My older sister became very strong when she swam in high school, and though my mom didn't like the way it changed my sister's body, she said to me, "You're a nice wimpy little boy, you should get into swimming because it might toughen you up." The thing is, with guys, they become thinner, so it's a different kind of look compared to women. So it was the opposite of what she hoped the sport would do!

I began swimming in the river in '89. I had known about the Manhattan Marathon, when Diana Nyad had tried it, in the mid-70's. And my view was, if that woman could do it, and I didn't know who she was, then I should be able to do it! She's not a great swimmer, she was just an OK swimmer, so anybody should be able to do it.

And I wasn't daunted by my lack of knowledge. Ignorance can be useful. I think people who are just generally stubborn in their efforts don't find all the reasons why they shouldn't do something, they focus on the reasons why they should do it.

The first time I did the Manhattan Marathon swim, I was coming up the East River in the Battery and the sun was rising on the buildings of lower Manhattan, and I looked up and thought, "That's gorgeous, and nobody else is here with me!" You kind of like gulp water, in a sense. You feel very lucky to be here. And all of a sudden you start swimming faster than you should be, and then you run out of energy later, because you have all the endorphins going on. And, being a guy, you push even harder, and then all the women all beat you because they didn't get as emotional about it all.

I created the Manhattan Island Foundation in '92, and ran the first Manhattan Swim in '93. It was very, very small, because I didn't know what the heck I was doing, and it took a couple of years to figure out what was going on, and from there we added more events and added more partners.

Whenever anybody runs an organization, it's an extension of what they want, right? Like the New York City Triathalon: that whole course is my course. It goes from the Boat Basin to Central Park, and the reason it's there at the 79th Street Boat Basin is because I lived at 73rd Street, and I wanted to get out of bed and just walk down to the Boat Basin, and I thought it would be really cool to watch people in bathing suits run across 72nd Street, right by my building! Purely selfish! I mean, why shlep out to Orchard Beach when I can watch something right in front of my own building?