It’s probably just me, but I never really considered beach glass — to the extent that I ever considered it at all — an urban phenomenon. Wasn’t that the kind of stuff you get when you escape the city and are walking the sands of some distant shore, somewhere else?

But then the other day I was leaning against the railing looking out at the East River from the edge of Astoria Park — a great vantage point overlooking Upper Manhattan under the Hell Gate and Triborough Bridges — and a great expanse of the frosted, round-edged glass of various shapes and colors. They stood out against the dulled-down colors of the murky river and the gritty shoreline, and beckoned me down for a look.

There was a tiny cove area where the glass pieces (which I assumed came from people tossing their empty bottles from the promenade) churned in the turbulence created from the East River’s swift currents and then accumulated on the shore. Sections of shoreline were covered with the quaint glass. A beachcomber’s jackpot. I picked a few pieces, to add to the slew of useless stuff sliding around in the floor of my car under the seat.

It seemed a bit strange, so I later Googled “East River” and “beach glass” and came up with a listing on Etsy.com, a Brooklyn-based company that sells handmade items online.

On it, an artist from Astoria named Lynn Hanousek was selling jewelry she made from glass she found at the spot. I got in touch with Ms. Hanousek and she said she was walking by the river and heard the tinkling of glass in the water and saw the glass on the shoreline.

“I was amazed,” she said. “I’ve collected beach glass in Bermuda and even from the Thames in London.” Now she takes child’s beach pail down to the spot and scoops up the sea glass to bring home.

“It’s not as romantic as finding sea glass in a cave in Bermuda, but hey, this is New York — it works,” she said.

She said she cleans and dries the glass and makes earrings and necklaces with it, wrapping it with wire.

“The swirls represent the quickly moving waters of the Hell Gate which is close by to place where the glass washes up,” she said.