Talk:East River

Untitled
Does East River not also qualify as a tidal estuary?
 * Short answer: yes. -- Decumanus 02:24, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)

So, by saying that it's a "tidal straight" ... that means that it flows both ways depending on the tide right? --Quasipalm 01:49, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

"The tidal strait changes its flow direction frequently." - could get more specifics. - One factor of many affecting its flow is the tide, not the only factor. By specific - it it was purely tidal it would change directions multiples times in a day. Wfoj3 (talk) 11:49, 24 October 2015 (UTC)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the . Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

no consensus. &mdash; Nightst a  llion  (?) 08:21, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Name
It has been proposed below that East River be renamed and moved to East River (New York). Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~ 
 * Oppose This is the primary usage, and mention of the East River without any futher explanation is quite common in literature; and should probably be discussed. (If it were usual to translate the name of the Chinese river there would be a better case, but the article suggests it is not. Septentrionalis 06:13, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Add any additional comments

At the moment, East Coast, West Coast, and Southside are all disambig pages, through plenty of references in literature would support use of those titles for the articles (or portions of articles) East Coast of the United States and even East Coast hip hop, West Coast of the United States or West Coast hip hop, and Neighborhoods_of_Chicago. East End is a disambig page. East Sea is a redirect to a dab page. Many generic names are used locally without qualifiers, such as The City or the airport, but in an encyclopedia the entry name needs to be specific. This is especially so since WP English covers subjects in the English language globally. -Acjelen 23:23, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Further evidence in support of moving this article: Downtown (a redirect to Central Business District) and Chinatown are articles about central business districts and chinatowns in general, though most instances in literature are to specific chinatowns. Upstate is a disambiguation page. -Acjelen 02:16, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

As I've also stated at Talk:North River: Would like to move, but no consensus. &mdash; Nightst a  llion  (?) 08:21, 15 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Is it ALSO an estuary?
There clearly is a possible fresh water source for the East River - the Hudson. Fresh water can flow from the Hudson through the Harlem River to the East River. When tides are right & East River flows northward, the Hudson itself could contribute some fresh water. I think it was a mistake to flatly state there was no fresh water source - and to remove the statement about it also being an estuary. Comments?--JimWae 04:04, 1 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Even the Hudson River is mostly salt water well north of Manhattan and the access point to the Harlem River. There is almost certainly some fresh water trickling over from the Hudson by way of the Harlem River to the East River, yet not enough (as I see it) to qualify the East River as an estuary. Even the Harlem River is defined as a strait, not an estuary, and the Harlem River was essentially man-made. The primary source of water in the East River is the tidal flow of seawater sloshing back and forth between New York Harbor and Long Island Sound. The competition, Brittanica's page for the East River defines the East River as a strait, with no mention of it being an estuary. I searched in Google and I don't see the East River defined as an estuary. Unless we can find a definitive, reliable source, I say it's a strait, not an estuary. Alansohn 04:26, 1 March 2006 (UTC)


 * All estuaries would be mostly salt water at high tide. Nearly all the fresh water of the Hudson must find its way into the sea, so there's a significant amount of fresh water somewhere. Some part of the Hudson itself must qualify as estuary - is that mentioned in other encyclopediae? --JimWae 05:36, 1 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Clearly the Hudson River meets every definition of an estuary, and this fact is made clear in an extensively documented paragraph in the second paragraph in the Hudson River article. I'd estimate that 99.999% of the Hudson's fresh water leaves through the Hudson itself. As the East River isn't really a true river, and as the only source of fresh water would be whatever might trickle over from the Hudson River by way of the Harlem River, I can't see defining it as an estuary. As I understand the concept of an "estuary," it has to have more than some fresh water, it has to be a river or stream that meets up with a tidal flow of salt water. Again, the East River perfectly meets the definition of a strait, and I'd say leave it as only a strait unless we can find documentation to call it an estuary. Alansohn 13:08, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Pollution
There needs to be something written about the cleaning up of the waters of this strait/estuary/river. The only info. I have is anecdotal i.e. I grew up in NY (not in "the City", though) and it was filthy then, however in 2000 I saw a guy standing on the bank at East River Park reeling in a big ol' bluefish... Ellsworth 23:08, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

i luv da bronx section —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.68.204.219 (talk) 16:58, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Bridges
Why no mention of the Ward's Island Bridge in the Bridges section? St.JohnBosco (talk) 02:35, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Because it crosses the Harlem River. Thanks for pointing out the error in the article for the bridge.  I fixed it.  Jim.henderson (talk) 22:26, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Murders
Isn't the east river notoriously known for being a place of dumped/dead bodies? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.23.220.9 (talk) 15:53, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I was thinking the same, people were famously dumped here all through the gangster decades, whether they had been killed before going or were drowned with their feet pinned into a concrete block. 83.254.151.33 (talk) 21:48, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Strait or river - use correct term?
If the East River is a tidal strait, then why is the term "river" used twice in:

"The river was formed approximately 11,000 years ago at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation.[2] The distinct change in the shape of the river channel between the lower and upper portions is evidence of this glacial activity" ?

I can understand the correctness of "East River' but not the use of "river" (lower case). Thomas R. Fasulo (talk) 00:33, 18 October 2010 (UTC) A former Brooklyn Boy.


 * I agree. I came here to see why it's called a river when it clearly isn't. 72.86.42.38 (talk) 22:07, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Source, mouth, and tributaries?
I see that the infobox distinguishes between the strait's "source" and "mouth", and lists several "tributaries", even distinguishing between "left" and "right" such. I don't think these are well-defined for a tidal strait, and the article doesn't really clarify on what basis they're being used. Is this just an artifact of the use of geobox-river? If so, is there a better way of doing it? If not, can these distinctions be suitably sourced? 84.203.33.11 (talk) 18:37, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Popular culture section renaming
A news item is not popular culture. The other entries, though, are all media and popular culture. Thus, it has been renamed to "media". Epicgenius (talk) 00:12, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Then move the news item elsewhere. The standard section title is "In popular culture."  "In media" is incorrect English since there are many media: films, chalk, watercolors, music, clay, books, comics, tempura, glass, games, etc etc.  In other words, the use of "media" to mean "the media" which in turn is used to mean "popular culture" is just plain bad writing.  "In popular culture" is precise, "In media" ain't. BMK (talk) 00:19, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * OK, I've moved the news item to its own section, and returned the popcult section to the proper title. Please don't change it again unless you get a consensus for it here, per WP:BRD. BMK (talk) 00:22, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I implied that the usage of "media" here was the same as popular usage of "media", which are not mediums of expression but rather cultural media like films, books, etc. Epicgenius (talk) 00:33, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * And that implication is incorrect. BMK (talk) 00:46, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Article tense
In the section "2017 oil spill" I noticed the present tense in the following quote:

By Thursday May 11, 520 US gallons (1,968 l; 433 imp gal) of the water. Environmental damage to wildlife due to the oil blocking the sunlight necessary to the river's organisms. Nesting birds from oil contaminating their nests and possibly poisoning the birds or their eggs.

So it seems like we are updating this in the present tense. However, the rest of the article is written in the past tense. This is likely to become dated so I think we should use past tense or as of instead, especially once the oil spill is cleaned up. epicgenius (talk) 00:34, 13 May 2017 (UTC)


 * The tense is correct for that state of events as of the time the article is written, and the language is not in the "present tense", it is the "future perfect tense". When events change, the tense of the language can change.This is what I mean by learning how to write before you go around changing other editor's writing.  It's not the same or as easy as changing (incorrectly, see WP:NOTBROKEN) piped links from "High Line" to "High Line" . Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:49, 13 May 2017 (UTC)


 * OK, I see your point. It will need to be updated with the progress of further cleanup though, since the future perfect tense indicates that the cleanup will be completed some time in the future, so I was just wondering about that. Also, to your tangent about the High Line, WP:NOTBROKEN doesn't apply since the article wasn't a redirect before, but that's not relevant here. epicgenius (talk) 02:44, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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Hell Gate
The Dutch phrase "Hellegat" does not mean "passage to Hell". The Wikipedia entry for Hell Gate has the correct translation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.251.68.246 (talk) 14:20, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Map
Time and again I come to Wikipedia to answer the most rudimentary question, and time and again it fails.

This article has been in existence for at least 15 years, yet there's no map of this geographic topic.

I came here expressly to see how the East River connects with Long Island Sound. So once again, I have to drearily find another source.

Jimlue (talk) 16:16, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * There's a map in the infobox right under the lede image. I can;t imagine why you're not seeing it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:23, 13 May 2020 (UTC)