I went down to the river the other day. It was really too cold to take photographs. I had to take a few photographs, put my camera and my hands in pocket (luckily, I was using a very small, pocketable camera). Wait until my hands warmed up. Then take a few more quick pictures and repeat the whole process until I’d taken as many pictures as I could.

The pictures were taken around the Ossining Boat and Canoe Club. According to the Club’s website:

The Ossining Boat and Canoe Club was founded in 1915. At first it doesn’t sound like it was that long ago, but then we realize that cars were not all that common and that the highways in our area were not yet built. There were no malls or shopping centers and all goods where bought on Main Street or from a catalogue. The Tappan Zee Bridge would not exist to take us to the other side of the river for another forty years. Canoeing was an active national sport in those days and the club put a group in the water called the “Black Hawks”. This team competed as far away as Canada in a four-man racing canoe.

Building. The original clubhouse was erected by the members on the present site, just south of the Ossining RR Station on Westerly Road, in 1921. With the exception of some minor changes to the façade, the structure remains identical to its original frame. Some recent renovations to the club property include: a newly constructed ramp from the clubhouse to the docks, ample docking space for visitors and boaters in distress, and a completely refurbished upper deck offering magnificent views of the Hudson River and its shores. In addition to these, heating and air-conditioning were added to the club building.

Today the clubhouse is owned by the Town of Ossining and is exclusively licensed to the boat club.

Function. The boat basin itself is not so different from the days of the original site though modern moorings have replaced the wooden tree poles of the past. The club’s location on the east bank of the Tappan Zee has always provided sailors with miles of open water and fishermen with ample fishing spots. The club was conceived so that members could have access to the river at a reasonable rate. In order to maintain these reasonable rates all clubhouse maintenance and repairs are completed by the membership. There have always been two classifications of membership – working and associate. To accommodate schedules that do not allow for volunteer work hours, a third status was added as non-working. Our application form requests that the applicant list his or her skills and professions – in that way we make use of an invaluable pool of resources.

Taken with a Sony RX100 M3