Across the East River, a corner piece of the Brooklyn jigsaw offers its tree-shadowed promenade, its Watchtower skyline, its waterfront outpost for working stevedores.
In a half-mad lunge towards urban renewal, between 1971 and 1973, the city knocked down nearly 1,300 buildings, mostly along its waterfront, and for years huge sections of Newburgh were reduced to rubble, as if a war or a natural disaster had passed through.
Cortlandt, a town with 38,000 people in northern Westchester, is better known for the Indian Point nuclear power plants in the village of Buchanan and the Veterans Administration Memorial Hospital in the hamlet of Montrose than it is for its waterfront.
John F. O'Connell, the city's former director of economic development, said that in redeveloping its waterfront South Amboy hoped for the same kind economic ripple effect that washed over Hudson River waterfront towns, like Jersey City.
Its waterfront path winds for miles past manicured lawns and stately mansions backdropped by the snow-capped Alps.
These include Bilbao in Spain, which is famed for its waterfront Guggenheim Museum.
Although famous for its waterfront developments, which are directly across the Thames from the Houses of Parliament and the City of Westminster, Lambeth is largely residential.
"We and the developers view the water as an asset," said Chuck Lesnick, the City Council president in Yonkers, where the challenges include evaluating the environmental impacts of major developments proposed for its waterfront.
