You better be sitting down when you see what the Toll Brothers, a huge real estate development firm, have in mind. Last week at a Community Board 6 meeting in Carroll Gardens, they revealed the full scope of their plans to condo-ize a large swath of the Gowanus area.

This is not my Gowanus.

Those of us who love the historic, industrial quality of the Gowanus always hoped that the factory buildings might be preserved and renovated for reuse as housing, artist space and retail. We hoped that the Gowanus would be cleaned for canoeing and other waterfront activities. That the whole thing be approached in much the same preservationist spirit as the Highline.

This is New York history and we want to keep it this way.

Ask Hepcat. He’s not kidding when he talks about the light in the Gowanus being like Venice.

The Gowanus is a special New York place that ought to be preserved very carefully so that people can enjoy the history in our midst: the Carroll Street Bridge, the old factory buildings, even the smelly Gowanus Canal.

There’s history in them there hills and I don’t want the Toll Brothers to mess with it.