Asides

It’s easy for the visitor to forget that New York City and  all its sunless canyons between skyscrapers are built on an island which is bounded by a multitude of rivers. Climbing any of those Babelous towers to the sky, you can see the Big Apple sitting in a great big bowl of noodles:  its waterways, which border and define the narrowness of Manhattan, and  helped to shape the city’s history. Until the day before yesterday it depended upon them. The sea brought New York its huddled migrant masses, but the waterways helped to give them life. There is a writer, one who has never really had the recognition he deserves, called Shepard Rifkin, who in the course of penning a pacy thriller called McQuaid in August in effect made New  York City the main character, and in particular the rivers and waters which he knew so well. I want to digress a bit about Shepard Rifkin  before getting back to...