at the new york historical society

our neighbor works part-time as a curator for the new york historical society, which has caused me to be more interested in the exhibits they have. a few days ago i received an email from them offering a docent tour of an exhibit that is actually closing soon: their hudson rising exhibit, which looks at two hundred years of environmental activism along the hudson river. the tour was this afternoon, and i'm so glad i went. above is an 1875 painting by charles edouard dubois of the new jersey palisades, which extend for twenty miles along a forty mile ridge from hoboken, new jersey to haverstraw, new york. the palisades have always intrigued me, ever since i was a child, probably because we once celebrated my birthday there when it included an amusement park. we first had a picnic along the bank of the river, and then rode roller coasters for the rest of the day. i remember riding the "wildcat" in the dark, and then going home and complaining of a headache.

catskill mountain house, by thomas cole.

in the 1800's, landscape painters such as cole and dubois, were depicting the beauty of the hudson river while current industry was at the same time polluting it. the forests they were painting were being torn down as fuel for brick making, iron foundries and tanneries, specifically the prattsville tannery, which consumed half a million hemlocks in the years it was operating, depleting the hemlocks in that area, and polluting the hudson with the runoff of tannic acid that had been extracted and used to soften the leather. new york city was also adding to the mess with sewage and trash runoff.

rock from the palisades was prized for use in building roads and docks. by the 1890's the cliffs were being blasted to bits, and were only eventually saved by a combined effort of coalitions from new jersey and new york. the result was palisades park, of which a pamphlet is pictured above.

 the next fifty years saw six other parks created just north of palisades park.

one would think that after the mess of the 19th century, we would have learned to take better care of the river in the 20th century, but such was not the case. sludge from paper mills, paint from car making plants, fuel oil spills, and sewage and trash from the city resulted in an even worse scenario for the river. perhaps the worst offender was the general electric plant at hudson falls, which was dumping pcbs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, into the river. by 1980, the hudson river was the nation's largest superfund sight. it measured 200 miles long, from hudson falls to battery park.

singer pete seeger helped to get people's attention about the plight of the river in 1966, when he released his song, my dirty stream (the hudson river song) and raised money to build a replica of a wooden hudson river cargo sloop, which he sailed to washington d.c. in 1970 to participate in the first earth day.

(in the photo above this youtube video, you can see the stool and earphone the exhibit provided to listen to the song).

now we're dealing with climate change and harsher storms and rising waters. we've also lost so much habitat due to extensive building.

two exciting developments are the living breakwaters project and the billion oyster bed project. the living breakwaters project is a storm mitigation project along the tottenville shoreline of staten island, which was devastated during hurricane sandy. it was the winner of the US housing and urban development's rebuild by design challenge and works to adapt the shoreline of staten island to withstand future storms, enhance the shoreline biodiversity, and reconnect the community with its marine heritage.

the exhibit had a large interactive film explaining essentially what is explained in this youtube video. the breakwater project is also combining with the billion oyster project, as its square stones allow the mollusks to attach and thrive. 

when henry hudson first sailed up the river in 1609, it was rich with oyster beds, and oysters were sold in all the taverns and restaurants that eventually developed in the following hundred and fifty years. ellis island and liberty island were both surrounded with oyster beds. i was astonished to see the size of it on a map displayed in the exhibit. the billion oyster project is an attempt to bring the oysters back to new york harbor. the brackish waters, a mix of salt water and fresh water, extend for sixty miles up the river, and was a perfect home for oyster reefs. you can read about the billion oyster project here.

it was an amazing exhibit, and i learned so much.

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on the way home . . 

the weather has been really nice lately: mid 80's, with the humidity around 60%. it's warm, but not oppressive.