Police recovered the body of an elderly man discovered lying facedown on the rocky shore of Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal on Thursday. A passerby spotted the 69-year-old man unconscious on the banks of the famously polluted waterway near Nevins and Butler Sts. around 2:03 p.m., cops said. Medics pronounced the victim dead at the scene. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will determine the man’s cause of death. Police investigate after a body was found on the banks of the Gowanus Canal underneath the Hamilton Avenue Bridge in Brooklyn, New York City on Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News) Images captured by a Daily News photographer show the gray-haired victim lying facedown on the rocks well above the waterline with only his feet and calves below the surface of the canal. The Gowanus Canal is a 1.8-mile-long former industrial transportation route and the site of a $1.5 billion federal environmental cleanup started in 2020. A 2021 rezoning paved the way for extensive redevelopment of land surrounding the canal, including several buildings planned to reach up to 29 stories.