Photo of the Day: The Cliffs of Edgewater, NJ

This photo, which I took this past November, looking east from City Place at The Promenade, captures Edgewater, NJ, at a landscape crossroads. To the upper right are older dwellings, hugging the cliff tops that offer a magnificent vista across the Hudson River; to the left, the newer residences, often high-rise, that have arisen over the past couple of decades, catering to a far more affluent population.

I guess this area means something to me for the most personal of reasons. It wasn’t simply that, over 40 years ago, a long-gone industrial plant employed my father and brothers for a time. But a number of my high school friends, from a similar blue-collar background as mine, lived here.

I am glad that this river town managed to rescue itself when industry left virtually en masse several decades ago. At the same time, I fear that something’s been lost in the reinvention: CNNMoney.com, after all, not too long ago, ranked Edgewater #4 among 10 places in the U.S. where the young and affluent are abundant. How much room is left now for people like my friends and their families?

Photo of the Day: City Place, Edgewater NJ

In a prior post, I mentioned briefly the massive development that has taken place over the last couple of decades in Edgewater, NJ. The photo I featured then, on the Hudson River shoreline, gave only a hint of this. The photo you’re looking at now, of City Place at the Promenade, is much more characteristic of what has been taking place.

This particular development is a mixed-use center, mixing retail and restaurant space with condos and a hotel. It offers an alternative living site for those who want a short commute into Manhattan (just up River Road is the approach to the George Washington Bridge). River Road has become a far different place from the factory zone that employed thousands of blue-collar workers (including my father) into the late 1970s.

Photo of the Day: New York, Viewed From Edgewater NJ

I spent part of Sunday afternoon in a  multiplex. It seemed a shame, considering what a gloriously sunny, beautiful day it was. 

But at least I got the chance to record, in this one shot, what struck me so much about the scene that day: 

1) Edgewater,  now in the midst of massive development (some seen here, to the left) driven by commuters attracted to its proximity to New York; 

2) the New York City waterfront—an area that I don’t think the city fathers value to anywhere near the degree they should; and 

3) the Hudson River and the creatures it has sustained, despite man’s best (or, I should say, worst) efforts.