Guest speaker Joseph and the author is the book well known for its information of the Gowanus was very informative. He gave us critical points and views of the current Gowanus canal and how it was few hundred years back. I was intrigued by the vast knowledge that he possesses of the canal and was entertained by every second of his presentation. What caught my attention the most was how the Gowanus canal came to be and what it was used in the past. From the very beginning, the speaker gave us a brief historical lecture about the natives and what the land was like before it was used by the Europeans. I learned that the land which we know now as New York was once a smooth land with many marshes that many mistaken for swamps. Later as more Europeans arrived at the land which we now call the United States, the Europeans were at first negotiating and exchanging products with the indigenous. Europeans brought over slaves from the triangular trades and had the slaves dig up large mill banks which were used as a nature’s way of grinding flour and other sources of carbohydrates. People started producing all sorts of products such as oysters and used the canal waterway which they carved using their slaves as their source of transportation. The canal played an important role to have ships maneuver to different sections of the land in which was called New Amsterdam, which is now called New York City. The canal as we know it now is heavily polluted with all sorts of debris such as carbon deposits, feces, industrial by-products, bacteria, and much more. What I learned from the speaker of the pollution is that it was caused mainly by how the canals sewer systems were constructed back during the days of the industrial revolution. We concluded that people of the past were a lot more careless about the environment and lacked the technology to prevent such hastily flow of pollutants. One thing the speaker brought up was the restoration of the Gowanus canal, we went through many of the political obstacles which stagnated the restoration process of the canal. Since New York City is all about real estate and money, huge real estate owners around the Gowanus feared that the government might interfere with their assets. Overall, Joseph knew his information about the Gowanus extremely well and had us all entertained for the whole 2 an a half hour class.