Going Coastal

09/04/2026

09/04/2026

Going Coastal didn’t begin with a business plan. It began with water.

After 9/11, I found myself working with New York City’s waterfront programs at a moment when the city was beginning to rediscover its relationship with its rivers, harbor and coastline. I had always been drawn to the water, but this was different. I began to see the waterfront not simply as scenery, but as a place where history, nature, neighborhoods and people all came together.

And I realized something: New Yorkers knew remarkably little about their own waterfront.

So I started exploring it.

I walked the shoreline. I traveled by boat. I searched out forgotten piers, old ferry landings, maritime neighborhoods, parks and places where the city’s history was still visible if you knew where to look.

That exploration became my first book and eventually the beginning of Going Coastal.

What started as a guide to getting people to the water grew into something much bigger—a nonprofit dedicated to helping people understand, explore and protect our coastal places.

We created the New York City Water Trail, mapped kayak and canoe launches, produced waterfront maps, explored the Harbor Estuary, documented maritime history and eventually began publishing books and guides.

The philosophy was—and remains—simple:

Get people to the water.
Help them discover what is there.
Tell the stories that might otherwise disappear.
And, ultimately, give them a reason to care enough to protect it.

Today, Going Coastal is still about that journey.

Because I’ve learned that you don’t really understand a city until you understand its edge.

And New York’s edge is where some of its best stories begin.

Go Coastal.
🌊

09/02/2026

08/30/2026

Goethe found the Strasbourg Cathedral “like the most sublime, wide-spreading tree of God, proclaiming the glory of the Lord.”

08/30/2026

Browsing used bookstores and record shops in Strasbourg finding treasures. Liszt Dante Sonata -Elizabeth Leonskaja on piano; Shuman with Magic a Joao Pires on piano; Chopin Alfred Cordot piano

08/28/2026

For Stendhal, looking at the Alps was an exercise in the romantic sublime. In his writings, such as passages on Lake Como and the Italian border, the austere, snow-capped peaks of the Alps serve as a stark contrast to human life. This “sublime austerity” heightens the observer’s imagination, creating a state of deep melancholy and intense vulnerability. Stendhal argued that this exact state of heightened, solitary imagination is the prerequisite for love. The dramatic beauty of the mountains stirs the soul, making it ready to project perfections onto another person.

08/27/2026

Mountain Peaks

08/27/2026

Lake Lucerne by side paddle steamer

08/27/2026

Arrival Lugano, Switzerland