Waterfront: A Walk Around Manhattan (52 page)

During the 1980s, an apocalyptic glut of pessimistic scenarios abounded, as many experts predicted the demise of New York. Somehow the city managed to outlive its own death. Then, on September 11, 2001, a fireball literally struck it: confirmation of the tremors we had been experiencing at least since 1975. The Chinese writer Lu Hsun once said that the surest way to understand life is to fall from wealth to poverty. Since the mid-1970s fiscal crisis, I have watched New York City catapult from the edge of bankruptcy to the most gaudy affluence imaginable, to a market “correction” in the early 1990s, which again led to severe cutbacks, to a return of Good Times and enormous budget surpluses under Mayor Giuliani, which disappeared almost overnight, thanks to the current recession. Such reversals of fortune cannot help but make you adopt skepticism as your civic faith.

STANDING ON THE PORCH of Gracie Mansion, looking out across the well-kept lawn, with its Anthony Caro, Louise Bourgeois, Ellsworth Kelly, and other contemporary sculpture on loan from the Museum of Modern Art, to the East River, you get a perfect framed view of the beautifully arched Hell Gate Bridge, with its bowstring trusses engineered by the distinguished bridge builder Gustav Lindenthal. (You can also see the workmanlike Triborough Bridge just in front of the Hell Gate, but that is not as inspiring.) The Hell Gate was the longest and heaviest steel bridge in the world when it was completed in 1917, in order to link railroad lines from New York to New England. It was named for the famously turbulent channel that runs outside Gracie Mansion and Carl Schurz Park.

In fact, the second strongest tidal current in the world (the Bay of Fundy off New Brunswick ranks first) occurs in the East River at Hell Gate, where the Harlem River meets the water from the Long Island
Sound around East 90th Street. It was named
Hellegat,
or “hell channel,” by the seventeenth-century Dutch navigator Adriaen Block, by virtue of its treacherousness. Hundreds of vessels a year were either lost or seriously damaged by crashing into its rocks. Washington Irving described the Hell Gate in his colorful style as follows: “Being at the best of times a very violent and impetuous current, it takes these impediments in mighty dudgeon; boiling in whirlpools; brawling and fretting in ripples and breakers; and, in short, indulging in all sorts of wrong-headed paroxysms. At such times, woe to any unlucky vessel that ventures within its clutches.” Enumerating its dangers more soberly, the government surveyer of the Council on the Hell Gate Passage wrote: “To navigate a vessel through these intricate passages in which the water runs with such speed, breaks noisily even in the calmest times upon the rocky shores and islands, and whirls in a thousand dizzying eddies, requires, even with the superior help of steam, a cool head and a steady hand. But in a sailing vessel, the greatest skill and self-possession will prove, without a commanding wind, insufficient to guard against disaster.”

Still, the Hell Gate continued to be used, because it offered a fifty-mile shortcut from the Atlantic through Long Island Sound, and an alternative to Sandy Hook, whose sand bar limited larger ships from crossing, except at high tide. If only the obstructing rocks around Hell Gate could be removed, it would allow bigger ships a safe passage at any time, irrespective of the tides. Local merchants in the early nineteenth century raised money through subscription to blow up the rocks, but the French engineering company they hired made little progress, partly because it was content to lay the gunpowder on top of the rocks, which did little damage below. After the Civil War ended, Congress appropriated funds for the Hell Gate problem, and the capable Lieutenant Colonel John Newton, of the Army Corps of Engineers, was put in charge of the operation in 1866. Newton had the bright idea of drilling holes in the rocks, planting the explosives within the holes, and then removing the debris. Many difficulties still had to be overcome first, as Newton described in his December 19, 1868, report: “The removal of rocks in Hell Gate is attended with peculiar difficulty. The current is extremely rapid, so that divers could not be sent down, in most places, to regulate and set the drills, except at slack water. This fact requires that the drill should act independently of manual
assistance, and therefore peculiar and ingenious devices are required.” As no such machine existed to drill holes in submerged rocks, he was obliged to invent one. A steam-drilling scow rotated from rock to rock, dodging tugboats and patiently placing charges. This method, which proved effective, nevertheless took twenty years' steady labor to accomplish, from 1866 to 1886.

For the biggest reefs, Hallet's Point, off Astoria, and Flood Rock, near Roosevelt Island, it became necessary to sink a shaft from the shore, dig underwater tunnels that would weaken the structures first, and then blow them up with the largest detonations in history up to that time. Hallet's Point was exploded in 1876, and Flood Rock in 1885. Of the latter event, an
Engineering News
reporter wrote, awestruck: “Mere word painting will give but a meager idea of the spectacular effect of the explosion; for ourselves, we can only compare it to an iceberg with many sharp, glittering pinnacles suddenly raising out to the dark waters of the East River and then slowly settling down again…. The highest peaks, we should say, rose about 250 feet above the surface.”

The blast succeeded in breaking the reef into large blocks, after which the slow work of removing the debris, to a desired depth of twenty-six feet, could proceed. Thus the Hell Gate was tamed, ending one of the most heroic, arduous endeavors in the city's history. It should take nothing away from that magnificent effort to observe that the Long Island–Hell Gate corridor subsequently became less and less preferred for navigational purposes.

25 EAST HARLEM AND POINTS NORTH

A
BOVE GRACIE MANSION AND CARL SCHURZ PARK, WHERE THE EAST RIVER FLOWS INTO THE HARLEM, YOU CAN FOLLOW THE BOBBY WAGNER WALK FOR A dozen blocks: it is a reassuring waterfront esplanade in the familiar Olmstedian vocabulary of octagonal pavings, bishop's-crook streetlamps, and overlook benches placed before curved wrought-iron fences. But after that, the entire East Side shoreline from 102nd Street to the northern tip of the island is in a state of unimaginable wildness. To attempt to walk it is to encounter one obstacle after another, to come upon vegetation so high and neglected that it suggests an Amazon jungle, to be forced to cross and recross highways at great risk. That this glittering Manhattan, supposed capital of advanced Western civilization, should have let so large a segment
of its riverside edge collapse into desuetude is cause for, well, puzzlement. One does not know whether to be appalled or elated at finding so much ragged, unkempt, undiscovered, and unidentified territory existing still on the world's most intensely cultivated island. In the main, I have to say I was thrilled to explore this secret waterfront. But I could do it only for several hours at a time, my heart in my mouth, and always in the company of a friend or a group.

My first crack at it occurred as a participant of the Great Saunter, an annual trek around the coast of Manhattan, which is sponsored by Shorewalkers on the first Saturday in May, rain or shine. Shorewalkers is an organization dedicated to hiking the water's edge anywhere in the Greater New York area. It was started by a man named Cy Adler, who is the most challenging sort of crank, namely, one with some good ideas along with the more debatable ones. Adler, a short, bearded man, was a scientist before he retired and became a professional gadfly, suing city agencies and sending out press releases and newsletters on crummy paper stock. Recently he has been trumpeting the construction of underground vehicle tunnels (VUTTS) underneath Central Park, and damming up the Harlem River to make it a lake with parkland on either shore. Originally he wanted to name it Lake Sarah after his mother, but received so much derisive scorn that he backed away from that filial nomenclature, though not from the larger scheme. In any event, the annual thirty-two-mile hikes around Manhattan's circumference, which Cy Adler established over ten years ago, continue with his benign blessing.

I have attempted it three years in a row. This past year, though I thought myself in pretty good condition from the shorter waterfront explorations I had undertaken, I knew this marathon would be the real test. The Shorewalkers congregated, as usual, at Fulton and Water Streets, by the foot of the South Street Seaport. Approximately two hundred people set out on that cloudy, sixty-degree day: an ethnically diverse mixture of young and old, locals and out-of-towners, who came each year from as far away as Georgia and Florida, backpack-wearers and those with tummy packs around their waists, and a solid cadre of veterans with bowed calves, stocky thighs, and stout walking sticks, carrying bottled water in their hands. Knowing no one, eavesdropping on those behind me who made bonding conversation about other hikes and their nine-to-five jobs, while
barely remarking on the waterfront they were passing through, I let my mind go blank.

Around 135th Street my calves started getting very tired. We rested at the Little Red Lighthouse, though it was the briefest of respites for slowpokes like me, since the hardier hikers were already raring to go when I arrived at the lighthouse, panting. As the group took a steep inclined path that diverged from the shore and baby-sat the Henry Hudson Highway, I fell in with a cute, long-legged brunette in shorts named Selena who had been scampering ahead and looking back, taking photographs of us for a documentary video her boyfriend was making about Shorewalkers, and I amused myself by flirting with her, or at least learning various facts about her life, for instance that she had gone to Catholic school and then studied photography at NYU, meanwhile noting the curious way she had of responding to whatever I said with an intake of breath, “Yeees?,” all of which momentarily took my mind off the pain of walking uphill.

At Inwood Park, near the Isham Street and Seaman Avenue entrance, we were allowed to stop for lunch. Here Selena said good-bye and scampered off to rejoin her boyfriend, and I collapsed. On the benches across from me, experienced Shorewalkers were applying bandages and moleskin pads to their feet. I sat next to a tall, glowering young man in a muscle T-shirt, about six feet five, and eyed his trail mix covetously.

“You think I could trouble you for some of your peanuts?” I asked, looking up at him.

“Why, didn't you bring
snacks
?” he asked sternly.

“I—I brought a sandwich, but I already ate it,” I explained, sounding lamely, fecklessly, spinelessly apologetic, while thinking to myself,
Just gimme the damn peanuts.
With mild disgust, he turned the bag over to me and I gobbled down a few nuts, raisins, and M&Ms. Later he offered me the bag a second time, before rising to go to the men's room. (Actually the park toilet said BOYS.) I bought a hot sausage bun with fried onions from the refreshment stand, sure that my health-minded Shorewalker companions would disapprove. By now I felt alienated from their outdoor group spirit: my right thigh muscle was in considerable pain, my calves ached, my busted knee throbbed, and I could barely manage to keep my legs moving forward. The group marched through Inwood's Dominican neighborhood, looking like a peaceful protest in favor of bottled water, and joined
up with the Harlem River Drive at 202nd Street, where a walking path next to the waterfront offered itself.

This walking path, mostly wild grass and tar and gum wrappers, was nevertheless surprisingly ample near its mouth, about thirty feet at this stretch. It seemed as though it must once have been a respectable esplanade, or at least had the makings of an esplanade.
*
To the left, as we wandered south, was part of the Harlem River that Cy Adler wanted to transform into a six-mile-long saltwater lake and national park. I tried to imagine it, with gates on either end, permitting occasional boats to pass through. It was not high on my priority list. A middle-aged woman, one of the Shorewalkers monitors, came alongside me and encouraged, with a Caribbean accent, “One step at a time.”

“Next time I'll bring my litter bearers,” I growled, but she misheard me, thinking I'd said “Next time I'll bring my little girls.”

“How old are they?” she asked.

“What?”

“How old are your little girls?”

By the time I explained that I'd said “litter bearers,” she must have decided I was weird, and moved on ahead to chat with the next group. I brooded that I might have offended her (litter bearers/Hollywood African movies/racial stereotypes). Oh well. I knew I was not making good time when elderly couples started passing me. By now the pathway along the Harlem River had dwindled to a narrow strip covered with broken glass, which permitted only two walkers abreast. Stumbling over broken glass, as cars zoomed by me in the opposite direction, was not exactly my idea of fun; but even this tiny path gave out around 170th Street, and the group had to cross over, clinging to a ramp that held only a foot of walk-space, to the inland, street side of the highway.

At 155th Street I knew from the much sharper pain in my right thigh that I could go no farther, and I started looking for taxis or car service limousines, with their T–C license plates, but it was the middle of Harlem and they were in short supply. An elderly Shorewalkers monitor, waiting for me to bring up the rear, asked me in a German accent if I was all right. I said I was in pain. He told me gently that it was perfectly acceptable if I
dropped out. “Anozzer lady just vent for ze bus.” On the eighth hour of a twelve-hour hike, I got off the Great Saunter and took the IND subway home. I was never more grateful for the subway system.