Boyz II Men: “Water Runs Dry”

Two of my favorite places in all of New York: The first is a quarter-mile strip of green in Riverside Park, just below the Boat Basin, just above Intrepid. Dune grass grows waist high, and weeping willows—finally mature after three years that I watched them grow—dip over curving boardwalks. So much green, now sun-bleached and dying, and then above them: towers, blue sky, highway. Water on the other side. It’s a little chaotic but so peaceful, and it smells like beach, like all that grass and tide. Run fast enough, and you won’t even know you missed it. The second is the Gowanus Canal. Quiet (deserted), toxic and filthy, but water. A good six-mile run from my front door in Manhattan. Those boats make it feel like home.

(Pool) party.

Photo by Joe Curtin.

Spent the last weekend of spring (or the third of summer, depending on when your seasons officially start) in Sag Harbor, cruising Peconic Bay in a dinghy (above) and then to Block Island and back (in a slightly larger vessel) for mudslides and ‘Gansett Lights. No sunburns, no nightclubs; just water and wine at every turn. I cannot wait to go back.

I have this saved in my water folder as “great ocean” because it is a great ocean.

Daily dose of Americana: The Conservatory Water on the east side of Central Park.

The original plan for Central Park called for a formal flower garden and a large glass house, or conservatory, for tropical plants. An ornamental pond was constructed as a reflecting pool for the conservatory, but when the plan for a structure was abandoned, the water body became the popular model boat pond, inspired by those in Parisian parks.

From April through October, children and boat enthusiasts come to navigate radio and wind-powered vessels across the shimmering waters. It’s such a popular destination that writer E.B. White set the whimsical boat scene in his children’s classic, Stuart Little, here. It was recreated in the 1999 film of the same name. [Source.]

“Island Light” by Anne Meredith Barry, 1982.
Considered one of the twenty-five greatest works of art ever made in Newfoundland.
See the full list on The Scope, first published in August 2009.

A dose of summer and water.
Photograph by Wayne Levin.

“Silent World” by Michael Kenna.