Sunday, August 5, 2007

Back to nature in NYC

When he suggested it, I grimaced.
After all, I’m used to the gracious ebb and flow of the Lowcountry’s creeks, the shimmering marsh grasses, the circling hawks rising on columns of warm air, the smooth sailing in Charleston Harbor, the stiff ocean breeze that helps roll warm waves upon our wide, sandy shores.

With such possibilities provided by my adopted hometown, why on Earth would I want to go kayaking in New York City’s East River? If I should survive the kayaking, would I survive the contamination? Could I avoid the floating refuse, the bloated corpses?

But my friend reassured me. I should come to Astoria, Queens — to Hallet’s Cove — where the volunteers who run the Long Island City Community Boathouse bring a few ocean kayaks for use each Sunday by anyone willing to help keep the cove’s little beach clean. The East River isn’t really a river, he reminded me. It’s a tidal basin. It flushes out twice a day. Its water is more salty than brackish.

The worst that’ll happen, he said, is I’ll get a little crusty.

Well, that didn’t sound so bad. Crust can be chipped off after all. And I’d get a chance to encounter a different kind of nature. Instead of lolling marsh grass, soaring long-leaf pine, the occasional jumping fish, intertidal oyster clusters and fiddler crabs scurrying sideways across the pluff mud, I’d see a power plant, vast housing projects, a decrepit old dock, a treacherous current, brick warehouses in disuse, expensive new condominiums, distant skyscrapers, a couple of big bridges and various submerged items such as bicycles, tires and grocery carts embedded firmly in the sludge.

What’s more, it was a lovely weekend, clear, not too hot. OK, I was convinced.

Getting there

In Brooklyn, I took the R train to Pacific, hopped on the No. 4 to 59th Street in Manhattan, then switched to the N (which carried me under the very river I was soon to float upon) and over to Astoria.

Ah, Astoria: Not on the beaten path of most visitors to New York City, and that, in part, was its appeal. I noted the range of races and religions, passed by a Bosnian mosque, marveled at how expensive the real estate has become in this mostly working-class neighborhood, heard about my friend’s vegetarian diet of Bangladeshi sobji bhaji and alur dom, longed to eat grilled sea bass and loukoumathes at my favorite Greek restaurant, Elias Corner, wondered where the best Korean kimchee could be found and bought an iced coffee and two biscotti from the Italian bakery at Broadway and 31st Street.

This section of Queens, among the most ethnically diverse in New York City, was named in the early 19th century for John Jacob Astor when fur merchant Stephen A. Halsey attempted to persuade the famous millionaire to become the area’s patron. Astor gave a little money to a local woman’s seminary, but likely never set foot in the neighborhood that bears his name.

Some decades later, on July 4, 1936, to be exact, New York City Parks Commissioner Robert Moses opened the city’s first, and largest, public swimming pool in Astoria Park. It served as the model for 11 more. That year, and again in 1964, the Astoria Pool was the site of the Olympic trials for swimming and diving.

Though I limited myself to the waters of the East River during my visit, I did spend a few minutes looking at the pool from the Frisbee-throwing area above, and I couldn’t help notice how swimmers were kept to the crowded middle section of the vast pool, roped in and forced to bob in place. There was no room to move about. There was no actual swimming in the city’s biggest swimming pool, just, well, bobbing.

There was no swimming in the East River either, but several people hopped the rail along Vernon Boulevard onto a tiny sandy beach at the north end of the Socrates Sculpture Park. They were gathering on this Sunday afternoon as they often do during the summer to hang out, relax in folding chairs, read, absorb a few sun rays, chat with friends, make new acquaintances and paddle a few laps around Hallet’s Cove. About 15 Astoria residents shared three ocean kayaks, each boat accommodating two at a time.

I sniffed the environment. I hoped I would not detect poisonous vapors or the stink of rotting flesh. I scrutinized the beach. I prayed I would not see shards of glass or rusting bits of metal. I stood there for a moment trying to adjust to this disjointed reality, this semi-natural scene, this pleasing sound of little waves lapping at the shore.

Across the way was the tip of Roosevelt Island and its miniature lighthouse, called Blackwell Island Lighthouse after the original name of that narrow strip of land partitioning the East River. The Blackwell family lived on the island until the city of New York bought it in 1828 and transformed it into a municipal facility that included an insane asylum, poorhouse and prison. In 1921, it was renamed Welfare Island. In 1973, it acquired its current name.

A stone’s throw from the lighthouse, which was built to keep boats navigating the dangerous waters of Hells Gate from crashing into the insane asylum, one can find — get this — Ecological Park.

The cityscape

So, flanked by ecology, it was time for me to enter the water. I changed into my flip-flops and crawled into the kayak carefully, very carefully, making my way to the stern, avoiding any contact with the water. My more matter-of-fact friend went shoeless, splashing into the cove to push us off. I wondered if he would acquire, or exacerbate, some horrible disease.

We went counterclockwise, hugging the shore (well, hugging the stone retaining wall and street above) and paddling past what was once some sort of marine building that had been converted into what appeared to be a sculptor’s giant studio. Works of art made of metal, perhaps being readied for deployment at Socrates Sculpture Park, or perhaps decommissioned after a long tour of duty there, sat stolidly overhead.

Just beyond, an old dock rotted in the water, its wood beams blackened by age and urban absorption. But it was picturesque, so we paddled between its pilings and toward another retaining wall, this one protecting Astoria Houses, a public housing development consisting of 22 buildings, 1,102 apartments and 3,135 people.

As we neared the main channel of the East River, the strong current was kicking up waves and causing parts of the cove to swirl with watery indecision. All I could think of was the East Australian Current featured in the movie “Finding Nemo” and the sea turtles that used it as an Autobahn. If my friend and I ventured too close to the ERC (East River Current), would we be swept away and propelled under the Triborough Bridge through Hells Gate, only to be dashed to pieces against the retaining walls of the South Bronx?

God forbid.

So, carefully, we maneuvered around, keeping well clear of the ERC (though enjoying the view of the tops of the Empire State Building and Chrysler Building to the south), and paddling our way toward the other end of the cove.

By the time we made landfall, I was made only moderately wet by the droplets flicked from the end of my friend’s paddles. I noticed the water did not stink. I noticed I could see beneath the surface, perhaps to a depth of 2 feet. I realized we hadn’t encountered any oil slicks, floating trash or stray body parts.

My friend was right: The East River is really not so bad.

Taking it all in

Back on the little beach, I chatted with Erik Baard, founder of the Long Island City Community Boathouse. He told me it was a good thing I didn’t venture within 100 yards of a passing cruise ship or the power plant downriver, or within 75 feet of any bridge supports. I might have been shot on the spot.

People were lounging, relaxing, connecting. It was a friendly scene. Communal. Very 1960s. Passers-by stopped to lean over the railing and take in a little of the vibe.

I scanned the panoramic view and pinpointed myself in the landscape as if I were looking down from a great height. I could visualize the waterways and terrain. I could see that the East River was the channel that separated Long Island Sound from New York Harbor. I could imagine what this must have looked like before the buildings, bridges, retaining walls, housing projects and insane asylums.

I was visualizing a verdant and pristine place inhabited by Lenape tribes that once navigated these waters in canoes, relied on an abundance of fish, sought shade under the elm and sycamore trees and knew enough to respect the land that sustained them. I was glad the waters of the East River were not as dirty as they once were. But less dirty is not the same as clean.

I remembered watching a nature documentary about insects narrated by David Attenborough, who ended the series of films with a sobering notion. If mankind were suddenly to disappear from the face of the Earth, life would go on as if nothing happened. The ants would continue to build their colonies, the worms would continue to churn the soil, the spiders would continue to spin their webs.

But if the insects were to disappear, Attenborough said, it would spell certain doom for mankind.

And yet New York City, the epitome of artificial environments, seemed to me somehow wholesome, somehow natural. Here were friends hanging out, becoming intimate with their particular environment. Here were people trying to keep their corner of the world clean and enjoying a beautiful Sunday afternoon in the sun. Surely, this was as it should be.

Back in Brooklyn later that day, I tried to remove the spots of gooey, sandy sludge from the bottoms of my flip-flops with wads of toilet paper. I scrubbed and scrubbed, thinking about the oyster beds and marsh grasses of coastal South Carolina, trying through force of imagination to ignore the intense industrial odor and remember instead the pungent smell of pluff mud.

How long will it take before mankind’s footprint fades away?