I stumbled across this quote yesterday from Antoine de Saint Exupery, the author of “The Little Prince,” and I just had to write about it somehow. Here’s the quote:
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
I’m not sure if the Whitehall Rowing program is still happening in New York, but I’m an enthusiastic supporter. Personal disclosure: I worked for the Board of Education NYC for three years and then resigned because of an oppressive principal. I wish I there had been a Harbor School back then. Here’s more on Harbor School.
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
tugster: a waterblog 
1 comment
Comments feed for this article
March 1, 2007 at 6:15 pm
bonnie
floating the apple?
http://www.floatingtheapple.org
I’d actually been considering checking them out before I started kayaking – I liked the boatbuilding aspect.
They actually have a facility at Pier 40, they’re one of the 2 ways to get on the water at Pier 40 that are apparently not included in EITHER of the Pier 40 proposals.
http://www.hudsonriverpark.org/development/pier40dev.htm
They won’t be quite as out in the cold as Randy at New York Kayak – Floating the Apple is apparently supposed to get the boathouse at Pier 84 – but it will be a loss to that area if they aren’t there anymore.
I really wish the Trust would watch out for the boaters a little more. It’s weird, it’s like they sort of try to, but they’ve never seemed to start by getting a baseline picture of how many different organizations are facilitating boating in the park already, and how to preserve those & encourage more.
OK, I’ll come down off my soapbox now.