The Waterfalls of Riverside Park

Unstoppable and unceasing rain from the Sunday Nor’easter storm shoots along gutters and froths at the sewer grates. I decide to take a stroll down to the Hudson River with my camera. Water gushes from every direction and collects behind toppled street signs. “No parking” and “Stop” were severed at the base and lay like crumpled shields on the pavement. Grey figures from far away up the hill wobble with umbrellas clutched close to their bodies. A mother and daughter surprise me in shockingly bright yellow slickers and matching wellies. When the mum shouts after her giddy daughter to stop playing in the puddles, they seem not quite so cheery as before. Surely that woman has watched “Singin’ in the Rain” at some point?

With a happy refrain I kick my way through the puddles and vaunt the steps up from Claremont Avenue into a green between Riverside Church and Grant’s Tomb. Already the backs of my trousers feel soggy, but I seek shelter under a leaky gazebo in the centre of the green. I take some routine pictures of the church, half-hidden in scaffolding and billowy black gauze, and consider a foray into the rambling wild of Riverside Park. At this point, just south of Grant’s Tomb, the park becomes a roughly-kept, hillside nature walk with sports facilities below at the level of the Henry Hudson Parkway. A few days before I saw kids playing softball on the pitch and whacking around tennis balls.

I approach the stone staircase leading down and think how prettily the water cascades down the broad steps. I place my foot into the torrent and my shoe looks like a dark rock in a stream. Although the path below looks flooded, I surely can find a fairly dry way forward? I descend. The raging water splashes higher and higher the farther down I go. I reach the bottom and realise the water comes up to my knees. After enduring the chilly misery of the storm this far, I desperately want to reach the river. It doesn’t occur to me that the river has already reached me.

To avoid the deepest of the pools, I edge my way along the mucky leaves on the wrong side of a fence. I cause two minor mudslides down toward the sports pitches. With thoroughly soaked shoes and trousers, I reach the other end of the wall and tumble over into a lightly flooded observation area.

When I was a child, my mother read to me the Berenstain Bears series of picture-books. In one of the stories, the question was posed: “When you come to a puddle do you go around it or ride right through?” The bear of the story rode a bicycle through the puddle with soggy consequences. I clearly learned little from my youth for I plunge straightaway into a rather deep bit of water. The depth of the water shocks me into stillness. I fumble with the umbrella and my camera cases and rebalance myself to leap to the opposite bank of the pond. I decide to leave Riverside Park before I manage to traipse into the Hudson itself!

I pause at the bottom of another stone staircase that leads up to the brownstones of 110th Street. If you’ve ever been on a tidal beach and looked down as a wave washes around your feet back to sea, you know the strangely queasy sensation I feel at this moment. The powerful current splashes down the steps and threatens to drag me back toward the river. Here I take my stand against the elements. I brace myself against the wall and begin to capture the beautiful splashes and plonks and trickles of the rainwater. I am grateful for the black and white film in my camera since it will mask the true colour of the water: gritty, muddy brown as it always is during such a ferocious storm. I tracked this urban waterfall through mud, sewage, freezing rain and wind. I take my pictures at leisure. After the 36th exposure, I reach the top and find Riverside Drive a shallower version of the flooded park below.

I need to find a market with an apple, an orange and a bottle of wine and a bottle of rum for a punch that will brew whilst I spend some time soaking in a hot shower.