10.15.2011

The Briny Smell and Clinky, Decayed Sounds of Inspiration

If you enjoy the (promising, then boring) title sequence for "Boardwalk Empire" you'll hopefully love this. Near Astoria Park is a small area of waterfront near which residents show off their hot rods and nit-pick at sparkling engine parts. There's a particularly impressive T-bird that shows up regularly.

Hell Gate Bridge (also called Robert F. Kennedy Bridge) in background.
On the other side of the riverside railing lies the East River in the shadow of the Triborough Bridge, and, while pretty nice, no, that's not such an awe-inspiring thing on its own. But there's a detail that caught my attention for a full half-hour. The beach is practically covered in half a color wheel's worth of trashed glass. Every soothing tint of blue and green is there, worn down to something soft and then manhandled into millions of little petals. Seriously, they're shaped like petals. The process is constantly on view: bottles being broken up by the tide and then smoothed down little by little.
It sounds like a wind chime.

The pummeling picks up around 3 p.m.


The shards take on a mossy aspect, blending in very well with the larger boulders.

See? Petals.