Prospect: A Year in the Park

Pinkmarket, bluemarket

Before sampling the madness of yesterday's GoogaMooga Festival, I did make it to the Greenmarket at Grand Army Plaza. Rhubarb was still a painful $5 a pound (it takes a lot of raw rhubarb to make a pot of stewed rhubarb, and I cannot get through spring without a pot of stewed rhubarb). However, local strawberries were "down" to 2 boxes for $10. Sigh.

What caught my eye were the flowers. It's a great time of year for tender, old-fashioned ones that few commercial florists ever carry. Above: Dame's Rocket, a.k.a. Hesperis. In my garden, this flower refuses to grow anywhere except between the cracks of cement; there is nothing like a dame.

I believe these are "Bachelor's Buttons," a.k.a. Cornflowers. (Apparently they grow wild in some cornfields.) Now when someone describes "cornflower-blue eyes," you can verify.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't know what these are. If I had a SmartPhone, could I get an app that would let me wave my phone over a blossom and identify it? If you know what these are, leave a comment and let me know!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GREENMARKET DOG OF THE DAY

The fringed sausage is definitely named Banjo. Her big buddy is named something serious that begins with G...Grimsby? Anyway, they are great friends. It's nice to know a friend has your back...literally.

 

Ball of confusion

A forest of pale and youthful legs on the march, heading for Day 1 of "The Great GoogaMooga."

The hidden heart of Prospect Park, fenced off and submerged under a sea of the hip and hungry.

Messaging on a melon, part of a wall of fruit near the "UrBarn," an installation (visible in the background) by Pratt students and others to promote farm-to-table-ish, sustainability-ish things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was, however, mostly about the beer. A line of apocalypse-refugee proportions snaked away from a stand distributing some sort of proof that you were old enough to drink. At my age, I think my face should be my passport.

 

The "line talkers" held a variety of perky signs intended to mollify the line waiters. With music within earshot most of the time, the crowd seemed fairly mellow about it all. Spouse waited almost an hour for fried chicken, but enjoyed "Holy Ghost" during the wait.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a perfect spring day, the sun's intensity put shady spots at a premium.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was what restaurant critics often call "an attractive young crowd." Many seemed to know one other or to have descended in groups. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the "Hamageddon" section, a heavy metal band tore it up while a whole pig rotated on a spit inside this gigantic porcine idol. You have to give the founders of this feast credit for thinking big.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was fairly painless to score a "Dirty Duck Dog" with lemon-scented sauerkraut from the Craft stand, and a plate of three "fried cheesecake bombs" from a Prospect Heights restaurant called Robert. (Dog, delicious; cheesecake fryballs, kind of like fried ice cream, weirdly compelling.) At all the concessions, the workers were cranking the gourmet chow out frantically; doing this again all day tomorrow would kill me.

By 4 p.m., lots of places were running out of their esoteric specialties. Apparently, this also happened to the folks who forked over $250 for "Extra Mooga" tickets in an ultra-exclusive enclave of foodiness. Our endurance event, at least, was free (well, $12 for two duck dogs and $6 for three cheesecake balls). Altogether, Spouse and I concluded that restaurants had much to recommend them...and that we were probably about 20 years too old to truly appreciate the event. 

 

 

 

Sub-Porcine Humanoids Attack Prospect Park!

This was the bucolic scene last Sunday south of Prospect Park's lake, perhaps the post-prandial souvenir of a festive Mother's Day picnic. The arborial placement is interesting, especially when it involves a small mountain of hot coals. Apparently if you nestle your crap against the base of a tree, it is mysteriously less offensive. (Trees love hot coals, right?) Or maybe there is a popular Internet rumor that the Keebler elves emerge at midnight to recycle it? 

 

 

 

 

Here's another Garbage Tree a few yards away. Oh, come on, the poor things. How could you expect them to drag their loathesome leavings to a nearby receptacle when it was at least 5, or maybe even 7, interminable yards away?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Want some more? Here's some more. Three trees down, a McDonald's orgy was in evidence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Prospect Park Alliance, of which I am a member, is a private group that "supplements" the park's government funding by PAYING TWO-THIRDS OF THE COST OF PARK MAINTENANCE. They sent out 50 extra trash-removal sweeps last year, but with such imbeciles on the greensward, they'd need a sweep an hour. What the hell do we do about this?

Well, the Alliance has a well-intentioned new campaign: They have e-mailed lots of high-functioning, responsible park supporters, asking them to sign an Internet pledge to "pitch in" and "put trash in its proper place." Because that is, like, totally the target audience who are doing this crap. There are informative graphics, too:

I'll sign the pledge, but may I suggest some more...persuasive signage and strategy? I'll borrow some "messaging" from my favorite Web cartoonist, a dazzling psychopath who styles himself The Oatmeal. (To make up for stealing and repurposing his stuff, I have enabled click-through to his original works of genius on each image. Much of it is deliciously unsafe for work or family audiences.)

A THREE-PART STRATEGY FOR PROSPECT PARK DUMPERS

1. Stop calling them "pigs." This insults pigs, who are reportedly quite intelligent.

2. Import bears from nearby suburban New Jersey, which has extra bears. Set bears loose preferentially on dumpers who also provide their own musical accompaniment.

3. Patrol Prospect Park with robotic Tyrannosaurs equipped with chipper-shredder jaws to consume offenders on site.

Well, that oughta do it. On to tomorrow's unprecedented Hipster ChowHound Convention, the Great GoogaMooga. Let's see how that crowd does when it comes to trashing the place.  

Girding for Googa

My hip and happenin' Spouse! Through his alertness and vigor, we have secured 2 tickets to The Great Googa-Mooga Festival, a free-but-sold-out extravaganza of food and live music in Prospect Park this weekend. The line-up of chefs definitely overshadows the musical acts (including Hall & Oates, the underwhelming* headliners).

The entire affair is starting to scare me, based on its wild hype (including this reverently snarky account in the New York Times calling it part of a "gastronomic summer of love"). It sounds as if Williamsburg will uproot, like Howl's Moving Castle, overshadow the Long Meadow, and touch down. In one particularly disturbing development, we have been alerted that "Line Talkers" in purple, Barclay's-Arena-sponsored T-shirts, will be on hand to tell us about menu choices up ahead. Are those like Navajo code-talkers, only for banh mi and panini? Dear Lord, what kind of apocalyptic lines are they expecting for foie-gras donuts and duck rolls?

 

 

 

According to the event's organizers (the merry pranksters at right), "Approximately 75 food vendors, 35 brewers, 30 winemakers and 20 live music performances will be on hand to help us relish some of life’s greatest pleasures—gathering with friends and neighbors to eat, drink, talk, laugh, dance, linger and just . . . be together." Personally, I can't wait to see the prices for all these artisanal noms and craft microbeers.  

A MICRO-RANT: If I am shelling out $20 for an al-fresco lobster roll with organic endangered wildflower sprouts and a touch of lavender foam, I want to eat it at a nice table with a clean bathroom nearby, one with running water and, preferably, a set of previous users smaller and less...free-spirited...than the population of Burning Man. The whole groundlings thing, with mobbed Port-O-San visit followed by lots of hand sanitizer, just doesn't jive with the exquisite haute-cuisine picnic angle for me.

In a slightly discordant note amid all that mellow vibe, for an incredible $250, you can get exclusive "Extra Mooga" tickets, including lectures on "Molecular Mixology" and "Textures of Rhubarb," along with the chance to worship at the shrines of Ruth Reichl, Anthony Bourdain, and other luminaries and, for all I know, personally butcher a heritage pig or a fast-food executive. (No word on whether this ransoms you out of the Port-O-San scene, however.)

But I quibble. Perhaps tomorrow you will see me crowd-surfing with a sprig of cilantro hanging off my lower lip, waving a draft lager brewed from hummingbird tongues and sobering up with some shade-grown, dolphin-safe macchiato. If you failed to score tickets, let's agree on a spot near the fence, and I'll toss you over a $40 sausage or something.

'READY FOR MARTY'?

* Hall & Oates belong to a category of act that we call "Ready for Marty," in reference to Borough President Marty Markowitz's long-running series of free summer concerts featuring well-loved but often fading pop acts. Markowitz, who relishes his role as B-list impresario, once mused aloud before a concert, when a crowd member shouted a suggestion for the line-up (Kenny Loggins, if memory serves): "Yeah...he's about ready for us."

Planting time in New Amsterdam

Those are sprouts of rye poking up in the little farm behind the Lefferts Historic House, Prospect Park's transplanted Dutch farmhouse. It is, basically, my dream house. It was built around 1783 a few blocks away (and moved here in 1913). The Lefferts family burned its predecessor to the ground--burned down their own house--in 1776, just before the Battle of Brooklyn, so that the British couldn't get it. And we think we're tough when we sit in a park with a sign and a bongo!

The house and garden are full of simple but immensely appealing interactive stuff for the kids.

 

Farm chores as play...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

... and the timeless appeal of Flatbush's fertile soil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An early Dutch version of Wii.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I caught a fascinating lecture by food historian Peter G. Rose about early Dutch cooking and foodstuffs. We owe them for pretzels, cookies, and pancakes...the debt can never be repaid. I also bought Ms. Rose's book, Food, Drink and Celebrations of the Hudson Valley Dutch; it is an early pebble in a coming avalance of research for a Top-Secret Flatbush-Related Project.

 

This hearth, built outdoors for demonstrations, wasn't baking up any pretzels today, but it gives an idea of just how gutsy cooks had to be back in the days of old Dutch Vlacke Bos (Flatbush). The builders incorporated a brick from the Lefferts House, probably one made in the nearby kiln or "stone bakery" (steenbakkery) near a clay pit at present-day Rogers Avenue and Lefferts Street. Built to last.

Blue sky over Church Avenue

Just a block south of the Parade Grounds of Prospect Park, Church Avenue has slumbered for years, a strip of scruffy retail nothingness. But word on the street is that Church is poised for a long-awaited rebirth, and today, its first street fair looked like a wild success.

Meet some of my neighbors on "our side" of the park.

    

In the middle is Dr. Courtney Perry and Geneva (a rescued friend and patient) in front of her new veterinary practice, PAWSitive. She's a Wellesley and Cornell grad who's come home to Ditmas Park, and we're very glad.

   

More dog excellence: a Noble Pitbull and a Chillin' Husky, both rescues. (Note: There is, yet to come, a Greenmarket Dog of the Day!)

Another eagerly welcomed newcomer to the strip is Am Thai Bistro, whose absurdly gorgeous staff were dishing up curry puffs, coconut rice balls and spring rolls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sensory overload for small fry. Sometimes good...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...sometimes not so much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The vendors were the usual suspects (including sausages and crew socks, those street-fair essentials), but there were also Latin-themed totes and tiny suits with ties.

 

   

Robopuppy? Copter-on-a-stick? Cheap machine gun?

 

 

Congratulations to the Church Avenue BID, whose efforts to breathe life into this languishing corridor have begun to bear fruit. A coffee shop called Lark is in the works,  joining mom-and-pop ventures like Shayna's roti shop and La Huasteca, so wander on down after a soccer match or a tennis game; Cortelyou Road, look to your laurels. And chefs, merchants, countrymen, come on down; as you can see from the montage of fine novelty wares above, Church Avenue lends a magical glow to any merchandise.

GREENMARKET DOG OF THE DAY

Behold the charming Bica, strolling with an old friend of mine at Saturday's Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket. He is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, and his name is a slang term used around Lisbon for espresso.  Appropriately enough, he enjoyed licking the foam from my latte.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sailing into the past

On this day of stiff breezes, let's sail again into the past: to September, 1937, when boys had better things to do on a brilliantly sunny day than play Grand Theft Auto in the media room. From the Municipal Archives Collection, this shot at the lake's edge in Prospect Park is set, I suspect, near the Wellhouse; that spot used to have a boathouse for miniature craft long ago.

More lads at lakeside. What do you notice, besides perhaps the absence of any fisherwomen? No phragmites! Those invasive reeds that choke the lake at every turn had not yet begun their march, apparently.

Fresh archivey goodness: Old-time playtime

No one can say New Yorkers aren't history-conscious; we crashed the NYC Municipal Archives Collections for days after they put up a new trove of photographic goodies. There's not much material there on Prospect Park, but a few sweet things emerged. I'll share them until someone stops me; as usual, I can't figure out from their terms of use whether posting them on a non-commercial blog is a violation or not.

 

 

 

 

I like this shot of the playground at Lincoln Road and Ocean Avenue in August, 1941, and not only for the two young Brooklynites caught forever in a foreground dust-up. (Presumably today's charming "Imagination Playground" occupies at least part of this area?) What's striking is how minimalist it all is. Not just long-banned concussion-cradles like the dreaded "monkey bars" visible in the distance, or the swings that undoubtedly disgorged their little swingers onto concrete instead of padding underfoot.

But notice, too, how little stuff the moms and dads have brought along. One baby carriage, one trike...that's it. No mini-toy-strollers, no actual strollers! No scooters (and of course, no helmets). Everyone looks empty-handed and unencumbered. And that's on a macro level. Project yourself further: no one at the playground that day had a smart phone, an IPod, a water bottle, hand sanitizer, sunscreen, or plastic lidded compartmentalized caddy for organic snacks...kind of freeing, no? Today's moms, dads, and nannies drag home from the playground in a convoy of vehicles, diaper bags, and harnesses, a sort of wagon train of defenses against boredom, injury, hunger and contagion. Back in '41, it would appear they just walked out the door and sat on a bench.

When the robins come

Are robins becoming more numerous? Every spring, there seem to be more of them. This guy was taking a violent bath in the park's lake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Freshly storm-soaked and chilly, Prospect Park at sunset was subdued and lightly populated. Spring green, a thousand shades of it, is everywhere, along with splashes of delicate white.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's surprising how many trees glow red in their first tender foliage. This maple on Nellie's Lawn was one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The baby leaves on this oak blushed, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Almost home, in the Parade Grounds, I happened on this sidewalk memorial. A quick Googling revealed that Tamon Robinson was a beloved employee in a Fort Greene "Connecticut Muffin" coffee shop where, curiously, we just stopped in last Sunday after catching a movie at BAM. We had wondered about the oaktag memorial poster in the window; apparently the young man was run down by an NYPD squad car last week under mysterious circumstances and later died. Not surprisingly, his grieving family is seeking answers. How he came to be mourned among the ballfields of Flatbush, or by whom, I do not know.

 

If I shouldn't be alive

When the Robins come,

Give the one in Red Cravat,

A Memorial crumb –

If I couldn't thank you,

Being fast asleep,

You will know I'm trying

With my Granite lip!                                      

                            --Emily Dickinson

Bipolar weekend

 

This was yesterday afternoon, the Lilac Collection, Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Tonight, listening to cold rain lashing the windows and gusts howling, it seems long ago.

Every year, it is my stated mission to inhale lilacs from every single bush, allegedly to detect nuances of scent among different varieties. (For example, white ones have a very light scent; blue ones are incense-like.) In truth, I am just drugging.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the Cranford Rose Garden, a few bushes were already crowned in glory. Roses in April, really?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

Our native wildflowers in the Northeast are delicate debutantes, all in white. Left to right: Solomon's seal, false Solomon's seal, and trillium. The shady floor of the Native Flora Garden was carpeted with them. Trillium is also called wakerobin, and there were plenty of wide-awake robins marching around in the undergrowth.

We observed sadly that Streamreach, our beloved Ent near the BBG's wandering waterway, who shaded many games of "float stuff downstream" during Daughter's childhood summers, had sustained two mighty wounds since we last paid him homage. But he's standing, half an Ent still nobler than another tree whole, and I hope tonight's brutal winds do him no further harm.