Riding down Riverside with Manfrank, Marsky and Sanderson on a lovely sunny day.

While locking up our bikes near the Pier i Cafe on 72nd (I just learned this place had a name). Some tourists were exclaiming about the stench of the Hudson, or so I thought.

As a I peered over the boardwalk’s steel railing that divides the human and the marine I noticed that what stunk was not only the Hudson, but an enormous fish. Some claimed it was a barracuda, though the short nose and seemingly bottom feeding mouth made me think otherwise.

Mankfrank, an accomplished fisherman in his own right, subsequently identified the fish as a sturgeon (shortnose? atlantic perhaps?). Who knew the Hudson was still home to this caliber of fish?

In fact the sturgeon is the Hudson River Estuary’s logo, though I’d never seen one outside this blue and white image posted on the highways and byways running along its shore.

And though it was dead after all, seeing evidence of large life in the Hudson could be a heartening sign of the river’s health.