Prospect: A Year in the Park

The ballad of Joe and Mickie

Hello young lovers, wherever you are--in this case, Prospect Park 1945, perhaps on a late winter day as springlike as today. I decided to throw myself at the garden on this too-good February Monday instead of into the park. In the absence of my reportage, check out the delightful Brooklyn story of Joseph and Mickie Yakowicz, two members of the Greatest Generation. Thanks to the Park Slope Patch for recounting a fine wartime romance, the kind that lasted a long and happy lifetime.

Death and resurrection, park-style

I wish people would stop saying, "Winter? What winter?" as if it were something to be missed. Daffodil buds are plumped to bursting along Prospect Park Southwest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even at 56 degrees, there was no mistaking it for spring. A stiff breeze blew scuttling leaves in eddies along the Center Drive. Near the Quaker Cemetery, and fresh from Ash Wednesday ("remember, man, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return"), I peered inside for a glimpse of mortality.

 

But a radiant forsythia distracted me from the rows of plain tombstones. So did the evidence of debauchery just outside the historic cemetery's perimeter fence: a scattering of beer cans, lighters and condoms. At least they weren't festooned on the grave sites.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ah, that's a better offering for the deceased: a cluster of snowdrops.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Throughout the park, the number of recently hewn trees is shocking. Glades have turned to clearings; the sharp smell of sawdust is in the air. A year of storms has exacted its toll, but this log's frosting of exuberant lichens was a reminder that decay is transformation.

 

 

A day-old Valentine...

...is this lovely image from the Brooklyn Historical Society Blog, "Lover's Lane" in Prospect Park circa 1887. It looks to me like one of the many paths that lead into the Midwood. Sadly, those paths today are known for activities that bear only scant resemblance to love, as the noble members of the Prospect Park Littermob can attest.

Mostly, I'm loving this shot for its reminder (even in black and white) that green leafy days shot through with filtered sun do lie ahead. This is the bleached-bone time of year, and although the warm winter has left a little more green in the landscape, it will be months before the canopy re-appears to cloak lovers and other strangers.

 

Neck and neck

Today's Blurry Bird of the Day is a young blue heron, who was wading around the pool just above the Binnen Bridge waterfall. Thanks to the informative birder lady who identified him for me. He had a glaring yellow eye and a truly pencil-like neck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This swan, also a juvenile (judging from his leftover mocha coloring), still retained some youthful fuzziness and thus seemed to have, by swan standards, a neck thick enough to qualify him as an avian sportscaster.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also in evidence on a bright and crisp day: a very modest-scale film shoot for "A Case of You," directed by someone named Kat Coiro. Sounds like a rom-com; they had set-dressed some bookstalls. A crew member claimed that Brendan Fraser is in the cast, but he's nowhere on their IMDB listing...a curious thing to bluff about, no?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, I would like to share one of my favorite trees on the Nethermead: I call it the Mohawk Tree. It has grown into this fantastical configuration from a blighted stump, and I like its angle and attitude. Thanks to Matthew of Backyard and Beyond for pointing out that a very cool photo of this tree by photographer Mitch Epstein—it's a silver linden, apparently—can be found here, along with lots of other arty urban tree portraits.

 

Of note: The Audubon Center and the Lefferts House both reopen this week after being closed to the public for a winter hiatus. Lefferts House is open daily from 1 to 3 p.m. over the "winter break" Feb. 18-26, offering tots old-timey Dutch games and such.

Time-lapse green roof at BBG

February launched with uncanny warmth, so the Daughter and I headed to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Snowdrops? In 62-degree sunshine, I half-expected lilacs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The parking lot was a scene of wild activity, as construction forges ahead on the new Visitor Center. Guys everywhere pointed at plans and big machines in the happiest guy-like fashion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, this really was the glacial moraine in the Ice Age.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This bothers me: The new building really looms behind the Japanese Garden, famously designed to create the illusion of endless vistas and serene isolation. It sort of lurks behind the scrim of trees like the Mother Ship.

 

 

The building's "Living Roof" should help it blend in. I confess I didn't even notice it (in February a green roof is a brown roof). Check out this cool time-lapse video; if only life were this easy.

 

BBG Living Roof Installation from Brooklyn Botanic Garden on Vimeo.

WTD?? Muscovy madness!

What the duck?? On the last day of January, by the south shore of the lake, two white ducks are sashaying around, showing off their alarming blood-red face decoration.

 

Their entitled air bespoke poultry rather than wildlife; could they have escaped some provider of tasty birds to our city's diverse gourmands? What are these guys, anybody?

Thanks for a quick ID to Mary of Ditmas Park Blog, who "patched" me in to this link: They are  Muscovy Ducks! Apparently, they blew in with Hurricane Irene. According to Wikipedia:

* Them's good eatin'...gourmets call these "Barbary ducks," and they have a beefier taste than regular Mallard-based ducks.

* They are not from Moscow, but "muscovy" may have been a term implying exoticism. (Or a corrupted name from Native Americans in Colombia, where they are indigenous.)

* They are "carunculated" (lumpy-faced). Wild ones are part black, domesticated ones can be all-white. In addition (duck overshare alert): "Male Muscovy Ducks have spiralled penises which can become erect to 20 cm in one third of a second. Females have cloacas that spiral in the opposite direction to try to limit forced copulation by males."

* They can become "nuisances" and some areas cull the flocks...oh, no, here we go again?

 

Elsewhere along the South Drive, crews continued to hew damaged trees and leave mountains of fresh chip mulch for distribution.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are, however, plenty of trees left. And in a mere quarter of a year, they'll have leaves...

 

More Parky Patches:

I should look at Park Slope Patch more often. Just today they had 2 cool items about park-related stuff:

1. A movie shoot with Joaquin Phoenix on the Long Meadow, and

2. A "wilderness survival course" on February 11 run by the Urban Rangers. Since most of us in Brooklyn already feel as if we survive routinely in some fairly wild environments, that should be amusing!