When is a river not a river....?

When is a river not a river, or an island not an island?

Since the late 80s I heard in the urban legend grist mill that Whidbey Island, in our Washington State, became the longest island in the US when it was decided (by whom I didn't know then) that Long Island was not a Island at all, but a peninsula.

How could that be, I pondered, it's got water on all sides.  (Yes, even when working full time and traveling internationally I got distracted by these imponderables.)  I looked at maps and rationalized the geophysical condition.  "Well, if the Harlem river on the north end of Manhattan is just a branch of the Hudson flowing south and becomes the East River, than some Geographic institution might decide that a river separating one land mass from another on a continent makes Long Island a peninsula thrusting into the Atlantic."  Is Australia an island or a continent?  Is the land east of the Mississippi and Great Lakes a peninsula or an island separate by connected rivers, lakes and St Lawrence?  A stretch I admit, but I couldn't figure an alternative explanation to the decision.

In anticipation of taking the Circle Line tour to circumnavigate Manhattan Island on four major waterways I dug into this question a little deeper.

Satellite of New York and Environs

To start, I discovered that the Harlem River and the East River are not actually rivers, they are salt water estuaries.  A river needs to flow from a source to its mouth.  Both the Harlem and the East Rivers' flow reverses direction with the tide and the Harlem actually flows north into the Hudson.  Both are "straights"; defined as narrow waterways connecting two larger bodies of water.  In this case Long Island Sound and Upper New York bay of the Atlantic.  

Then, if they aren't rivers and Long Island is surrounded by sea water how could it be declared a peninsula, thrusting Whidbey into first place.  Surprise, because of money!

In 1985 the US Supreme court rationalized that Long Island is an extension of the mainland because it is an integral part of New York Harbor, it is located on the continental shelf, and Long Island sound does not include major sea lanes for interaction traffic.  Clearly they are not geographers. This decision is largely based on social norms and distribution of resources rather than geophysical conditions.  The result is that 93 square miles off the east end of L.I. and their resources were added to New York state rather than being considered part of US waters. Administratively, Long Island is not an island.  But physically, it will remain so until the seas subside again.  And Whidbey Is. in Washington state, sorry, you're back to number two.

The rest of this post will be visuals from our Circle Line tour.  We departed on the Hudson River and headed south, downriver, to circumnavigate Manhattan counter-clockwise into the Upper New York Bay; up the East River (or estuary); through Hell Gate where the confused flow of the Harlem river, East River, and Long Island Sound converge, up the Harlem, and then back down the Hudson.  In all we pass under 20 bridges connecting Manhattan to Brooklyn and Queens on Long Island; the Bronx (the only borough on the mainland) and New Jersey.  All photos are looking into the center of the circle toward Manhattan unless otherwise noted.  Typically Manhattan will also be on the left of the photo when looking up or down river.  Enjoy the trip.

Departing on the Hudson at 42nd st.

World Trade Center and Tribeca

New Jersey side, worlds largest clock

Elis Island, Upper NY Bay

Statue of Liberty, Upper NY Bay

Governor's Island, Upper NY Bay

Battery Park and Fi Di, Lower Manhattan

South Ferry, Lower Manhattan

Brooklyn Bridge on East R.

Manhattan Bridge on East R

Williamsburg Bridge on East R

East Village, and Midtown in Distance on East R

United Nations and Trump Tower on East R

Queensboro Bridge and Roosevelt Island on East R

New York Hospital and UES on East R

Triboro (RFK) Br. and Hell Gate Br behind on East R and Long Island Sound

2nd Triboro (RFK) Br. on Harlem R

Willis Br on Harlem R

Third Ave Bridge on Harlem R

Madison Br on Harlem R

W 145 st Br on Harlem R

Macombs Dam Br on Harlem R

High Br (Hamilton and Washington Br behind) on Harlem R

Hamilton Br (Washington Br Behind) on Harlem R

Washington Br on Harlem R

University Heights Br on Harlem R

W 225 Br on Harlem R (at North end of Island to Bronx)

Henry Hudson Br on Harlem

Movable Railroad Br on Harlem with Hudson in Distance

G Washington Br on Hudson to New Jersey on Right (Chris Christy Fame)

G Washington Br on Hudson with New Jersey

Grants Tomb and Riverside Church on Hudson

Series of Towers along riverside drive by Trump

New Residential at about 52nd on Hudson

Upper West Side and Hudson

Cruise ships at about 42nd st and Hudson

Tour over.

Weather Report and "Steam Heat"

This is one of the few blogs I'll post in real time.  It's my New York weather report.

The reason we selected Sept 1st - Jan 9th to move to New York was to avoid the Hot, the Humid, and the Humanity of summer.  We also wanted to experience the holidays with the kids in NYC:  Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, Christmas on 5th Ave, Ice Skating at Rockefeller Plaza, and New Year's Celebration in Times Square; while avoiding the freezing cold and snow of the rest of January and February. We thought our time frame would give us a taste of three seasons without suffering months of the extremes.

The first weeks of September couldn't have been better for our objective.  The weather was 90 - 95 degrees, clear blue skies, with just a touch of humidity.  It was the tail end of a NY summer, and felt like a continuation of this year's mid-summer in Seattle.  We walked about the city in sandals, shorts and sunglasses.  Except for a couple 70 degree days with showers later in the month it was mostly hot and clear.  Then in early October the temperature gently slid into the 70s and 60s.  The first week of October we did "leaf peeping" in Vermont with Teigan, a classic New England fall experience to be detailed later.

I thought about growing up in the midwest (Chicago for those that don't know) and how quickly the weather can change.  You can smell a thunderstorm from the west coming - the ozone caused by lighting smells different.  And when a cold front sweeps down from the north the temperature can drop 20 - 30 degrees in less than an hour.  Since NY gets most of its weather from the west and north (unless a Nor'easter is blowing) the dramatic changes should be similar.

This weekend before Robin left for business in Nashville she complained of a gas smell in the loft.  We have a gas stove that was recently replaced, and a funky gas oven, so the suggestion was not out of the question.  While not overly concerned, but needing to be sure, for about a half an hour after 11:00 pm I turned the stove and oven on and off, I sniffed the connections, and finally rationalized our safety because we were too tired.

Monday, the morning after she left, the temperature was 31 degrees.  After my morning workout at the New York Sports Club I stopped for coffee.  I photographed this Polish girl because I loved her gloves representing the change of seasons, and the phone her teen age years.

Texting at Starbuck

Street scene out our loft window

After I returned and typed the previous blog I heard a hissing and realized: "we got, clink clink, sssteam heat, we got, clink clink sssteam heat".  Until this past week our loft had been on AC.  No heat was even available.  Then this weekend after the temperature dropped, they fired up the boilers. The smell we smelled was the old air in the radiators escaping from the pressure release valve.

Radiator in Loft.  Ssssteam release valve at upper left.  

For those that don't remember, or never knew, here's a top ten song from the 50s by Patti Page relating the heating technology of the day to desire.  Music always seems to be able to relate current events to everlasting human behavior - sex.  Check it out. It is very relevant to me because, as a janitor's son, I spent my high school winter weekends shoveling coal into the hopper and hauling garbage to the furnace that fed the boiler for their 6-flat apartment building in Chicago.  And our home always had "clink clink - sssteam heat".  Love it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1YHL2E2sR4

The 'Hood - Part 2 - The Beat goes on.

Before the hippies, yuppies, preppies, Gen Xers, millennials, and hipsters there was the Beat Generation.  Reeling from the effects and outcomes of WWII "Beatniks" rejected conservative values and materialism. They went on a spiritual quest to understand the human condition, and experimented with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration. Their searching was the precursor to the mass cultural change wrought by the boomers in the 60s and 70s.

Side Bar:  I just recalled my brother Paul, older by seven years, with his buddies in high school dressed in a beret and sporting goatees beating on bongo drums trying vainly (he's an engineer) to emulate a beatnik.  If you're old enough to remember the 50s TV show Dobie Gillis, Bob Denver (of later Gilligan's Island fame) played Maynard G. Krebs.  He also was a sanitized and satirized representation of beatniks.  Famous line was "Work?!"

Synonymous with this movement is Greenwich Village.  The name still conjures a bohemian community of writers, artists, gays, drugs, diversity, music, crime, and living on the fringe.  They settled here because rent was cheap, and drugs available.  Their names still echo today; Ginsberg, Kerouac, Boroughs; along with their written legacies: Howl, On the Road and Naked Lunch.

Howl:  Poem by Allen Ginsberg
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, 
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,
who......

of us didn't want to (and many of us did) get on the road in our teens or early 20s dreaming of Jack Kerouac as we barreled down a two lane highway in some remote state disconnected from family and accountability.  Who of us today don't still try and get our kids to take to the road before they settle down?

Quintessential Road Trip

Groenwijch, meaning green district in dutch, was a farming community some three miles from the port city of New Amsterdam.  The area includes the now separate neighborhood of West Village.  Like most of the original settlements, the main roads paralleled the shoreline with perpendicular roads to facilitate moving goods to and from the river.  In the 1820, the then New Yorkers escaped to Greenwich to avoid the Cholera epidemic that was sweeping the city.  

After the Cholera Epidemic many who escaped for the clean and fresh air decided to remain. They filled in the Hudson shoreline and extended the narrow twisting and turning tree-lined streets.  The charming brownstone residences of Bleeker and Perry Sts, with stoops on the sidewalk; up half level to a three-up, one-down home are archetypical of any movie setting of a New York neighborhood.  Today Greenwich's four zip codes have the most expensive home prices in the US!  

Brownstone walk-ups

Just east of 4th on Christopher St is arguably the birthplace of gay civil rights in our country; from elimination of anti-sodomy laws, to "Don't ask Don't Tell, to the "Same Sex Marrage" decision by the Supreme Court.  In 1967, in an outgrowth of the beat generation and Greenwich lifestyle, The Stonewall Inn opened as an LGBT bar in West Village. Despite payoffs by the mafia owner's there were often police raids.  In 1969 following one such raid the arrests didn't go as smoothly as planned because the Patty-wagons (Irish cops) arrived late.  Bystanders began protesting, and cheering, the arrests.  After a rough arrest of one woman the LGBT crowd went "berserk" and the scene became violent.  It took until 4:00 am to control the scene.  Within two years there were gay rights groups in every major city in the US, Canada and Australia demanding more civil rights.  General Sheridan of Civil War fame now shares his statue and park with commemorating the Stonewall Inn riots.  Ironic, considering his attitude toward another minority:  "The only good indian is a dead indian" is attributed to him.

General Sheridan Park with LGBT statues

General Sheridan looking away from the Stonewall Inn

Greenwich Village proper, located east of West Village and north of SoHo, is focused around Washington Park and New York University.  Washington Park is one of our favorites in the city. The first month here on the waning warm summer Sundays we'd grab our NYTimes, Starbucks and head for the benches.  We'd sit in the leafy shade around the splashing fountain.  Between absorbing what has to be the best newspaper in the country, we'd gaze at the inscription on the Washington Arch or be transfixed by the assortment of people: students studying, The Rock imitator practicing martial arts, or drugged out "Bagel Bun" lady discussing life on the streets with her likewise altered compatriots.  Washington Park was once a potters field to bury the indigent (there's a separate African cemetery for slaves and free blacks just recently discovered in Lower Manhattan that's now a Nat'l Park). There was also a stream running through the area that still flows in a conduit underground whose entrance is marked on a building.

Robin with NYTimes in Washington Park

Watching People play around the fountain with Washington Arch in Background 

 Living in our 'hood, in and around Greenwich Village, SoHo, TriBeCa, Chelsea and the Meat packing district, provides us constant "out the door" activities without ever getting on a subway or in a taxi. There are museums, retail shops, gyms, parks, people watching, and great restaurants (we prefer the local, not Michelin).  It's noisy, congested, dense (we do miss our view), but the people are very friendly and go out of their way to help.  After one month (this is posted two weeks later) we are lovin' it.  

Next Posts:  The rest of New York and Environs

Cul-chah

I thought I'd mix it up a bit so not to bore you with a series of neighborhood reviews and history.  The 'hood - Part 2 will come later.

After being here over a month now (hard to believe) one of the most striking aspects of the City is its diversity of cul-chahs.  Diversity not only between the neighborhoods but within each neighborhood.  It's truly a rich stew with peas, carrots, onions and chunks of chicken and beef in a rich gravy; more than separate food groups on a plate, each untouched by the other.  This goes back to its founding.  (Of course I have to bring a little history into it).

As you know, the Dutch founded the first european settlement on the island of Manahatta (Lenape indian name for the island) in 1609 and called it New Amsterdam.  The Dutch were arguably the greatest sea faring nation and merchants of the time.  They were not about colonized territory or seeking religious freedom, but making money.  They were the original capitalists before the term was coined (pardon the pun).  Realizing that N America was not leading to the riches the East, by 1629 the government formed a second company, the Dutch West India company, to manage their North American business venture.

The settlement was very pluralistic from the beginning.  Unlike the Pilgrims who sought religious freedom - then persecuted anyone who wasn't protestant English - the Dutch were a trading company, originally in Beaver pelt, thus the symbol on the NY state flag, and tragically slaves.  Its magnificent protected harbor with river access to the north country for trapping, and access to coastal settlements of North America, New Amsterdam traded with the world. By 1643, with a population of 500 people, less than 50% were Dutch and a jesuit priest recorded 18 different languages spoken.  (Ref. "Island at the Center of the World" for this forgotten history of the Dutch.)

Trading Beaver Pelts                                      Trading Slaves

Today over 800 languages are spoken in New York City, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world.  English is number one, but only 51% speak it at home.  Spanish, Chinese and Russian come in at second, third and fourth respectively.

Another interesting aspect of this diversity is the stew vs food group analogy.  With few exceptions, no neighborhood is homogeneous.  In the high rent districts of Upper East and West Sides you will see a cross section of peoples and income groups.  Likewise in the low rent districts of lower East Side or the Bronx you have hispanic, blacks, asians and eastern european intermingling.  While there certainly are enclaves of nationalities seeking familiarity and support as they transition into a new world, there is always a some mix of others to adapt to.  On another blog we'll explore some of these unique enclaves.

I think a result of the intermingling and adaptation is New York City's crime rate.  New York City doesn't even make it onto the top 100 cities in America over 25,000 in terms of violent crime per capita.  (Detroit, MI; Oakland, CA; St. Louis, MO; Memphis, TN: Stockton, CA top in that order).  Most of the world's large international cities (Chicago, LA, London, Paris, Berlin) minorities are still confined to financial and social ghettos that limit interaction and increase prejudice. Thus intolerance - one root of crime.

Festival of San Gennaro in Little Italy 

Whites, Blacks, Asians, Arabs and others marched in the Italian Parade

Gotta Love It

The 'hood - Part 1

After settling in, our first two weeks here were filled walking and exploring our neighborhood; from Greenwich Village to the north down to the Financial District (FiDi) in Lower Manhattan, from the Meat Packing District on the Hudson to the Lower East Side on the East River.

As some of you know, I have this compulsive habit to record things.  Like a diary, but more graphic and statistical.  It started when I was 16 and my brother and I drove 9000 miles cross country; from San Francisco, CA to his job in Montclair, N.J. via Canada, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Mexico, New Orleans, and Natchez.  To track our progress I highlighted each highway and county road on my Rand McNally Road atlas.  I continued this for all my driving trips around the US over the decades and now have a very dog-eared, but colorful atlas of all 50 states.  When I started traveling internationally, I saved each boarding pass and recorded each flight, to/from destination, and air miles (over 2 million of them). Each location marked with a pin on a world map, and road marked on a European Atlas.  So without thinking, when we started walking NYC I marked our path on a map to be sure we took a new route if possible each time.

Map of walks in first two weeks

To our NW is Chelsea and the Meat Packing district.  Chelsea was originally (after early settlement as an estate and then vacation property) a multi-family residential district with english style row houses.  It evolved into manufacturing in the nineteenth century with good access to the harbor on the Hudson and retained some residential as tenements for the Irish workers.  Most famously here was the  Nabisco Baking Co. (NBC) and it was here that the Oreo cookie was created.  The NBC building has become the famous Chelsea Market - a repurposed multi-use building with office and a food court on the main level.  This is not a food court of fast food like a shopping mall, but upper end deli and specialty foods.  Great place to shop, though a bit far, and expensive, for us for regular groceries.

Chelsea Market

To transfer goods to and from the industrial area of Chelsea after the civil war an elevated freight railroad was built along the shore to deliver goods from the harbor or other cities to the mid level of the manufacturing buildings reducing congestion at the street level.  In the early/mid twentieth century the area fell into disuse as manufacturing declined, and the railroad was abandoned.  After years debating whether to tear it out and redevelop it, community activists petitioned to save the elevated railroad and turn it into a park - the Highline - completed in 2009, is now being expanded.  It it the organizing feature around which new multi-family high-rises are being developed.  The same design firm that did the Highline designed Seattle's new Waterfront to replace the Viaduct.  James Corner Field Operations of NYC.

Visiting Friends Aaron and Kate on the Highline

View down on Highline from the Whitney with new Residential built over.

At the south end of the Highline is the new Whitney Museum of American Art.  A fantastic modern building with fabulous collection that displays how Americans at first emulated the European tradition and over time broke away into their own distinctive style.  Interestingly, the Whitney also broke away from the location of the more european focused museums on Museum Mile on the Upper East side (to be discussed later) to this revitalized Meat Packing district. We look forward to multiple visits to this great institution.

Whitney Museum and end of Highline in Meat Packing District

Next Post:  The 'hood Part 2