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Not that there were good reasons: fear of theft, or safety and insurance concerns. In the er New York's working waterfront must have been a great urban spectacle, the extent one could glimpse it in passing, and a forbidden zone, parts which were as hidden from view as the Imperial Palace in Peking.
TRIBECA: RIVER PROJECT
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CROSS FROM A JUMBO OFFICE BUILDING AND THE HIGHWAY SITS PIER 25, WITH ITS SCRAPPY CARNIVAL ASSORTMENT OF MINIATURE GOLF, BEACH VOLLEYBALL, kiddie rides, and soft ice cream. Next to that is Pier 26, on West Street and North Moore, just below Canal Street. Pier 26 is a wide concrete slab, looking out onto riverwashed stubs of rotting timbers, which has been shared for the past decade by two exemplary nonprofit organizations, the River Project, which operates educational and exhibit programs related to river ecology, and the Downtown Boathouse, which runs kayaking and canoe programs.
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The River Project, housed in a twostory cinderblock structure, with a traileroffice alongside, has been fondly described by John Waldman
(Heartbeats in the Muck) as "a resilient cross between a marine biology field tation and a TriBeCa neighborhood clubhouse for the outdoorminded." It gives off that odor of onestepfromeviction squatter's idealism, klutzy if endearing voluntarism, and embattled overdrive which might be characterized as essence de nonprofit.
One Sunday in September I went over to the River Project to watch the scuba divers.
On this brisk, windy day, an underwater trashremoval event had been scheduled to draw curious onlookers and raise consciousness about keeping the Hudson River clean. On a floating dock attached to the concrete slab, a young, rotund volunteer organizer in an orange life jacket was directing the flow of divers in the waters at his feet. "Who's going down next?" The eight divers, bobbing in the water like decapitated heads, looked uncertain, no one exactly rushing toward submersion. "Hold on to the dumpline," he said, "if you're going down. If you're not, clear the space for the others." The divers were all Hispanic innercity youths in their teens, part of a group called the Kips Bay Girls and Boys Club (not from Kips Bay, of course, that would be too simple, but from the Bronx). One chubby girl, having completed her dive, halfflopped, halfclimbed gracelessly onto the floating deck, saying "Help me!" The organizer did, reluctantly, then leaned over, asked a prettier girl in the water if she was okay, and she tapped her head, a signal that must have meant "everything's all right." Meanwhile, several people were videotaping the divers, part of that documentation process so dear to nonprofits. The organizer shooed one of the camera people off the deck because she lacked a lifejacket.
A young man, emerging from his dive, his mustache dripping river water, reported that he was unable to extricate any trash because he couldn't see a thing; the water was too murky. "Plus there's too many divers, you keep bumping into each other.