Prospect: A Year in the Park

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.  

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turbo-spring

Two weeks of late May mysteriously land in the middle of March, and I manage not to get over to the park more than once or twice. The reason: My own garden has been bursting out and yelling at me to perform every manner of service for it. A dozen rosebushes alone have been screeching to be pruned, and without the excuse of being miserable in the cold, I have been their slave.

But I've got to get over there because all sorts of stuff is going on. From my front porch, I can see that the trees are greening up, smudged with verdant pastel, a full month ahead of schedule. And that's not all.

* The Lakeside project is shaping up to be pretty damn amazing. Here's the Animated Architect Sketch; I love the snowy part, and the part where the trees drop down magically on Music Island. And the part at the very beginning where the Robert Moses crap building just disappears. (Thanks to the Q at Parkside blog for the heads-up.)

* The "Googa-Mooga" festival is stirring wild interest among the hip; it's some sort of food and music fest on May 19 and 20 that mysteriously, while "free," requires a ticket of extraordinary scarcity. Spouse has managed to acquire at least one of these prized tickets, which has him very excited even though we have yet to learn what bands are playing. Oh well: The festival's website proclaims that "food is the new rock," so we can dance along to the artisanal pickles.)

 
  * And on March 31, the Carousel reopens for its hundredth anniversary. It's been given a nice tune-up by Todd W. Goings, a carousel doctor (what a dream job!), nicely profiled here. (Photo, right: Chester Higgins, New York Times)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* At the Prospect Park Zoo, the Golden Tamarins have a wee baby riding around on their blond backs. (Photo: Julie Larsen Maher/WCS)

 

 

Meanwhile, check out a nicely researched gem on the park's mysterious Vale of Cashmere at the wonderful history blog of the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklynology. This is the long-gone "Children's Shelter." The Vale, that haunted and troubled gem, looks very different than the playground envisioned by Vaux and Olmsted. Time to get over there and see for myself.

Sea-change carousel, rich and strange!

The first crazy-warm day, and news pours in to fuel my raging carousel obsession.

First: The Prospect Park Carousel, surely the world's most utterly perfect (here's why), re-opens Saturday, March 31 from 12 noon to 4 pm, and celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. (After April 1, it's open Thursdays – Sundays and school holidays, 12 to 5 p.m.; rides are $2 each or $9 for a book of five tickets, and if you only joined the Prospect Park Alliance for the unlimited free rides, that would be reason enough.) The 1912 masterpiece of legendary carousel designer Charles Carmel, it dwelt in Coney Island from 1912 to 1952, and the Alliance restored its delights in 1990. Note: It has a real Wurl band organ, not cheezy piped-in Muzak!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GUEST PARK ALERT:

NEW CAROUSEL OF MIND-BENDING AWESOMENESS

PLANNED FOR BATTERY PARK

This has come to my attention: "Sea Glass," an aquatic fantasy-themed carousel unlike anything in the known universe, is scheduled to open in Battery Park this fall. Yes, I love every sacred, carnival-esque gaudy detail of traditional carousels, but this new take looks brilliant. Evoking the long-ago aquarium at Castle Clinton on Manhattan's tip (and perhaps even linked to the current Coney Island Aquarium by a ferry), the new herd will consist of translucent, glowing angelfish and seahorses, turning dreamily inside a chambered nautilus with trippy projections of marine life. Engineering marvels abound, as described here. The animated rendering below, Debussy and all, brought tears to my eyes. Plus, if you have lots of money, you can sponsor a fish, which I would totally do if I were rich. Can you tell I am just a little excited about this?

 

 

Finally, here's a great wrap-up of all the carousels, operating, planned, and under renovation, in the city. How cool would it be to have a marathon that connected all of them and demanded that runners ride each one before continuing onward! I was shocked to note that there are some I have not yet ridden, a deficit I plan to remedy shortly. I am also reminded of how grateful I am that, despite suffering from embarrassing vertigo, I can still ride carousels without triggering it. Get spinning!

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.

 

New Thai restaurant near Prospect Park!

That oughta help Google bring success to Am Thai, the new Thai restaurant that just opened on Church Avenue between Coney Island Avenue and Stratford Road. To those of us who have been rooting for this rather dismal commercial strip along once-vibrant Church Avenue to perk up, it seems like a sort of miracle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We went over tonight to patronize the establishment on their opening day, but they wouldn't let us; instead, we were invited to a party on the house! Lots of gorgeous dressed-up ladies and gents who seemed like close friends and family, plus a scattering of happily stunned neighbors, feasted on delicious sushi and spicy head-on shrimp and other delicacies while techno music thumped rapturously. Hard to believe this was the late "In-Between Eatry [sic] and Pastry," a short-lived roti shop. (When will one of our local Caribbean take-out places, with their heartbreakingly good roti and jerk chicken, offer this fare in a pleasant dining spot with real cutlery?)

 

 

 

 

I wish I'd been there this morning, when monks blessed the place and even performed a wedding! Wonderful coverage on the Ditmas Park Blog and on Prospect Park Days, whose Ditmas Deb took the great picture to the left. Deb has also been devotedly covering the park while I have been moping around the house, and I salute her dedication.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We love our sliver of Brooklyn that lies sandwiched between the Parade Grounds of Prospect Park and the historic district of Prospect Park South; to date, the only thing missing has been a vibrant shopping strip.  Poor Church Avenue, between Coney Island Avenue and the tough commercial scrum near the Q train stop, has been close to moribund; the strip has so many empty storefronts and rolldown gates that the local Business Improvement District has dreamed up a mural contest to decorate them. A few plucky restaurants (and one terrifying Chinese takeout dump) have held on; this new addition may herald a tide that will lift all boats. The sight of happy people eating and drinking is better than any mural. Good luck, Am Thai--you'll be hearing from us.

Through the mist

Henry James may have thought "summer afternoon" were the two most beautiful words in the language, but I'll suggest "autumn mist" as being up there. I have been using a broken toe and a stupid Velcro boot thing as an excuse not to walk in the park (what was my excuse all summer, before I broke it?), but was lured to the Long Meadow.

Remember that perennial school assignment to collect some fall leaves and glue them to construction paper? I still want to do that every year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the distance, the off-leash dogs capered like happy ghosts...

and at closer range, did more corporeal things.

 

I've decided that, if Daughter goes away to college, I will finally get us a dog. (I tell her it will replace her and will be given her room.) Now I mentally audition dogs as they pass, preparing for the day. One thing is certain: It will be a bigger dog, not a little yapster.

Near Bartel-Pritchard Circle, a big party tent was being decorated for tonight's "Fall Bash" park fundraising gala. Too rich for our wallet at $250 a ticket (still available at the door tonight!), but I peeked inside and saw some sort of fancy stage-dressing to create a faux-park; looks like the philanthropists will have fun.

And they won't have to get their shoes as muddy as I got my Velcro bootie; a path was being laid down for them, to be covered with rolls of fake turf.

 

Footloose

A lovely morn in early fall, and the young ladies of St. Saviour High School gather in the park for their annual fund-raising walkathon. Full disclosure: Your bloggeuse's daughter attends this fine institution in the heart of Park Slope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A dedication of the day's event to those lost on 9/11 was perhaps the ostensible reason for the presence of firemen—but then, who needs a reason for there to be firemen present?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The giggling, shrieking pack took off. Many seemed to stray from the prescribed route, but few cared. These are the years of struggle—to blend in, to stand out, to go your own way, and to stick with your BFFs.

With love and squalor

We're both park bloggers and advocates, yet we still haven't met. No matter, here's another shout-out to intrepid Marie Viljoen of the Prospect Park Litter Mob. She has now begun a blog chronicling the brave exploits of her small band of squalor-battlers. She is not only willing to wade in and rescue the park's lush nether regions from revolting debris, but also takes gorgeous photos of the beauty and incongruous filth (her montage, left), and she writes like an angel:

Tuesday, first day of summer in the Northern Hemisphere and we headed back into the woods of Prospect Park. The longest day.

I never sleep the night before these litter mobs. I don't know why. I now expect it, so perhaps it is self-fulfilling. Three hours, max. I am not nervous, I just don't sleep. Vince brings me coffee early, I am queasily awake. We walk to the subway, I am grumpy and tired. Once in the woods it is forgotten.

The beautiful stewartia flower are open. We looked at them near the Audubon Center beside the pea-green lake upon which two swans and five fluffy cygnets sailed, pursued sluggishly by a box of pink gum. A turtle was laying her eggs in the grass. I had never seen such a thing.

I missed the Mob again last Tuesday, but I'll make it one of these weeks. Frankly, I've been getting to the park with shameful infrequency, and the surreal treasures that the Mob uncovers alongside the nasties are a reminder of all that I'm missing.

UNFORGOTTEN FLATBUSH ON FOOT--TOMORROW!

By the way, the Parade Grounds and the park's southern edge will kick off a walking tour tomorrow led by another urban hero, Kevin Walsh of Forgotten New York. Kevin's tours tend to sell out, but there may be some places left on this one, which wends its way into the absurdly beautiful Prospect Park South historic district. There'll be a pit stop at a familiarly blogged-up domicile called the Crazy Stable, where your bloggeuse will share some exclusive tidbits on life in the green heart of Brooklyn, and offer cookies and lemonade to the masses. Hope to see you there!

Arch-enemies and friends

Hats off to the New York Times' "Streetscapes" columnist Christopher Gray for his impassioned tour of Prospect Park's not-quite-derelict arches in last Sunday's paper, and for his walking "requiem" tour last night to follow up. Gray's cri de coeur about the graffiti in the Meadowport Arch makes a nice counterpoint to the Brooklyn Museum's recent moaning about having to cancel a scheduled exhibit on such  "street art" (boo-freakin'-hoo):

 

At first glance it appears that the 19th-century paneling of its long, cedar-sheathed tunnel is, by some miracle, almost intact, although damaged. But a stone plaque in the ground makes it clear: This marvelous, inspiring work, a 100-foot-long Grand Central Terminal waiting room of polished cedar, with rounded benches and a cross-vaulted pavilion, was lovingly recreated in 1988, barely a generation ago.

Now, after all that intention, money and effort, Meadowport Arch is a madeleine for New York of the 1960s and 1970s. The graffiti vandals have sprayed their way through the interior, and the city has seen little choice but to paint over four long runs of the casing. Only the topmost ones, out of reach, are intact, almost perfectly so — reminders of the humane sensitivity of the original design. The paint job is slapdash, with drips on the benches, but that only reflects the native tragedy — that we had this beautiful, democratic thing, freely given to all, and yet destroyed it.

The arch’s fragmentary survival recalls Charlton Heston’s encounter with the postapocalyptic remains of the Statue of Liberty on the beach in “Planet of the Apes” — “You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you!” There’s no point asking the Department of Parks to fix it if the civil order is such that civic beauty cannot survive the barbarians.

 

I think he's being a bit harsh about the condition of the arches, but then I'm comparing today to the 1970s, when one would have expected each archway space to have conjured Mr. Heston in the Valley of the Lepers in Ben-Hur. When I wrote about the Meadowport Arch in 2008 here, I found evidence of a lone but bookish sleeper, and felt simple gratitude that any wood furnishings survived at all in the vaulted space. Shows you how a child of the Seventies defines deviancy: anything short of a smoking ruin or an open-air asylum seems gentrified.

 

Anyway, I wish I'd been able to tag along on the march last night; it looks like quite a crowd turned out. We have lived for decades in a world where Lexan and welded steel, not mortised cedar, is the stuff of public amenities; it's nice to see how many people care for the delicate bits that somehow remain. More coverage of the walk can be found at Backyard and Beyond.

 

Photo, left: Prospect Park Flickr stream