FREEwilliamsburg: The Deadliest Catch

Fish Pier.jpg
Sure, you’d like to join one of the neighborhood CSAs, shop at the greenmarket, and limit your consumption to Long Island wines and Brooklyn brews, but your accounts currently require limiting yourself to Bud Light wishes and taco truck dreams. Isn’t there any way for you hop onto that whole “local” thing all your annoyingly employed friends are into? Enter the New York State Department of Health. Yes, Albany is, for possibly the first time, working for you.

Recently, the DoH began calling attention to their Hudson River Fish Advisory Outreach Project through no doubt riveting community meetings and signs like the one above placed along the city’s waterways. (It requires a walk through what looks like Grozny at the moment, but head over to the North 5th Street pier behind the Northside Piers development when you have a chance. Weekends only, for now.) Sure, old men have been fishing New York for longer than there has been a city by that name, but few probably realized that now, after decades of environmental cleansing, anyone who is not a child, or planning on have one in the near future, can actually feast on the fruits of the East River, and that such actions are at least tacitly endorsed by a town that won’t let you smoke and a state that almost taxed sugary drinks. Surely, then, these fish and eels can’t be all that bad for you, at least for the occasional summertime cookout. Get your cleaning instructions here. Sushi preparation is, alas, still a tad risky.

According to NYCfishing, anglers can expect to dredge up bass, blues, and flounder, among other species, all within walking distance and free of charge, assuming you can dig up a rod and reel from your parents’ garage. While you’re out there, in full Gorton’s fisherman attire, just try to ignore thoughts of what else lurks in the silty waters and GE’s Superfund-demanded PCB dredging up near the Adirondacks. No word yet on any local chefs offering those “catch-and-cook” specials, a la the Jersey shore, but it’s likely only a matter of time before the Marlow and Sons/Daughters folks have a trawler anchored somewhere along Kent.