A new book tells the story of a woman and her unusual life in a houseboat on the Hudson.
New York is a city defined, quite literally, by water. The Hudson River flows along Manhattan’s western edge, the East River (actually a tidal strait) runs to the east and the Harlem River cuts across the top. These waterways have shaped the city from its earliest days as a Dutch trading post to its current status as a global metropolis.
The Hudson in particular has been central to New York’s identity and economy. For centuries, the river served as the city’s highway — ferries carried commuters, barges hauled goods and ocean liners brought immigrants to Ellis Island. There was a downside: Shipyards, warehouses and factories dumped their waste directly into the water. By the mid-20th century, that industrial might had poisoned the river.
Then came the Clean Water Act of 1972. Over the following decades, the river came back to life. Fish and birds returned. Today, humpback whales feed in the New York Harbor. It’s one of the great environmental success stories in American history — proof that even the most degraded urban ecosystem can recover.
For 36 years, Leslie Day lived on a houseboat at the 79th Street Boat Basin, raising a son with her husband, teaching science and watching the river heal. Her forthcoming book, “River,” is a story about finding nature in the heart of the city, about a floating community of people from around the world, and about what it means to have an intimate relationship with a river.
We recently talked to Day, who now lives in the Bronx, about life on the water, how the Hudson has changed, and what New York loses when it pushes nature to the margins. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Vital City: Why does a person who loves nature want to live in New York City?
Leslie Day: I was born in New York City, on West 73rd Street, so I always think of the city as home. However, the only place I truly felt happy as a kid was when I was in nature. When I was five we moved to Forest Hills, near Meadow Lake, which was ringed with weeping willows. Every fall until I was 8 or 9, I’d go down there with a shoebox and my little friends, and we’d collect colorful autumn leaves. Then we’d go under the largest weeping willow — whose hanging branches created a long green curtain — and we’d lay out our leaves, look at all the different colors and then lay down on them and hold hands. The beauty of nature and community still mean everything to me.
At the same time, I genuinely love the city. I love being among people from all over the world. At the Boat Basin, we had our cake and ate it too because we were immersed in the natural world and were umbilically tied to the city. We had people from all over the world — from Holland, Italy, Guadalajara, France, Japan, Korea, Australia, Ireland, South Africa, Colombia and Switzerland. All these people came to New York for work, or school or to find themselves, and they wanted to be immersed in the city but close to nature, And then at the end of a long day or night of work we’d come home to the river. We’d walk through the marina gate and be surrounded by peace and beauty. And each night we were rocked to sleep.
VC: Explain how a person winds up living on a boat in New York City, because it’s not something that many people even know is possible.
LD: I can’t tell you how many times I’d get in a cab and say 79th Street Boat Basin, and they’d say, “What? Where?” Most people in New York have never heard of the 79th Street Boat Basin.
During the 1960s, I went out to San Francisco during the great Hippie migration, and was introduced to the work of the writer Anaïs Nin. One of her books, “Collages,” is a collection of short stories about women who live on houseboats around the world — on the Seine, on the Thames and in Sausalito. I found a boat to live on in Sausalito, and it was there that I found my element: the beauty of the natural world, a tight-knit community, close to a major city. When I came back to New York, I found a boat at the Boat Basin.
The first boat I had was called the Mandala, about 375 square feet. I bought it for $4,000 in 1977 — which I had to borrow from friends. It was built by Sean Disney, an architect who built a ferrocement hull in Staten Island, then built the cabins — a tiny living room, a loft bed with a closet under it, a little bathroom and a small galley — the kitchen. There were windows all around and front and upper decks. It was 34 feet long and nine or 10 feet wide. Sean’s fiancé hated being on the boat and so he had to get rid of it.
When he sold it to me, he said, “Do you want to buy it with the engines or without? It would be $6,000 with the engines or $4,000 without.” I didn’t even have to think about it. I said, “I don’t need the engines.”
It’s such a magical way to live. The sky at dawn and sunset. The changing colors of the river. You’re part of an interesting and caring community. We had to help each other through storms, sickness, and loneliness. Together we celebrated births, birthdays, weddings and holidays. It was an extended family.
VC: Did people come and go? How many people were there for extended periods of time?
LD: When our son was born in 1980, 110 boats were people’s year-round homes. Very few would leave. Most of us stayed for 30, 40, 50 years. People left if they got married and their spouse didn’t like to live on the water or if they had too many children to comfortably live on a boat, and of course as people died. One of my neighbors moved to the marina in 1963 and stayed until 2021 when everybody was forced to leave.
VC: How do you raise a kid on a boat?
LD: You think of the outside of the boat and the dock like you would the street in front of your building or house. You don’t let them out by themselves and you’re constantly holding their hand or strapping them into a stroller.
When there were storms, like the nor’easter in December 1992, when it rained for three days and the river kept rising, we had our then 12-year-old son Jonah stay with a friend on West End Avenue. We put our dogs and cats in the car in the garage under the Rotunda and stayed up all night watching the river rise up the pilings that our boat was tied to until there was one inch left. Then it stopped raining and the tide went out. Several boats sank. It was a devastating storm.
The winters were freezing, and boats aren’t insulated. We had every kind of heater imaginable over the 36 years. If it was below freezing, the fresh water hose on the dock had to run 24/7 until there was a thaw. If anybody kinked the hose, the whole line would freeze up. We’d have to detach the hoses, bring them into our boats, put them by our heaters until they thawed out, then reattach them.
But winter was beautiful and we had Riverside park to ourselves.
VC: Everyone was kicked out in 2021, when the City vacated the marina. Who in New York City lives on the water these days, and where?
LD: The majority of my neighbors moved their boats to Liberty Landing Marina in Jersey City, near the Statue of Liberty. They’ve maintained their community, but in Jersey. Many just gave up their boats. There’s still the Rockaways — a marina there with few restrictions. There’s a houseboat community on Westchester Creek in the Bronx. But leaving the Upper West Side, where our doctors, pharmacies, gyms, hospitals, all the stores, restaurants, houses of worship and friends are, and moving to Jersey City where, at least right near the marina, there’s nothing, is tough. When you’re going to live on a boat, you want to live near a thriving neighborhood.
Reflections on the city and water
VC: What do you think you learned about nature — and the city — living on the water?
LD: Nature abounds in the city. We have over 30,000 acres of parkland, hundreds of thousands of street trees, gardens, a tremendous diversity of bird life and pollinating insects. Once you take the time to look, to stop and focus on the natural world, it is astounding how much is here. No matter what borough you live in, as long as there are trees, you’re going to have all kinds of life.
Just being able to identify everything that I see makes all my anxiety and worries fade away. I’m totally in the present, taking in the beauty. It’s so therapeutic. If you get into birds, different leaf shapes, the different types of flowers that trees produce — there’s so much to learn and see every single day. Living on the Hudson allows you to experience the diversity of fish, crabs, shrimp and shore birds.
VC: Have you noticed changes in the waterways around New York City over the years?
LD: When I moved to the Boat Basin in 1975, the only birds I saw were cormorants and some gulls. Before the Clean Water Act, every toilet from the southern tip of Manhattan to Inwood flushed directly into the Hudson. The river was a sewer.
From the ‘40s to the ‘70s, there was a General Motors plant in Tarrytown, and at the end of every day they would dump all the leftover paint into the Hudson. You could look at the river and tell what color they were using to paint the cars that day. Then there was General Electric, which for 30 years dumped hundreds of tons of highly toxic PCBs into the river that still make certain fish and crabs inedible for children and pregnant women. The Hudson remains a superfund site from New York Harbor 200 miles north to Hudson Falls.
But since the Clean Water Act and the building of the North River Sewage Treatment Plant, the native fish that left the river have returned. The bird life has come back. All the animals that feed on the fish have come back, including whales. There are hundreds of humpback whales now along the coast of New York City, and dolphins. It’s just fantastic. The government did such a good thing by passing that act.
VC: We’ve seen a significant increase in the active use of the water — we now have an active ferry network, as well as people who run and play along the water.
LD: There used to be a tremendous number of ferries bringing people from the outer boroughs to Manhattan for work. It’s wonderful that we have that again. When the river was still swimmable, there were bathing beaches along the Palisades. In the summers, two million people would take the ferry from Inwood to Englewood Cliffs to spend the day and swim. You can swim in the river now. I started swimming off my boat in 1998.
I love watching the ferries and sailboats, especially the Clearwater, the sloop that Pete Seeger built to educate people about the Hudson. When we lived at the Boat Basin I’d kayak from April through November. From our building in Riverdale I’m able to see the river, though from a distance, and I love watching everything: the sightseeing boats, the tankers, the jet skis and recreational boats.
VC: What is it that’s so pleasurable about looking out at the water?
LD: Water is mesmerizing — the way it moves and the way it reflects the light and shimmers. Right now, as we speak, the Hudson’s going from blue to green to yellowish green to almost white. We respond to color. The color blue has a calming effect. I swim almost every day in our building’s pool. Looking through my goggles at the blueness of the water makes me happy.
Where do we go when we take vacations? We go to the water. It’s nice to be near a lake or a pond or a beautiful stream. Then there are all the animals that use the water. It’s so interesting to watch the birds diving and hunting.
When we lived on the boat I would feed the swans, geese, ducks and gulls. The fish would follow the birds as I was feeding them. Some of the fish would goose the birds to make them drop the food, and then the fish would eat it. It was thrilling.
My husband took a picture of me feeding the swans with our cat Woody on my shoulder. Woody loved it when I fed the birds. He would jump onto my shoulder and lean out the window with me to watch the swans reach up for the food. It was magical.
The Boat Basin was what one of my neighbors called a magical village. Simone di Bagno, who had emigrated here from Rome and was a documentary filmmaker for the United Nations, said there were pueblos magicos — magical villages — in Mexico. Simone said that the Boat Basin was one of the few magical villages left in the world.