DEEPER INSIGHTS VIA WATERWAYS
ous trips, so the plan this time was to approach “by sea,” as it were. What follows are five waterrelated experiences that might offer deeper insights (and better views) of a city so thoroughly shaped by maritime geography and history.
Around Manhattan Architecture Tour
Architecture equals history, Kyle Johnson told passengers on the 80-foot yacht the Manhattan as it chuffed past the curtain of skyscrapers filling our view. “Buildings are made to endure.”
During the nearly three-hour AIANY Around Manhattan Architecture Tour, Johnson explained the skyline through its buildings (and at times the lack of them) and the textures, colors and shapes that are the key to the island’s various eras of design.
“This tour gives you an overview of the entire city, which you can’t possibly do in two hours on foot,” said Johnson, an architect. “You can see the entirety of buildings.”
The tour, structured by the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects, sails up the Hudson River (which Johnson is quick to point out is not a river, but a tidal estuary) before turning right at the northern tip of Manhattan. The guide lists 156 points of architectural interest, although at some point, I start classifying some structures as either “Neat” or “Who thought that was a good idea?”
The voyage south on the Harlem and East rivers passes under 19 to 20 bridges that provide access to Manhattan’s east side, including a few inventive swing and vertical lift bridges designed to allow passage for tall ships.
The route is similar to any number of circle-island boat tours, but with fewer passengers than most (plus snacks and Champagne) and with a more informed voice about a rapidly changing aspect of the city.
“Typically the city has turned its back to the waterfront because it was a working waterfront,” Johnson said. “The city now is engaging the waterfront; it’s now a place you go to recreate, to enjoy the views.”
Even within the past five years, dozens of new waterfront parks and projects appeared in areas that had been dilapidated industrial zones and rotting piers.
“You’re a lot more aware of the river,” Johnson said, “and you’re not only able to get a look at it, but use it and travel on it.”
Gantry Plaza State Park
Among the waterfronts that are nearly unrecognizable from even 10 years ago is Gantry Plaza State Park, a 12-acre winding strip of promenades, walking paths and gardens along the East River in Long Island City, a neighborhood of Queens.
I had taken the East River Ferry over from Manhattan to explore the park, which is near the Z NYC Hotel where I was staying, and which has arguably one of the more astonishing vistas of Manhattan, especially at sunset. Near the ferry terminal are restored portions of what had been a rail yard and shipping docks, including two hulking gantries, once tasked with lifting rail cars onto barges.
The great majority of urban renewal in recent years has been on waterfronts, miles of former docks and warehouses that now are soccer fields, restaurants and playgrounds. Most of the attention has been focused on Brooklyn’s East River waterfront, although Gantry Plaza offered the added benefit of not yet being overrun by trendy, stroller-pushing throngs. When finished, the state park will be about 40 acres.
I’d also come to get a
closer view of the PepsiCola sign, a 120-foot-long nameplate that was built in 1936 atop the local bottling plant and, after the plant disappeared, was resurrected in 2009 in Gantry Plaza State Park. For decades, the six-story landmark was a blazing red lighthouse for Manhattanites looking from the other shore.
The park, it seemed, now provides a welcoming spot from which to look back.
Grand Banks
When you grow up with the notion of restaurants on tall ships being pirate-themed nightmares with little more than fish and chips and hush puppies slathered in tartar sauce, it’s difficult to reconcile a plate of fresh Black Point oysters from Nova Scotia and a well-made Negroni at a table on deck.
The wildly popular Grand Banks operates out of the 1942 fishing vessel Sherman Zwicker, a 142-foot schooner docked at Pier 25 in Hudson River Park (another waterfront rehabbed into a park and sports courts and fields). According to the owners, the restaurant was inspired by “the floating oyster barges that lined lower Manhattan’s waterfront in the 18th and 19th centuries.”
Looking across the deck on a Saturday night, however, it was a good bet that the young, hip crowd was not there for a history lesson so much as the simple upscale menu and drinks, the sea-level view of the new World Trade Center tower and the sunset over New Jersey (the only reason most Manhattanites gaze in that direction).
As simple a concept as Grand Banks seems, almost no one was doing it — at least not well, said David Farley, a New York friend who writes about food and travel.
“Even though Manhattan, specifically, is surrounded by water, it really doesn’t take full advantage of the water here,” Farley said over some baked oysters and ceviche. “There are very few water-centric places to eat and drink in New York City. It’s crazy.”
Governors Island
Any list of former military bases with multimillion-dollar waterfront views would have to include Governors Island. The 172-acre islet, which sits at the confluence of the Hudson and East rivers about 800 yards off the southern end of Manhattan, had been a U.S. Army post or command center from 1794 to 1966, and a Coast Guard center for 30 years after that.
Since then, the city of New York and the National Park Service have been opening the island to the public, some parts as recently as last year, making it one of the best, cheapest attraction tours in the city. (Depending on the day and direction, the short-but-scenic ferry ride is free.) I hopped on the weekend ferry from Brooklyn Bridge Park’s East River Pier 6 to attend a foodtruck festival, but returned by the ferry to Manhattan.
It was easy to see during the slow ride back that traveling by water is the antithesis of land life in New York City. You have to wait, not surrounded by an army of taxis and BMWs but by the water and the view that it allows. There is nothing in the way — the pace is set by the sea, the engines and the wind, not closing bells, last calls and rush hours.
As we passed one of the old-timey Staten Island Ferry boats and the wall of skyscrapers filled the view ahead, I considered that, as with the Grand Canyon, the better, bigger view is from the outside.
Kayaking Brooklyn
Twenty minutes into a two-hour paddle around Gerritsen Inlet, and the only hint of being in Brooklyn was Danny, a born-and-bred local with the accent to match and a fondness for the Marine Park.
“Years ago, this was so polluted. It was so bad,” he said from atop his rental kayak. “They just cleaned it up, and I just started coming out here. It’s so relaxing. I pull over into the marshlands, I bring a sandwich.”
Only in recent years have kayaks and pedal boats been available for rent in Marine Park, 530 acres of grassland, public grounds and salt marsh that is Brooklyn’s largest park.
Danny (who paddled off before I got his last name) agreed that most New Yorkers don’t see the rivers and bays as playgrounds so much as things to get over or around. In the Gerritsen Inlet, however, there wasn’t really another way to look at it.
“It’s nice, it’s relaxing. You see all the birds, the fish,” he said. “The nature is beautiful, man. Most people just don’t know this.”