Waterfall of Wasted Money

Paddled with Laura and Robert from Long Island City Community Boathouse (not a "public" trip though) to the Brooklyn Bridge area to see all four waterfalls.

They look like scaffolding holding up a collapsing building with a leaky ceiling. So unappealing next to the beauty of the Brooklyn Bridge itself.

They are all exactly alike. No color, no sense of design or elegance. Not even close to the beauty or awe of a real waterfall. Even a tiny real waterfall is better than these.

It would have been more interesting if it were the $15 million they spent in the form of pennies falling from the scaffold.

We were not sucked into the giant turbines we had been warned about. The ones dangerous to small boats, yet harmless to fish. Now, that would have been exciting.


We saw no patrol boats on the trip west on the East River to the Brooklyn piers.Waited til the current change. There was a police boat near the Brooklyn Bridge on the way back. They took no action as we drifted past the waterfall close enough to get wet from the spray. The protective pontoons squeezed flat by the current.

We and the police boat drifted east on the East River. Under the Manhattan Bridge they headed back to the Brooklyn Bridge as I made a security call that we were paddling back to Anable Basin.

NOAA announced the storm just after we had passed Gantry State Park. Our feet touched the dock under darkening skies with one minute to spare before the thunder rummbled.


Shared "hit by lightning" stories with the Deitch Art Gallery crew while it poured rain.