GOWANUS, BROOKLYN — A music producer who helped launch Whitney Houston's career and win Herbie Hancock a Grammy says one of his primary influences has been the toxic waters of the Gowanus Canal, which may or may not have turned him into a mutant.

Martin Bisi is a Brooklyn pioneer who brought avant garde hip hop and indie rock production into Gowanus in the 1980s and has been creating music there ever since. Much of the work he did with Bill Laswell and the BC Studio was inspired by the strangely melodic acoustics of his Gowanus basement, where Brian Eno, Sonic Youth and the Violent Femmes have all recorded music.

"Martin would you kind of let you go haywire in the basement, destroy whatever you wanted to," says The Dresden Dolls drummer Brian Viglione in the 2014 documentary about BC Studio. "I love the way drums sound down there." Bisi spoke about how the neighborhood beyond his basement walls has influenced his work as part of Patch's Local Legends series, where people who make New York City great discuss the neighborhoods they call home.

Last week we spoke with Broadway Star Liz Larsen about the Upper West Side and next week we'll talk to Attorney General Letitia James about her memories of Clinton Hill. Here's what Bisi has to say about Gowanus:

Describe Gowanus in three words:

On the edge.

How does Gowanus influence your work? Well, from 40 years a block downwind from the murky canal depths, and a certified brownfield in practically my backyard, and this industrial cocktail mixing with something, let's say, a little more organic, during high water, flowing through the buried primordial streams under my feet. At this point I'm a mutant, and it shows in the work. Everything is off, or glowing in the dark, or sonically smelly.

