Distant view of mountains and the Hudson River from North Beacon; Tommy Burgess.

Images 3 & 4: A man bows down to suck the clear streaming movement of the water. A still boy looks out to a possible future. Each of them caught in the warm potential of Alice Austen’s gaze late in the 19th century. As she stood to his side or his back, she too loaded her camera and her mind with pleasure and the quenching of her deep thirst for the unknown…and the arrival of Gertrude.

Text by: Donald Moffett, artist. Neighbor to the Alice Austen House, the cultural and architectural heart of Rosebank, Staten Island.