Hudson River

Beez Neez now Chy Whella
Big Bear and Pepe Millard
Fri 24 Jun 2011 22:57
The Hudson River
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 

 

The Narrows: is a tidal stream between the New York City boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn, connecting the upper and lower sections of New York Bay. It has long been considered the maritime "gateway" to New York City and historically has been the most important entrance into the harbour. To us Beez Neez entered New York as she passed under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (we first saw - below - in fairly thick fog) and trotted up the narrows.

The Narrows were most likely formed about 6,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age. Previously, Staten Island and Long Island were connected, preventing the Hudson River from terminating via The Narrows.

 

 

 

 

The Hudson River:  is a three hundred and fifteen mile river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. It rises at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains, flows past Albany, and finally forms the border between New York City and New Jersey at its mouth before emptying into Upper New York Bay. Its lower half is a tidal estuary which occupies the Hudson Fjord created during the most recent North American glaciations over the latter part of the Wisconsin Stage of the Last Glacial Maximum (26,000 to 13,300 years ago). Tidal waters influence the Hudson's flow as far north as Troy.

At that time, the Hudson River emptied into the Atlantic Ocean through a more westerly course through parts of present day northern New Jersey, along the eastern side of the Watchung Mountains to Bound Brook, New Jersey and then on into the Atlantic Ocean via Raritan Bay. A build up of water in the Upper Bay eventually allowed the Hudson River to break through previous land mass that was connecting Staten Island and Brooklyn to form The Narrows as it exists today. This allowed the Hudson River to find a shorter route to the Atlantic Ocean via its present course between New Jersey and New York City.

 

 

The river is named after Henry Hudson, an Englishman sailing for the Dutch East India Company, who explored it in 1609. It had previously been observed by Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano sailing for King Francis I of France in 1524 as he became the first European known to have entered the Upper Bay, but he mistook it for an estuary. The river was named by Hudson's employers the North River (with the Delaware River called the South River) and formed the spine of the Dutch colony of New Netherland. Settlement of the colony clustered around the Hudson and its strategic importance as the gateway to the American interior led to years of competition between the English and the Dutch over control of the river and colony.

In the Eighteenth Century, the river valley and its inhabitants were the subject and inspiration of Washington Irving, the first internationally acclaimed American author. In the Nineteenth Century the area inspired the Hudson River School of painting, an American pastoral style, as well as the idea of "wilderness" and "conservation."

 

 

 
 

Our first marker and chum as we neared the bridge in fog

 

The river was called Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk, the Great Mohegan, by the Iroquois, or as the Lenape Native Americans called it in Unami, Muhheakantuck. The Hudson was named the "North River" by the Dutch, who called the Delaware River the "South River." The name "North River" was used in the New York City area up until the early 1900s, with limited use continuing into the modern day. The term persists in radio communication among commercial shipping traffic, especially below Tappan Zee. It was the English who originated the use of the name "Hudson" - because Hudson had found the river while exploring for the Dutch East Indies Company.

 

 

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

Some of the girls - anchored and moving we waved to; and some markers - big ones - must be Merica

 

  

 

 

 

The skyline, completed for us as we first saw the Statue of Liberty. Tourists hard at it in the Beast, the mix of industrial, homes and businesses

 

 

 

Bear did not fancy being a crane driver on this particular project

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notable landmarks on the Hudson: West Point, Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site, Bard College, the Culinary Institute of America, Marist College, the Thayer Hotel at West Point, Bannerman's Castle, Metro-North Railroad's Hudson Line (formerly part of the New York Central Railroad system), the Tappan Zee, the New Jersey Palisades, Hudson River Islands State Park, Hudson Highlands State Park,Walkway over the Hudson, Sing Sing Correctional Facility, New York Military Academy, Fort Tryon Park with The Cloisters, Liberty State Park, and Stevens Institute of Technology. Cities and towns on the New Jersey side include Tenafly, Fort Lee, Edgewater, West New York, Weehawken, Hoboken, and Jersey City. Cities in New York State include Troy, Albany, Kingston, Poughkeepsie, Glens Falls, Yonkers, Newburgh Beacon and New York City.

 

 

 

The Cunard Line was of course going to welcome the Titanic. Many of their remaining piers are now undercover car parks

 

The natural beauty of the Hudson Valley earned the Hudson River the nickname "America's Rhine", being compared to that of the famous forty mile stretch of Germany's Rhine River valley between the cities of Bingen and Koblenz. A similar thirty mile stretch on the east bank of the Hudson has been designated the Hudson River Historic District, a National Historic Landmark. The Hudson was designated as one of the American Heritage Rivers in 1997.

 

 

 
 
What struck us most was the mix of old / new, modern  /  renovated, the variety of heights, the sheer size of the river and all things New York, New York. We look forward to exploring The Big Apple, The Big Onion and definitely The City That Doesn't Sleep. 
 
 

 

 

 

ALL IN ALL WHAT A SKYLINE AND SO BUSY

                      MORE SPECTACULAR THAN I IMAGINED