Up the Hudson they came yesterday, one after the other, after the other, after the other. Giant schooners, sails swelling in the wind, going both ways, as they circled the island of Manhattan. And after the Master and Commander boats came the battleships and aircraft carriers, stretching down the New York harbor as far as the eye could see. It was an awe-inspiring sight. The boats came from all over the world. It is bicentennial of the war of 1812, don’t you know. Mr. Madison’s War. In 1776, as the rebellion in the colonies heated up and (crucially) as they all started banding together, New Yorkers woke up on the morning of June 26, 1776, to see 500 British warships in New York harbor. One person declared, memorably, “I declare that I thought all of London was afloat”. I think of that sometimes when I look out at the beautiful harbor surrounding lower Manhattan, its wide expanse, the shores of Jersey, the shores of Brooklyn. Sometimes I look at the harbor and try to picture it being filled with 500 bobbing British warships. Terrifying. Yesterday, there certainly weren’t that many boats, but it did call to mind what that must have felt like to the New Yorkers of the day, standing by, watching the ranks of boats approach.
The sailors and soldiers all stood on the decks of the giant battleships, in their dress whites, standing in formation along the railings, not moving, staring out at us. All of us, clustered on the shore, waved. They did not wave back. It was an intimidating and beautiful sight.
I stood on a pier with hundreds of others watching the ships go by. I happened to be standing next to a man who knew everything about all the ships. “That ship has a fully operational hospital on board,” he informed us, “with a CAT scan machine and everything.”
Fighter jets flew over the procession in formation, leaving a ghostly trail of smoke behind them.
It was a muggy overcast afternoon, the air heavy with impending rain. A strange orange glow burned in the sky around lower Manhattan.
And afterwards? The start of Fleet Week, one of my favorite times in New York every year. Where the streets clog with sailors in white, all up to no good, careening through the streets, smoking cigarettes, posing good-naturedly for photos (everyone wants pictures of them), saying, “Excuse me, ma’am” in Southern accents as they try to get by you, and hanging out outside of bars. These were the same intimidating figures, small and yet distinct, we saw standing on the decks of the battleships.
The whole thing was a sight to behold.
That photo of the fighter jets is INCREDIBLE!!!
I know!! I can’t believe I captured it – they were going so fast!
“500 bobbing British warships”
Those were the days! At the moment, the best we can manage is four rubber dinghies and a chap called Colin in a rusty pedalo.
hahahaha “a chap called Colin”
Reminds me of Eddie Izzard’s bit about Britain’s lack of a space program. “Put a man on the moon? We can’t put a guy in a track suit up a ladder!”