Prospect: A Year in the Park

No heffalumps, either

Today's adventure: in which Pooh (sans Piglet) heads for the Hundred-Acre Wood to pick up nasties with a litter mob but finds...no one about.

Well, okay, it was scheduled for 9 a.m. and I got there at 9:12, the sort of idiotic stunt that is typical of me—blog about something and get there late. But how far could they have got with latex gloves and grabbers?

 

 

 

 

 

I listened attentively for the sound of gleeful disgust as the crew exorcised the remains of various dangerous (well, safer, actually) liaisons. Nothing but birdsong...lots of it. One of those perfect "I'm in Brooklyn?" moments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are three blurry birds of the day:

     

Catbird! Cardinal! And way up there, outrageously yellow, a Baltimore Oriole! Also heard: flickers and a thrush. Also seen: black-capped chickadees, zillions of robins, a black-throated warbler, a hawk cruising the Long Meadow, and a very sociable red-winged blackbird:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I mosied over to the Vale of Cashmere, another locale often littered with icky debris, and still was almost entirely alone. (If I get mugged here, mates, I muttered to the invisible mob...)

 

In fact, the place looked as if a cleaning crew had just been by; fresh bags in the trash, and no depravity evident except for a donut feast. Sadly, the Vale's gorgeous serpentine pond lies drained.

 

All alone, I found a recently festooned May-pole. No one to dance about it with, however! So...how did I miss you guys? (According to instigator Marie of 66 Square Feet, a small but promising mob did show up at some point, although one "got lost in the bushes" for awhile, and we're doing it again in 2 weeks; I'll be there.)

Join us in vanquishing squalor!

Whenever I rest in the Midwood, near Prospect Park's Battle Pass, I marvel at how a sacred American battlefield (the Battle of Brooklyn, our first big smackdown of the Revolution) hides in plain, if lovely, sight. Where these daffodils recently bloomed, patriots were skewered to trees by Prussian and British bayonets. Nothing marks the hallowed ground except two bronze plaques affixed to boulders.

 

 

 

 

 

But there's a sadder incongruity: The wooded area is a cruising ground often littered with the nasty remnants of "romantic" encounters and assorted binges. Huge props go to fellow blogger Marie Viljoen of 66 Square Feet for getting outraged enough to prod the park into providing backup and supplies for a "Litter Mob" set to attack the area with gloves, bags and picker-uppers.

  

 

When? Tomorrow morning, Tuesday, May 10, 9 A.M. If you are a soul unfettered by job constraints at that hour, join us at the intersection of the Center and East Drives (map below shows the spot). Come and let us make reparations for those slobs who would desecrate the beauty of nature and a birthplace of liberty! (Whew--that is a lot of ennobling invocation for a Monday.)

 

 Battle of Brooklyn image: The Old Stone House

 

DID YOU TAKE ANY MEMBER TOURS LAST SATURDAY?

Speaking of crowd-sourcing...

I missed the day of Members-only tours last Saturday--some of them sounded really cool. If you went along and have any good shots or observations, please share; e-mail them to me at brenda "at" tenthleper.us (using the little "at" thingie, not the word "at"). Thanks!

Trooping the color

Last Thursday, the lake in Prospect Park...from a path I never found before. After all this time, there are still discoveries to make. Spouse and Daughter were both on holiday, making it a festive family hike.

The science of cat-lapping may be getting all the buzz, but this guy plunged in for some basic canine guzzling near the Binnen Water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Near the bridge, silky seeds prepared to take flight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's amazing that this hollowed-out tree has survived the year's tree-slaying storms.

 

 

Nearby, another troubled trunk allows for a game of peek-a-boo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On this balmy Veterans' Day, the Marylanders' monument was a jarring reminder that we stood on one of the first great American battlegrounds. 

 

The ribbon on the wreath said "Bravery," but the wind had blown it askew.

 

 

How the mighty have fallen

Yesterday was an incongruously glorious day on which to view Tree Carnage. It was as if the balmy blue sky were blinking innocently: Who, me? In a day, the Prospect Park crews had already turned thickets of freshly felled timber to mountains of chips. The air smelled resinous as a lumberyard. I like the suggestion on Brookynometry that the wood be milled into fundraising crafts.

 

Someone on the crew has a soul. "Big Grandma Green" had crashed to earth (before the storm, according to an astute park observer) behind the Zoo along the East Drive, and was touchingly commemorated. If that date is accurate,  she stood as a wee sapling when Hessian soldiers used their bayonets to pin General Washington's patriots to her larger neighbors in the surrounding forest during the Battle of Brooklyn.

Most of the trees survived the storm, however, and Brooklynites put them to good use as the blessed warmth turned the Long Meadow to muck. This fellow actually had 3 little dogs in attendance, who all looked like storybook piglets.

Not everyone sees trees as an invitation to leisure. These two robins were having a nasty dust-up over nesting rights. Welcome back,guys.

Say thank you to Grandma Green: Go here to donate and help defray the massive expense of the park's storm clean-up.

Birthday phantoms

A late afternoon walk on my 51st birthday finds the park wrapped in deep quiet under a lowering grey sky. As a portent of mysterious things to come, I pass the phantom tollbooth. (This one is near the southwestern entrance; there's another along the West Drive in Park Slope.) What were they for?* I haven't found out yet, but they were made with lovely terra-cotta roof tiles.

(Let's see. Did I spell "phantoms" right in that headline? The day before yesterday, I said I was "peddling" home and only one of you corrected me!)

*See astute comment below.

"A big storm knocked it over," perhaps...but this downed lamppost isn't going anywhere. They've got it caged lest it try to escape.

Turning up Wellhouse Drive, I pass my favorite massive ginkgo tree. It has a Southern Gothic air, lacking only the haunting tresses of Spanish moss.

Around the bend, no one comes near the abandoned Wellhouse (although someone built a nest in its broken window). The stout little building was erected in 1869; crowned with an elaborate tower, it was once the nerve center for a massive engineering operation that pumped 750,000 gallons of water a day up to a reservoir on Lookout Hill.  The tower was long ago demolished, but the 70-foot-deep well still lies below, directly in front and covered over. Let's start an urban legend that someone was buried alive down there. On this hushed early evening, only the catbirds could be heard mewing in the woods...or was that a hollow cry from below?

Up the hill, someone had placed a wreath on the monument to the Marylanders, the regiment that charged the Old Stone House in a suicidal frenzy of courage during the Battle of Brooklyn. Supposedly Washington said of the troops, "What brave fellows I must this day lose" (the words are inscribed on the base of the pillar).

On Terrace Bridge, a fat baby dove was reluctant to fly away.

Breeze Hill is an odd little area, usually quite deserted. This ghostly bike leaned against a dumpster so seldom emptied that saplings sprung from its contents.

As I headed home, one more melancholy mystery arose: Where was this swan's mate? They usually travel in pairs.

Back home, my mate, and Cygnet, waited impatiently to take me out for a Chinese dinner.

Defeated, unconquered...and remembered

Yesterday was the 232nd anniversary of the Battle of Brooklyn. Memorial events have been held at some other sites associated with this first major battle of the American Revolution, but this year, nothing in Prospect Park, where some of the bloodiest fighting occurred right here in Battle Pass (now the East Drive).

The scene was one of summer-blessed peace and, for the heart of a city, astonishing quiet. Where Hessian troops had slaughtered the outnumbered rebel troops at bayonet-point, a kitten I named Putnam (after the battle's American general, Israel Putnam) performed evasive maneuvers in the undergrowth.

No bouquets were laid by any of the three Battle Pass memorials to honor the Americans (some 2,000 at the combined battle sites throughout Brooklyn) who lay dead by noon of that hot day in 1776, their red damask "Liberty" flag captured by King George's troops after fierce resistance. (Both sides fought like wolves, with none of the "gentlemanly" surrender customary of the era; the Hessian mercenaries had been told that the rebels might cannibalize their prisoners, and the Americans feared they would be shot as traitors even if they gave themselves up.) But the woods offered jewelweed, asters, and this lovely shrub whose white porcelain-like berries appear alongside its flowers.

            

A few citizens strolled by; it's safe to say that most were blissfully unaware of the gruesome down payment that had been paid here for their liberty. 

After spending so much time, so mindfully, in the park this year, I had built up this anniversary in my heart and planned to observe it somehow. It seemed I would have to do so alone. But as I stopped to read the memorial plaque on the big boulder in Battle Pass, a dad and his two little kids looked over my shoulder.

"It's today, you know," I said, pointing to the date.

Why, so it is! Dad said, and his little daughter valiantly started reading the text of the plaque.

"At this point, the Old Porte Road or Valley Grove Road...Dad?"

"In-ter-sected. Came between."

"Intrasected the line of hills sep--"

"Separating..."

"Separating Flat..."

"That's two words you know." (I covered first "-bush" and then "Flat" with my hand.)

Next, her older brother took over confidently.

"Separating Flatbush from Brooklyn and Gow-...Gowanus in the Battle of Long Island, August 27, 1776. This pass was barricaded in front by the Dongan Oak..."

Now another celebrant joined us, a streetwise young skateboarder, adding his voice in a canon: "Here the American forces stood their ground..."

When we finally finished, the corny tour guide in me could not resist telling the young folks that, thanks in large part to those men, we are Americans, who need not kneel to any king. (We sons and daughters of liberty kneel only for snapshots!) The family I met was named O'Brian (which would have pleased General Sullivan, the son of Irish immigrants, who was captured in the battle just yards away). Thanks for stopping, guys!

“We have had many stories concerning…our troops returning to New York…But if we should be defeated, I think we shall not be conquered. A people fired, like the Romans, with love of their country and of liberty, a zeal for the public good, and a noble emulation of glory, will not be disheartened or dispirited by a succession of unfortunate events. But like them, may we learn by defeat the power of becoming invincible!”  —Letter, Abigail Adams to John Adams, September 9, 1776

Historical background from: The Battle of Brooklyn 1776 by John Gallagher

Whoa, Nellie

Child and I packed a picnic, and rode our bikes over to the shady fringes of Nellie's Lawn, where we worshiped summer and lay on our backs figuring out shapes in the clouds.

    

Two other bicycle babes were soaking up the sun.

Peering up into the shady branches over our heads, I wondered what trees bore these winged clusters and these purple berries. Then, regrettably, I peered deeper into the woods, spying something white and crumpled atop a log. Mostly, I was interested in some good tree fungus.

Got more than I bargained for; it seems that this grove is a popular trysting place, to judge from the condom wrappers scattered around, along with a rumpled sheet.

At left, Lifestyles brand, and in upper right, the heavily promoted "NYC" variety.

I wonder whether those who've been using this spot are aware that they are having a bit of rumpy-pumpy on sacred ground. Not 20 feet away stands a marker for the Battle of Brooklyn; here the vastly outnumbered Continental army suffered huge losses in the first major conflict of the American Revolution. Valley Grove House, indicated on the marker, was a tavern that stood in the heart of the carnage.  

A certain aging singer, whom I consider vastly overrated and whom I refuse to acknowledge as the "voice of my generation," is appearing in the park tonight. (As we passed the bandshell, folks were already staking out lawn spots, although they will be hearing and not seeing their idol; the stage has been hidden behind a tall fence so that benefit-ticket-price-paying patrons can get their money's worth.) Perhaps the old fellow could sing this song by Blind Lemon Jefferson, which he covered back in 1962, in honor of the martyred patriots whose bones lie beneath the condom wrappers.

Well there's one kind of favor I'll ask for you
Well there's one kind of favor I'll ask for you
There's just one kind of favor I'll ask for you
You can see that my grave is kept clean.

                                —Blind Lemon Jefferson

Climbing Sullivan Hill

Maybe it's the ghost of George Carlin at work, pointing out those contradictions in terms: After yesterday's post about a jumbo shrimp, today we turn to...military intelligence!

Sure, the Fourth of July 1776 was fun, but in the very next month, the rebel colonists had to stand and deliver—right here, in Battle Pass, on what is now the East Drive of Prospect Park (behind the present-day zoo). And it wasn't pretty. As we approach the August anniversary of the Battle of Brooklyn, I'm going to poke around this epic my way. Military history isn't my thing, although, strategy-wise, this battle was a corker. I like people stories, so today meet one of the battle's commanding officers: Major-General John Sullivan, the pistol-packin' decoy duck.

The steep rise west of Battle Pass is labeled Sullivan Hill on the park's map, prompting me to wonder who Sullivan was. Apparently, he was a jerk: an ambitious New Hampshire lawyer prone to foreclosing on and suing his neighbors (who loathed him accordingly). But in the fledgling American Revolution, George Washington found him "spirited and zealously attached to the cause," although with "a little tincture of vanity, an over desire of being popular, which now and then leads him into some embarrassments."

Sullivan's vanity must have been wounded when Washington belatedly split the command of the American troops in Brooklyn between him and another officer, named Putnam. But as the Redcoats and the Hessians closed around the Americans, Sullivan was reported to have fought bravely; according to this site, he engaged the Hessians in a running battle with a pistol in each hand until he was captured in a cornfield.

As a prisoner of war, Sullivan conveyed peace proposals from the British to the Continental Congress, prompting John Adams to call him "a decoy duck" for the enemy, sent to "seduce us...into a renunciation of our independence." After his release in a prisoner exchange, the Major General raised hackles for the rest of the war, losing some battles and bitching about commands and promotions. "No other officer of rank in the whole army has so often conceived himself neglected, slighted and ill-treated as you have done," wrote an exasperated Washington, "and none I am sure has had less cause than yourself to entertain such ideas." One of Sullivan's notable successes was a scorched-earth campaign against the upstate Iroquois who had sided with the Tories, carrying out Washington's express orders for "total ruinment of their settlements."

Today, I climbed Sullivan's namesake hill, and realized why the American forces felt so protected in their pass. (Through faulty intelligence, they never knew the enemy had marched all night to outflank them.) It's a steep scramble up a glacial moraine, and since the crumbling stairs are fenced off, I went alongside them up into the woods.

At the top of the hill lies the Long Meadow, across which Sullivan's vastly outnumbered troops retreated towards Park Slope and the Gowanus, perhaps right where these little campers frolicked today. The Battle of Brooklyn, the first major action of the American Revolution, was a bloody disaster, with some 1,000 American troops killed and more dying later as POWs; New York City remained in British hands until the end of the war.

And Sullivan? He went on to a distinguished career as a judge, congressman and governor of New Hampshire, but died senile and alcoholic, alienated, isolated and in debt. I wonder if he ever thought back to that day in the Brooklyn cornfield...or if he made up that part about the two pistols.

Images: Top: Mezzotint print, 1776, Library of Congress. Below: New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources.

Feathers

This fragrant tree full of white feathery blossoms caught my eye as I cycled through Battle Pass yesterday. It is a Fringe Tree, Chionanthus virginicus (thanks to Flatbush Gardener for the ID).

The blooms surrounded this stern eagle atop a granite plinth. And the plinth marks the site where the Dongan Oak was felled by Revolutionary troops to delay the onslaught of the Redcoats during the Battle of Brooklyn. (The oak, named after an early governor of the area, was one of those colonial borderland markers, along with assorted ditches, hills and boulders, cited in early land records; this tree demarcated the border between the towns of Brooklyn and Flatbush.) One wonders why the Battle of Brooklyn sites are not hallowed in a national park, à la Gettysburg. One possibility: This is New York City. Another possibility: We got walloped ignominiously in this early defeat (although Washington slunk back nobly across the harbor—Washington could slink nobly, I'm certain—and regrouped to fight another day. Or several years, actually.)  At any rate, the eagle keeps watch over hundreds of joggers, cyclists, and stroller-pushers who zip past, most of whom probably have no notion of the bloody drama that unfolded here back in colonial days.