"Unlike many of the burgeoning brownstone revival districts of Brooklyn-Brooklyn Heights, to begin with, then Cobble Hill, then Boerum Hill, now Park Slope-the Carroll Gardens neighborhood (Carroll Park, two blocks away, provides the name) did not require a renaissance," proclaimed New York magazine on Dec. 31, 1974. "Since its first occupancy by Italian families, it has remained in single-family occupancy, by and large. An unrenovated house on President Street might be bought for about $50,000, if (and this is a very big if) one came on the market."

Today, the vestiges of this once almost wholly Italian neighborhood are in the social clubs, behind anonymous doors; restaurants like Sam's, at Court and Baltic; and Damian Hair Styling, the wood-paneled barber shop on Court near Third Place; and the Scotto Funeral Home, at Court and First Place, opened by Patsy and Rose Scotto in 1926. Now the funeral home is run by their son, Salvatore "Buddy" Scotto, a longtime fixture in the neighborhood political scene, who has for years allowed community groups and other political organizations to meet there. In January 2008, the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association announced it would be moving its meetings to nearby St. Mary's Church, partly because of Mr. Scotto's controversial stance on the rezoning of the Gowanus Canal area; Mr. Scotto was in favor, while many of the newer residents were opposed. (Still, as one former Brooklyn Paper reporter recalled, holding meetings at the funeral home was always pleasant because Mr. Scotto provided comfortable seating and free coffee.)

But Mr. Scotto's devotion to redeveloping the Gowanus Canal area is nothing new. In fact, as the New York Times noted in September 1969, the Carroll Gardens Association, as it was then called, led by Mr. Scotto, had in the previous year hired an architect to work on a redevelopment plan for the canal.

"Carroll Gardens is a new name for one of the oldest neighborhoods in Brooklyn," the Times reported. "Until five years ago the 60-block area of tree-lined streets and privately owned brownstones was usually considered part of the larger, predominantly Negro neighborhood of Red Hook."

And so a group of second- and third-generation Italian-Americans, led by Mr. Scotto, decided to rename their part of the neighborhood in 1964. There was already a Carroll Street stop on the old IND subway, and a Carroll Park, and so this group decided to start calling themselves the Carroll Gardens Association, and then the real estate brokers started using it, and then it stuck.

As Mrs. Agnes Bianco ("a blond mother of three boys") told the reporter: "A few years ago, when I tried to take a cab home from my sister's on Ocean Avenue, the driver would ask me where Third Place was and I would say Red Hook. Sometimes the driver would refuse to take me. Now I say Carroll Gardens and there's no problem."

But despite the name change, the neighborhood still had problems-and many of them were connected to the Gowanus Canal, the fetid body of water that Mr. Scotto would still be obsessed with 40 years later. "Look at this," Mr. Scotto told the Times back in 1969. "Here we are 30 minutes from the heart of Manhattan, and what do we have? A miserable, stinking parking lot."

And Mrs. Bianco added: "I could just see my kids enjoying the canal, playing around it, seeing fish instead of garbage in it. They'd come and stand with their mouths open if it's anything like the way I picture it."

But even back then, the plan for the canal's redevelopment was running into obstacles. For one, the area, which was zoned for manufacturing, provided 11,400 jobs. For another, the housing component of the plan, as envisioned by the neighborhood association, would be integrated public housing. "The possibility of an influx of nonwhites into the area worries many residents of this solidly white, working-class area. They are cautious about expressing themselves on racial issues. They say, instead, that the neighborhood is too small to support a high school, or that they fear a 'wild crowd' in the area."

Previously: Sweet Georgia Brown, Of Arthur's Tavern