This was supposed to be a happy post.

Wednesday addendum: Well, I'm still upset about this business of a little groups of paddlers deciding that it's OK to not share information about a meeting that clearly might have been of interest to the rest of the Pier 63 folks, but Nancy, our local HRWA Metropolitan Coordinator, just posted a much more in-depth update that cheered me up considerably. May not be as done writing about this as I thought I was last night - those "Hey, folks, we did so great at this meeting that we decided the rest of you didn't need to attend because we've got everything under control" emails just drive me nuts. I don't always see eye-to-eye with Nancy, either, but it helps that she's actually been chosen to play the role she does in an open process - it's clear who she speaks for, and why, and that's something I can get behind. So - read on, with grain of salt, don't miss the fun rust people pictures, and if you're a U.S. citizen, have a happy Thanksgiving!



Here were the rusty ones, building the first MKC hold, the fleet hold, back in early Spring of 1999. This is how kayaking took hold in the Hudson River Park - people wanted to do it, so they'd make it happen.


Here's the hold - looking out from inside. Lots of rust. Naturally we couldn't get rid of all of it, but we all chipped away as much of the loose stuff as we could, then painted with an anti-rust product. See that bucket? We filled many, many, many of those.
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Here's another view, looking towards the back, with an actual kayak. We wrapped carpeting around all those posts; we built racks, and slings for nicer boats - the majority of the MKC fleet had to be plastic, though, because even once the racks were built, there was a lot of sliding and rough treatment.


You do as much work as we did, and you just have to hit yourself in the head and go paddling, already! Here, Eric Stiller demonstrates proper post-derusting head-hitting technique. BTW - that's the Starett-Lehigh Building in the background. That's where I was saying New York Kayak used to be. As a matter of fact, there's a reasonably good chance that some of those windows are Randy's shop!


And here's some of that the crazy first-year crew, getting ready to go do the thing we were all there to do. There was so much good energy that year. Wish it could've lasted.


I put so much into that place.

But it really may just be time to let it go, just like I had to let go of Manhattan Kayak Company itself.