Joseph Mitchell's six long reports about New York and its harbor area have long become legendary. On his journeys between the Hudson River and the East River, Staten Island, fish markets, and ferry terminals, he encounters outsiders and eccentrics, captivated by the smells and tastes of the harbor. Driven by the niches and gaps in mainstream history, he writes about an empty hotel above a bustling fish restaurant, the lives of the rats flowing in from the ships to the harbor, the captain of the largest fishing fleet in the region, and other people who are all connected to the New York waterfront in one way or another.