“Meditation & water are wedded for ever”

Purple sandpiper and blue mussels on the coast of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, Winter 2010.

Today is City of Water Day, when we are reminded that New York City is an archipelago. Only the Bronx, pronging south from Westchester Co., is a part of mainland North America.

“Archipelago” is a Italian-rooted word for the island-speckled Aegean Sea. Our own watery cradle of civilization is also an estuary system of astonishingly rich wild life in the mix of fresh and salt water, the fecund wetlands, the boundless riches of the littoral.

In the first chapter of Moby Dick, “Loomings,” Ishmael describes the city: “…belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs – commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward.” (Melvillle is also the source of the title.)

After long decades of malign neglect, the city’s once thriving shoreline is becoming accessible again. But I’m ambivalent about this: recreation is good, but what about jobs?

Not so long ago, “we” — actually, most of us had no choice in the matter — decided to make the FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) sector the only growth industry in the city. Now we all know how foolish this was, creating a series of bubble economies that has served best the growth of historical levels of inequality, with all the unsurprisingly results of such inequality: less democracy, more despair; less social cohesion, more heartlessness; a meaner, uglier nation of bean counters and gated communities, where rage is the standard political emotion.

All our eggs in one basket has meant a basket full of rotten eggs. We’ve must flush this foul, choking nest out. The waterfront holds many potentials for doing so. Imagine: tech incubators working on energy alternatives; shoreline farms; tidal power generators; and kayaks.

Walk to the shoreline today. Ride a boat (that’s what I’ll be doing). Imagine.