“Great thoughts stir within me at the sight of ruins. Everything gradually crumbles and vanishes. Only the world remains, only time endures… I am walking between two eternities.”
Denis Diderot
We are surrounded here in this area with the memories in the landscape of Henry Hudson’s exploration of this valley, of the remnants of the first industrial revolution and its dependence on water power and with the ruins of a bygone industry: ice harvest from the river. Water is everywhere in the landscape. No parched desert vistas here. The history of the last 400 years of this valley has been dependent on this element, and it has been plentiful. It is hard to make a photograph of the landscape from which it is missing. Here are some from the area near my home.
Ice House Ruins, Nutten Hook
The Mills and Lower Falls, Stuyvesant Falls
VanAlen House
Ice on Trees, Lower Falls, Stuyvesant Falls
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