Cy A Adler

Cy A Adler (b. Cyrus Adler, 1927, Brooklyn, NY) is an author and conservationist, known for his work over the course of several decades in raising awareness for shoreline issues in and around New York City, United States, and especially for his early work on the initiative that would result in the creation of The Great Saunter, an annual walk which goes through Hudson River Park and around the island of Manhattan. For his effort to see to completion a park stretching almost the entire circumference of the Hudson River shore of the island of Manhattan, Adler was recognized by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, New York City Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and former US Senator Hillary Clinton.

Trained as a Mathematician and Oceanographer, Adler taught physics at the City College of New York and oceanography at SUNY Maritime and Long Island University. He contributed to several scholarly publications in his field in the 1960s and 1970s, but his environmental advocacy work began in earnest after the 1973 publication of his first book, Ecological Fantasies - Death From Falling Watermelons: A Defense of Innovation, Science, and Rational Approaches to Environmental Problems, which had grown out of a series of somewhat contentious debates on environmental policy published in Science (journal) and The Village Voice in May and November 1972. By the late-1970s Adler's articles on shoreline issues had appeared in The Village Voice, as well as other local papers including The New York Times and Newsday. His science-based letters and articles appeared in the American Journal of Physics (January 1958), Undersea Technology (August 1968), Journal of Ocean Technology V.2 No.1 (1967), Science and Technology (October 1969), Wall Street Journal (February 1971), Marine Engineering Log (March 1971), American Fish Farmer (August 1972), Science (November 1972), etc.

In early December, 1982, Adler placed an ad in the Voice announcing a public walk along the Hudson River from Battery Park to Riverside Park, which at the time consisted largely of docking facilities abandoned due to Containerization. The walk, which served to raise awareness of the disused and inaccessible shoreline, became an annual event, and came to become known as The Great Saunter, eventually constituting a complete shoreline circumnavigation of the island of Manhattan. This walk developed into a non-profit group, Shorewalkers, of which Cy is still president. Shorewalkers was incorporated in 1984.

In 1984 Adler wrote an article in The New York Times advocating a public shoreline path from the river's mouth at Battery Park to the river's source, Lake Tear of the Clouds in the Adirondack Mountains. Adler's third book, Walking The Hudson, Batt to Bear (From the Battery to Bear Mountain) detailed the route, as of 1997, as far as Bear Mountain (Hudson Highlands). A second edition, published by W. W. Norton & Company updated the route for 2012, and contains an introduction by folksinger Pete Seeger, a member of Shorewalkers and friend of Adler.

Adler organized several New York State corporations including OFFSHORE SEA DEVELOPMENT CORP, est. 1972, where he and others developed systems for offloading oil tankers and aquaculture techniques. Several patents were issued to him, including one for a Single-Point Mooring, U. S. patent number 3.756.293.