Last Sunday was what they called Harbor Day here in NYC, the culmination of NYC 400 week celebrating the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson sailing into what would become NY Harbor. Lots of museum exhibits and tours, especially up the river, will go on for a couple of months more, so you can still catch some cool stuff.

The ships have pretty much come and gone, though. Among them were a NATO minesweeping fleet, which docked in Brooklyn and was open to the public on Saturday. You could go and tromp through the frigates and the flat-bottomed minesweepers themselves, including the British one, which is fiberglass so magnetic-trigger mines can't find it. So of course I went. More photos on Flickr, but here are a couple.





Then Sunday, there were marching bands and free ferries and Dutch musicians and orange bikes to rent for free, all in lower Manhattan. I went down there too.





And then back to Brooklyn for the Brooklyn Book Festival. No photos from there, but I want to say this: this is the BBF's 4th year. For the first 3, I kept thinking, "Why can't Manhattan do this? This is the Book Fest NYC needs -- why only in Brooklyn?" Now, fugedabahdit. The Brooklyn Book Festival IS the NYC Book Festival. Manhattan just needs to get used to it, and get its tail out to Brooklyn.