The weather outside is frightful, and the Hudson River is now partially encrusted in a layer of ice that is chillingly beautiful. Thanks to @ursusactos for the photos, which were taken from 86th Street.
Fun fact: The Hudson froze over completely about 200 years ago, according to the Times: “’In 1821, amid one of the coldest winters of the century, New Yorkers awoke on Jan. 25 to find the Hudson frozen solid. Thousands of people crossed the ice from New York to New Jersey, and taverns were set up midriver to warm pedestrians.”
Taverns!
The sheet of ice I am on is heading out to sea and I don’t see any Taverns
Re: “and taverns were set up mid-river to warm pedestrians.”
Taverns!”
Of course! Many Manhattanites were ALWAYS quick to seize upon a way to make a buck, even when this place was still a tiny Dutch trading post called Nieuw Amsterdam!
And when the Brits arrived in 1664 and basically said, ‘Nice place you got here! We’ll take over, and rename it for The Duke of York’ many of the residents basically replied, “Certainly, and how may we serve you?”
I only go back to the late 1930’s and 40’s. My memories are
that the river looked like it was frozen over solid, however,
I was only a kid so my perception might have been off a
little. I was up on 105th street & WEA, the farther north you go the more ice you see. Thanks Mother Nature for the memories!
See? Who needs anther tunnel crossing?
Now if that happened, chain taverns would set up and crowd out the mom and pop taverns!
(Apparently this is the only topic that West Side Rag covers!)
Hey, even NYC has slow news days.
Riiight, taverns in the middle of the Hudson. I see the Times was peddling fake news almost 200 years ago as well.
I guess that means they’ve been “failing” for centuries!
The Hudson also froze over one winter during the Revolutionary War occupation and the British were able to transport cannons across.
It’s my understanding that most of the ice we see in the Hudson west of Manhattan is chunks or slabs of ice from further north where there really is significant ice on the river.
That’s Manhattan: everyone comes from somewhere else.
This guy shot a neat video of the ice on the river: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a86PJXJXSXQ
Hundreds if not thousands of years ago before “global warming” and more importantly ships capable of breaking up ice; both the North River and East River along with Kill von Kull and other bodies of water in NYC often froze solid.
That being said with East River being more shallow than North; the former was more prone to freezing over than latter.
http://gothamist.com/2013/01/24/new_yorkers_cross_frozen_east_river.php
https://www.6sqft.com/winters-during-19th-century-new-york-were-so-cold-the-east-river-froze-over/
https://hudsonvalleyone.com/2016/02/11/iced-over-crossing-the-hudson-in-winter-before-the-bridges-were-built/
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/02/16/could-new-york-harbor-ever-freeze-solid/
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/nyc-s-east-river-ice-floes-are-a-throwback-to-the-1800s-video/
Fast forward to relatively modern times the freezing over of New York Harbor especially the Hudson River just cannot be allowed. So if things get bad the Coast Guard will dispatch “ice breakers” to keep waters flowing.
A main reason for keeping the Hudson River clear is that during winter good amounts of home heating oil are sent via barges upstate.