Got in to Newark about 6AM yesterday, there was almost no traffic coming into the city. Manhattan likewise was deserted, like a science fiction movie after the apocalypse. Quiet. I guess everyone is out on Memorial Day.

The Jane Hotel is quirky, funky, old, good-feeling. Kind of like I imagine The Chelsea Hotel used to be. I’ve got a room on the 5th floor looking out at the Hudson river (and the West Side Highway — I pretend the traffic noise is the ocean) and this was the view last night.

Walked over to Cafe Reggio, it’s like a time capsule. I was first there 60 — yes, 60 — years ago when I lived in a rented room in the village for a month during a hot summer and worked on the night shift at a shredded coconut factory in Queens while waiting to take a boat to Europe. Still good vibes, Vivaldi violin concerto, latte and breakfast, then took off for Brooklyn on the R train — ugh — it’s falling apart, numerous stops, creaks groans, took an hour to get to farther reaches of Brooklyn. What a contrast to the Paris Metro or the spiffy Hong Kong subway system.

Got to the parade area late (with Uber help the last few miles) after coming up for air from the creepy underground.

Gotta run, will finish this later…

From the New York Times, May 23, 2018

By Stanley Reed and Ivan Penn

“…Massachusetts is looking to capitalize on wind technology, and aims to add 1,600 megawatts of electricity by 2027. That would be enough to power a third of all residential homes in the state.

On Wednesday, that effort took a major step forward as the State of Massachusetts, after holding an auction, selected a group made up of a Danish investment firm and a Spanish utility to erect giant turbines on the ocean bottom, beginning about 15 miles off Martha’s Vineyard. This initial project will generate 800 megawatts of electricity, roughly enough to power a half a million homes. At the same time, Rhode Island announced it would award a 400-megawatt offshore wind project to another bidder in the auction.

The groups must now work out the details of their contracts with the states’ utilities.

‘We see this not just as a project but as the beginning of an industry,’ Lars Thaaning Pedersen, the chief executive of Vineyard Wind, which was awarded the Massachusetts contract, said in an interview.

Offshore wind farms have increasingly become mainstream sources of power in Northern Europe, and are fast becoming among the cheapest sources of electricity in countries like Britain and Germany. Those power sources in those two countries already account for more than 12 gigawatts of electricity generation capacity.

But the United States has largely not followed that lead, with just one relatively small offshore wind farm built off the coast of Rhode Island. Currently, the entire country’s offshore wind capacity is just 30 megawatts.

‘We know in light of Northern Europe’s experience with offshore wind that many U.S. ports will benefit from the arrival of the industry here,’ Jon Mitchell, the New Bedford mayor, said.from offshore operators. ‘As long as there are boats that will be here,’ he said, ‘it is business for us.’…”

Full article: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/23/business/energy-environment/offshore-wind-massachusetts.html

This log must have been 100 Feet long. Most of the logs on these beaches are redwood. They’d be worth a fortune, but there’s no way to retrieved them. On beaches with more access, to the south, you don’t find much redwood.