Prospect: A Year in the Park

Stabbing near Prospect Park

We hear a lot of ruckus, living by the Parade Grounds' edge of Prospect Park, and tonight was no different; around 12:30 a.m., as I sat puzzling over an error message at my computer, I heard some hollering and the sound of breaking glass. It didn't even sound intense enough to bother getting up and going to the window, but now I wish I had: When Spouse took out the garbage minutes later, a police officer asked him if we'd heard or seen anything, because a man had just been stabbed in the street. Sure enough, the intersection of Marlborough Road and Caton Avenue was cordoned off with crime-scene tape.

I spoke to the officer, offering my paltry bit of information about the sound of breaking glass. From our porch, I saw what looked like blood in the crosswalk (where the two cops are standing in the picture, above). The officer said the victim was "cut up pretty bad, we didn't think he'd make it, but now the hospital says he will." He made no mention of having found a weapon, and seemed to think it might have been whatever I heard shatter. Two suspects were apparently seen by a passing driver, disappearing into the Parade Grounds just after the crime, and as we spoke, a chopper roared overhead, raking the soccer fields with its floodlight.

This isn't the first time we've had blood shed outside our windows, but it's the first time in many years. A disturbing flashback to the bad old days of the crack '80s, in fact, when we'd hear zombie-like addicts screeching in the street (and, once, watched as the cops organized a surreal impromptu line-up under a streetlamp for a beating victim swaddled on a gurney outside a waiting ambulance). We have just returned from a week of deep and blessed peace in a tiny hamlet in the verdant Berkshires. Right now, I miss it more than ever.

Update, 2:13 a.m.: Three NYPD detectives just rang the doorbell; they're going door-to-door hoping somebody heard or saw something. They were nice, jokey guys in crisp white shirts and colorful ties; they reported that the victim is young and will indeed survive, and that "our guys are all over the park" looking for the perp. One of them gazed up at the house and cracked, "This whole thing yours?" We replied that not only was it all ours, but that they followed in the footsteps of their fictional counterparts on Law & Order, which has filmed here twice (both times using our house as the residence of a scruffy perpetrator). They proclaimed their superiority to Dennis Farina and company, thanked us for our (paltry) help, and went on their way.

It's the middle of the night, the wee hours of the morning; right now, with my adrenaline jolted by the doorbell, it feels like "the city that never sleeps." I wonder who he is, that young man, trussed up in tubes and gauze right now in the brightly-lit ER or ICU. Is he alone, or is his mother or girlfriend with him? Could he guess that a bunch of smart-alecky, hard-boiled guys in ties are pounding the pavement, trying to get whoever got him? And where are the guys who did it? From the reported severity of the injuries, it must have been a messy altercation. Have they washed off the blood yet, and if so, where?

It may be hard to get to sleep tonight.

Update, next morning: There is still blood on the street. Meanwhile, the maunderings of a passing white supremacist (of all the strange creatures!) have been deleted, because this particular cyberpark enforces the rules against verbal littering; thanks to supportive commenters. (And for the record, "Conrad" in your spiked helmet and jackboots, the only thing we missed in the Berkshires was the diversity of Brooklyn...)

Dogfights

It's Guest Artist Monday! Since I didn't make it over to the park on Mother's Day, I was especially delighted by these glimpses of what I missed from gifted  photographer William Woerner. He showcases his stuff on his blog Lens; here are a few great shots of Sunday's dog action.





Dogs were on my mind after Brownstoner sparked some flame wars over this article in the New York Post, featuring a cranky video vigilante named Orrin Tilevitz whose mission in life seems to be getting irresponsible dog owners busted for their pooches' park misbehavior. I chatted with the young reporter, Sarah Ryley, on the Long Meadow last week (and honored her request to "embargo" the story); given the thin gruel that is Post house style, I thought she did a decent job.


In the movies, Orrin would be a quivering fall guy (played by Richard Dreyfuss) for an out-of-bounds Disney dog (perhaps like this rascal, "Zeus," at left). But in reality, this guy walks around with pepper spray and seems to dedicate every waking hour to chronicling miscreant dog/owner duos. Apparently, he's been attacked in the past; my own relaxed attitude toward the off-leash crowd in the Long Meadow (both during and outside of permitted hours) is shaped by my own, more positive experience. The dogs and owners I've met (typified by the folks at the advocacy group FIDO) create a safe, vibrant community out of this greensward. The worst behavior I've seen is dog-on-dog bullying (no worse than what I used to witness when I worked in an office). Tilevitz fumes that dogs ruin birdwatching, but I'm such a lousy birdwatcher that it's not an issue for me.

Dogwatching is more fun, anyway; no warbler has ever offered me a big sloppy kiss or let me give it a belly rub.

All dog photos: William Woerner; Tilevitz photo, JC Rice for New York Post

Nightwatch

Monday night, 8 p.m., in Prospect Park, at the base of Lookout Hill along Wellhouse Drive. Somewhere up there, about a week ago, a man was killed. A few days ago, the Daily News ran a brief item identifying him:

A man beaten to death in Prospect Park has been identified, but his killer and the motive for his death remain a mystery.

Mohammed Afzaf, 41, was found with a massive head wound in a wooded area near a jogging path on Wednesday, police said.

The medical examiner said Thursday that his death was a homicide.

Afzaf suffered from mental illness and had spent time in a hospital being treated, said his imam, Abdul Rashid. He had been homeless for six months, a former employer said.

This sketchy report raises more questions than it answers. For one thing, the man's name may be wrong; "Afzaf" is virtually a "Googlenope" (writer Gene Weingarten's neologism for a search term that comes up empty), whereas "Afzal" is apparently a common name, particularly in connection with Pakistanis. I suspect that this sign, freshly stapled to a lamppost, was prompted by Mr. A's fate.

Nearby, the swans were unruffled.  Poor Mr. A, no wonder they took no notice. Homeless, mentally ill, and Muslim: victim-wise, that's hitting the trifecta for media apathy. Imagine if it had been a young, blonde female Episcopalian—an out-of-work actress, perhaps—whose body lay up on the hill for two days. Even the swans would have wept and demanded big headlines, heart-rending sidebars, and frequent updates on the hunt for the killer.

Along the lakeside, we listened to the bullfrogs groaning in the reeds.  A police cruiser zipped past along the Drive. As dusk deepened and the fireflies came out, the family and I ate a pizza at the picnic area near the Vanderbilt Playground. Night had fallen by the time we left, but a few parents were still pushing kids on the swings in the dark.

Police Presence Update: Apparently a chopper landed in the park yesterday; check out Gowanus Lounge for a report.

Bodies

A week after our last arts-in-the-park outing, the family struggled over to the bandshell on a sticky evening for the Mark Morris Dance Group at Celebrate Brooklyn. We were late and they are very popular, so the place was SRO: standing (and sitting-on-distant-grass) room only. No programs were left, but according to their website, this was "Excursions," set to Samuel Barber. I'm not as big a Morris fan as my dance-critic friend Terry Teachout, but these dancers are always a pleasure to watch. The Excursions, a lot of playful runs and rolls, didn't seem to go anywhere in particular, however. (Admittedly, it's tough to engage with dance from a distance, outdoors before the "lights" are fully "down," and with an audience still settling down to a dull roar.)

In "New Love Song Waltzes," the next work on the bill, this pose brought to mind a quote from an epidemiologist on why scientists are drawn to hard data like mortality statistics: "Toes up are easy to count." It was impossible, even in this protected campfire-circle of elegant artistry, to ignore the fact that a man's body had been found in Prospect Park just the day before, near Lookout Hill, a ten-minute walk away. (Louise Crawford, on Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, offered a stinging description of the cretinous media pack near the crime-scene tape; I'm glad I wasn't there.) No, in answer to the Dumb Reporter's Question, it does not make me "afraid to be in the park"; I faced that one down contemplating the fate of Prospect Park's last murder victim in the Vale of Cashmere. Even in the park's most isolated areas, my statistical chances of being attacked are infinitesimal; I take a greater risk of going "toes up" when I ride my bike across the street to the Parade Grounds.

No, it was the man himself (variously described as Hispanic, Indian, and homeless in various brief local news items) to whom my thoughts turned as the strains of Brahms floated over the night air. "New...Waltzes" is a collage of tender frolics and gender-neutral partnering that glows with the interconnectedness and interdependence of friends and strangers. Bodies collapse onto one another, scoop one another up, spring towards and away from each other; Morris weaves the rapturous music into a tapestry of love and trust.

To die from a blow to the head and then lay forgotten and alone in the leaves on a secluded hillside, surrounded for two nights by the lights and sounds of a city that didn't know you were gone: sad, more than "scary." We don't know the victim's name yet (I wonder if we ever will), but spare him a prayer as you go through the dance of your day. Here is one of ours; and here is Kaddish, along with a moving legend about praying for those unmourned.