Gowanus Souvenir Shop To Close Its Doors At The End Of The Month To Embark On "Next New Adventure"

Owner Ute Zimmermann in front of her Gowanus Souvenir Shop on Union Street 

The Gowanus Souvenir Shop just announced that it will close its doors at 567 Union Street at the end of January to concentrate on its "next big adventure."
Thankfully, the closing of the store does not mean the end to the wonderful, quirky Gowanus merchandise created by the Souvenir Shop. The owners are going to continue to make their wares available online and will partner with other retailers.

The announcement by owner Ute Zimmerman reads:
After four wonderful years of running a storefront, the Gowanus Souvenir Shop is closing its shop doors January 31.
Starting next month we will concentrate exclusively on concocting new Gowanus Souvenir Editions, online sales, getting our products into other stores, and partnering with local organizations on Gowanusy projects.

When we first came up with the idea of the Gowanus Souvenir Shop it was going to be a four-month project. Over four amazing YEARS later we cannot begin to express how much we enjoyed everybody who wandered into our shop, laughed at our jokes, told us their Gowanus stories, sat on our bench, and stuck their head (or their pets) through our faceboard.

We know you are sad, but don't fret! You can still get your Gowanus Fix without getting Gonorrhea. Here's how:
1. Come by the shop before January 31. We have lots of stuff on sale and a very special gift for purchases over $50.

2. Shop at From Here to Sunday which is taking over our shop location and will continue to sell many of your favorite Gowanus Souvenirs!
Please support them and Even Keel!

3. Shop online at gowanussouvenir.com

4. Find Gowanus Souvenirs at a growing number of wonderful local shops, including:
Brooklyn Museum Gift Shop, and  Artists & Craftsman (Interested in stocking us? Get in touch! shop@gowanussouvenir.com)

5. Follow us on Instagram to get the latest news.

Still can't find what you are looking for?
Email us and we will let you know where to find everything else.

Continued good luck, Ute! We will miss the shop but are excited to hear more about your new adventures Read more

Gowanus Souvenir Shop To Host Launch Party For Its Very Cool Gowanus Manufacturing Calendar 2020

photos courtesy of Miska Draskoczy

The Gowanus Souvenir Shop at 567 Union Street between Nevins Street & Third Avenue continues to be a great place to shop for witty art, jewelry, t-shirts, decorative items and books related to everyone's favorite Superfund site.

This Saturday, Oct. 19, from 4-7 PM, as part of Gowanus Open Studios, the Souvenir shop will be hosting a launch party for the  Gowanus Manufacturing Calendar 2020, which featuring twelve family- owned businesses in Gowanus. Beautifully photographed by local resident and Gowanus documentarian Miska Draskoczy, showcasing "the vibrancy of Manufacturing in Gowanus."

From Gowanus Souvenir Shop:
The Gowanus Souvenir Shop is delighted to announce the publication of its newest Gowanus Souvenir Edition, the Gowanus Manufacturing Calendar 2020, which showcases the continued vibrancy of manufacturing in Gowanus. The 12 local businesses included are a representative cross section of the divers industries active in Gowanus and the goods they produce for the local, national and international market, including caskets, ironwork, wood working, metal fabrication, lettuce, ceramics, beauty products, stone work, plaster of paris, plumbing, cardboard recycling, and printing. The calendar also focuses on the people and often multigenerational families that run and work at these businesses. Some companies, like the casket company, have been here for three generations already, others moved to the area as recently as 2019, demonstrating that the area remains important for New York- based manufacturing businesses. 

Companies featured are: South Brooklyn Casket Company, Architectural Grille, US Recycling, AJ Ironworks, FullBleed Printing, The New Motor, Stephen Antonson, Claireware Pottery, Even Keel, Marble Onyx Granite & Terrazzo, Go Greener Plumbing, and Gotham Greens.

The calendar costs $24.

Many of the business owners featured will attend the launch party, so come out and help celebrate them.

The calendar costs $24 and can be pre-order now by clicking here.

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All You Need For A Superfun(d) Holiday Can Be Found At The Gowanus Souvenir Shop

Owner Ute Zimmermann in front of her Gowanus Souvenir Shop on Union Street

The Gowanus Souvenir Shop has to be one of the coolest shops in Brooklyn.  It is filled with witty art, jewelry, t-shirts, decorative items and books, all related to everyone's favorite Superfund site.
Why would you shop for gifts anywhere else? My personal favorite, Joseph Alexiou's Gowanus: Brooklyn's Curious Canal, which retraces the waterway's extraordinary history.

From the Gowanus Souvenir Shop:
GOWANUS IS SUPERFUN GIFTING

Three ways to get your Gowanus on this holiday season!
1. Visit the shop
2. Shop online (*check here for delivery cut off dates)
3. Come find it at local holiday markets here

Gowanus Souvenir Shop

567 Union Street

between Nevins & Third

Holiday Hours

Tuesdays-Sundays 10-6 

Monday, Dec. 24 10–4 Open

Dec. 25–Jan 1 Closed

Back open to regular hours: Wednesday, Jan. 2

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Gowanus Souvenir Shop Presents "Ride", An Exhibit Of Debra Pearlman's Work

 (photo credit: Gowanus Souvenir Shop)

A House Called Air, 2013, Acrylic, photographic silkscreen, glass beads on canvas

 by Debra Pearlman

The Gowanus Souvenir Shop  not only sells some very cool items that "riff on the many facets of the canal’s mystifying and troubling yet often humorous and darkly fascinating history", it also serves as a gallery for local artists. Tonight, the Shop is hosting its first opening exhibit of the season, which will feature the work of artist Debra Pearlman.  The opening is tonight.

Read on:

Gowanus Souvenir Shop exhibits work by Debra Pearlman

The Gowanus Souvenir Shop is please to present work by the artist Debra Pearlman. The exhibition is entitled “Ride” and runs from Sept. 15 through Oct. 2. An opening reception will be held Sept. 15, 6-8 pm
A photo is like a souvenir—a memory, a memento of a brief moment in time. There’s an opportunity to present many responses to this initial photograph: an informal setting and selection of work offers the viewer the chance to experience and reflect on this process. 

Titled RIDE, this installation evokes movement or the implied motion of play, and the objects that support these many activities, all presented here together. Painting, photographs, works on paper, some with text, swings, and a bungee jump caught mid-air in all of these media, invite one to think about play, joy, fear, and anxiety of momentarily casting gravity aside.

Debra Pearlman is a multimedia artist who lives and works in Brooklyn and has shown in New York and internationally, including major installations in

Leipzig, Germany, and Lodz and Krakow, Poland. Her work is included in collections of MoMA, the Brooklyn Museum, The Walker Art Center, New York Public Library, the Museum Sztuki, Krakow, and others, and in private collections including that of Francis Greenberger and the Hiram Moody and Sarah Giraud collection. Her awards include a named residency at the Corporation at Yaddo, The Peter Reed Foundation, Dieu Donne, The Foundation for Contemporary Art and the government of Saxony. www.debrapearlman.net.
The exhibition is part of the Artslope Festival.

The Gowanus Souvenir Shop is located at 567 Union Street between Nevins Street and Third Avenue in Brooklyn

 

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'Twice Upon A Time": A Puppet Show At Gowanus Souvenir Shop

This coming Saturday, May 7th, take your kids to Gowanus Souvenir Shop for a very special puppet show that is sure to delight them. The performance will go from 10:30 am to 12 pm and tickets are $15.
Gowanus Souvenir Shop is located at 543 Union Street.
Here is more on the show:

Twice upon A Time is the enchanting tale of Anushka, a young girl, who simply can't get to sleep one moon-lit night. As her mother gets more and more angry and she gets more and more desperate, her story books spring magically, musically to life, coming to her rescue. Twice Upon a Time, which premiered in London in 2010 includes musical versions of favorites such as The Hungry Caterpillar, Where The Wild Things Are, Goodnight Moon and Goodnight Gorilla. With live cello, guitar, accordion and flute with Madeline Solomon.

The show will be followed by a craft activity where the children make a Special Mother's Day Puppet!

Reserve your tickets here.

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One Canal View: Exhibit Of Works By Artist Joel Beck At Brooklyn Souvenir Shop

Artist Joel Beck with partner Ute Zimmermann

This Saturday, April 16, from 5 to 7 pm, the Gowanus Souvenir Shop will be hosting "One Canal View", an exhibit of new paintings by artist Joel Beck.

The exhibit will run through Sunday, May 7th, 2016.

Gowanus Souvenir Shop is located at 543 Union Street in Gowanus.

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"Gowanus: The Past and Future of Brooklyn's Curious Canal": A Lecture By Joseph Alexiou At The Gowanus Souvenir Shop

Joseph Alexiou, author of the recently published Gowanus: Brooklyn's Curious Canal, will be talking about the canal's past and future this coming Thursday, March 17, from 7pm to 8:30pm.
The lecture is being held at the Gowanus Souvenir Shop, located at 543 Union Street and is being hosted in partnership with Brooklyn Brainery.

Alexiou possesses an  encyclopedic knowledge of the Gowanus Canal.  He is an engaging speaker who brings the history of the neighborhood alive with amazing wit and insight.

Don't miss this event. It's bound to be a fascinating evening.

The cost of the class is $15. Your ticket includes a glass of wine

Gowanus: The Past and Future of Brooklyn's Curious Canal

Thursday, March 17, 7:00-8:30pm

at the Gowanus Souvenir Shop

 543 Union Street in Gowanus

Lying at the epicenter of one of Brooklyn's most rapidly gentrifying (and expensive) neighborhoods is a toxic waste site and open sewer: That's right, it's the Gowanus Canal.

This waterway is mostly famous for its stench and as a repository for dead bodies, but did you know that the Gowanus's story begins before Brooklyn was its own city, or colonization itself.

While raw sewage still flows into it today (thank the limited foresight of 19th-century urban planning!), did you know that Gowanus hosted beds of delicious and locally-sourced foot-long oysters? Or even though toxic coal tar now lines its floor, much of the building materials that made brownstone Brooklyn passed through its waters.

This class is for anyone who’s read about the Gowanus but wants to know more abouthow it got there, how it got so polluted, and what is next for this post-industrial neighborhood poised at the brink of yet another evolution.

Sign up for the lecture here.

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Greetings From Gowanus! New Souvenir Shop Pays Homage To The Canal's Darkly Fascinating And Often Humorous History

 

Partners Joel Beck and Ute Zimmermann

If there was a Museum of the Gowanus, the newly opened Gowanus Souvenir Shop on Nevins Street, would certainly be worthy of calling itself its gift store

The shop offers a wonderful mix of quirky souvenirs, decorative items made by local craftspeople, and works by Gowanus artists. Displayed throughout are historic Gowanus artifacts, maps and books related to the canal.

The inspiration for the store came to owners Joel Beck and Ute Zimmerman after visited small town museum shops during a recent trip down the East Coast. Why not apply the idea to the Gowanus Canal and pay tribute to its "mystifying and troubling yet often humorous and darkly fascinating history?"

Indeed, many of the souvenirs in the shop reflect a sense of humor. One has to love the glass bottles marked 'emboli', 'petrol' or 'arsenic', or the coffee cups ripping 'some asshole developer'

Certainly the setting for the store could not be more reflective of Gowanus' past. Housed steps away from the canal in the space occupied by the former Proteus Gowanus at the historic former Old Box Factory, it is accessible through a long, narrow alleyway with overhanging fire escapes on Nevins Street.

"The lure of the Gowanus Canal is very interesting,' Beck told me on a recent visit. "It is outlandishly popular for a sewer." Indeed.

So whether tourist or local resident, you will want to stop by and check out the Gowanus Souvenir Shop.  Beck and Zimmerman will be hosting a Grand Opening Party for the shop this Friday, November 20, from 3 to 8 pm.  So mark your calendar and check out the souvenir shop.

Gowanus Souvenir Shop

543 Union Street

Entrance on Nevins Street, down the alleyway

Brooklyn, NY 11215

Open:

Thursday–Friday: 3–7 pm

Saturday–Sunday: 11–7 pm

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