This was becoming a theme for the summer; my favorite launching spot in the Bronx had a brand new fence around it.
Luckily David, Sharon, and I found a more manageable fence to climb at the Hunts Point Riverside Park.
We lost a few hours searching, but seemed to have arrived just in time,
to see the Bronx River waking up.
“This is a real bird-watching trip!” said David, as he identified two kinds of Herons and Gulls, Great Egrets, a Gray Catbird, Red-winged Blackbird, American Kestrel, and a few Common Terns.
On one side of the river, industrial waste stacked up beautifully against it’s reflection,
and on the other, Soundview Park seemed like a wilderness.
Sometimes people ask if I give ‘tours’ in my boat. I always answer no, the passenger is usually the one giving me a tour.
Today was an exceptional case; I had two experts in the boat.
Sharon wrote The Other Islands of New York City with her husband Stuart Miller. Now in its 3rdh edition, the book has been my guide since I moved to New York; me and every other boater, artists, and NYC history enthusiast.
David is an artist who’s sculpture and installations explore… well.. exploring. He has made projects from the Everglades to the Amazon, London to New York, all  centered around our relationship to the natural environment.
Having them together in the Bronx River was like being given a tour of the Vatican by two popes.
The conversation ranged from facts about birds, islands, and urban wildlife habitat,
to childhood stories about family gossip, intrigue, and murder.
(Maybe that is because we were passing between Rikers Island and the Vernon C. Bain prison ship.)
Soon the crown jewel of all ‘other islands’ floated into view.
North Brother once housed a quarantine hospital for infectious disease, housing for WWII veterans, a reform school for teenage girls, and most famously, Typhoid Mary.
We couldn’t help but take a quick peek.
The thing that happened next, I have lived in fear of for ten years.
Sharon stepped on a nail hidden in the ivy. Â As we pulled the rusty spike from her foot, an entire decade of trouble free boat trips flashed before my eyes.
But Sharon was tougher than the nail. We decided that David should go check out some sights while we sat still and chatted.
“Why do you think so many of the islands in New York City were used as quarantines and prisons?” I asked Sharon.
“The city expanded so quickly, the islands became a place to put unwanted people.” she said.
It’s funny to think about that now, with all New York’s high priced waterfront views and fancy parks,
but the ferry systems that once served the islands are too expensive to run, so the islands are left wild.
“I wonder what happened to David?” said Sharon. It had been almost an hour, and he wasn’t answering his phone.
It is amazing how quickly nature devoured these buildings, inhabited as recently as the 1960’s.
I saw trees growing up through basketball courts,
and eventually – David, unhurt, finding his way through the ruins.
The best building on campus is the old reform school.
It has an indoor gymnasium,
an old theater,
and I found graffiti from when Lan Tuazona, Starlee Kine, and I came here in 2006.
Back then it seemed like the building just needed a fresh coat of paint and some pest control, but now it’s actually falling over.
David’s Friend Bob Braine wrote the book Two Waters, that included a description of coming here in 1995.
It is a poetic look at urban waterscapes, the entangled history of places and the encroaching natural world – ‘mutant nature’ as Bob puts it.
Bob Braine also managed to drag back some really amazing junk from North Brother atop his hand-made boat.
We stopped and wondered if Bob would like this old park bench. “It would fit in the boat.” I told David.
“Let’s come back for it another time.” he said. Sharon was waiting.
Even though she felt pretty comfortable, Sharon had called her doctor.
“Go to the emergency room.” she had advised. There was no point risking infection.
That was easier said than done. My truck was still a few miles away, and Sharon’s family was starting to worry.
North Brother Island was performing the task it filled throughout history; providing a spot right next to the city that was difficult to get away from.
Prisoners shouted at us from the basketball courts of the Vernon C. Bain, but we couldn’t quite make what they were saying. “Something about our city… go New York City?” David said.
“OH COME ON, YOU GUYS! THAT IS NOT NICE!” Sharon shouted back. She had understood what they were saying right away;
“I know the type,” Sharon said.
As a teacher, journalist, Brooklyn native, and adventuring spirit, I think Sharon not only knows the type, but really likes them.
The prisoners, the outcasts who lived on islands in New York City – they were all people who needed a little more help navigating the modern world.
Maybe they were getting lost in the shuffle like the islands themselves.
It was a unique day for the Tide and Current Taxi; new birds, a remote island, contact with actual prison inmates, and a low level medical emergency.
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