Low office rents turning Gowanus into hot start-up destination

Growing number of small businesses setting up shop in industrial Brooklyn neighborhood

Gowanus Canal (Credit: Madeline Stone for Business Insider)
Gowanus Canal (Credit: Madeline Stone for Business Insider)

Gowanus, the southwestern Brooklyn neighborhood named for the toxic canal that snakes its way through it, doesn’t sound like a hot destination. But this neighborhood is thriving — small businesses, artists, and tech startups are moving into the area in droves, taking advantage of the neighborhood’s relatively low office rents and fundamentally changing its character.

Genius, a website that annotates music lyrics, literature, and news, made headlines in July when it announced the team would be moving to an extensively renovated warehouse building in Gowanus.

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Could this industrial neighborhood, currently undergoing a Superfund cleanup, be the next frontier for New York City tech companies? We headed to Brooklyn to find out.

Click here to tour Gowanus »