MTM: New York City Waterfalls

The City That Has It All is surrounded by water. Four of the boroughs either share an island or are islands unto themselves. The fifth borough (my beloved Bronx) is a peninsula. We are bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and various rivers, bays, inlets, and streams. All this water affords us excellent boating and some great fishing spots but, sorry to say, no grand waterfalls. Well, there are a few tiny ones inland here and there; the Bronx Botanical Gardens comes to mind. But even life long New Yorkers seem to think that if you want a waterfall you should fly up to Buffalo and visit Niagara Falls.

Well, from now through October 13th, you don’t have to do that. Just grab your bike; hop on a train or a bus. Drive a car if you must, but get on down to the harbor, somewhere on either side of the Brooklyn Bridge. Welcome to The New York City Waterfalls Public Art Project The 90 to 120-foot tall installations, which have been designed to protect water quality and aquatic life, are scattered around the harbor.

On New York City’s website, there is a super-cool activity guide called the New York City Waterfalls Guide for Children and Adults that is both informative and interactive. You can have lots of fun with it even if you don’t get to visit the waterfalls.

I was lucky enough to see the waterfalls last week. My grandson, visiting from Florida, talked us into going in to see the Statue of Liberty, which he claims to have wanted to see for his WHOLE life. (He’ll be six on Saturday.) We were a fairly large contingent but in our travels, after we saw Lady Liberty and played in Rockefeller Park , we found all four waterfalls, which didn’t impress the under six crowd nearly as much as they impressed Grandma.

I am always impressed by street art and public art of every description. In New York we are lucky enough to have a privately funded Public Art Fund which provides us with public art including theater, sculpture, music, you name it. If it can be called art, eventually the Public Art fund will trot it out for the enjoyment of all New Yorkers and our welcome visitors. You can find the archives of intriguing public art projects here.

The pictures accompanying this post are from the website of Tishman Construction which was the construction project manager for the waterfalls. The large picture shows the waterfall on the Brooklyn anchorage of the Brooklyn Bridge. The three smaller pictures are of the waterfall between Piers 4 and 5 in Brooklyn, the waterfall on the north shore of Governors Island and the waterfall in Lower Manhattan at Pier 35.

Travis Erwin is off to Vegas once again, but he has promised to provide the link space for this week’s My Town Monday posts. You can find them here.

Terrie