Governors's Island.

Renowned Danish artist Olafur Eliasson has transformed the world’s perception of an urban landscape before, but now he’s doing it on the largest stage ... and with some pretty heavy machinery. At four points along New York’s East River, his 90- to 120-ft.-tall scaffoldings house 300-hp Thompson drain pumps to pull water from the earth, send it over a double-trough filter, and dump it back down into intake-filter pools—all without damaging an already battered ecosystem.