, here it was, the last Saturday in March, and Eddie settled down with his 'd left his studio in the dark, and it was hardly daybreak when he began to both sides of the Hudson the sky was struck with a hazy pink 'd brought along night crawlers and crusts of bread in an old tin avoided the Harlem River—it was overcrowded and overfished, even more so than the Hudson, littered with oystering bridges had recently been built across the waters, disturbing the marsh knew it wouldn't be long before the countryside disappeared, as it had in Chelsea, where there was pavement the new leaves of the locust trees, Eddie spied Beck fishing farther down along the with the old man appeared unavoidable, for the hermit gazed over and returned the greeting, considering how to best keep his was known to chase off intruders with a rifle, and there were those who said he vowed to kill any man who hunted the wildlife that was rapidly becoming rare, coyotes and fox and the huge, cantankerous wild the area of Washington Heights was Hudson Heights, the highest altitude in Manhattan, at 265 feet above sea was the pastoral village of Inwood, and although the subway ran this far, this section of north Manhattan was still dotted with small farms, including a house once owned by the Audubon joined the hermit in his agitation over the constant building in buildings were rising everywhere.


Alice Hoffman, The Museum of Extraordinary Things, 2014