'Sweet Spot' With Mike Sugerman: 'Bring The Bubbly' To Gowanus Canal?
"Sweet Spot," by Mike Sugerman
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) -- Oh the Gowanus Canal.
"What lives in the Gowanus is the most toxic bath of chemicals that you can imagine," Dr. Robert Glatter, of Lenox Hill Hospital, says.
The water is what legends are made of -- not good ones.
"It's a Superfund site. I believe it's one of the dirtiest bodies of water in an urban area in America?" Anya Chantel, of Brooklyn, says.
Yes it is.
That's why Chantel came down with her camera to take a picture -- not of the water, but of the billboard that rises above the toxic stew advertising Smart Water.
"It's pretty stupid," she says. "Or not very smart."
The big bottle on the billboard is pictured next to the phrase "bring the bubbly."
"Maybe they're talking about the frothy water in the Gowanus. That could be it," one passerby suggests.
Probably not.
There happens to be a Whole Foods market across the canal from the sign, and that's the audience the company is trying to appeal to.
"Sparking water next to the Gowanus just made me think of like a sea monster cresting for air," Chantel says.
It may be a good advertising move decided upon in corporate offices, since thousands of people going into Whole Foods every day see the sign.
But a little bit of local knowledge may have made them think twice.