The Hudson, That Hudson Never Saw

It was a cool day in February 2008. We had gone to New York City to see a Chinese New Year’s show at Radio City Music Hall. We had some time to kill and ventured to the “Top of the Rock.” As I stood there looking south into the midtown section of Manhattan, through a sky that was still Paul Simon’s “Hazy Shade of Winter” I wondered what it must have looked like 400 years back, when Henry Hudson first sailed into the harbor.

Travel today to New York City and it is difficult to imagine what it looked like without sky scrapers, without broad, automobile choked streets, without housing complexes, without millions of people, without graffiti, without litter, without constant noise and bustle, without rows of ships that dwarf Henry’s Half Moon.

Most of us can only trace family histories, on this continent, to not much more than half of the 400 years since Hudson’s foray. Often our perceptions of life and the world around us have a time horizon that does not extend past our grand parents. My mother came to adulthood at a time when automobiles were transforming from a luxury to a common necessity; I celebrated my 18th birthday watching Neil Armstrong take “One small step for man…”; my children never lived in a house with a rotary dial telephone. So Hudson seems ancient history to us. Yet the 400 years that have passed are but a mere moment in geologic time. During those 400 years, we - mankind - have wrought more change to the Hudson River than the rest of nature has done in tens of thousands of years.

When I first thought about putting some photos together to celebrate Henry’s historic visit to our valley, I thought I might focus on the upper river that he never saw. As I started gathering images I realized that even the parts he never saw are forever changed. There is nearly no place along the Hudson that remains as it was in Henry’s day. Almost any image gathered along the river is an image of a river that Henry never saw.

As you glance at these images - from the “Top of the Rock” to Lake Tear - I hope you take a moment to pause and reflect what it might have looked like 400 years ago, what it might look like 400 years from now.