These first two pictures represent all that still survives of the old Knickerbocker Yacht Club (aside from its dock); a small section of the parking lot with a remnant of a white parking stripe from one of the parking spaces in front, and a lone bush near the old entrance that somehow still miraculously survives in spite of the general chaos of the construction going on around it.
I was saddened when I first heard that the club shut down after years at its current site. Originating in 1874 on the Harlem River in Manhattan, it moved to Port in 1907, operating as the one Jewish yacht club in the region at a time when Jews were customarily banned from membership in other area clubs. I was even sadder when I walked by one day and saw that it was gone, even though it was shuttered for some time. I was only in it once when it was still operating, as a lunch guest of some members. It was as I expected-somewhat stuffy and dowdy, a comforting relic of an earlier Port Washington, all varnished wood and lots of pictures of smiling Commodores, the food suitably lousy. But somehow I felt good knowing that it still existed, a direct link to the past with a rich history and a long timeline.
Now that history is erased save for these tiny reminders. Soon the parking stripe will be gone, and probably not long after that the bush will be too, and the Knickerbocker Yacht Club will become as ephemeral as the wind that used to fill those bygone sails.
