The Central Power Station of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company building, commonly known as the Batcave or Gowanus Batcave, is a former transit power station at 153 Second Street in Gowanus, Brooklyn, New York City by the Gowanus Canal. It was built between 1901 and 1904, while the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company was expanding its rapid transit and streetcar service. It stopped operating in 1972 and sat abandoned for more than two decades, becoming home to a community of squatters in the early 2000s. The owners, who were planning to redevelop the site, building condominiums called "Gowanus Village", had the squatters removed and increased security in 2006. The Gowanus Village plans did not materialize and after a short time it became a popular space for graffiti and underground events.

In 2012, philanthropist Joshua Rechnitz purchased the property for $7 million with plans to turn it into The Powerhouse Workshop, an arts space focused on the fabrication of artistic goods. It is managed through the nonprofit Powerhouse Environmental Arts Foundation. In 2019, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Gowanus Batcave as an official city landmark. The arts space reopened in 2023 as Powerhouse Arts.

A Sanborn map from 1886 shows the site had been home to Nassau Sulfur Works and Smith and Shaw Mattress Materials and Paper Stock. In the late 19th century, as the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT) expanded, increased demand was placed on its power supply. In the time before the Central Power Station was constructed, the system had been operated entirely by direct current, with boosters used where long distances required them. As territory grew to be farther and farther away from the power stations, and as the company looked for ways to increase flexibility to adapt to future growth, it was decided that the best way to increase power capacity was to adopt a new system which would allow them to use large, single stations in central locations with convenient access to coal and water. Alternating current could be distributed without excessive loss to any part of the system, and the high-tension feeders underground removed the need to string heavy overhead cables.

The need for a new power house was emphasized when a power station in Ridgewood, Queens, burned down on December 4, 1900. The following month, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that a site had been found on the Gowanus Canal, an active industrial hub in South Brooklyn. The site, located at Third Avenue and First Street, had easy access to coal, water, and other supplies. It was large enough to hold a new building and a large store of coal while also allowing for future expansion.

Construction was overseen by Charles Edward Roehl. Work on the building's foundations began in May 1901 and was finished the following January, though further work was delayed by equipment shortages and labor strikes. At the time, it was estimated that the Central Power House would cost $3 million. The brick facade of the building was erected in 1902. Construction was completed in 1903, and the first engine started operating that March. Four engines were operational by June 1903, and by the following year, the structure was declared "practically completed", with all eight engines working.

The Central Power Station's design, which combines elements of Romanesque Revival and classical styles, may have been created by Thomas E. Murray, but there is little definitive evidence in contemporary media. The building is made of red brick with bluestone trimmings, atop piles surmounted by a concrete bed about 6 feet (1.8 m) thick. Its layout was divided into two portions: the southern portion used for the engine and dynamo room, and the northern portion, the boiler house, which was considerably higher and contained two stories of boilers with coal storage above. The front, on Third Avenue, is 183 feet 3 inches (55.85 m) long, and the depth of the building 186 feet 9 inches (56.92 m), although the part which was occupied by boilers is 20 feet (6.1 m) shorter. The roof over the operating and boiler rooms was filled in between the T-irons with 3 by 12 by 24 inches (76 by 305 by 610 mm) hard-burned terracotta roofing tile laid in Portland cement, covered with a slag and cement roofing. The letters brooklyn rapid transit company were inscribed on the side of the boiler building.

Coal was brought to the plant on barges via the adjacent canal. Conveyors moved the coal to be crushed and then to the coal storage in the upper part of the boiler house, to be dropped down to the boilers as needed. To facilitate additional coal storage, the owners purchased an additional lot in 1903. In the other building, eight 4,000 horsepower engines produced both alternating and direct current via different sets of generators. The direct current was used to power nearby train lines while the alternating current was sent through underground cables in terracotta ducts to substations around the city, which would in turn convert it to direct current.

The BRT became the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) in 1923 after going bankrupt in the wake of the Malbone Street Wreck. In 1939, shortly before the New York City Board of Transportation was dissolved and the BMT Fifth Avenue Line was demolished, the Central Power Station was renumbered as substation #25. After being renumbered, it took alternating current from the Williamsburg Power House, turning it into direct current. In the 1950s, the boiler house was demolished. The engine house supplied power to the New York City Subway's Fourth Avenue Line, formerly operated by the BMT, until 1972 when the New York City Transit Authority sold it to the government of New York City.