Brooklyn bridge with Pier 17 in the left foreground
I live close to the Brooklyn Bridge and in appreciation of the excellent weather we’ve had this weekend, I went for a walk yesterday along the eastside river path where I, and seemingly every other Manhattanite within a 3 mile radius was able to bask in the greatly missed sunlight while taking in the magnificence of the river. We walked from the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge, past the Brooklyn Bridge, and onto the Seaport at Pier 17, where we climbed up high to enjoy the view. It was uplifting to see the seaport thriving again. I had not seen it anywhere remotely close to busy ever since Sandy struck, but it seemed that one good day of sunshine had restored the natural life of the community and brought the tourists back. We had a leisurely day, musing over snippets of overheard conversation and watching New York’s canine children playing and sunbathing with their human parents. The Brooklyn Bridge is undergoing renovations, as it has been for some time, and we watched tourists walking over it from a distance, clustering in the one spot where they could see past the white enveloping tents of construction. We contemplated riding the IKEA ferry to Brooklyn for the free boat ride, but eventually decided against it and walked home.
It was after this day of relaxed people watching that I read Walt Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” and true to his imagination of us, the future generations from him, we are still watching the water and the sky and wondering. While we don’t bath in the river anymore and far fewer of the boats have masts and white sails — although so much has changed from his time, the essence of the experience remains the same. I wonder what, in another hundred years, what will have changed and what will stay the same.
