“Yonkers Esplanade, Municipal Pier, George Washington Bridge, Airborn Friends” by Peter, https://shorturl.at/hBWss. License at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0
On foggy days clouds wrapped the bridge in a thick, wooly blanket, blocking the view except for scattered lights strong enough to punch through the fabric. But on clear days my eyes drifted toward the skyline to take in the tall buildings that stood proudly at the water’s edge.
As a child I loved peering out the window at the Hudson River as we crossed the George Washington Bridge on the way to my grandparents’ house on Long Island. Passing over the congested bridge always took longer than expected; I sometimes wondered if I’d get to the other side faster by swimming.
“It’s rougher than you think,” my mom would say. “Strong currents would sweep you out to sea.” I quickly became fearful of the river, seeing it as a threatening being, one we could pass over or under but never get close to. I imagined anyone who dared jump into the water would be immediately swept away and consumed by the great mouth of the Atlantic.
Still, I always felt sorrow on the way home as I saw Manhattan’s lights twinkling in the water. I knew it could be months before we’d return and I’d get to see the river and the buildings in all their grandeur.
The island I’d cross through on childhood trips from New Jersey to Long Island is now my home. In my ten years of living in New York City, my relationship to the river has become less symbolic and more intimate. Whenever I need to make a decision, I’m drawn to the water—it provides a vantage point from which to gaze out beyond the nearest phone or traffic light or computer screen.
I believe the waters around New York City are the silent architects of our history, culture, and daily lives. Think about it: life along its shorelines started with indigenous tribes. The water around us has been a source of commerce and transportation for thousands of years. And our world-famous skyline wouldn’t be possible without the Hudson River, which stops us from endlessly widening this concrete ecosystem. We rarely pause to recognize the waters’ significance, but doing so can deepen our connection to nature and help us find serenity in our everyday routines.
The Lenape people who first inhabited Manhattan called the Hudson River Mahicantuck, which means “great waters in constant motion,” because of the way the tide shifts directions throughout the day. Each day the river continues this way, moving both upstream and downstream at the same time. I believe the waters connect our past and present, grounding us in who we are.
My father grew up in the 1960s in Brighton Beach, a Brooklyn neighborhood named after the coast of England and situated in the shadows of Coney Island. Despite living one block from the ocean, my father and his family rarely spent time there. Each summer they escaped for two months up to the Catskills, trading sandy city beaches for the fresh mountain air.
Still, the water was the backdrop of their lives. Until high-rise condominiums sprouted up and blocked the view, my father could see the ocean from nearly every window of his sixth-floor apartment. And at night, when the ocean blended into the sky, rendering the view imperceptible, he could still hear the far-off sound of the waves. It was comforting to listen to, especially after a rough day.
Living by the water, my father had more open space than the typical city child. He wasn’t wedged into a busy urban environment since his apartment building was the last one on the block before the beach. As a young adult, he’d run the boardwalk all the way to Coney Island and back the other way to Manhattan Beach. He remembers passing elderly people chatting on benches and lively characters dancing unabashedly to the loud music of their boom boxes.
Life was freer there, by the ocean.
Like many New Yorkers of the early 20th century, my great-grandparents arrived in the U.S. by way of the Atlantic Ocean, from Ireland on my mother’s side and Eastern Europe on my father’s side. My father’s family came from Galicia, a historic region that spans what is now Southeastern Poland and Western Ukraine. Eastern European Jews like my great-grandparents eventually settled in Brighton Beach to escape the overcrowded conditions of the Lower East Side and breathe clean air by the water.1 In the 1940s, the area was also a haven for Holocaust survivors and refugees seeking a primarily Jewish neighborhood.
In the mid-1970s, the neighborhood saw a large influx of Ashkenazi Jews from Russia and Ukraine, eventually earning the nickname “Little Odessa” after the Ukrainian port city on the Black Sea.2 Even as immigration slowed in the following years, the Eastern European influence held strong, with shop signs in Cyrillic and the scents of Georgian flatbreads and Russian sweets making their way into the streets. In that small corner of beach on the other side of the world, my relatives and others like them created a sense of home.
The beaches of Little Odessa face the south and get sun throughout most of the day. That orientation led the Lenape who lived in the region to refer to it as Narrioch, or “land without shadows.” I like to think the people from all over the world who’ve settled in that area of Brooklyn share a few things: a desire to turn toward the light and a sense of belonging from living beside the water.
I like to think the people from all over the world who’ve settled in that area of Brooklyn share a few things: a desire to turn toward the light and a sense of belonging from living beside the water.
The Lenape people had a reverence for water that we’ve largely lost in modern society. This is reflected in their vast and varied language, which has at least 35 different ways of describing water, including sukëlàntpi,or “rainwater”; mushpèkàt, or “clear water”; shawpèkunk, “place at the edge of the water”; and hikahële, “a creek or river that has run dry.”3
Before Dutch settlements, the Lenape who lived in villages along the Hudson River shifted locations with the seasons to take advantage of the available natural resources. Some sources say there were between six and twelve thousand people living in small groups on the lower estuary, connected by and surviving off the river.4
What did we lose when water became a source of power and commerce, not just a source of life? While our legal system today focuses on individual rights and structured political processes, the Lenape Laws were more of a guide on how to exist communally in the world, with one of the laws stating, “We are all relatives. Respect all relations.”
“This Lenape value stresses the interconnectivity of all things,” said Joe Baker, co-founder and executive director of the Lenape Center and an enrolled member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, in a talk at the Brooklyn Public Library. “Indeed, the land, the sky, and all life exist as an interdependent, interconnected web where no single element or being was void of its own place and embodied spirit.”5
Of course, our survival is no longer tied to the river. But we should all learn from the idea of interconnectedness that Baker spoke of. Today, individuality governs our actions and puts up artificial barriers between us and the nature surrounding us. And with the erasure of that connection came the erasure of Lenape history and their access to home.
The arrival of European settlers upheaved the Lenape way of life. Although history books cite Dutch merchant’s Peter Minuit’s purchase of the island for goods valued at 60 guilders (then about $24), the “purchase” of Manhattan is mythical, more of a forced displacement than a true exchange. After all, the Lenape did not understand or abide by the concept of land ownership. Over time, many of the Lenape people were forced to move out to reservations in Oklahoma, and their ancestors today ache for a homeland they may never have set foot on.6
The idea of owning an element of earth was completely foreign. As Baker and his co-authors wrote in Lenapehoking: An Anthology, “How could the entirety of the vast Earth, ocean and sky, clouds, streams, rain and wind be reduced to a sheet of paper? It would not have been any different than someone today laying claim of ownership to the sun.”7
Recently I learned that the Hudson River’s journey is 315 miles long.8 It starts at Lake Tear of The Clouds in the Adirondacks as fresh water, rushes over rapids and waterfalls, and then flows past small towns and cities, mixing with salt water before it comes to an end in New York City.
Through all the changes on land, the river still flows in both directions, just like it did thousands of years ago. It’s a strip of the natural world in New York City that seems relatively untouched, save for ferries and boats and bridges that interact with the water but can’t contain it.
The Hudson River, the Atlantic Ocean, the East River, and all the bays, streams, coves, reservoirs, and straits define us as much as the streets and buildings do. They are active participants in urban life—or rather, we are active participants in their ongoing cyclical journeys. Perhaps city life isn’t as individualized as it seems. We just need to think beyond ourselves, appreciate our place in the natural world and properly understand the history of those who came before us. We must recognize that before this city was a city, it was “Man-hatta,” a “hilly island” rich with natural resources, a homeland.
There’s a promenade where I can watch the tides move north and south as seagulls take flight from the river railing. Looking across the water to New Jersey, I’m reminded that nothing is still; nothing is permanent, and everything is connected.
Nature is here, all around me. These Great Waters Constantly in Motion.
References:
[1] “Brighton Beach.” Brooklyn Jewish Historical Initiative, https://brooklynjewish.org/neighborhoods/brighton-beach/. Accessed 23 Jun. 2024.
[2] “Neighborhoods.” Brooklyn Jewish Historical Initiative, https://brooklynjewish.org/neighborhoods/. Accessed 23 Jun. 2024.
[3] Delaware Tribe of Indians. Lenape Names for Other Terms for Water. Delaware Tribe of Indians, 2024, https://delawaretribe.org/wp-content/uploads/Lenape-Names-for-other-terms-for-water.pdf.
[4] “The First People of the River.” Riverkeeper, Riverkeeper, Inc., www.riverkeeper.org/hudson-river/hudson-river-journey/the-first-people-of-the-river/. Accessed 9 Mar. 2024.
[5] “The Land We’re on: Living Lenapehoking | Live from NYPL.” YouTube, New York Public Library, 7 Mar. 2023, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycGoioaKpxQ.
[6] “True Native New Yorkers Can Never Truly Reclaim Their Homeland.” Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian Institution, 15 Aug. 2018, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-native-new-yorkers-can-never-truly-reclaim-their-homeland-180970472/.
[7] Baker, Joe, Hadrien Coumans, and J. Whitney, editors. Lenapehoking: An Anthology. Brooklyn Public Library, 2022. Brooklyn Public Library, https://discover.bklynlibrary.org/item?b=12581674.
[8] Madelone, Jake. “Can You Swim in the Hudson River?” Waterfront Alliance, 29 June 2023, https://waterfrontalliance.org/2023/06/29/can-you-swim-in-the-hudson-river/.
SKETCHING A STORY 