Brooklyn Hotels Bullish on the Gowanus

The Brooklyn Paper has the goods on the Park Slope hotels near the better-than-ever but still dirty Gowanus Canal. Because land in this industrially zoned area is relatively cheap, it's a good place for hotels to take advantage of increased tourist demand for Brooklyn, especially for the restaurants hot zones of Smith Street and 5th Avenue. But if you're inclined to head here for a room, don't expect that your immediate surroundings will be the gracious brownstones and parks elsewhere in the Slope. Fourth Avenue's Hotel Le Bleu, may very well be not "just a hotel, [but] a haven," as its web site has it. But it shares its block with a taxi garage, dialysis clinic, and an auto parts store and repair center. Rooms at this boutique hotel, as well as a Holiday Inn nearby, hover around $230 a night.