Note: Originally posted December 20, 2003.

“So I suppose we should take a picture — you know, to show how chipper we looked at the start of all of this,” I suggested. We were standing directly beneath the Williamsburg Bridge in Brooklyn on the corner of Kent Ave. and South 6th Street, both holding our digital cameras. Maat had a coffee, a box of miniature chocolate chip cookies, and a pouch of sunflower seeds. In my left pocket were stuffed two Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies and a bag of peanuts. Provisions. “Yeah, alright,” Maat replied. Through various configurations we assembled and disassembled in efforts of documenting what was the official starting point of our walk, our adventure — to walk the entire Brooklyn waterfront from Williamsburg to Sunset Park. And there was to be no cutting corners.

This grand scheme was evolved from the thought of something much more humble — a simple walk around my new neighborhood and its industrial, desolate waterfront. Maat had suggested that, you know, since they were coming over that Saturday night and all, he and I might as well just walk the entire waterfront down there. We’d start in Williamsburg and just walk, the only real plan being to stay as close to the water as humanly possible. While other folks would look at this idea as flawed, you know, considering the fact that we would be walking somewhere between 8 and 12 miles by my estimation and coupled with the risk of muggings in various neighborhoods, I could personally not see anything wrong with the idea. It was flawless. It was brilliant. We set out to plan it.

My first step was checking the route for a passenger vehicle. It came out to just over 9 miles and was certainly skimpy on its waterfront coverage. Next, I searched out the location of a Brooklyn bike map in efforts of affording me a better tool to estimate distance and suggested route. I printed a couple copies of the map out, drew a bunch of lines, measured the distance of every segment, combined them, and converted them over to the scale for a distance of approximately 10.5 miles, not accounting for deviation (which is almost impossible, in my opinion). Meanwhile, Maat, who is one floor above me, is following a frame-by-frame path of satellite images, checking out the dead end streets and the points of interest. It may be a good point to note that we are both, at this time, being paid by our company well above the American median household income. This is only relevant in showing how totally fucking awesome we are.

Forward to three days later, cameras in hand, as we start walking south on Kent Ave. in Williamsburg. Within minutes the neighborhood turns from its mix of gritty commercial and industrial zoning to chiefly residential expanses consisting almost entirely of newly constructed apartment buildings and then, immediately following, broad streets and LA-like street scenes of desolation. As we started to curve along the waterfront to the southwest, or atleast as close as we could get to it, we began encountering the government property that makes up the massive Brooklyn Navy Yard. Behind the fences at a distance were the old barracks, the commanding officers’ mansions, and even eventually the brig, the Naval stockade (prison) — all abandoned and, in some cases, completely falling into amazing states of disrepair. The houses surrounding these parts of the Navy Yard were mostly prototypical early to early-mid-1900’s row homes and were subject to the blanket of decay that covered the entire area.

Getting closer to Vinegar Hill, the neighborhood immediately west of the Navy Yard, Maat scaled a brick wall in efforts of getting photographs of the buildings behind it — government property, again, covered with buildings practically unsafe to look at.

Beyond Vinegar Hill and its overgrown sidewalks (which on more than one occasion literally ended abruptly due to thick foliage and trash covering them), we encountered in the northeast corner of DUMBO (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass), neighbored to the east and north by a wastewater treatment facility and Con-Edison power plant respectively, a dwelling of mansion proportions with fucking antique Bentleys parked in the driveway. The house stood as a tale to be told of a once-residential, desirable neighborhood being practically converted into an industrial park.

We found a gap in-between a fence and a wall that allowed us to walk behind a building covered with graffiti and practically, if desired, into the East River itself. To the south were the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges — and a totally rickety fucking pier. Onward into DUMBO we pressed, eventually passing the tourist-friendly Fulton Ferry State Park, that ice cream place on the pier, and officially into Brooklyn Heights (along the promenade) and the Port Authority piers. As Maat pointed out on his map, the Port Authority piers are technically part of Manhattan although quite obviously part of Brooklyn geographically. Interesting, indeed. It is also quite obvious that we stood at the fence surrounding Port Authority poking our foot or hand through the bottom of it, touching the soil, and making mocking comments that we were in two boroughs simultaneously.

I suppose you had to be there. It was really quite clever, which I am sure you can still tell, however. Our humor transcends.

The next neighborhood we encountered, now heading directly south, Carroll Gardens, was abruptly started by a set of apartment buildings on the left, which seemed to be rather reminiscent of the Old West towns as presented by any number of Hollywood depictions. Regardless, across the street, a commercial lot covered in broken glass, we’re guessing at one time an art installation of some variety, was open to our meandering. Closer inspection revealed that there were four or so different colors of the glass, now quite weathered and dulled, making up a blanket an inch or so deep.

In the distance you could see the cranes and masts of freight ships and the repetition of colored freight containers stacked atop one another. We were now entering Red Hook, more or less, which was really all of the adventure wrapped up into a couple hours.

Looking at a map of Red Hook, you’ll realize that we’d be essentially walking in the path of a giant hook, starting towards the upper left and looping around the bottom of the hook, coming out on the east side before crossing the Gowanus Canal (once one of the dirtiest waterways in the United States). Considering that no trains service the deeper parts of Red Hook and only the outskirts — and also considering that three large housing projects reside in the very middle of the neighborhood as a whole — you begin to realize that Red Hook can be both desolate and unsettling.

On the corner of Imlay Street, we found a nativity scene in a shipyard surrounded by barbed wire fence blaring a choral rendition of “My Favorite Things,” from “The Sound of Music” — I mean, seriously, what the fuck? Nobody was around at all. It was fucking desolate and amazingly so at that. To consider this while staring at the nativity scene made you appreciate it that much more. Further down the street we heard a loud scraping sound and looked over to see a man dragging an office chair, a wheeled office chair on its side, by a rope tied to it. We were flabbergasted.

“Apparently they do things different down here,” I suggested.

On a dead end street we looked through the chainlink fence and saw the Statue of Liberty across the Upper Bay. Walking back up the street we both realized how completely fucking alone we were and decided that it was indeed time to throw some pieces of broken asphalt. It made tons of sense at the time. It still does if you really think about it hard enough.

At the southern tip of Red Hook, we encountered an inlet from the bay that was lined on both sides by industrial mess — decaying buildings with smokestacks and conveyer belts that seemed to still be in operation in some capacity. Thirty seconds of being on the other side the “No Trespassing” sign, a gentleman walked in out of nowhere, looked at us, and continued walking until he reached the door he wanted to enter. He was carrying a Pearl Paint bag. Further along the same street we encountered more and more of the same until we curved north, our legs at this point starting to officially ache, leading us to the pedestrian overpass into the final stretch of our adventure — Sunset Park.

My neighborhood, Sunset Park, has an interesting history — in addition to being home to the world famous Greenwood Cemetery, it is also home to the original site of the first industrial park, Bush Terminal, which resides on the waterfront. As is often the case, the expressway overpass acts as a method of segregation in poor neighborhoods — Chicago is a great example of this, if you’re familiar — and it by essence cut the waterfront off from the remainder of the neighborhood, allowing it to slowly decay to the state it is currently in. Waterfront activity decreased with the creation of the Port Authority piers along the New Jersey waterfront which meant the buildings of Sunset Park Industrial Park and their copious amounts of floorspace go almost wasted today.

Coming south down 3rd Ave., now several blocks from the waterfront (no through streets back there, just access drives going to the loading docks and back to the street), we encountered an arcade where we briefly stopped off for a rousing battle on the air hockey table. Immediately following, we continued the walk, now quite pained by our feet and leg muscles, west on 29th St., past the correctional facility and down 2nd Ave. At some point, we came upon a shopping cart which Maat, as a result of my suggestion, hopped in for a short ride. As it turns out shopping carts are just not as stable crossing cracked sidewalks and stone rubble as I originally imagined.

Sunset Park has become the new Times Square as a result of Giuliani’s expatriation of the quintessential New York filth, the fucking heart of the iniquitous image it so deserved/deserves, the porn shops and strip clubs. As we passed 39th St. and the amusingly-named “Wild Wild West” (I imagine they just play the magnificent Will Smith video over and over again), we encountered more fucked-up strip clubs and a very random display of random items on a random street corner with absolutely nobody tending to them. Were they free? Were they for sale? Were they merely street decor? Two American flags were hanging horizontally backwards and overlapping each other, directly above crass, crude, sun-bleached paintings in brass frames. A photograph of a lounging James Dean sat on the ground resting against the wall — it, too, in a lounging position. All along the avenue run the tracks of the old trolley system and cars have to slow down at certain points to avoid losing a their vehicular composure, their comfort, or, worse yet, their axles.

55th St. — the home stretch. Under the expressway, across a couple more avenues, and there we stood, afront my apartment. We photographed to commemorate and went inside. Our respective ladies were sitting there, waiting for us. My feet were aching. My shins were splitting with pain.

“My feet hurt. My shins hurt.”

“And you’re surprised by this? You were walking for six hours.”

It is true. It was an adventure six hours in the making. I took 210 photographs, ate two oatmeal creme pies, four miniature chocolate chip cookies, half a bag of spicy peanuts, and two mouthfuls of sunflower seeds. In the long run, I felt a connection to Brooklyn so profound that, now, every skyline has meaning — and the cranes in the distance to the west hold personal relevance as their surrounding grounds have been discovered and explored.

And it’s really such a small sliver of Brooklyn — there’s so much more to see.