Category Archives: New York City

Winter Life at the Reservoir

Posted on January 30, 2013 by | 90 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

Last weekend at NYC’s Central Park Reservoir. An icy cold day. The Reservoir is mostly frozen over, leaving just a patch of open water where all of the Reservoir’s birds have congregated.

Johna surveys the panorama. (Click to enlarge any photo.)

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Midtown Manhattan rises up beyond.

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The birds are mostly Canada Geese and ducks, including some varieties that we’ve never noticed here before—they are probably from Canada, down for the winter. They paddle through the patch of open water, squabble, or just stand silently on the ice, beaks tucked into their back feathers, facing into the cold wind.

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The blue shadows lengthen as the sun goes down, lighting up the East Side on the other side of the Reservoir with its last rays.

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More photos are here.

90 Comments

Posted in Nature, New York City

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Travel Theme: Walls

Posted on January 25, 2013 by | 51 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge this week is Walls.

Kayaking around the highly urban New York Harbor, we pass by many colorful and inspirational walls…

IMGP1050 cropped smallNo Guts No GloryIMGP4743 cropped small"Alas this bitter life filled with sweet dreams"IMGP0247 cropped small 2

More on the marine art of New York Harbor is here.

51 Comments

Posted in Kayaking, New York City, Photography

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Travel Theme: Up, Take Two

Posted on January 20, 2013 by | 17 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge this week is Up. We’ve already posted one response, but here’s another one.

Looking up in NYC’s Central Park…

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Posted in Nature, New York City, Photography

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Beyond

Posted on January 18, 2013 by | 111 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

This week’s Photo Challenge is Beyond.

When paddling counterclockwise around Manhattan, or down the Hudson River back to the city, there comes that breathtaking moment when the distant vista of Midtown Manhattan comes into view beyond the George Washington Bridge.

I always take a photo at that point. By now I have many, in rain and sunshine, day and night… Here are a few of them.

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More photos from these trips are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

111 Comments

Posted in Kayaking, New York City, Photography

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A Word A Week Photo Challenge — Cloud

Posted on January 7, 2013 by | 46 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

On A Word In Your Ear , Skinnywench’s photo challenge this week is Cloud. Since I have so many photos of clouds—it’s hard to avoid clouds, just as it is hard to avoid water, in kayaking photos—I thought I would join in.

But, although I have many photos of clouds, the clouds of two special days stand out particularly in my memory. On those days, a dramatic, constantly changing cloudscape dominated the scene. We stared upward, mesmerized.

Here’s the first of those days.

At Pier 40Dark clouds over Coney IslandReturning to Manhattan
Spectacular skies...
... in the Upper BayCrepuscular raysSinister cloud over ManhattanEngulfed in the rain cloudRain easingClouds at sunset

The story of the day is here, more photos are here, and larger versions of some of the photos are here. And the second of the two spectacularly Cloudy days is here.

46 Comments

Posted in Kayaking, Nature, New York City, Photography

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Last Manhattan Circumnavigation of 2012

Posted on January 2, 2013 by | 33 comments

By Johna Till Johnson
Photos by Vladimir Brezina

At the time, it didn’t seem like a big deal: On a sunny weekend in late October, we decided to circumnavigate Manhattan.

We didn’t anticipate, though, that, thanks to Hurricane Sandy, it would be our last circumnavigation of the year, indeed our last major trip in New York waters. And so this trip has a special resonance in our memories.

A Manhattan circumnavigation is usually a pretty predictable trip, though always a treat. It’s not particularly long by our standards, but packed with variety. The scenery ranges from the urban…

Midtown Manhattan from the East River

In the East River: the Empire State Building, with Vlad in the foreground (photo by Johna)

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to the bucolic…

Fall colors in the Harlem River

Fall colors in the Harlem River

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Ferries in the East River

Riding the chop and keeping an eye on the ferries down by the Battery

and the paddling conditions vary nearly as much: The water down by the Battery is often exciting (enhanced by ferry and other shipping traffic)…

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Up the Harlem River

Heading up the Harlem River

but  the  long glide up the Harlem River is usually tranquil.

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All in all, we looked forward to a lovely, if unexceptional trip.

Unexceptional except for being our last long trip of the year.  The following weekend, we toured the Gowanus Canal—a scenic, but short, excursion.

And the Monday after that, Sandy arrived.

Our Manhattan paddling home at Pier 40 was shut down, and the pier itself remains closed (though we’re hopeful it will reopen soon). In addition, there continue to be some restrictions on paddling in New York Harbor. So we haven’t been out (in New York waterways, at least) since.

Which made this “unexceptional” trip rather exceptional, after all.

So our recollection of this circumnavigation is tinged with a bit of melancholy and a sense of loss. As the graffiti has it:

Poetic graffiti in the East River

“Alas this bitter life filled with sweet dreams” — Poetic graffiti in the East River

But even an “ordinary” trip has moments of incandescent beauty, which will live on in our memories…

Yellow and blue nocturne

The George Washington Bridge: Yellow and blue nocturne

We hope to be back on the waters around Manhattan in 2013!

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The individual photos are here.

33 Comments

Posted in Kayaking, New York City

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Surprise

Posted on December 21, 2012 by | 44 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

This week’s Photo Challenge is Surprise.

Kayaking around New York Harbor, we see many surprising things. And one of the most surprising, hidden in a narrow Brooklyn creek, is the wreck of an entire, respectably-sized submarine. The Yellow Submarine of Brooklyn has a fascinating history—involving a crazy but surprisingly well-developed scheme to salvage valuables from a famous sunken ocean liner—that I’ve already written up here and here. So I’ll just post a few photos—

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44 Comments

Posted in Kayaking, New York City, Photography

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Kayaking Through the Gowanus Canal on the Eve of Sandy

Posted on December 7, 2012 by | 74 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

We head down a dark HudsonOn Saturday, October 27, with Hurricane Sandy just offshore and aiming, it seemed, directly for New York City, we went for what we (correctly) suspected would be our last kayak trip for some time.
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We paddled down the harbor to visit the Gowanus Canal, our favorite Superfund waterway. There one can encounter sights and smells like nowhere else—except perhaps in Newtown Creek, another Superfund site…

Everything was calm. The calm before the storm…

When Sandy hit the next day, the Gowanus Canal overflowed its banks and flooded a wide swath of industrial and residential land around. No doubt, as elsewhere, this caused much destruction. But in addition, of course, the Canal’s water is not just any ordinary water—it is laced with “toxic sludge, heavy metals, oil and—when the sewer system overflows—good old human excrement.” The city issued an advisory that “residents should wash their hands and practice proper hygiene if they come into contact with the canal’s water or sediments.” Sediments that it may take years to clean up…

So the chances are that the Canal and its surroundings will never be quite the same again. These may be some of the last photos of what Gowanus Canal looked like in the good old days before the flood…

ReflectionsIndustrial tableau 2
End of the Gowanus Canal
Intricate composition
In the glowing cavern
... into the sun

Here’s a slideshow of all photos from the trip:

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The individual photos, and a much larger-format slideshow, are here.

74 Comments

Posted in Kayaking, New York City

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Travel Theme: Mystical

Posted on November 16, 2012 by | 50 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge this week is Mystical. And it makes me very happy to learn that, in choosing that theme, she was inspired by a photo that I posted recently. Unfortunately that means, too, that I can no longer respond to her Mystical challenge with that, my most Mystical photo…

Never mind. Here are a few photos taken at a moment that truly came close to being mystical during one of our paddles in New York Harbor—

More photos and the story are here and here.

50 Comments

Posted in Kayaking, New York City, Photography

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Green

Posted on November 16, 2012 by | 76 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

This week’s Photo Challenge is Green.

Kayaking around New York Harbor, we see quite a few green sights…

A second “Green” post is here.

76 Comments

Posted in Kayaking, New York City, Photography

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