After nearly getting frostbite yesterday in Central Park, I decided that it was so much fun I should find somewhere else to partially freeze my metacarpals. Today it was the George Washington Bridge, which I’ve wanted to walk over for quite a while. Since the cold weather has brought back the lovely ice floes on the Hudson, I couldn’t resist braving the elements for some choice photos.

Manhattan

First let’s look straight down the Hudson to get some perspective. This is looking south, so Manhattan is on the left, Jersey City is in the upper right corner, and Hoboken is to the right of the frame.

Don’t fret, I took a dedicated picture of Hoboken!

Here’s a nice shot of a big sheet of ice with the skyline behind it. Mind you these guys were moving at a healthy clip, so it was a bit of a challenge getting them in focus with the bridge shaking from the vehicle traffic behind me.

I think this is the Freedom Tower poking up in the background, with a barge in the river.

Here’s the Empire State Building looking stately as usual.

This barge will make another appearance later. I wondered how these ships navigate the ice, but I don’t think it’s thick enough to really be an issue.

The Last Lighthouse

The Little Red Lighthouse nestled beside the George Washington Bridge has a storied history. Usually the pictures you see are from sea level, so I thought it might be fun to look at it from above when it’s shrouded in ice.

First is a view of the bridge and (gasp) Hoboken to provide some perspective.

Looking down from here you can see the lighthouse along with the chunks of ice flowing by.

It’s easy to appreciate the scale of the ice with the size of the lighthouse used as perspective.

Ice Floes As Micro Terrain

As a final part of this study, I took a number of close-ups of the ice floes. I have to admit that I love taking pictures of ice. Farther up the Hudson there are places where you can get to the water and just observe the floes. The best part is that the tranquility is broken up by creaks and pops as the ice pushes against each other, moving up and over, or sometimes just smooshing together. It is as though you get to watch plate tectonics move on a human scale. I’ll post these without comment as the textures and geometry speak for themselves.

As promised, here is the barge from earlier, making its way through the ice. I noticed that in general their path was to maneuver around the ice. I suppose that’s the prudent thing to do and must be a bit like a video game.