WE’D JUST PICK UP AND GO!...

A MOTHER AND TWO SONS GO EXPLORING IN NEW YORK HARBOR

Years ago when my kids were little I heard someone liken livingin an apartment to living in a box on a shelf. Not an image thatreadily evaporates, especially when you’re raising two boys ina one-bedroom walk-up. So for us, the object of the game wasto get outside; just because I was a stay-at-home mom didn’tmean we had to stay at home. After all, this is New York; there’sso much to see. Circle Line, summer of 1996.

Living as we do just south of Washington Square Park, the boys and I often wound up at nearby playgrounds, uptown museums, or friends’ (larger) boxes on shelves. But we spent so much time along the spine of the island; my kids needed to experience the edges. Children have a way of erasing their own steps as they grow; I wanted certain experiences to stand out above the flat horizon of memory. Ironic that in this city of tall buildings it’s the flattest landscape, the river, that I looked to to create these “memory spikes.”

So we explored. Occasionally we went with others, but by and large we were a mobile little threesome. I remember holding their soft rounded hands as we steadied ourselves on swaying piers. Or on the Staten Island Ferry, watching as they stared back at their skyline, mouths slightly open, hair whipped back ruler-straight in the snapping wind. Or standing comfortingly close by on the deck of the Intrepid as a violently noisy Harrier hovered in place, frothing the water below.

But what do the kids, Jack now 11 and Lucas 15, remember of our many outings? What do they re-envision of countless trips to the grassy expanses of Hudson River Park, the long gray planks and tall ships of South Street Seaport, of the Circle Line cruises, ferry trips, soccer games at Pier 40, and more?

Jack’s first memory is what he didn’t get to see. For starters, the Intrepid’s pier mate, the USS Growler. “I wanted to go on the submarine, but I was five and you had to be six. I also remember a big red ship with fearsome teeth that I wanted to go on, but you and Lucas said, ‘No, no, no.’” Luckily, the Water Taxi cruise around Manhattan was a hit. “There were a lot of thank you ma’ams coming back. And I remember going under this red bridge with lots of currents and some ship sank there with pots of gold. I remember passing lots of islands with cool houses.”

Lucas recalls excursions to the Hudson waterfront, a pedestrian haven that bloomed into vibrancy over the course of his childhood. On one trip to the Charles Street Pier, he remembers watching, heart in mouth, as his soccer ball nearly sailed over the fence. (They do occasionally go over. My husband, Steve, who designed the restoration of the float bridge at Pier 66a, rescued a soccer ball from the water. It now lives under his drafting table at work.)

We’d Just Pick Up and Go! Hope Killcoyne 1

Last year, the boys and I capped off years of trolling the edges of our island home with a flight above it all: a helicopter tour. I reckoned it would be like looking at a living map. Lucas, sitting up front, had doubts as we lifted off. “The pilot was in training, so at first I was really nervous. After a while I got used to it, but I realized it was actually more fun when I was scared.” Jack: “It was a little scary because our pilot didn’t seem like he had practiced landing a lot. But it was really cool seeing NY from above.”

Only with assistance did they remember the birthday party on the Wavertree (Lucas’s 9th), Jack diligently filling out pretend passports at the South Street Seaport Museum, or how in 1996 an exhibit about the Titanic at the Seaman’s Church Institute sparked Lucas’s curiosity, launching a year of study at his nursery school. For whatever reason, memories of fear and personal loss jumped to the fore, the good stuff lapping quietly in the background.

These days we don’t go to the water as much as we used to. We’re still in the tiny apartment, but we’ve added a tiny house up in Westchester. Our weekends are now spent up there. What was the house’s major selling point? The stream in the backyard. Our first project? Building little wooden boats.

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