Boats of Newtown Creek

Behind the Painting

I walked to the northernmost point in Brooklyn, where Manhattan Avenue deadends at Newtown Creek. The day before I'd seen a sailboat I wanted to paint, but I didn't have a notebook.

When I came back, I was disappointed to see it was gone. I started painting a smaller boat docked further up the creek. I'd put a few washes to paper when I saw the sailboat, floating towards me. It was coming in fast. Too fast.

There were three people on board. "Hey! Grab this! And pull!" A man threw me a rope and I set my paints down, cursing under my breath. I grabbed it, pulling hard, the white nylon burning my hands. I drew the rope in and he eased the boat against the concrete wall.

"Dude, man, thanks, you’re a lifesaver. Everything could go wrong. Today it went right." A couple got off the boat and he started to tie it to the dock.

"Thanks again. I’m Dave by the way. Hate to say bad things about watercolor, but I associate them with a lot of bad hippie art. That’s nice though."

He offered me a beer. I gladly accepted. We sat in the sun talking, drinking from tall yellow cans. I asked him how long he'd been sailing.

"Almost two decades. Saw an ad in the paper for a free boat 18 years ago. Never looked back."

"Want the best deal in Brooklyn? There's a place you can rent for $500." He gestured to a boat across the creek.”

"It gets cold out here. Anything under twenty, a heater doesn't help. You have to have a girlfriend for a place to stay on those cold nights."

We talked for awhile longer. Guitars. Life on a house boat. His old job as a scenic artist for movies.

A makeshift raft pulled up to the dock. A man with a handlebar mustache got off. he came back with a grocery bag. "Ice cream sandwiches are good for morale. Gotta feed the troops.”

A few people in orange canoes came bay, paddling close to the concrete wall. "One dead, two alive. Three alive, one...mostly dead."

I asked what they were doing. They were counting oysters. New life returning to the creek.