenue bridge. Source: NYPL Digital Collection
While the longshoreman and pirates are scarce these days, ex-cons still frequent Gowanus to visit the parole center that opened to the dismay of some residents in 2015.
Bennett and her pals made friends with the locals, but the next year they decided to tow the barge, called the Barnacle, to the cleaner waters of the Long Island Sound.
Bennett's own journey through life was a remarkable one, and Sohn notes that the barge adventure was just one of many for Bennett, "whose careers would include author, astronomer, children’s book editor, publisher, and anthropologist."
She gave radio addresses about astronomy, mounted an expedition to Peru to witness a solar eclipse, and worked as the editor of Golden Books, the Simon & Schuster imprint that published "The Poky Little Puppy" and other childhood classics.
"A fearless woman ahead of her time, she had an enduring wonder about the natural world and its cultures," Sohn wrote. "She also had a great spirit of fun and a unique ability to persuade friends and colleagues to come along on her wild and wholly impractical excursions."
