make swimming advisable; hence, locating a sandy beach on Manhattan's shore remains a problematic, if alluring, idea.
“Aren't there devices for handling that runoff?” I ask Cathy.
“Yes. You can put filters in the rocks to capture some of it. You can put filter drains in the streets. But the main way is to have holding tanks inserted in the highways. When Route 9A [the replacement for the West Side Highway] was first on the drawing board, there were provisions for holding tanks, but they fell out of the plans somewhere, most likely for budgetary reasons,” she says. “You could lobby for holding tanks, I guess.” The old activist spirit surges back.
Cathy shows me an art piece, commissioned by the River Project, by the sculptor George Trakas, which consists of two steel staircases leading down from the pier to the water, with landing and seating areas. She wants people to “get to the river,” not to be afraid of it. Mix it up with the river: a connection that's worked for her. She trusts it, why don't they? Originally she wanted to have the staircases lead right down to the water, nothingelse, but the city regulatory agencies made her install two fences —“two!”— as warnings that you were approaching the edge. “These people don't travel outside of New York, they don't realize that in cities all over the world you can get to the water. The Hudson River Park Trust put lots of references to ‘get-downs’ in their literature, but then they didn't include any in their final plans.” So she made a get-down. And they made her put up the fences.
For all the good stuff the River Project does, its continuing existence on Pier 26 remains precarious. The Hudson River Park Trust, which has jurisdiction over the property, would prefer to put some income-producing facility on it: a slicker, theme-park-style estuarium, say, run by a university or a prestige institution like the San Diego Aquarium, which would become a magnet for tourist families, at eight dollars a head. The conflict between the River Project's scruffy, improvisatory manner, all oaktag and Scotch tape, and the Hudson River Park Trust's corporate, buttoned-down style, is alluded to, with barely concealed sarcasm, in a River Project leaflet: “Now there is the opportunity to understand … them [the returning fish populations] before the Park redevelopment eliminates these naturalizing areas on rotting piers in favor of new pavements and managed landscapes.”
It's the old story of the grassroots local organization that attaches itself like a barnacle to neglected public land and performs a service no one else will, only to be endangered when the whole area becomes desirable. For the moment, the River Project and the Hudson River Park Trust are playing a cat-and-mouse game with each other, which could go on for years.
6 THE SOHO/GREENWICH VILLAGE CORRIDOR
And our landscape came to be as it is today:
Partially out of focus, some of it too near, the middle distance
A haven of serenity and unreachable.…
—JOHN ASHBERY, “A Wave”
I AM WALKING ALONG THE NEW HUDSON RIVER PARK. S OMEONE RUNS BY ME. I HAVE TO SAY THERE ' S NOTHING SO UNPLEASANT AS THAT SLIGHT BREEZE BEHIND YOUR EAR OF A BIKER or runner overtaking you: you have no warning, and then you flinch, and feel like a fool for being so terrified. It's assumed, incorrectly, that bikeway or running tracks are also congenial to walkers; in fact, we are class enemies.
Hudson River Park has so far proven a godsend to bicyclists, joggers, and dog-trotters. It may not, I think, have the same appeal to recreational walkers like myself who, staring into the face of oncoming headlights, can never relax, never escape the sense of a jangling, if not scary, experience. Advancing in the face of oncoming traffic is never a pleasant experience, as it is hard to turn off your fear reflex. For the bicyclist, already vehicled, the car seems to be a friendly cousin, while for those morning runners high on
“Aren't there devices for handling that runoff?” I ask Cathy.
“Yes. You can put filters in the rocks to capture some of it. You can put filter drains in the streets. But the main way is to have holding tanks inserted in the highways. When Route 9A [the replacement for the West Side Highway] was first on the drawing board, there were provisions for holding tanks, but they fell out of the plans somewhere, most likely for budgetary reasons,” she says. “You could lobby for holding tanks, I guess.” The old activist spirit surges back.
Cathy shows me an art piece, commissioned by the River Project, by the sculptor George Trakas, which consists of two steel staircases leading down from the pier to the water, with landing and seating areas. She wants people to “get to the river,” not to be afraid of it. Mix it up with the river: a connection that's worked for her. She trusts it, why don't they? Originally she wanted to have the staircases lead right down to the water, nothingelse, but the city regulatory agencies made her install two fences —“two!”— as warnings that you were approaching the edge. “These people don't travel outside of New York, they don't realize that in cities all over the world you can get to the water. The Hudson River Park Trust put lots of references to ‘get-downs’ in their literature, but then they didn't include any in their final plans.” So she made a get-down. And they made her put up the fences.
For all the good stuff the River Project does, its continuing existence on Pier 26 remains precarious. The Hudson River Park Trust, which has jurisdiction over the property, would prefer to put some income-producing facility on it: a slicker, theme-park-style estuarium, say, run by a university or a prestige institution like the San Diego Aquarium, which would become a magnet for tourist families, at eight dollars a head. The conflict between the River Project's scruffy, improvisatory manner, all oaktag and Scotch tape, and the Hudson River Park Trust's corporate, buttoned-down style, is alluded to, with barely concealed sarcasm, in a River Project leaflet: “Now there is the opportunity to understand … them [the returning fish populations] before the Park redevelopment eliminates these naturalizing areas on rotting piers in favor of new pavements and managed landscapes.”
It's the old story of the grassroots local organization that attaches itself like a barnacle to neglected public land and performs a service no one else will, only to be endangered when the whole area becomes desirable. For the moment, the River Project and the Hudson River Park Trust are playing a cat-and-mouse game with each other, which could go on for years.
6 THE SOHO/GREENWICH VILLAGE CORRIDOR
And our landscape came to be as it is today:
Partially out of focus, some of it too near, the middle distance
A haven of serenity and unreachable.…
—JOHN ASHBERY, “A Wave”
I AM WALKING ALONG THE NEW HUDSON RIVER PARK. S OMEONE RUNS BY ME. I HAVE TO SAY THERE ' S NOTHING SO UNPLEASANT AS THAT SLIGHT BREEZE BEHIND YOUR EAR OF A BIKER or runner overtaking you: you have no warning, and then you flinch, and feel like a fool for being so terrified. It's assumed, incorrectly, that bikeway or running tracks are also congenial to walkers; in fact, we are class enemies.
Hudson River Park has so far proven a godsend to bicyclists, joggers, and dog-trotters. It may not, I think, have the same appeal to recreational walkers like myself who, staring into the face of oncoming headlights, can never relax, never escape the sense of a jangling, if not scary, experience. Advancing in the face of oncoming traffic is never a pleasant experience, as it is hard to turn off your fear reflex. For the bicyclist, already vehicled, the car seems to be a friendly cousin, while for those morning runners high on
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