Waiting for the crisis to pass, our thoughts go out to friends and loved-ones who also shelter in place. Old friends pass away, people we loved and admired. Immobilized for the time being, we can revisit destinations, near and far. join me in celebrating the joys of Quaranteam travel, the hope that these diversions might inspire us to value things we had taken for granted, to draw strength, wisdom and compassion from deeper engagements with nature.
. (Image and text were featured in the exhibition James McElhinney. Discover the Hudson Anew, curated by Laura Vookles. Hudson River Museum. Yonkers, New York. September 13, 2019 to February 16, 2020. Published also as a limited-edition in Hudson Highlands. North River Suite Volume One. Needlewatcher Editions. New York. 2018)
City of Yonkers from The Long Path. Thursday August 4, 2016
Stretching between the 175th Street bus station, located at the eastern end of the George Washington Bridge, the Long Path follows historic trails connecting the New Jersey Palisades with the northern Helderberg Mountains west of Albany. Part of the new seven-hundred-mile Empire State Trail system, at its southern end the Long Path follows the rim of the Palisades, in the wooded margins between the precipice and Palisades Interstate Parkway. Debouching here and there at scenic parking-areas along the motorway, the trail offers stunning vistas of the Bronx and Westchester County. Alpine scenic overlook lies directly across the river from downtown Yonkers. Established in 1645, a sawmill was built near the mouth of Nepperhan Creek, on land held by the Jonkheer (young lord) local patroon Adriaen van der Donck.
The village soon grew up around the mill’s river-landing, which came to be known as Jonkheers, or Yonkers. During the 19th century the town grew into an industrial center, producing goods from firearms to elevators, carpets and Bakelite. Access to both river and rail traffic, the small city prospered. The nation’s first golf-course opened in Yonkers. The decline of local industry and a rise in racial tension troubled Yonkers in the last century but the city is enjoying a renewal, with the redevelopment of the waterfront and other improvements. The Hudson River Museum and Planetarium is located in Trevor Park, in the Glenwood section of northern Yonkers. Seen from a grassy slope below the parking area, the bluffs of Long Island rim the horizon, past the towers of Coop City on the shores of Pelham Bay.
Check out April 2020 Quaranteam Traveler Dispatches
SKETCHBOOK TRAVELER by James L. McElhinney (c) 2020. Schiffer Publishing).
Copyright James Lancel McElhinney (c) 2020 Texts and images may be reproduced (with proper citation) by permission of the author. To enquire, send a request to editions@needlewatcher.com