http://fryingpan.com/
if you walk on 26th street toward the hudson river you will eventually run out of 26th street at a stubby pier with fat railroad tracks on it. if you walk along this pier you will see a real live railroad caboose right out over the water. anyplace with a caboose is worth nosing around. when i was a child there was a caboose cemented to the ground at schifferdecker park and there's one in the middle of a town some guy bought in missouri and i know i've eaten pasta in caboose somewhere in syracuse with a poet named b.j. they're decorative, i suppose. they make folks hearken back.
walk past the caboose onto the barge floating in the hudson. you will see a place where all sorts of tasty food, but mostly fries, is being prepared and then a small hut with beer and wine. get yourself something. there's draft guinness and the fries are seasoned with old bay. if you don't quite have your sea legs yet, you'll want to stay here on the barge. find a place on the south edge, preferably upstairs, where you can be next to the john j. harvey, a 1931 fireboat with more stories to tell than even your wildest grandpa. the harvey was rescued from the fate of most small old boats- the scrapyard- by a group of folks who planned to spiff up the boat and prance around in it from time to time. it went back to work as a real live fireboat when planes hit the world trade center, where it was a small but valiant part of a large effort to add sense to a place where there was none. the boat itself is still in need of much help and is not yet spiffy, but like an old dog, spiffiness hardly matters. you love what you love. you know about the harvey and so it is nice to sit next to it and think for a minute about how such and old boat still had things to do. and if you don't know about the harvey, maira kalman has written and illustrated a phenomenal children's book about the boat's exploits called fireboat. do not make the mistake of thinking you're too old to read a book written for children.
if, however, you do have your sea legs, you'll want to walk round by the harvey just the same to see it and maybe look at whatever sign happens to be on it at the time. but then you'll head back past the little shack with the beer and the place where the good food smells are hovering and you'll want to walk up a ramp to the frying pan. this is about when you realize maybe you're in not quite a ship graveyard but something more like a retirement home for working boats. the frying pan is an old light ship. like the harvey it is neither large nor showy, but it is a good place to be. if you meet the challenge of walking aboard a boat carrying a beer and a plate of food, you'll be just fine the rest of your stay. get there early, before the businessy folks with ties and heels show up, although generally the ties and heels sort don't make it out onto the frying pan itself. the fact that it spent three years underwater may have something to do with that.
climb the ladder stairs to the platform on top of the main cabin. there are seats and tables here, just like on the deck, but you want to go up a bit further. this is where it will help to have pals with you, because climbing this last short ladder with your beer and fries isn't going to get you, the beer and the fries all three to the top. so you'll send someone up, pass up food and drink, then you'll climb the ladder to the top of the boat. there are only a few seats there so although it's good to have friends, it's best to have a small number of them. you will want to sit up there on a day that looks like it might storm, but it is good to be there any time at all. because you are at the highest point on a small boat, you will get the most out of the waves.
if, at some point, you are thinking about bathroom options and considering how far away the barge looks now that you're on top of this small boat, never fear. prepare for your first ever tour of the inside of a light ship. get yourself back down to by climbing the two ladder flights and turn right once you're on the main deck. you'll see a large opening with not much but darkness, especially if you've been sitting on top of the frying pan on a sunny day. you will think your eyes will never adjust and you are right about that. if you are tall, begin to duck now. continue ducking. walk inside. you will be vaguely aware of stairs ahead of you. grab the rail and descend. you will be inside the boat. there are no lights during the day. there are probably some at night, so go during the day. it's more interesting. you will see ahead of you and to the right a bit a huge set of gears, all on a horizontal plane. all smelling like dust and oil. because this is a comforting smell you will not be so frustrated by the fact that you are inside a moving boat without really much ability to see and no idea where the bathroom is. this is because most folks who have been have no idea how they got there and how they got back. so you will not know where you are, but you will be inside. which is when you will notice that you would really, really like to find this bathroom. move right of the gears into a small room. you will notice two or three other folks wandering about. they can't see much either and are also on a bathroom quest. they walk hesitantly like the newly blind and their movement will be exaggerated by the waves shifting the boat. there's an open door to the left with several toilets in it. try to get one with a port hole so you can see out. how often will you get an opportunity like this?
when you walk out you will be tempted to assist others who are looking for where you've been. don't. let them find it on their own. the walk out will seem too easy and you will realize you could live on a boat, could stride from port to starboard with the waves crashing and would not falter. and you may even stride right out onto the main deck without holding onto anything, remembering a different you, minutes ago, who could not walk across a flat surface here without clutching onto something. and you will not even know how you got up those two ladders putting you back at the top of the lightship. but you are in a good place. you will listen to the stories your friends tell and you will tell yours. you will laugh and they will laugh and as the sky begins to turn you will notice how this river is really full of ocean and the salt of it seems to make the breeze coming off the water just a little more heavy on your skin. and you will know that it will be a shame to have to go back to the land.
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