On this slightly dreary rainy day, as
I’m looking from my office window, I’m remembering what the view usually looks like in spring, as in the picture taken in spring 2009.
As the weather warms up, though, the grand English oaks, river birches, and weeping willows are going to make their entrance. As I bike through the pathways, I’m going to be shaded by a lush umbrella of trees, an ideal backdrop for lunchtime strollers. In the evening, the purple lanterns set close to the water glow as residents and visitors dine at candlelit tables.
And the main attraction in spring and summer is our magnificent tree-lined Esplanade, a 1.2 mile promenade winding its way around the entire length of the Battery. Dogs love it! I know that Katie always did–the smells and the birds.
Indeed, cherry blossoms and silver lindens perfume the air with their heady sweetness. Eighty species of birds flutter amidst the lion’s tails, roses, azaleas, anemones, toad lilies, and lavender hydrangeas. And hopeful fisherman cast their lines into the Hudson for local specialities like bluefish, white perch, winter flounder, and tomcod.
But best of all, the Hudson is overflowing with sailboats, private yachts, tour boats, jet skis, and kayaks—plus barges, water taxis, and commuter ferries—a blur of nautical movement creating a wild dance across the water.
Most dramatic are the mammoth cruise ships that glide southward to the ocean as people stand on shore and wave. I think the only thing I haven’t seen on the Hudson is somebody floating by in a bathtub.
Tomorrow, I’ll tell you more about the variety of DOGS, not birds, that you’ll find here in Battery Park City–and hope you’ll all visit here over the next months to take a look for yourselves.
