The Most Valuable Wasteland In The World

Monumental Meadows was a series of 9 articles over 9 weeks published by John T. Cunningham in the Newark Sunday News in 1959 [view PDF here]. The ideas laid out in my proposal about the push for reclamation, the proximity of The Meadowlands to New York City and New Jersey's industrial base, the high demand for usable real estate in the region, the obstacles faced by builders and engineers, the folklore and stigma of the meadows, etc. are all pretty consistent with much of what Cunningham wrote about 50 years ago. Maybe I'm not so crazy after all.

Something that I didn't explore and maybe should have was cost. Any project in this area is going to cost a shitload of money, and we all know that money doesn't grow on trees. Fill, pilings, labor, all of these things are needed on a massive scale just to erect a single building when the bedrock is 120 feet below the surface. Even the Egyptians knew that they needed unpaid slaves to build the pyramids without going broke.

I've been told that The Meadowlands is a place "where dreams go to die." The Swartwouts went broke. According to Cunningham, "if words were dollars, the meadows would have been reclaimed long ago." The 40's and 50's were times of big dreaming in the Jersey Meadows, when total reclamation was a reasonable goal, and only a fraction of that has come to fruition. As with most Big Ideas, the line of demarcation between dreams and reality is a wall of impasse made of money.

New Article in Broad Street Review

I sure am glad I'm done having children after canoeing in some of this water. This just came out today in the Broad Street Review...

FMFTS updates

Below are more photos from 5/16. Hopefully this week I'll return to the studio and pick up where I left off last Sunday on Big Meadow. Last night I made some changes to my website's videos page, and I'll also have a link tomorrow for my latest article from Broad Street Review.

I'll be planning a new field study soon, acting on a tip I got recently about an area to check out, the old Standard Chlorine facility in Kearny. I may enlist the help of my brother again, and hopefully we're both done reproducing because according to what I've read, the place is a superfund site.

the meadowlands giveth

Many thanks go to my brother Chris for agreeing to let me use his canoe and for enduring tides, winds, gnats, nasty smells, sunburn and general weirdness on the marshes. The meadowlands indeed giveth, but only on their terms. What they give they can take back at will

Photos from May 16

New Meat

The most recent photos and new vidi are in the can. I was out yesterday on the water with my brother Chris fighting the winds and the tides from Lyndhurst to Snake Hill and back.

I made three important observations yesterday:

1) The outgoing tide on the Hackensack River is a force to be reckoned with, especially when you're paddling against it.

2) Some places out there are downright nasty, especially when you see them close-up. There is land made of garbage, and that was especially noticeable in Lyndhurst from the canal where we put in the canoe.

3) Some places out there are absolutely gorgeous. The marshes on the west side of the river opposite Secaucus are near pristine, with clean water and virtually no trash. There are even patches of the original salt hay, most of which has been choked out throughout The Meadowlands by the notorious common reed. There are some areas where the salt hay has been restored through mitigation, but the areas we saw appeared to be natural.

The new video and photos will be posted shortly.

maverick (big meadow pt 7)

This features my dog...