michael leslie

midtown

The cobblestone:

Came over as ballast for the ships from the Netherlands and elsewhere with empty holds and used to pave lower Manhattan as those holds were filled up with tobacco, timber, molasses, rum etc. They represent the receipts of that commerce and when I walk on them I always think of the river fronts of New Amsterdam and of those great creaking vessels, their bowsprits one after the other looming over the docks.